"Nice website you have running on your own hardware.
It would be a shame if it was DDoSed from the cloud."
1,804 karma · joined December 14, 2011
Why attack the front door when there is a picture window beside it? Don't attack the tank, attack the fuel supply. The frontal attack is only there to pin the opposition while you compromise the flanks.
Backdoor encryption is security theater. Which raises the question "What is the real goal?". Is the goal to say "We don't know what you did but you encrypted it so we can lock you up."? Then you can fake "encrypted communication" from anyone to anyone and lock up anyone you want until they provide "the key" they don't know. Torture them for the key. Then try them in a show court and hang them.
However, my HTML pages from earlier in this decade mis-render on certain browsers. Images overlay text, External links die. Internal links die because I forgot to check all of them. The move to https means that "modern browsers" force the user to explicitly type 'http://...'.
Specifically
(1) Latex really is better at rendering math, especially when I need to create special character combinations
(2) PDFs are "irrecoverable" (my site also publishes the latex and you can run detex to strip the latex
(3) HTML "texts" require me to keep my browser open, which is challenging considering MS reboots my machine once a week and Firefox simply stops working after a week
(4) I need the referenced papers to "render identically", especially when the are several decades old
(5) You can do animation in Latex. As for "deeper comprehension", most of the papers I read are barely at the edge of my understanding (which I why I'm reading them). I print them out to do hand markup. Did you ever try to print an HTML page?
The paper is pure nonsense. Listen to virologist discuss it in detail.
Note that the doctor who is pushing this nonsense is connected to (and apparently funded by) two organizations connected to Steve Bannon. Why would Bannon care about pushing this nonsense?
There are so many reasons why this 'report' is wrong. Beginning with the abstract: 'The natural origin theory, although widely accepted, lacks substantial support. The alternative theory that the virus may have come from a research laboratory is, however, strictly censored on peer-reviewed scientific journals'. In fact there is a great deal of experimental support, from multiple groups, on the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2. On the other hand, there is ZERO evidence for a laboratory origin.
The introduction also is full of inaccuracies. For example, 'the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is still the subject of much debate' is not true. The conclusions of the Nature Medicine article cited have not been challenged by other than charlatans such as the authors of this paper.
Here is their evidence:
1. A bat virus ZC45 is the backbone. It is 89% identical to SARS-CoV-2. In a genome of 30,000 bases that means it differs from SARS-CoV-2 by 3300 bases. No way is that the backbone of SARS-CoV-2.
2. The receptor binding motif of SARS-CoV-2 could not have been made from that of SARS-CoV. It is not what one would predict would give the highest affinity binding to ACE2. No one would have made this sequence in the laboratory because it would not have been the one to make.
3. The furin cleavage site has been found in other bat CoV, contrary to what the author says.
4. The presence of restriction cleavage sites in no way indicates manipulation; they just picked two that flank the RBD.
On top of it all I have never heard of this person or their institution.
It is a complete reach and adds nothing beyond what has already been suggested. There is nothing new here! Similar arguments were made and debunked months ago.
-- Vincent Racaniello, PhD | Higgins Professor Department of Microbiology & Immunology Columbia University College of P&S, New York
There are so many reasons why this 'report' is wrong. Beginning with the abstract: 'The natural origin theory, although widely accepted, lacks substantial support. The alternative theory that the virus may have come from a research laboratory is, however, strictly censored on peer-reviewed scientific journals'. In fact there is a great deal of experimental support, from multiple groups, on the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2. On the other hand, there is ZERO evidence for a laboratory origin.
The introduction also is full of inaccuracies. For example, 'the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is still the subject of much debate' is not true. The conclusions of the Nature Medicine article cited have not been challenged by other than charlatans such as the authors of this paper.
Here is their evidence:
1. A bat virus ZC45 is the backbone. It is 89% identical to SARS-CoV-2. In a genome of 30,000 bases that means it differs from SARS-CoV-2 by 3300 bases. No way is that the backbone of SARS-CoV-2.
2. The receptor binding motif of SARS-CoV-2 could not have been made from that of SARS-CoV. It is not what one would predict would give the highest affinity binding to ACE2. No one would have made this sequence in the laboratory because it would not have been the one to make.
3. The furin cleavage site has been found in other bat CoV, contrary to what the author says.
4. The presence of restriction cleavage sites in no way indicates manipulation; they just picked two that flank the RBD.
On top of it all I have never heard of this person or their institution.
It is a complete reach and adds nothing beyond what has already been suggested. There is nothing new here! Similar arguments were made and debunked months ago.
-- Vincent Racaniello, PhD | Higgins Professor Department of Microbiology & Immunology Columbia University College of P&S, New York
There are so many reasons why this 'report' is wrong. Beginning with the abstract: 'The natural origin theory, although widely accepted, lacks substantial support. The alternative theory that the virus may have come from a research laboratory is, however, strictly censored on peer-reviewed scientific journals'. In fact there is a great deal of experimental support, from multiple groups, on the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2. On the other hand, there is ZERO evidence for a laboratory origin.
The introduction also is full of inaccuracies. For example, 'the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is still the subject of much debate' is not true. The conclusions of the Nature Medicine article cited have not been challenged by other than charlatans such as the authors of this paper.
