That's definitely an improvement, but it's just one aspect of cybersecurity. Logical errors allowing people to e.g. log into services and extract data are likely everywhere still.
If we can eliminate entire classes of bugs from being possible. It frees up resources to investigate the ones that are still possible.
I suspect after a few years of LLM assisted bug hunting, everything will have a baseline security that is very good. Much like how stronger viruses simply create stronger immune systems.
> as a first step, simplify everything, and make sure you're aware how your stack works, and what it imports.
We've been trying that for years but the enthusiasm of developers and the eagerness of their employers fight against it. Worse, with coding LLMs it's now easier than ever to output a lot of code, fast.
It'll ultimately be up to more experienced developers to salvage these projects. Or not, given that the coding LLMs aren't stopping and will likely get better over time. Either way, we will need experienced people that know what to look out for / know how to instruct LLMs to output secure code and find weaknesses etc.
Last year I took my parents' caravan and put it in bumfuck retirement home nowhere, spent a week just riding my motorcycle through that section of the country, reading, listening to music, and painting Warhammer figurines. Little human contact. It was boring and unstimulating, but also almost the opposite of my usual daily grind.
Sounds like there's two kinds of vacations, the one to relax, decompress, slow down and go offline for a bit, and the one where you explore the world and experience new things. Both are valid, and combining the two is great.
I'm now thinking of USAmericans taking a eurotrip and visiting a different city every day. I hope some of them mix it up and stay in cowville, France for a few days.
When I spent 3 weeks in Türkiye solo traveling (from the US) I tried to have a few home bases. For example 5 full days of hiking 15-20 km in Cappadocia, 3 days near Selçuk and the rest in Istanbul.
You wouldn't think a massive city like Istanbul would be relaxing but it is when you're out of your hotel for 15 hours a day on foot with nothing but a list of bullet points that don't depend on planning anything ahead of time other than to make sure the thing you want to see is open when you're near the area.
Everyone is different but for me, I like not needing to be at X location at Y time a bunch of times in a row. A few of those are fine, but it can't be a majority of the trip. I try to treat road trips the same, 3-4 nights per stop (maybe 2 nights if it's a smaller place).
Time to decompress and explore is important IMO. Walking around while seeing new things is the ultimate form of decompression for me.
Was lucky enough to spend a week in Rome this summer, and even that was not enough time (and I've been before, still not enough combined time). It's wild when I hear about people hitting 4 different EU cities in the same time period, sounds exhausting.
> but I really don't understand why the idea hasn't been taken up by other makers.
Same, but now that it quickly looks like smartphone-sized e-ink readers are the 2026 hardware trend, I can see them making a comeback now. Or as an "outside" screen on foldable phones.
It's insane to me how you can defend Russian imperialism while criticizing American imperialism in the same sentence. Moscow invaded Ukraine twice in the last 15 years. So yes the current Russian regime is an enemy to Ukraine, Europe and the US. Russia is a master in playing the victim and blaming its internal problems on external forces. Putins crying about NATO expansion and foreign agents manipulating the population was basically just projection because that is what Russia has been doing since the times of the Sowjet Union.
Regarding USAID: During researching topics in health care the research was often funded by USAID and these topics were definitely interesting and good and allowed smaller startups to exist. So this funding did a lot of good and created technology and research jobs in the US that are probably gone now.
If there are actually people out there walking around thinking that just getting the trains running on time justified the murder of 6 million ‘undesirables’ or many different shades, and this isn’t just some epic troll, then we are way more cooked than I had dared believe. And I don’t think you can hand wave away such large and obtuse generalisations by saying ‘Poe’s Law applies’.
Arguing on the internet has always been a fool’s game, and there have always been people who have made sport of it for the lolz, but honestly, why even entertain such vacuous opinions for outrage’s sake on a forum like this?
Aid is a hard problem that is true but the world is a worse place after USAid got raised by Trump. Aid should probably be atleast 100x the current rate, it should not be called aid either.
Also in the Netherlands, doctors / nurses in my local hospital wear things like crocs and other slip-in type shoes - don't think paramedics do, just something I noticed.
It's only illegal if you get caught. If this administration ever ends, the next one will be focused on the fallout of this one. (as is usually the case)
That has only been the case since 2008. Obama had no choice but manage the fallout of the Bush admin's record-setting-for-the-time fuck-ups.
Reagan followed a fairly positively stated agenda. Clinton pursued a fairly positive agenda. George the 2nd followed a fairly positive, if misguided, agenda. And then it became a reactive shitshow.
