Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Catch Quotas in Peru

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Catch Quotas in Peru

Peru has set a lower squid quota for 2024. The article says “giant squid,” but that seems wrong. We don’t eat those.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Read my blog posting guidelines here.

Tags: squid

Posted on June 7, 2024 at 5:05 PM • 46 Comments

echo • June 8, 2024 2:33 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aZJAQEMB1E
Channel 4 News
Leaving D-Day events early was a ‘mistake’ says Prime Minister

Bland mainstream media does not capture the disgust felt by many of Sunak. He is already known as a liar and being utterly corrupt and having no concern for the welfare of the country.

Being a lady of a certain age I remember when growing up hearing of war stories off family and knowing schoolfriends whose still living grandparents fought in the war. One schoolfriends grandfather was awarded a VC. He was a kind old man and quite unremarkable. You would never guess he had been awarded, arguably, the world’s highest military honour. Another friends father had been a tank commander who suffered injuries and was one of the original “Guinea pigs” who received what we now call plastic surgery, and another friends father had been a Hurricane pilot. I grew up hearing stories of war rations and “spivs” and, highly unlawful, tuning into “Lord Haw Haw” the traitor turned Nazi propagandist, and blackout curtains which my mum had kept stored away along with Hurricane lamps. I still cringe thinking of hearing about powdered eggs. Traces of the war can be found in the area where I grew up which I won’t go into details about because I don’t want to doxx myself. Many of the politicians who graced the television and newspapers, I later learned, movie actors had fought in the war too.

Without these people who sacrificed their lives and many of the LGBT pioneers who were lost during the Holocaust and whose ghosts reach out to us today I would not be able to enjoy the life I live today. So when I see this ultra wealthy, self entitled, lying, greedy man who doesn’t care about children’s education, or child poverty, or the wellbeing of transgender children, or the corruption, or the rise in hate crimes, or the disabled and poor, or the future of the country, or expressing our gratitude to our European friends and others from around the world who also fought the Nazi’s I just don’t have the words. I don’t feel hate or alleged faux outrage. I feel hurt and maybe a little sad for him.

What the Tories have done to the country not to mention the past 14 years of hell? They’re already on course for a meltdown and hopefully gone for good. But this? Sunak left to film an interview that won’t be shown for another week???? Sunak will have to live with this disgrace for the rest of his life. I hope one day he feels shame for what he did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKf9FFH1hKM
D-Day Veterans return to Normandy 80 years on

Oh, God. Stupid me. I’m crying after watching this. Oof. Can’t take me anywhere.

vas pup • June 8, 2024 5:13 PM

https://nocamels.com/2024/05/israeli-anti-drone-tech-to-be-used-at-military-bases-across-europe/

“A Tel Aviv startup developing counter-drone technology has entered into
strategic agreements to deploy its advanced solutions at multiple military
bases across Europe.

Sentrycs says its solutions are able to repel threats from small and commercial drones carrying out reconnaissance missions in the airspace over sensitive sites such as military bases, government complexes and prisons, as well as counter the currently infrequent attacks against forces as have been seen in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The proprietary technology can locate the drones in the air and track their flight paths. It can also identify the drones’ serial numbers and unique ID in order to distinguish between friend and foe. When an enemy craft is identified, the system neutralizes the drone and compels it to land in a specified area.”

T • June 8, 2024 9:02 PM

Um, I really don’t know what’s up with Virtuous and @echo, but that’s an interesting question—why is it that honesty brings hostility?

Not my issue at the moment.

I’d like to ask if anyone has found that by NOT using the icloud on Mac, Mac has now fucked the keychain access and rendered my accounts inaccessible? (work around is to set a new passwd via admin and keep the account active, one time out and it’s a non working passwd.)

I noticed that I also cannot access many of my documents via apps when offline. Notes, docs, user info, etc.

Okay I’m old. I come from Linux, divorced Windows at an early age, and hate the overt control of my info and my privacy.

But NOW, my accounts won’t work and it appears to be because of my icloud refusal to use, and keychains not being managed on my box.
CRT days are ugly memories from my past.

Is everything on Mac now tied to icloud and my apple ID? How did this gulag happen while I was asleep at the wheel.

Thanks if you have insight,
T

lurker (wth a small "l") • June 9, 2024 1:19 PM

NZ Govt drops contract with US-Israeli spyware firm Cobwebs Technologies. The govt had previously paid two years’ rental while still evaluating and not actively using the software. They are now in the market for an open source application that can spy on WhatsApp and similar.

‘https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/519051/mbie-ends-contract-with-spyware-company-but-is-looking-for-a-replacement

Winter • June 9, 2024 2:01 PM

@Troll Hidding Behind a Thousand Names

Witch

A Freudian slip of the pen?

ResearcherZero • June 9, 2024 9:22 PM

@echo

It doesn’t matter. Riki Sunak and Nigel Farage did not take part in the D-Day landings.
I don’t remember them taking part in any military operations.

It is all very insignificant. Despite the rhetoric from the vast majority of politicians, from any party, what happens behind the scenes never really changes. They all ignore the warnings about the problems coming down the pipeline, then blame one another.

There are endless distractions for the public to hide the fact that successive governments (and ministers) had the same policies, did the same things, and ignored the same advice.