Here is their evidence:
1. A bat virus ZC45 is the backbone. It is 89% identical to SARS-CoV-2. In a genome of 30,000 bases that means it differs from SARS-CoV-2 by 3300 bases. No way is that the backbone of SARS-CoV-2.
2. The receptor binding motif of SARS-CoV-2 could not have been made from that of SARS-CoV. It is not what one would predict would give the highest affinity binding to ACE2. No one would have made this sequence in the laboratory because it would not have been the one to make.
3. The furin cleavage site has been found in other bat CoV, contrary to what the author says.
4. The presence of restriction cleavage sites in no way indicates manipulation; they just picked two that flank the RBD.
On top of it all I have never heard of this person or their institution.
It is a complete reach and adds nothing beyond what has already been suggested. There is nothing new here! Similar arguments were made and debunked months ago.
-- Vincent Racaniello, PhD | Higgins Professor Department of Microbiology & Immunology Columbia University College of P&S, New York
See This Week in Virology (TWiV) ( https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/ )
They covered this several times. The consensus is that "made in a lab" is nonsense.
Listen and learn. This is Hacker News, not Facebook.
Microsoft remotely reboots your computer about once a week whether you want that or not. They only care about their updates. Your work has no value.
On the other hand, I have a linux box that's been running for YEARS without a reboot. I work on it every day.
If you value your time, your work, or your money, don't use Microsoft.
I bought a new computer. I bought the Flight Simulator 2020. The flight simulator wouldn't work. MS Support said to update Windows, which I did. FS2020 worked... for a week. Then MS Support said to update Windows to 2004. The whole update took about 6 hours, time I would like to have spent flying.
Of the 3 weeks I had FS2020, a FULL DAY was spent on the phone with MS Support, with the ONLY change being a new, updated Windows. 24 hours of "support" spread over 3 weeks. 3 work days I could have flown.
FS202 is an amazing program. But it won't run if (a) the remote license check fails (b) the operating system isn't up to date, (c) the wifi is down, or (d) FS updates aren't applied.
Would you keep a great car if (a) it wouldn't start if the owner's manual wasn't up to date? or (b) it wouldn't start because your lease isn't up to date? or (c) the onboard computers weren't the latest update? or (d) the wifi was down? I'd get rid of the car, no matter how good it was.
I got rid of FS2020. I now have a sweet Linux install.
If you value your time, your work, or your money... Don't use Windows.
There are less-than-1-dollar tests coming which just require some spit, probably called "lick-a-stick".
Keeping people like "young and healthy (how do you know?)" untested gives a perfect place for Covid to spread.
Listen to This Week in Virology (TWIV) https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/
So I got really good at shooting flys with rubber bands.
To this day, when there is a fly in the house, I put a rubber band around my wrist and wait for the chance to shoot it.
Later at school I worked on a remote IBM machine through a dial-up and teletype connection. I got a job running the "computer room" (teletypes and then selectrics) for the 4 years I was there.
Learning involved random encounters with information. I got a copy of the hardware maintenance manuals for the IBM 360. Someone from Rutgers told me about state machines and turing machines. I learned Basic, the Fortran, the Lisp 1.5 (I've been a lisper ever since).
My undergrad major was math so I learned numerical integration (e.g. the method of false position). There was no "computer science" degree or department. It was taught by math professors who were one chapter ahead of the class. I wrote (ghost) some of the final exams for some of the classes.
Graduate school was computer science from the engineering department where we learned analog computers, Karnaugh maps, and clocked/unclocked circuits. I did "machine vision" work with images from bozes of punched cards (we didn't have a camera).
The field was not nearly as complex then. You could "learn it all".
Now I get to play with (the IBM) quantum computer, do machine learning, and use program proof techniques, each of which involved a LOT of youtube videos. It is hard to keep up but still great fun.
There is no link to buy the book. Sigh.
My Linux machine has been up and running since April 2014.
I smell a rat. This makes no sense.
15 U.S.C. § 1125(a) creates a civil cause of action for claims of false designation of origin and false advertising. This provides federal protection for unregistered marks.
Do you expect that MS and Google are going to fight a civil suit to protect your trademark? Or do you have to sign over the rights to your trademark first, which means you no longer control the trademark. You no longer control your project.
Who benefits? Well if MS and Google get people to "sign over" their trademarks then they can freely define what the trademark means. This would feed into the MS embrace-extend-extinguish technique. The end result is that they effectively "own" open source projects. Imagine if MS or Google owned the Linux trademark and were able to define what was "officially Linux".
This sounds like a "collect the trademarks" competition.
Corporate pokemon.
I smell a rat. This makes no sense.
15 U.S.C. § 1125(a) creates a civil cause of action for claims of false designation of origin and false advertising. This provides federal protection for unregistered marks.
Do you expect that MS and Google are going to fight a civil suit to protect your trademark? Or do you have to sign over the rights to your trademark first, which means you no longer control the trademark. You no longer control your project.
Who benefits? Well if MS and Google get people to "sign over" their trademarks then they can freely define what the trademark means. This would feed into the MS embrace-extend-extinguish technique. The end result is that they effectively "own" open source projects. Imagine if MS or Google owned the Linux trademark and were able to define what was "officially Linux".
This sounds like a "collect the trademarks" competition.
Corporate pokemon.