Reagan did what exactly? Are you thinking of the secret deal he struck with Iran for them to not release the hostages, in exchange for him giving them weapons illicitly, or are you referring to the disastrous trickle-down Reaganomics system that hollowed out the middle class to enrich the wealthy, or his handling of the AIDS crisis, or his crushing of the air traffic controllers, or the war on drugs, or something else?
The GP said "stated agenda", which is true and important. Reagan openly talked about 'Morning in America', freedom around the world ('Mr. Gorbechev, tear down this wall.'), etc.
You're right that Reagan did a lot that was negative, but it's a significant difference from current leaders who openly disdain positive things and encourage people to embrace hatred, violence, warfare, corruption, oppression, etc.
Wasn't it reactive from the start? From (mostly journalistic) history I've read, GBII started their administration by refusing to do all sorts of things because the adminstration associated them with Clinton, including listening to Richard Clarke's, a carryover advisor's, warnings about terrorist threats.
As a non American, I don't think you can get back from this unless you get rid of the 2-parties system. Identity politics is a big component to what compelled individuals to operate against their own interests and those of their country. Good luck, though.
I am not an American either, but there is a great deal of work on this subject, and the two-party system is actually one of the most resistant to single-individual or single-party takeover. The reason is that multi-party systems are vulnerable to having a party in power 'promoting diversity' (or something similar), in order to disempower all their opponents, while making it look like they're allowing for more views. Examples of this include quotas for minority representation, and (strategically designed) multi-member voting districts.
I have that book and am a big fan of it, but I think it needs some expansion in the light of the last few decades - not just in the US, but considering Brexit and both major parties subsequently burning through strings of short-lived leaders, coalition politics in places like Europe and Japan etc.
well this book was written in 2003 and current day events in USA clearly contradict this statement : "two-party system is actually one of the most resistant to single-individual or single-party takeover."
With lots of examples of contrary , where multi party system has not devolved in one man shit show.
North Korea, China, Russia, Uganda, etc. are examples of one party taking over; the USA is just a country that has one party (you don't seem to like) with most (but not all) of the political power at the moment.
Japan occupied Korea from 1910 until 1945, at which point administration of the country was split between the USA in the South and the USSR in the north. Following an indecisive war lasted from 1950-53, the Korean peninsula ended up witht he situation we see today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_North_Korea
China's history is more complicated, but is also the product of military conflict following colonial imposition by Japan. To suggest that either country's political system is the outcome of inherent structural weaknesses in multi-party democracy is absurd.
I didn’t say that either of those two were the result of multi-party democracy; I was trying to give the GP a variety of examples of single-party government, with different origins.
Please note that the comment I replied to has been substantially modified since I posted.
I'm sure I'm missing something from the GGP being edited, but when you said 'are examples of one party taking over' it's hard to read that outside of a parliamentary/electoral context.
In multi-party systems, the parties focus more on weakening their opponents and horse trading, as voters are divided and winning elections is dependent on an already razor-thin voting share. Look what's going on in India, for instance.
Parliamentary systems of other countries usually have the advantages of lessons learned since the American revolution. The necessary feature of the American system is countervailing powers, but as a uniparty for corporations or one weakened, it ceases to function and cannot be easily reformed or competed against with a new party. These are flaws addressed to some degree by parliamentary systems where new party(ies) can challenge incumbents more easily.
Secondary to the extreme corruption. Corruption is the issue that must be resolved before everything else. The fashions of political parties or their structures are superficial by comparison.
It's not nature, it's the strategic actions of members of those parties to create and protect that system. For example, look at laws in states that make it very difficult for 3rd parties to get on ballots, participate in debates, and then the expensive lawfare against them if they show any signs of life.
> getting rid of the two party system is a pipe dream
It certainly won't happen tomorrow, but the best time to start such things is today.
The U.S. has a Green Party, a Libertarian Party. If they ever had a chance to take any serious votes from the other two, one of the two major parties would co-opt enough of their platform to make the threat go away.
As we seem to be seeing, the Democratic Party in the U.S. is in fact, internally, two parties. As populations age out, we'll likely see the party itself evolve.
They naturally evolve because we put them in an enviroment where they thrive. Changing voting systems to proportional representation instead of winner-takes-all would be a huge start.
Sure, and all it took was a systematic dismantling and building anew the whole government and a bunch of institutions, not exactly a "oh, the other party will figure something out over the course of the next term"
You have Jared Kushner pulling a lot of strings on one side, and you have his brother, Josh Kushner, giving enormous amounts of money to the other side.