People only remember what is talked about. Most of the decisions and actions that actually affect your lives are rarely talked about. Humans like to avoid the uncomfortable subjects.
Not the partisan talking points, but the really serious and underlying causes of problems.

There are two main strategies to polarise and divide you into voting blocks…

The Nostalgic Past/The Shining Fuiture

‘https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12971

No matter the ideology, polarising figures don’t often have very effective leadership, nor good long term outcomes for their constituents. Neither in the past or in the present.

Their policies result in declines in personal GDP. (They always emerge in difficult times.)
Then they complain that the standard of living has declined. It’s a simple recipe.

Many of the most prominent Kremlin backed separatists had short lived careers.
The outcomes for the public have not been great either. Be it Ukraine or Britain.

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-separatists-killed-donetsk-luhansk-assasinations/32980312.html

ResearcherZero • June 9, 2024 9:39 PM

The right views the story of their country as one of decline to be stopped, the left as one of potential for progress that needs to be grasped.

“These findings …perhaps offers lessons to those politicians who’d like to reach across the divide.”

‘https://phys.org/news/2024-04-rightwing-beliefs-view-leftwingers-future.html

“endorsing the same political ideology is not necessarily associated with sharing the same values”

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1948550618803348

Belief in conspiracy theories is about equally common on different sides of the political spectrum.

‘https://reason.com/volokh/2023/11/02/are-right-wingers-more-prone-to-believe-conspiracy-theories-than-left-wingers/

France, in the summer of 1789…

Those who thought the king should have an absolute veto sat on the right of the president of the assembly, and those who thought he should not — the more radical view — sat on the left of the president of the assembly. In other words, those who wanted to hew closer to tradition were on the right, and those who wanted more change were on the left.
https://www.history.com/news/how-did-the-political-labels-left-wing-and-right-wing-originate

ResearcherZero • June 9, 2024 10:16 PM

The world has made immense progress.

‘https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions

Living to and Dying at Older Ages.

“In 1900, the average life expectancy of a newborn was 32 years. By 2021 this had more than doubled to 71 years.”
https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy

The chart shows that almost 10% of the world’s population live in extreme poverty. It also tells us that two hundred years ago, the same was true for almost 80% of the world’s population.

‘https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions

–

Both presidential candidates, Biden and Donald Trump, need now to explain to their domestic and international audiences why the United States should not adopt the “sole-purpose” policy and why they refused as presidents to negotiate a no-first-use treaty with China.

‘https://thebulletin.org/2024/06/why-a-substantive-and-verifiable-no-first-use-treaty-of-nuclear-weapons-is-possible/

“Beijing has not responded to Washington’s nuclear-weapons risk-reduction proposals”
https://www.newsweek.com/china-nuclear-russia-united-states-threat-1910033

Recent promotion of new reactor technologies appears to disregard decades-old concerns about nuclear proliferation…

‘https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado8693

…”all nations, especially our own, have a duty to maintain nuclear safety. Thus, all international parties need to continue to adapt policy and assess and develop global engagement to minimise the probability of risk realisation and consequence.”

https://www.rusi.org/networks/uk-poni/nuclear-reactions/chinas-civil-nuclear-strategy-and-risk-it-poses-nuclear-proliferation-africa

Clive Robinson • June 10, 2024 1:23 AM

@ ResearcherZero, JonKnowsNothing, SpaceLifeForn, ALL,

Re : Living to and Dying at Older Ages.

Flat on my back even in a hospital bed is not very comfortable at the best of times. Being woken for blood tests is one of the “makes me grumpy” discomforts 😉

However when not the best, lying here waiting for medical issues to be investigated by “various instruments of modern science and historic torture” your mind tends to focus on “longevity or the lack there of” and what modern medicine can do either way for you.

As I mentioned a while ago I got hospitalised just a few days after my second C19 shot with a massive clot in the heart and something less than 1/4 of cardiac output. Yes there was sufficient recovery to get pushed back into “community / GP” medical care. But it appears that there are grounds to believe that this is still an ongoing issue even though I did not get Covid. That is I now have peripheral arterial complications and quite visible oedema and complications where even a minor scratch is still an active and visible wound more than 1/3year later and no end in sight (one wound is coming up to it’s second anniversary). Then there are the wounds from necessary surgery, that are lets say “not looking very pretty”. As for internal organs… Let’s not go there as autoimmune issues are getting worse.

If I were a “classic car” they would recommend a full “strip down and rebuild” with replacement parts, but that apparently is contra-indicated in most humans…

What is not helping matters is what appears to have been a cyber-attack for ransomware is in effect still ongoing,

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/nhs-london-stephen-powis-hospital-russian-b1163195.html

And yes people will be dying before their time because of it and fingers crossed etc.

What is not being talked about though is that some people although looking healthy have the artificial spike protein mRNA still actively causing issues in their cardiovascular system.

