tal

Russia has a population of 146,028,325, of which this would be 6.8%. These are tremendously-disproportionate numbers; the 10 million here would be about a quarter Ukraine's prewar population. My expectation---without trying to do a deeper analysis looking at what military hardware might wind up in the hands of the seceding oblasts---is that absent other changes in Russia, or political unwillingness to fight against seceding oblasts, or outside direct involvement, there would be a civil war and the resources of the other 93% would most-likely defeat them and re-extend control over them.

That might have a risk of nuclear civil war, depending upon how the military acts and what control of the arsenal looks like. The prospect of nuclear war amongst ex-member states of the Soviet Union was a principal concern of the US about the time that the Soviet Union broke up.

EDIT: Updated numbers to reflect the fact that Saint Petersburg isn't part of Leningrad Oblast.

Define "know".

• An LLM can have text describing how it works and be trained on that text and respond with an answer incorporating that.

• LLMs have no intrinsic ability to "sense" what's going on inside them, nor even a sense of time. It's just not an input to their state. You can build neural-net-based systems that do have such an input, but ChatGPT or whatever isn't that.

• LLMs lack a lot of the mechanisms that I would call essential to be able to solve problems in a generalized way. While I think Dijkstra had a valid point:

  The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.

  ...and we shouldn't let our prejudices about how a mind "should" function internally cloud how we treat artificial intelligence...it's also true that we can look at an LLM and say that it just fundamentally doesn't have the ability to do a lot of things that a human-like mind can. An LLM is, at best, something like a small part of our mind. While extracting it and playing with it in isolation can produce some interesting results, there's a lot that it can't do on its own: it won't, say, engage in goal-oriented behavior. Asking a chatbot questions that require introspection and insight on its part won't yield interesting result, because it can't really engage in introspection or insight to any meaningful degree. It has very little mutable state, unlike your mind.

I mean, at least tell them what the correct usage is.

OP, you probably want "software package" or "a piece of software".

"Software" is a mass noun, like "butter". You can't have "a butter". You can have "a pound of butter".

In English, mass nouns are characterized by the impossibility of being directly modified by a numeral without specifying a unit of measurement and by the impossibility of being combined with an indefinite article (a or an). Thus, the mass noun "water" is quantified as "20 litres of water" while the count noun "chair" is quantified as "20 chairs". However, both mass and count nouns can be quantified in relative terms without unit specification (e.g., "so much water", "so many chairs", though note the different quantifiers "much" and "many").

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/software

Usage notes

Software is a mass noun (some software, a piece of software). By non-native speakers it is sometimes erroneously treated as a countable noun (a software, some softwares).

"A something" is only correct if the noun is a countable noun.

Ehhh.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/lcars-system-3/

LCARS (Library Computer Access and Retrieval System) is the GUI from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Voyager, and Deep Space Nine. This is a rainmeter suite that transforms your Windows GUI into LCARS.

Over the decades, we've been kind of casual about computer security, when you consider that we've connected up a lot of the world's computers and put a lot of pretty vital information on those networks.

I mean, we have unmaintained devices sitting on networks. It's hard for most users to pick up on a compromised system; IDSes aren't typically deployed on home networks. Most software running on personal computers doesn't run isolated; if you execute code, it has access to all your data and can reconfigure your environment. There are credentials floating around all over the place. A lot of weight is placed on keeping someone from getting into a LAN/WAN, but the larger the network, the more potential holes. There are very big supply chains that have a lot of potential attack vectors.

The other day I was commenting on how many pieces of software I've purchased in Steam. Those aren't even open-source, and one way one might get more revenue out of a game that is no longer selling many copies is to sell it to another publisher (which also tends to happen if a publisher goes under). Such a product isn't just a game, but access to be able to install software on anyone's computer who has the game installed. Some people have isolated Steam (with some level of compatibility issues) using flatpak on Linux, but individual games aren't isolated, and I doubt that most people have even that level of isolation.

And then there's all the IoT devices out there that aren't necessarily maintained or where random company out there can push updates to said devices and where their ability to push updates is something that might have commercial value.

Not to mention the question of how well all of these companies have secured their own networks and supply chains.

A lot of hard-to-solve problems there, I think.

I bet they're after extreme ultraviolet lithography, which is a strategically-important-in-the-US-China-rivalry technology that the Dutch commercialized.

reads article

It doesn't say explicitly, but it does say that it's the "semiconductor industry".

"The semiconductor industry, which we are technologically leading, or technology advanced, of course, to get that intellectual property - that's interesting to China," Brekelmans said in an interview on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security meeting in Singapore.

Last week:

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/euv-lithography-restrictions-china-must-continue-trump-aide-says-2025-05-23/

EUV lithography restrictions on China must continue, Trump aide says

May 23 (Reuters) - Restricting the sale of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment to China is the "single most important export control" the United States has in the area of semiconductors, the White House's AI and crypto czar David Sacks said on Friday.

"The first Trump administration began the restriction, and it’s of paramount importance that it continues," Sacks wrote on X.

Dutch company ASML (ASML.AS) makes EUV chipmaking machines, which produce the most sophisticated semiconductors.

Two months ago:

https://www.reuters.com/world/china-hopes-netherlands-will-ensure-normal-lithography-machine-trade-2024-03-28/

China hopes Netherlands will ensure 'normal' lithography machine trade

BEIJING, March 28 (Reuters) - China hopes the Netherlands would support companies in fulfilling their contractual obligations and ensure "normal" trade of lithography machines, said Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.

Last month:

https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/china-developed-euv-lithography-could-trial-in-2025/

Chinese electronics giant Huawei is testing elements for an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine at its Dongguan facility, according to two sources posting photographs on X social media.