They’re both incredibly evil. And it’s obvious that both sides completely disdain their civilian constituents, because their real constituents are corporations and oligarchs.
It’s not just the two party system. You have to get the money out out of politics before anything else can positively move back toward democracy.
Trying to establish ties with decent people in my community, physically staying in shape, training and learning. Ultimately, you have very little control over things when something large like government/societal collapse happens. All you can do is put yourself in a position where you can try to adapt to whatever may come.
>but some people need to spend a significant amount of their lives in prison.
Short of rewriting the constitution, that just isn't going to happen. The president is immune to prosecution for any crime committed in office and has unlimited power to pardon anyone else of any federal crimes.
And if the Democrats even attempt to do anything of the sort, people will just consider it a partisan witchhunt. It will be litigated all the way to a SCOTUS that's stacked with Trumpist ideologues.
People will correctly consider it a partisan witchhunt, but that is ultimately the only way back to "normal". Pack the court and start the prosecutions. Look at Hungary and Poland.
(The UK has the opportunity to do this before the fash get into power, but we can watch it being fumbled in real time)
Realistically this is what the Constitutional convention mechanism is for, but for the last several decades the Democrats have viewed any suggestion of employing it as a Republican plot and have opted instead for not having a plan and trying to prop up a creaky status quo.
> The president is immune to prosecution for any crime committed in office
That's a misreading of the SC decision. If he walks down the street and murders someone, unless he can make a case that it was an official act, then he wouldn't have immunity. He'd need to demonstrate that he has the Constitutional authority to murder people on the street, and he doesn't, so it wouldn't be an official act and he wouldn't have any immunity.
ok, so we managed to get a decision that the president wan't immune from having to pay out in a civil suit related to the molestation of a woman from before he even became a politician. but part of the problem here is the blurring of the personal and the official. should the president be liable for overtly violating the constitution 'while performing official acts'. Is interfering in the state's right to hold their own elections an official act? is instructing the military to order someone in cold blood an official act? does pursuing a series of novel legal interpretations imply that he was violating the law or not? is accepting money in exchange for a presidential pardon an official act?
whether or not you believe this is a pass from the Supreme Court, it opens up a whole new unexplored space of lack of culpability.
The point is that the state needs to flip enough that Trump would not be in a position to control what the state (the court actually) views as an official act.
If Trump continues to have enough influence in the SCOTUS after he's done being president, then yes, you could imagine they contort any action into an official act. But that'd be a failure of the next government to first establish a less biased SCOTUS (either by packing it or removing existing justices).
“Aye, scallywag, yer SCOTUS rulings reading ain’t fit for kindergarten; read the chart again: official acts may be immune, but private crimes still face prosecution.”
For a king, and one that presumes themselves king, every act is official. The theory is that Congress can always impeach but we have seen and still see that they have no interest in doing so for any reason, no matter how egregious.
I really can't find any other possible interpretation of their wall to wall decisions on anything election related. They are a knowing and enthusiastic participant in the coup.
Thomas is a born and bred loser, but otherwise they're afraid of being assassinated. Judges are under massive, massive amounts of threat whenever they think to hold Trump to literally any scrutiny whatsoever.
Not a conspiracy theory, this is an open discussion topic among federal judges within their own conferences.
Probably more loyalists than ideologues. It’s the Project 2025 influence that has the ideologues. And the Thiel/Vance sector has the traditional influence-focused corruption, while the Trump family is more low-trust-society personal enrichment grift.
That may be, but the consequences for not taking these bad actors to task would have worse and longer lasting consequences. The portion of society that will fracture the most loudly has already attempted to storm the seat of government after a national election. We've seen what they're capable of and I'm much less afraid of that than permanently mafiatizing basically every level of the Federal government.
Yes, but expect those prison sentences will be more popular than you might expect. The current admin expends an insane amount of energy pumping the size of their supposed fanbase.
Forgiving the south after the civil war led to Jim Crow. Forgiving most of the nazis after WW2 seems to be the reason nazis are rising again so quickly. Forgiveness has been given enough chances already. I think we should try giving the full punishment a try.
The British lacking the military strength and will is different from how the tactic would have been had it been executed fully. Ignoring one's views about the founding of America, suppose Britain had executed this war with complete merciless brutality and fielded its entire Imperial might and militarily crushed the rebels thoroughly. Do you think America would have existed then?
That "just" is doing a lot of work though; the jobs market is... challenging right now. Cost of living has exploded, demand for software developers is unstable due to the advent of AI assisted coding. (for the latter I'm sure the market will correct itself over time but still, short term it's an issue)
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