What is not known and is not being talked about in most places (Australia being an exception) is what happens if you get a transfusion of blood from such a person…

So my common sense advice is,

If you can reasonably avoid any activities which could result in you needing a transfusion then I’d avoid them untill more is known.

echo • June 10, 2024 1:44 PM

https://x.com/SJTHolland/status/1800103468813988324
The fact that the dog kicker fash candidate had to be ejected from the count centre after
* pushing a female candidate
* verbally abusing and threatening the life of a TD, an elected representative of the people
* physically assaulting another TD
tells us a lot about who they are

[THREAD]

Sarah, a Sinn Fein candidate in the Republic Ireland, has a few things to say on how to spot a Nazi.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/opinion/views/badenochs-anti-trans-birth-certificate-policy/

What is more likely would happen (and has already begun to happen owing to the bigotry this type of anti-trans rhetoric has enabled) is a kind of gender-critical militia approach.

As numerous social media videos will attest, women (most of them cisgender but tall/large/gender-nonconforming in some way) are being confronted and denied access to public toilets, both in the US and here in the UK.

Our access to single-sex spaces is, terrifyingly, beginning to hinge on how closely we resemble some arbitrary blueprint of womanhood.

Does Badenoch delight in the idea of a future where vital services are being denied to women based on the same criteria?

Women who protect ALL women have warned about this for some years now. The right wing moral panic over women born transgender is resulting in women born cisgender being abused and physically attacked. There have been multiple attacks over the past month alone and those are only the reported attacks.

https://metro.co.uk/2024/06/10/map-shows-uk-hotspots-sexual-orientation-transgender-hate-crimes-20977346/

With the Government clamping down on LGBTQ+ rights, it no surprise the number of hate crime reports has shot up.

What this should say is with the government going back on manifesto commitments, and abusing public office, and peddling unlawful behaviours and messaging helped in good part by media regulators stuffed with their cronies turning a blind eye and media (including the Daily Mail which owns Metro) pushing disinformation and hate speech…

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/exclusive-keir-starmer-says-he-will-end-tory-culture-wars-if-he-becomes-prime-minister_uk_6666d7d2e4b02fc48bf3ec39

Exclusive: Keir Starmer Says He Will End Tory Culture Wars If He Becomes Prime Minister.

Starmer added: “The Tories have got nowhere else to go but this divisive culture war area, and I do think that if we do win the election I do want it to be a reset moment for politics in a number of different ways.

“The most important thing to me personally is to restore politics to service, a sense that this we are here to serve the country, but also this sense of bringing people together.”

I forget who but one of the people involved with the Nuremberg trials was asked if he had insight into why the Nazi’s did what they did. His answer was the only common thing he discovered about them is they all lacked empathy.

https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/liberal-democrats-make-care-and-disabled-peoples-rights-central-their-manifesto

Liberal Democrats make Care and Disabled peoples rights central to their manifesto.

Disabled and other vulnerable people and children have been treated appallingly by the Tories. A cruel country which doesn’t look after people and its future is doomed. That’s pretty much why I feel the Tory party and the far right in general are death cults.

vas pup • June 10, 2024 6:26 PM

This is the dangerous Venezuelan gang infiltrating the US that you probably
know nothing about but should
https://www.yahoo.com/news/dangerous-venezuelan-gang-infiltrating-us-
110048415.html

“An alleged multistate human trafficking ring forcing immigrant women into prostitution. The mysterious killing of a former police officer in South Florida. Attacks against police officers in New York. The arrest of a drug dealer in Chicago.

Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal gang that originated in a Venezuela prison and has slowly made its way south and north in recent years. They say it’s now operating in the United States. The scale of its operations is unknown, but crimes attributed to alleged members of the gang have worried elected officials and some Republican members of Congress have asked the Biden administration “to formally designate the vicious Tren de Aragua as a Transnational Criminal Organization.”

For several years, the criminal group has terrorized South American countries, including Venezuela, its country of origin, as well as Bolivia, Colombia, Chile and Peru. Retired general Óscar Naranjo, a former vice president of Colombia and chief of the Colombian National Police, told CNN Tren de Aragua is “the most disruptive criminal organization operating nowadays in Latin America, a true challenge for the region.”

More interesting details inside

walking 0 • June 11, 2024 3:02 AM

And @Clive, don’t miss those 2 wonderful sentences there:

“The thing about paper is when you make a mistake you make them one at a time,”

“With electronic patient record systems, it gives you the opportunity unfortunately to make the same mistake thousands of times.”

Secure • June 11, 2024 6:31 AM

@ echo

what is your threat model for securing against the visitors to this site?

What Price Common sense? • June 11, 2024 9:01 AM

@walking 0
@slashed zero
@ALL

“The thing about paper is when you make a mistake you make them one at a time,”

@Clive used to say it as,

“Paper Paper never data!”

With regards

“Be careful that “system” doesn’t delete you…”

That paper issue might reset you, but doctors used to be used to medical files not being to hand. So mostly paper records did not kill you. But

“With electronic patient record systems, it gives you the opportunity unfortunately to make the same mistake thousands of times.”

Does cause people to die.

But the problem the BBC article does not go into is why?

Sadly it’s the “User Interface” that is at the bottom of around 12% of avoidable deaths in a medical setting…

See more in

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/06/exploiting-mistyped-urls.html/#comment-438265

Anonymous • June 11, 2024 1:29 PM

There is a new security feature in iOS 18 called Lock an App for those moments you want to hand your iPhone to another person but you don’t want them to access certain apps.

