I wonder if that was actually malware.

Not going to hold my breath that anything like this will happen in the current political climate, but yeah, that should be mandatory. Even ignoring the exploitive nature towards their customers, it creates a ton of unnecessary waste.

It didn’t say he gave up. Maybe we all did him dirty in how we interpreted that description.

Also has to do with most of their competitors trying to come in immediately with anti-consumer practices or being a company already known for them.

Like as soon as I saw epic was paying game companies for exclusive access, I decided to skip whatever games actually went for it.

I don’t trust a publically traded company to not enshitify by focusing on “more money” rather than setting up a sustainable business.

That’s why I don’t have issues with valve, even if their 30% cut is a bit high. Steam has been dominating its market for like 20 years now and the worst they’ve done that I know of is display some ads for games when you start up. But even that IMO could be used as an example of how to do ads right because a) they are relevant to the thing you’re doing, b) don’t rely on sharing of data between steam and who knows who else (not that I have any certainty there isn’t any data sharing going on), c) the window can just be closed and doesn’t try to fight for your attention. And I can’t even recall seeing it much recently.

Plus I’d say that they provide value by dominating that space and being the standard that any new players need to compete with.

And even if the question isn’t being asked in good faith, just dismissing it might feel like you’re showing them up, but someone who would be convinced by the bad faith question isn’t going to change their mind when they see a “just Google it, it’s so simple”.

And even for those that do search it, who knows what sources they end up looking at. “Oh, 9/10 oil execs say it’s actually ok while the 1/10 remaining just laugh when asked, so it must be ok! Oh and Fox News confirms it!” Buys another unnecessarily large truck.

Texas, More Texas, Still Texas, Great Texas, Greater Texas, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Texas

Marketers using all of their skills to try to sell the idea that they’re a good guy doing something people (who aren’t ad buyers) want.

Sad part is they are probably able to fool some people.

My cousin had one a few years back and said it was very painful. He didn’t end up needing more than one shot because the bat that got him tested negative, so I’m not sure how many doses it was in total.

Don’t they usually just administer the rabies vaccine anyways just in case? As I understand it, even with the testing they’ll give the first dose because there can be bad effects if they wait for the test results before then.

Fuck man, add a spoiler tag or something if you’re going to post an image of a vicious attack like that!

Yeah, I think there is a lot of potential for code analysis. There’s a limited cross section of ways malware can do interesting things, but many permutations of ways to do that.

So look for the interesting things, like:

• accessing other programs’ address spaces
• reading/writing files
• deleting/moving files
• sending/receiving network traffic
• os system calls and console commands
• interacting with hardware
• spawning new processes
• displaying things on the screen
• accessing timing information

Obviously there’s legitimate uses for each of these, so that’s just the first step.

Next, analyze the data that is being used for that:

• what’s the source?
• what’s the destination?
• what kind of transformations are being applied to the data?

Then you can watch out for things like:

• is it systematically going through directories and doing some operation to all files? (Maybe ransomware, data scrubbing, or just maliciously deleting stuff?)
• is it grabbing data from somewhere and sending it somewhere else on the internet? (Stealing data?)
• is it using timing information to build data? (Timing attacks to figure out kernel data that should be hidden?)
• is it changing OS settings/setup?

Then generate a report of everything it is doing and see if it aligns with what the code is supposed to do. Or you could even build some kind of permissions system around that with more sophistication than the basic “can this app access files? How about the internet?”

Computer programs can be complex, but are ultimately made up of a series of simple operations and it’s possible to build an interpreter that can do those operations and then follow everything through to see exactly what is included in the massive amount of data it sends over the network so that you can tell your file sharing program is also for some reason sending /etc/passwords to a random address or listening for something to access a sequence of closed ports and then will do x, y, z, if that ever happens. Back doors could be obvious with the right analysis tools, especially if it’s being built from source code (though I believe it’s still possible with binaries, just maybe a bit harder).

When you juice it, the natural sugar has the same effect as added sugar.

It’s only better when it’s locked in with the fruit solids because then it’s a slow release rather than a fast sugar shock to your system, which can fuck with your insulin tolerance because that also needs to spike for your body to do anything with all that sugar.

There is a bit of a grass roots one, but part of the problem is that it’s entirely on the consumption side, as in people deciding to have less sugar. Even proposed legislation solutions involve controlling the consumption side, though at the final product production level.

Which means that sugar producers are still trying to produce the maximum amount of sugar to make the most profit and the lowered demand just ends up driving the price down and makes it more attractive to others to add more sugar. If that lower price is still profitable, then sugar producers can continue full steam ahead.

I’ve noticed something similar with plastics. Demand is lowered in some areas by legislation (like no plastic straws or single use bags), but plastic is still being produced at volume, so prices go down and other products switch from non-plastic packaging to plastic. I’ll call out Betty Crocker homestyle instant mashed potatoes specifically here, that went from a cardboard box containing two paper/metal pouches to a single plastic pouch, which also means it’s more of a pain to make only half the package and more likely to create more food waste in addition to plastic waste.

Still better than one of Putin’s stooges.

If it hasn’t happened already, it wouldn’t surprise me if useful instrumentation space is reallocated to advertisement space at some point. Though hopefully the consumer rage in response would end whatever company tries that first.

Yeah, realizing I was an idiot implies I’m a bit less of one than I was before I realized.

I want to see some videos of salesmen trying to sell touchscreens like they are cars of the future and so great. Followed by the same salesman selling the return to tactile buttons as a big step forward because of how bad of an idea the touchscreens are.

Most likely the first one will be older, but I bet there’s many that could be lead to do both in the same day by two different people showing interest in the same model but different year of a vehicle.

Now I want to see a full-size keyboard with a special place to mount a phone and a shoulder strap. Maybe some wheels so it could double as a skateboard and you’ll be an 80s/90s image of a hacker.

Touch screen should have maintenance/status display and diagnostics and settings for things you’d take care of while the vehicle isn’t moving. Like seat/mirror positioning presets, ride height, towing mode, etc.

I use my four way hazard lights when there’s heavy braking on the freeway to make sure people behind me are paying attention. It’s a button on my dash and pretty easy to toggle.

Though is that something that touch screen cars really put into the touch screen!?