In 2018 a Quebec man named Alexis Vlachos pleaded guilty in a Vermont court to charges relating to a plot to use the library to smuggle backpacks full of handguns into Canada on at least two occasions. He was later sentenced to 51 months in a US prison.
That seems like an unnecessarily-complicated plot to smuggle a small quantity of handguns into Canada.
I mean, yeah, in theory a vehicle could be randomly searched by Canadian customs, but, then hypothetically, they could have looked into the odd guy at the library (which, apparently, they did).
searches YouTube
Here's a Canadian driving across the border into Canada:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjXIVYfwoXc
Guy drives up, answers a couple questions from Canadian customs, drives on.
Ah, fair enough, maybe the target here is default DNS-over-HTTP in browsers.
Italy is using its Piracy Shield law to go after Google, with a court ordering the Internet giant to immediately begin poisoning its public DNS servers
I don't know why Italy is wasting time on this.
Italy is not going to be able to force all public DNS servers out there to block things that they want blocked. Anyone using Google's DNS servers is already going out of their way to use an alternate DNS and can probably plonk in another IP address if they want. It's not as if Google has the only publicly-accessible DNS server out there.
If Italy really and truly doesn't want a DNS server that is doing this to be accessible in Italy, go after Italian network service providers, and instead of playing a never-ending game of whack-a-mole until they run into someone who just tells Italy to buzz off, just block it. Now, some portion of Italians are probably going to still get to DNS servers that ignore Italy's views on things via VPNs unless Italy wants to ban those too, but it'd at least be more-effective than trying to go after every DNS server provider out there, which is definitely is going to leave DNS servers that don't block sites accessible online.
Frankly, I don't even think that DNS-based censorship is very effective in the first place anyway, but if you're going to do it, might as well at least do it as effectively as possible.
Vidoc posted on local job boards, like the one in Poland. But whoever was behind this operation figured out that it’s profitable to pose as Serbian, Polish, and other eastern European profiles
I'd think that this could be pretty easily resolved by just having a real-life interview, at least for the final interview.
It sounds like Vidoc is in Poland. Maybe it's just me, but if I were being hired for an engineering position, I'd think that it'd be reasonable to be willing to travel to a final interview, and for the company to cover any costs.
But, okay, say that it doesn't make sense. Maybe the finances don't work, maybe they want to hire from somewhere where it's not practical for people to travel to their location. I'd think that it'd be possible to have an "interviewing company". That company just obtains some office space, sets up videoconference conferencing rooms, and has their own trusted cameras and suchlike present.
Technically, I don't think that being in the Commonwealth as it exists in 2025 would actually change much. It's a pretty loose organization these days. More than a third of the world's population is in it.
Being in the Commonwealth realms, which are the Commonwealth members that have King Charles as head of state, would, I suspect, be unconstitutional.
EDIT: All that being said, I think that it's reasonably safe to put this in the "distraction" category of Trump statements, rather than the "serious proposal" category.
According to Musk's Twitter account, he has a top secret clearance and apparently some sort of compartmentalized clearances.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1890282404897534089
I’ve had a top secret clearance for many years and have clearances that themselves are classified.
That said, FAR too much information is made “classified”. If something is easily found online or patently obvious, it should NOT be classified. This impedes effective communication within the government.
Combating “Skynet”-level threats
During the experiment, the professionals were faced with a typical national security threat: A foreign government interfering in an election in their country. They were then assigned to one of three scenarios: a control scenario, where the threat only involved human hackers; a scenario with light, “tactical” AI involvement, where hackers were assisted by AI; and a scenario with heavy levels of AI involvement, where participants were told that the threat was orchestrated by a “strategic” AI program.
When confronted with a strategic AI-based threat — what Whyte calls a “Skynet”-level threat, referencing the “Terminator” movie franchise — the professionals tended to doubt their training and were hesitant to act. They were also more likely to ask for additional intelligence information compared with their colleagues in the other two groups, who generally responded to the situation according to their training.
That's a human-level (well, superhuman) AGI. I don't think that we have a good handle on what the limitations or strengths would be. I'd try to gather as much information or thoughts from others as I could too.
In the same vein, if someone gave me a scenario where they said "You're facing a demonic necromancer. How do you counter them?" I'd probably be a lot less confident about how to act than if they said "you're facing someone with a pistol", because this is kind of out of the blue, and I don't even really understand the nature of the threat. There's no AI there, but it's a novel scenario with a lot of unknowns, and it's not as if I've read through histories of how people dealt with that or recommended doctrine for that. I don't think that it's the AI that's so much the X factor here as it is the sheer degree of unknown factors that show up.
If you’ve already got a VR headset and you’re happy with it, I’m envious. But for the rest of us, it’s worth asking the question: just what is it going to take to get on board?
Speaking for myself, if I can use a headset about as well as I do a regular display, that'll do it for me. I'm less-interested in a gaming-specific peripheral, though that'd be nice frosting on the cake. If I can just carry a headset in a case and a display-less laptop, that'd probably be sufficient to get me onboard the HMD train.
There are real benefits to that:
Privacy. My screen isn't visible to anyone nearby.
Wider field of view possible.
No glare issues.
Potentially less power use, since one isn't blasting light everywhere just to get a little into one's eye.
Able to use in any orientation easily, like lying down.
My experience so far has not led me to believe that this is near. I've found HMDs to be twitchy about the location relative to the eye, prone to blurriness if nudged a bit off. Blurriness around the edges. On my Royole Moon, fogging up is an issue, due to shields to eliminate light from bleeding in. Limited resolution. For some, inability to easily see the surrounding world. Limited refresh rates. Many headsets can't really be used with headphones, which is okay, as long as you're fine with the headphones that come with the headset. [EDIT: As someone else pointed out, setup time is a hassle as well. I want using one to be as trivial as it is today for me to open my wireless headphones case and throw the headphones on my head, with just the addition of a cable.]
I don't personally really care all that much about price, if the thing can serve as a competitive monitor replacement, since then it's not just a toy.
I'd also add that I think that there are some genres, like flight sims, where VR has legitimately succeeded. Like, compared to multiple-monitor rigs that some serious flight sim fans have set up, VR is pretty much better in all ways. No physical control panels and such, maybe, but they really want the wide FOV and ability to use the head/eye as an input device.
I'm sure that there are probably some AR applications where you can find an AR headset making sense. Maybe stargazing or something.
But what the article author seems to want is a transition to a world where basically all or a large chunk of new video games are VR-based. And yeah, that hasn't happened.
EDIT: Honestly, most of the games I find myself spending a lot of time playing aren't even 3D in the first place. That's not due to lack of hardware. I have a pretty maxed-out PC, can run them fine. It's just not what I think is most-entertaining to do
many of the games that I find really deep and replayable are 2D, so I'm not playing the 3D games that I do have. If the games aren't 3D, it's hard to see how VR buys much.
For their mod, it sounds like all they need is a momentary switch. You can go to any electronic parts provider and get switches.
Probably not the best for a foot, but one thing that is durable
arcade buttons.
Could get yourself a chunk of plywood board, drill holes in it
sounds like you need a 1 1/8" spade bit
and stick a Happ button in. Those arcade consoles are pretty durable.
There are a bunch of momentary foot switches I see on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=pedal+momentary
These ones look metal:
https://www.amazon.com/Hotone-Momentary-Footswitch-Controller-Switcher/dp/B08H1NQCGJ
The inscription was added by Americans, wasn't actually from the French. Though, yeah, Trump is probably pretty high on the list of Presidents that clash with it.
If you're not joking, John Hinkley, Jr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Ronald_Reagan
David Hinkley appears to be a statistician.