JonKnowsNothing • June 11, 2024 2:38 PM

@ Clive, ALL

re: Die now or Die Later

I am very glad to see you are still oot-n-aboot.

The book “Deaths of Despair” (1) is quite readable although it is also a full semester of “The Economic Outcomes of the Hayek Model” (aka Austerity or XAUSTD), until you get to ~Chapter 13 where the cannons are fired directly at The Global Medical Establishment.

TMI RL;DR

My own current status is Unknown due to economic rule changes for medical support in the USA (and elsewhere see: XAUSTD) where I no longer qualify for medical financial assistance or Rx support.

It’s an interesting place to be actually, somewhere between Ancient Divination and Sheer Terror, with no practical medical support at all.

Under Austerity, Global Economic Policy (Western) has been retracting COVID Pandemic supports across the board: food, shelter, medical care, work and child supports. Along with this restructuring the definitions used to set Thresholds and Ceilings for support services shifted to make fewer people eligible for such supports. In the USA we use The Federal Poverty Index which is calculated by Government Actuaries each year. Against this metric various services set how they will triage or exclude people. There is less funding so there are fewer services that can be provided and with fewer services they have to find some unassailable metric to exclude folks (to avoid legal challenges). You are either In or Out of the metric.

In 2022, 2023 when these thresholds were more relaxed I was IN. In 2024 the thresholds are narrower and the support levels are reduced, so I am functionally OUT.

I have a rare genetic blood condition and the medication costs $60,000 USD per year or $5,000 USD per month. There are regular tests, exams, imaging to monitor the condition.

When you think you have found all the fine-print, there is always another set of fine print you have to hurdle. In my case the hurdles worked. I have no functional health care although I have health insurance and pay monthly for such insurance.

The fine print splits this into Medical and Rx. If I pass a specific financial expenditure for Medical bucket I can get moved into the 100% bucket for Medical – tests and exams. If I pass a specific financial expenditure for Rx I can move into the 100% bucket for Rx. These are independent buckets.

It’s an Austerity-XAUSTD Clawback effectively saving my health insurer $60,000 USD in RX plus $$$$ in Dx services while maintaining their PR Profile of “they got 50% off, how ungrateful can someone be…” (2)

This is where USA Medical Debt begins to explode. I would have to incur ~$40,000 of Medical Debt to get treatment and Rx.

I will not spend $40,000 USD because I do not have $40,000 USD to spend. I am a few months from moving into the Tent Line Under The Freeway.

I am unwell. I have been unwell for months. I know some of what makes me unwell and can only guess at other items that can contribute.

My Divination Rune Casting;

Is it a gastro bug (can take forever if it’s CDiff)

Is it Chronic Kidney Stone problems (my kidneys produce concrete every few days)

Is it my spleen on the verge of exploding (an aspect of disorder)

Is it the Portal vein between the spleen and liver getting ready to pressure rupture (an aspect of the disorder)

Is it the increased Cytokines which are the hallmark of the genetic condition (I’m a walking Cytokine Storm )

Has my bone marrow stopped producing red blood cells (autoimmune response)

ymmv, mine is out of warranty

===

1)

h ttps:/ /en.wik ipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Case

ht tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Deaton

2)

The Health Insurer is not out ANY funds. All funds are reimbursed by the USGov Medicare System. Health Insurers are required to have a fund for people who cannot pay for care, based on the amount of money they get from Medicare and Medicaid system. It’s a reserve account, the unused amount released as profit at the end of cycle and a new fund is established based on the FPI for that year.

echo • June 11, 2024 4:29 PM

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40648470

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

Lynn Conway Has Died. Sad news during LGBT Pride Month. Lynne was a pioneer and an icon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkVyQK3swr4
Co-leader of the Green Party, Carla Denyer, speaks to 5 News’ Dan Walker in the latest episode of ‘People Behind Politics’ series about her big hopes for the next general election, her party’s finances and the abuse she receives as a politician.

Carla is LGBT and an engineer. As one light goes out another burns.

During the panel debate I liked her comments on knife crime. She understands it’s not a kinetic problem but a problem of poverty which needs investment in education and social policy and child care and giving families and communities support and hope.

She has a good sense of humour too which is always helpful!

lurker • June 11, 2024 8:01 PM

@JonKnowsNothing

I’m sorry to hear your troubles. But,

“the unused amount [from Medicare/Medicaid] released as profit …”

Is this capitalism at work? or socialism? or both, or neither?

ResearcherZero • June 11, 2024 10:18 PM

@JonKnowsNothing

The problem with Scam Culture is that it only caters to the healthy and does not cover any illness or disease. It is purely profit driven and has no incentive for public good.

The cost of not treating health conditions has a huge cost on society. But private companies are not paying for that cost. We are all paying the cost of this model.

You can clearly see it with Australia’s public health system. As it does not cover dental,
many have missing or rotting teeth. This then causes a range of other health issues. The private health system in Australia is not great either, and many private hospitals have closed or do not treat a range of injuries and conditions. This means you are then sent to the very same public hospitals where you could have gotten better treatment and for free.

It is why as soon as you are diagnosed with an injury or illness you are booted from the military or secret services. Any injuries obtained come out of your own pocket. They will restart your heart though if you die during operation, so there is the odd perk.

