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• Post #4454561

  @lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org Hence the patent…

• Post #4388068

  @adam@elefanti.co @20002ist@thepit.social I'm reminded of the refugee ship St. Louis (https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/voyage-of-the-st-louis)

• Post #4377243

  Trains, of course, have restrooms. (I believe that this work train is on a track for the Purple Line, a light rail line under construction in the Maryland suburbs of DC.)

• Post #4267507

  RE: https://flipboard.com/@newyorktimes/world-5f2k3dqjz/-/a-pCnP_INfSNOk69c9sBFwbw%3Aa%3A3195393-%2F0 Look, @sundogplanets@mastodon.social

• Post #4259751

  RE: https://infosec.exchange/@agreenberg/117011022100893459 I've been expecting this. The US attacks Iranian water systems; Iran attacks US systems.

• Post #4170093

  RE: https://flipboard.com/@newyorktimes/home-page-91uottdbz/-/a--1AFgpJbRrygQyybRU2ysA%3Aa%3A3195393-%2F0 Are any *technical* details on this available?

• Post #4152891

  @mattblaze@federate.social A classic case. See https://www.newscientist.com/article/1818118-technology-sorry-no-numbers-the-day-the-uss-telephone-network-crashed/ and https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/9.63.html#subj3.1 — and https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/9.69#subj5 for the precise bug: misuse of a a 'break' statement. The salient points: it was a flaw in error recovery code, which was triggered if and only if while a phone switch was rebooting, it received two incoming call requests wit...

• Post #4148348

  @jswatz_tx Also grifting.

• Post #4097182

  RE: https://flipboard.com/@newyorktimes/new-york-bat3un55z/-/a-TfouDAImTVaqT-uRVBqrow%3Aa%3A3195393-%2F0 Cue the uncanny valley

• Post #4050089

  RE: https://flipboard.com/@newyorktimes/home-page-91uottdbz/-/a-VdgkV6NZSMSSlraEqwBP2g%3Aa%3A3195393-%2F0 This is really scary and worth reading.

• Post #4041151

  I went to see the Odyssey movie (in IMAX) last night. It's an impressive film, though far too loud. It stayed reasonably close to the epic poem, though with a few (largely unimportant) changes, like the role and timing of the lotus flower incident. There were a few glaring anachronisms, notably the repeated references to the Sea Peoples and (far worse) Odysseus' reference to the "Age of Bronze". What was most interesting to me was the philosophical focus of the movie around Zeu...

• Post #3994854

  Did you see https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/21/nyregion/noncitizen-voting-new-jersey-error.html, @mattblaze@federate.social ?

• Post #3973688

  RE: https://mastodon.social/@VeroniqueB99/116954938502017875 This is really from the Onion, right?

• Post #3962251

  @jswatz_tx Have they advocated drinking bleach yet, or perhaps a UV-emitting capsule?

• Post #3924987

  "NIST Mathematical Proof Supports Transition to a Continuous-Monitor-and-Update Security Model for AI Systems": https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2026/06/nist-mathematical-proof-supports-transition-continuous-monitor-and-update In essence, this is an extension of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem to AI guardrails.

• Post #3895651

  RE: https://infosec.exchange/@SteveBellovin/116935801971010847 Ok, and I thought I was being sarcastic about the tariffs. Just goes to show: the reality of this administration is always stupider than one can imagine: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/weather/trump-canada-tariffs-wildfire-smoke.html

• Post #3887125

  I wonder if Agent Orange is going to threaten Canada with tariffs on exported wildfire smoke if they don’t start vacuuming their forests.

• Post #3870400

  The Mets-Phillies game, in Philadelphia, will apparently be suspended if the AQI reaches 200.

• Post #3809838

  RE: https://flipboard.com/@newyorktimes/science-jpuunj5gz/-/a-Anw1t0-MTp2_fHdcBXPUbA%3Aa%3A3195393-%2F0 Here's another threat, @sundogplanets@mastodon.social

• Post #3785737

  RE: https://flipboard.com/@newyorktimes/world-5f2k3dqjz/-/a-lyzbBLfeTsa01VH7f2EZ0w%3Aa%3A3195393-%2F0 This shows another fundamental mistake in Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics—the militarists *want* machines that can kill.

• Post #3763379

  Looks like the World Cup may come down to historic rivalries. Tuesday is France vs. Spain, with centuries of geopolitical rivalry. Wednesday is more recent: we get to revisit the Falklands war, as England takes on Argentina. And if France and England both win? That's a rivalry for the millenium.

• Post #3740846

  #caturday ? https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/10/science/cat-grooming-licking-research.html

• Post #3629001

  Trump's research funding cuts and shenanigans have resulted in a noticeable decrease in PhD enrollments, risking the future: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/us/research-universities-fewer-phds-science.html

• Post #3536239

  I saw a Waymo taxi in Baltimore the other day (and I didn't even know they operated there). I was impressed—it was stopped at a light and did not go when the light turned green because there was no room for it, given traffic on the next block. It clearly was not trained on most human drivers' patterns…

• Post #3349236

  My CC-licensed book, "Don't Get Hacked", is available in hardcopy, if you prefer, at https://www.lulu.com/shop/steven-bellovin/dont-get-hacked/paperback/product-gj4mq5w.html. The PDF, ePub, and .mobi versions remain available for free at https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/homesec/.

• Post #3160169

  @Cdespinosa@mastodon.social June 6 >> January 6…

• Post #3150009

  In honor of June 6, International Antifa Day.

• Post #3081595

  Had dinner tonight at a Tibetan restaurant here in Bloomington, IN, where they asked me how spicy, on a 1-5 scale. I got to wondering: is that linear? Logarithmic? Exponential? (And what do those quantitative values even mean?) Not know the restaurant, I opted for 3 but should have gone higher—maybe it's on a Midwestern scale instead of a coastal scale…

• Post #3081594

  Ooh—the Capital Weather Gang's web site has an RSS feed.

• Post #3081593

  @ferrix @newsguyusa Per the article, there's objective evidence that he sent DMs.