The sources say the equipment is scheduled for trial production of circuits in 2Q25 with full-scale manufacturing in 2026, without attributing the information to any sources of their own. They add that the equipment is based on a laser discharge induced plasma (LDP) to produce light of 13.5nm wavelength.

The credibility of the timetable therefore remains uncertain although China is highly motivated to try and develop EUV lithography.

China has been denied access to the EUV lithography equipment from the monopoly commercial supplier, ASML Holding NV, for several years.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/twitter-rolls-out-encryption-for-direct-messages-but-with-key-limitations/

Twitter rolls out encryption for direct messages but with key limitations

Both the sender and recipient must be verified, while group conversations and attached media aren't supported by the encryption.

For an existing chat, tap the Info icon. If the option is available, you'll see a button for Start an encrypted message that you can just click. For a new chat, turn on the switch to enable encrypted mode. Write your message, and then send it.

So what is the difference between what they're rolling out and what they added in 2023? Support for more users, maybe? Support for non-verified users?

EDIT: Apparently it had been disabled earlier this week?

https://www.theverge.com/news/676171/xs-encrypted-dms-are-being-put-on-pause

This article implies that it was to address some of the limitations in the 2023 feature, though isn't explicit about what is being addressed:

According to the document, encrypted DMs are only available if you are a verified user (somebody who pays for Twitter Blue), a verified organization (an organization that pays $1,000 per month), or an affiliate of a verified organization (which costs $50 per month per person). Both the sender and recipient must be on the latest version of the Twitter app (on mobile and web). And an encrypted DM recipient must follow the sender, have sent a message to the sender in the past, or accept a DM request from the sender at some point.

I have no hatred in my heart for our BSD-using Star Wars-watching compatriots.

The !unix_surrealism@lemmy.sdf.org artist is a BSD guy.

It's okay to dance to the beat of a different drummer.

It's all about the right Toyota pickup.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Hilux

Due to its durability and reliability, the Toyota Hilux, along with the larger Toyota Land Cruiser (J70), has become popular among paramilitary groups in war-torn regions as a technical.[284] According to terrorism analyst Andrew Exum, the Hilux is "the vehicular equivalent of the AK-47. It's ubiquitous to insurgent warfare."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Tacoma

Most markets across the world receive the Toyota Hilux in lieu of the Tacoma.

When comparing with the Hilux, the Tacoma receives engineering with greater priority on ride quality, handling, comfort, and safety over ruggedness and payload capacity. The design intends to better suit the needs of the US and Canadian market, where pickup trucks are used as personal vehicles rather than for commercial, agricultural, and off-road purposes.

I think that the UK might technically have a few storms that would qualify as weak hurricanes in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_storm_of_1987

It looks like the US definition involves 1-minute sustained wind speed:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone

In modern times, on average around 80 to 90 named tropical cyclones form each year around the world, over half of which develop hurricane-force winds of 65 kn (120 km/h; 75 mph) or more.[1]

Unfortunately, the UK appears to measure by gust (20-second) or hourly, so hard to compare exactly.

I'm not sure whether Storm Eunice qualifies, at least for mainland UK:

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/metofficegovuk/pdf/weather/learn-about/uk-past-events/interesting/2022/2022_02_storms_dudley_eunice_franklin.pdf

The map below shows the highest hourly mean wind speeds recorded from storm Eunice on 18 February 2022. Several coastal locations recorded an hourly mean wind speed of over 50Kt (58mph), while Needles Old Battery (Isle of Wight) recorded a remarkable hourly mean wind speed of 82Kt (94mph) for the hour to 1100 UTC at the height of the storm.

But the Great Storm of 1987 looks like it would:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_storm_of_1987

The great storm of 1987 was a violent extratropical cyclone that occurred on the night of 15–16 October, with hurricane-force winds causing casualties in England, France, and the Channel Islands as a severe depression in the Bay of Biscay moved northeast.

Sustained winds speeds greater than 121 km/h (75 mph) were recorded for over an hour in southern Britain.

If it has hour-long speeds over 75 mph, then it must have 1-minute speeds over 75 mph.

That being said, that's the peak in the UK; the US has much stronger:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1935_Labor_Day_hurricane

The 1935 Labor Day hurricane was an extremely powerful and devastating Atlantic hurricane that struck the southeastern United States in early September 1935.

The storm made landfall late on September 2 near Long Key, at peak intensity, with an intensity of 892 millibars (26.3 inHg) and 1-minute sustained winds of 185 mph (298 km/h)

reads further

It looks like the Great Storm of 1987 in the UK still doesn't qualify, as per the UK's Met Office, but that's due to some technical characteristic, rather than because the wind speed isn't high enough.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/who-we-are/our-history/lessons-and-legacy-of-the-great-storm-of-1987

This storm wasn’t officially a hurricane, because they need specific conditions found in the tropics to form. But hurricane-force winds did occur in some locations in the UK during the Great Storm.

https://weather.metoffice.gov.uk/learn-about/weather/types-of-weather/hurricanes

Hurricanes cannot form at the latitudes of the UK as they require much higher sea surface temperatures to develop than exist close to the UK. However, the UK is sometimes affected by extratropical storms as they move to higher latitudes, such as ex-Hurricane Ophelia in 2017. Occasionally, intense mid-latitude depressions can produce near hurricane strength winds. The most widely publicised such depression occurred on 16 October 1987, known as The Great Storm.

tried

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/eu.mirkodi.swatchbeatclock/

Can still do it!

"No one," sourly thought a reader in Longyearbyen, Norway. "No one, dammit."

Longyearbyen experiences midnight sun from between 18 April and 24 August (128 days), polar night from 27 October to 15 February (111 days), and civil polar night from 13 November to 29 January. However, due to shading from mountains, the sun is not visible in Longyearbyen until around 8 March.