Can’t sleep because of all the terrible stuff you saw and hideous death? See the medic.
They used to hand out pain killers like lollies to suppress the pain and violent urges.
Much cheaper than the cost of a trained psychologist specialising in front line trauma.

The politicians all get excellent health care. Something which should be a human right!

–

high operational tempo

COATHANGER injects a backup of itself in the process responsible for rebooting the system.
The second-stage RAT hooks system calls and can also survive firmware upgrades.

“Coathanger could be used along with an any future FortiGate device vulnerability.”

The actor was aware of CVE-022-42475 at least two months prior to disclosure.

‘https://english.ncsc.nl/latest/news/2024/june/10/ongoing-state-sponsored-cyber-espionage-campaign-via-vulnerable-edge-devices

Organizations that use FortiGate devices can check if they are affected using the detection methods described in section 4 of this report:

‘https://www.ncsc.nl/binaries/ncsc/documenten/publicaties/2024/februari/6/mivd-aivd-advisory-coathanger-tlp-clear/TLP-CLEAR+MIVD+AIVD+Advisory+COATHANGER.pdf

–

Old vulnerabilities used by advanced web shell for remote code execution.

Upgrade ThinkPHP to the most recent version, currently version 8.0.

‘https://www.akamai.com/blog/security-research/2024-thinkphp-applications-exploit-1-days-dama-webshell

–

A coordinated campaign of capturing credentials, technique testing and exfiltration.

“activity clusters were observed in the same organization, during the same time frame, and even on the same endpoints”

The actors overwrote the beginning code section of a SysInternals executable to hide obfuscated malware. They also utilised a range of side-loading DLL techniques and abused legitimate binaries and accounts. Then exfiltrated detailed infrastructure, user and management data, including recovery.

‘https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2024/06/05/operation-crimson-palace-a-technical-deep-dive/

EAGERBEE
https://www.elastic.co/security-labs/introducing-the-ref5961-intrusion-set

exfiltrated – military, cybersecurity, and economic interests in the South China Sea

‘https://blogapp.bitdefender.com/labs/content/files/2024/05/Bitdefender-Report-DeepDive-creat7721-en_EN.pdf

ResearcherZero • June 11, 2024 10:58 PM

If we only care for ourselves and do not care for the welfare of others, then of course our society will crack and crumble. We will all fall through the cracks eventually. People cannot afford a home if they are sick, and will get sick if they cannot afford health care.

The purely profit driven model has destroyed our planet, our bodies and poisoned our souls.
We must stop abandoning people to the f–king streets. It’s completely unacceptable!

Currently, Australia is the only western liberal democracy without a human rights act.
This means it is up to public servants to decide on their own whim. If they will help.

Transgressions can just be hand-balled around indefinitely:

Currently it apparently does “not add value in the public interest” to investigate people who engage in illegality even if people die as a result or are unfairly treated.

“under our current patchwork of laws…when people’s rights are breached, there may not be means through which they can seek effective remedy”

‘https://www.jurist.org/news/2024/05/australia-parliamentary-inquiry-calls-for-federal-human-rights-act/

The central, missing piece of our toothless domestic legislative framework.
https://humanrights.gov.au/about/news/speeches/new-national-human-rights-framework-australia

Public service officers at all levels, in all agencies, have a role in this.

‘https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/cultural-change-needed-align-security-economics

…

National Anti-Corruption Commission won’t investigate Robodebt Royal Commission referrals:

“In the absence of a real likelihood of a further investigation producing significant new evidence, it is undesirable for a number of reasons to conduct multiple investigations into the same matter. This includes the risk of inconsistent outcomes, and the oppression involved in subjecting individuals to repeated investigations.”

~ National Anti-Corruption Commission

(Subjecting victims to repeated investigations that go nowhere is absolutely fine and allowing the people responsible to go free is the desired outcome. Ensuring a repeat.)

“But it is a funny kind of illegality if nobody is held responsible and accountable for ever doing anything illegal. It’s an illegality that merely floats around in abstract terms, never dirtying the hands of the people who devised and ran the scheme.”

https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/06/07/nacc-robodebt-royal-commission-officials-investigation/

Clive Robinson • June 12, 2024 1:51 AM

@ JonKnowsNothing,

Re : Die now or Die Later

I am very glad to see you are still oot-n-aboot.

Well not exactly… Though I’m not in the box yet, I’ve had one set of operations in the year so far, and I’m allegedly “healing” and they are sharpening the blades and polishing up the tools for something further in the medieval dept again.

So I’m still very much off of my feet and bound to bed / chair and lets just say going to the loo is a case of hitting the bottle if you get your aim right.

I can not sleep in a normal position, or sit normally and as for “being on my feet” well getting on them is neither easy or painless and let’s just say there is many a time during the day when the floor becomes a very close companion… Which has had a detrimental effect on many things including my teeth, and furniture. The score on breakages so far as “write-offs” two chairs, a table and a bed… Yet no bones broken so I must be “toughing it out”.

Another detrimental effect is the fact that in hospital these days they have “patient safety regulations” that come colour coded… Apparently yellow means you are “an unsteady old git” as far as remaining an upright citizen, and it serves as a warning to others so they can ensure they don’t get in your way as you are obviously Mr Dangerous…

After all going over like a giant redwood apparently can squash people… Yup there is a not so subtle subliminal message in the things you get told when they wheel you in…

So you get “issued” a bright yellow little comfort blanket for the end of your bed or lap. And “bright canary yellow anti-slip socks in “one size does not fit all”. And they admonish you insistently you have to wear all the time… And no they don’t find it funny when you ask the obvious “Does that include the shower?”…

The problem is that for various reasons as “Mr Big / Dangerous” I do not fit in their safety committee thought out schemes.

So there is a rule that if you move around you are supposed to take the darn comforter with you like a plague warning… Which as it’s to small for a shawl and I walk with crutches raises the question of where to put it…

They think biting on the corner so it hangs from your mouth like a flag on a pole is not a good idea. But… when you point out that the alternative is gripping it between your other cheeks so it hangs like a tail…

Secondly as I’m not “Mr Average” those socks just don’t fit or stay on either. But what ever you do, do not point out they are a “bl@@dy tripping hazard”. That’s a way to get “confined” to bed/chair as punishment. Further as I tower a foot or two above a lot of the nurses and doctors I’m easily recognised “down range” so they can see you’ve broken parole…

The worst thing though is many of the nurses cute as they are can walk under my arms with room to spare. So I get that Lemuel Gulliver in a Jonathan Swift novel feeling. That is am I going to wake up “strapped down” or is someone going to ask if I’m a big-endian…

But as a practical issue they can not really physically support you, especially as you look down on the tops of their heads. Worse you know that when they look up at you, all they really see is your double chin and nostril hair…

Or on one of those less than rare occasions that you’ve involuntarily decided to become a tripping hazard by “hugging the floor”, you notice that the dialog has changed. It used to be,

“Are you all right? Don’t move we’ll get someone to help you up.”

Now it’s,

Can you move?

With the all to visible mental subtext of,

“Get oot t’ bloo’dy way, yer making t’ place look untidy again!”

So being at home currently is somewhat of a relief and I have the fun of going up stairs on all fours and down again on my backside. So I’m starting to get that feeling of being “a second story man”.

But as the old smokers up in Yorkshire say after splutteringly coughing and wheezing up their lungs,

“Can’t complain, now’t, can’t complain”

So hopefully having raised a wry smile on your face I hope other things in your life improve both a lot and quickly.

ResearcherZero • June 12, 2024 2:07 AM

@JohnKnowNothing

If you live in a regional or rural area, now Australian mothers must drive hundreds of kilometers, as our local hospitals no longer have a maternity ward. Delivery of a child no longer involves community involvement or the visiting of new mothers and new born babies.

Patients here must be flown 300km to the city. You have to shut your business if a family member is sick, as we no longer have a fully functioning hospital. We have a small new hospital for basic stuff. Many people here get injured and we have an ageing community.

Though trickle-down theory has been shown to be deeply flawed, this attitude is shaped by political beliefs (rather than expert economic advice) and beliefs often change little over time amongst those with much higher fixed incomes. They do not experience this change.

Politicians are so far removed they do not understand the effect of unequal health care.
Families like mine could afford to provide the library and recreational/sporting facilities, but hospitals and health care are only within the affordability of government.

The government made billions from our district and we have got little back in return.
They have let everyone down by not providing adequate health care and public housing.

Economic inequality may have even more far-reaching consequences than commonly believed…

‘https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12800

“as they become rich, their attitudes become markedly more conservative.”

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/does-income-shape-political-attitudes/

Political opinions matter when people consider the past and the future.
The study found no difference in how people evaluate the present.

‘https://phys.org/news/2024-03-political-beliefs-history.html

There is a significant association between income inequality and economic growth.

Government redistribution matters more than ever (and it matters a lot)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1470594X231178502

–

. . . understanding of culture may help improve efficacy of policy making.

‘https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/slowes/files/lowes_hpechapter_2022.pdf

“The social and economic consequences of inequality are profound and far-reaching: a growing sense of unfairness, precarity, perceived loss of identity and dignity, weakening social fabric, eroding trust in institutions, disenchantment with political processes, and an erosion of the social contract.”
https://www.weforum.org/press/2020/01/revealed-why-economies-benefit-from-fixing-inequality/

Clive Robinson • June 12, 2024 6:50 AM

@ ResearcherZero, JonKnowsNothing, ALL,

Re : The King Game and the greed of nation.

Though trickle-down theory has been shown to be deeply flawed, this attitude is shaped by political beliefs (rather than expert economic advice) and beliefs often change little over time amongst those with much higher fixed incomes. They do not experience this change.

Everyone who could think and had studied history knew that trickle-down was not real, and realistically never had been.

It was pointed out by a well known Nobel physicist that the offices of the seniors in Universities told you much about their real world worth.

But simply when you looked behind things the offices told you how much income was coming in and what it was being made available for.

Those doing active research had no excess income to waste on “mens club” style offices. So they were mostly utilitarian, minimal, functional and usually close to if not within the active research area. They were most certainly not personal status symbols.

However those with paid for opinions who wrote wordy books of suasion without verifiable and repeatable proof had the mens club style offices.

The simple fact is certain alleged academic domains that are close to money, power, or both are their for a reason.

And that is to provide an excuse or more correctly a “fig leaf” for a chosen path of action.

So think of the real purpose of the “trickle down” fig leaf. If you examine it the argument is the more real not fiscal or faux-economic wealth there is at the top of a hierarchy the larger the amount there is for a percentage to flow down from so the best policy must be to accumulate all real wealth at the very top of the hierarchy.

Well real wealth in the form of physical resources does not “trickle down”, it’s not “pocket change tips in a restaurant” or similar paper money printed as needed. Nor is it contracts of economic intent. An activity designed to rapidly accrue paper money such that it can be rapidly exchanged for physical resources that can then be used to acquire rent or similar to then gain control of more physical resources.

The intent of trickle down is to actually turn those who have some physical resources into those with out who then have to rent what they need. It’s the application of “Might is Right” theft activity excused by falsehood to those who have nothing.

The notion is a form of “vote buying” where those without physical resources are persuaded to vote the resources of others upwards. So the middle classes become “the peoples enemy” whilst those hidden at the top of the hierarchy acquire those resources and the power that comes with them.

Thus the people without physical resources get sold a dream of Xmas without realising that they are “The turkeys voting for Xmas”.

The sad joke of it, is that the people coming up with the lie of trickle down don’t realise that in their own way they are turkeys as well as are most of the politicians and legislators.

In the US there is a debate about if “the 45th” will become the “1st convict”… Think on that for a moment then go study the history of somewhere like Chicago.

fib • June 12, 2024 8:28 AM

@Clive Robinson, @JonKnowsNothing

I feel your presence around, but it is always a pleasure to actually see you [well, sort of]. 🙂

Best wishes from ‘down there’.

polpo colpevole • June 12, 2024 11:31 AM

lying can no longer be dismissed as an unpleasant by-product of the political game

When was it ever ? That’s why the practice of the evil rhetoric (the unjust logos) is an ancient art. For true to life examples, Yes Minister, and Yes Prime Minister.

lurker • June 13, 2024 2:35 AM

‘Insane’ amounts of data spurs new storage tech. MSM sideways glance at a couple of new ways to store all those cat videos.

‘https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd116m3jyn1o

What Price common sense? • June 13, 2024 7:59 AM

@ALL

When training gets real or at least sounds that way…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2jj9855955o

It appears NASA inadvertantly diverted audio from a training session to one of their web sites, where it got picked up and went global via social media.

What is not clear is if it was an active training session or not (the ISS crew are suiting up for a space walk about at 1200Z / UTC).

The thing is that these “OMG Moments” are either getting more frequent or are getting globally amplified by social media. The likes of the “Hawaiian OMG we’re all going to die in a ballistic missile strike” still lingers for some,

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42680070

From a security perspective this sort of thing is quite problematic in many ways as well as using up scarce resources it can cause “Emergancy Fatigue” where people just do not respond.

The point is we know one basic reason why it happens “training is made real” on the actual equipment that will be used in a real emergency.

And unfortunately it’s all to easy for audio and video to get out of the “training simulation on the actual equipment” past any not correctly set “interlocks” to go out live.

So as underlying systems get more complex and humans move further from direct control we are going to get more issues like this as a consequence. So the question arises as to if there is a way to limit the effects or verify if it’s real or training etc?

Whilst no solution is 100% there are ways, one of which is sometimes incorrectly called “Source Coding” that is you put a subliminal verification data channel on the image / audio as being an integral part of it’s generation.

Back in the late 1990’s there was a lot of work done into “Digital Rights Management”(DRM) amongst which was “Digital Watermarking”(DW). By using a variation in “Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum”(DSSS) techniques what looks / sounds like a low level noise signal can be added to images or audio etc. In reality the noise signal is a low bandwidth data sub-channel integrally linked into the base analogue signal.

Whilst DW was a failure for DRM because a sufficient investment in effort could jam/distort the DSSS signal beyond use without too significantly damaging the images or audio so motivated individuals could get around it, it is still useful as a way of embedding information.

So training tapes etc could be watermarked with time, date and “useage” codes such that even if they inadvertantly get broadcast they will get flagged up immediately.

What Price common sense? • June 13, 2024 8:30 AM

@lurker
@ALL

“‘Insane’ amounts of data spurs new storage tech.”

And the aim is to store more, much much more.

Hence the bit/mm^3 issue.

Back in times past data on magnetic media was stored as an analogue signal that was effectively in one dimension along the tape.

Then helical scanning made it effectively two dimensional that is both across and along the tape

The we moved from digitally encoded analogue signals to quasi-digital signals.

Each time that bit/mm^3 went up and as a consequence the actual area for each bit went down and reliability became an issue. One solution as used on CD’s was significant “distributed error correction codes”. Whilst the reduces the bit/mm^3 a lot it brings the reliability up even more so has a net positive benifit.

The first multi layer storage most will have come across was double sided DVD’s followed by each side becoming dual layer.

Multi layers cause interesting issues because you have to “see through” other layers that look like either significant crosstalk or noise.

But what ever we do the aim is to get the effective bit/mm^3 up.

But there are limits, as the volume of each bit goes down the “quantum noise” effects go up which unlike other interference signals such as crosstalk can not be removed from the recovered signal.

So yup there are limits on those cat videos, just as nature built into the cats.

lurker • June 13, 2024 2:22 PM

@Winter, @ALL

My point about referring to the “insane” amounts of data as cat videos, was, just what the heck is all this data? And do we really need to store it? Archivists and librarians like and are taught to keep everything, forever, The subject of the interview was one such.

But even our draconian tax laws still assume records are generated on paper (@Clive’s fvourite, and mine), and thus require only that they be kept for seven years. So what happens when some data that legally could have been destroyed, but a copy still exists on some disk lying around somewhere? And we’re not talking Scottsdale here, presumably anybody could have one of these glass or polymer systems.

lurker • June 13, 2024 11:39 PM

Yet another threat from Starlink, and all those LEO birds that burn up on de-orbiting. They create an awful lot of aluminium oxide nanoparticles which catalyse the chlorine dissociation of ozone molecules.

‘https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL109280

ResearcherZero • June 14, 2024 3:32 AM

@Clive

Our good old friends from fossil fuel firms are at most of those meetings and outspend (along with their trade representation bodies) more than all other industries. Over $400m
a year, and they hire an army of lobbyists to ensure they maintain their tax breaks.

Despite record profits due to increasing exports, spikes in wholesale prices are passed onto consumers. Hence the increase in electricity/gas prices and it’s flow-on effect. As the domestic supply of gas decreases due to surges in exports (LNG exports will double over the next few years), the consumer will pay for the cost of exporting this gas.

‘https://ieefa.org/resources/gas-exports-cost-us-consumers-more-100-billion-over-16-month-period

Fossil fuel firms lobbied heavily for the increased tax credit for capturing carbon dioxide and other incentives that increase their profits. The combined lobbying, political contribution and advertising efforts of trade groups opposed to climate change legislations outspent climate advocacy groups by 27 to 1 between 2008 and 2018.

This is why it took 35 years to pass to pass a major climate bill. One that has very considerable perks and the maintained interests carved out for the fossil fuel industry.

“Many of you are taking advantage of those irresistible tax credits. Good!”
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/ceraweek-granholm-speech-lng-pause-19205749.php

A who’s who of who is cashing in:

‘https://ceraweek.com/speakers.html

–

Further information on global-scale DNS probing by Chinese actors.

‘https://blogs.infoblox.com/threat-intelligence/what-a-show-an-amplified-internet-scale-dns-probing-operation/

Winter • June 14, 2024 4:22 AM

@ResearcherZero
Re: Subsidies on fossil fuels

The Netherlands subsidises fossil fuels with 46B euro in tax and direct subsidies.

‘https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/dutch-firms-get-up-49-bln-annually-fossil-fuel-subsidies-report-2023-09-19/

ResearcherZero • June 14, 2024 4:33 AM

But the price of some houses might decrease.

Some lenders have stopped issuing mortgages in flood zones, with others to follow…

Water Authority to update flood modelling for first time in two decades.

“The authority’s new flood modelling for its other catchments will be completed by 2026”

‘https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-13/kensington-banks-melbourne-water-flood-mapping-value-loss-fears/103960736

Homebuyers in flood-hit areas face higher deposit requirements, reduced valuations, higher fees and delays in approval times, whether or not their property was inundated.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/cautious-banks-could-change-approach-to-home-loans-in-flood-prone-areas-20220315-p5a4vy.html

No longer offer new mortgages for properties in “0-20 year” flood zones — where there is a five per cent chance of flooding in any given year.

‘https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/rising-water-quebec-lender-ending-new-mortgages-in-flood-zones-just-the-beginning-1.6801736

–

For 421 straight days, a marine heat wave in the North Atlantic broke temperature records.

‘https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/record-breaking-ocean-heat-wave-foreshadows-a-dangerous-hurricane-season/

When water temperatures warm from 80 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit, studies show tropical rainfall — one of the deadliest calling cards of tropical storms and hurricanes — increases by a factor of five. Generally speaking, the warmer the water temperatures, the more heat energy is available and the higher the potential for tropical cyclones to develop.

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/05/what-you-need-to-know-about-record-breaking-heat-in-the-atlantic/

Hurricanes are fueled by heat in the top layers of the ocean and require sea surface temperatures (SSTs) greater than 79 degrees Fahrenheit (26 degrees Celsius) to form and thrive.

‘https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/how-climate-change-may-be-impacting-storms-over-earths-tropical-oceans/

–

Almost everyone in the US might be entitled to Clearview AI shares from settlement.
A couple each at least.

‘https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/13/technology/clearview-ai-facial-recognition-settlement.html

Winter • June 14, 2024 5:27 AM

@ResearcherZero

Fortunately much of the Netherlands is below sea level.

Even better. In addition to having to keep out the sea, a lot of the rain that falls in SW Germany, NE France, and East Belgium flows through the Netherlands to reach the sea, ie, the Rhine and Meuse tributaries.

Luckily for us, most of the rain that caused the recent floods in south Germany went to the Donau. But in the last few years, the water of the Meuse came to an inch or so under the top of the river levies. That was very close. Belgians and the French were less lucky.

Lurker • June 14, 2024 2:14 PM

@ResearcherZero

and here in little NZ our new right-wing coalition govt is doing its bit by tearing down previous restrictions on offshore oil and gass exploration; and by allowing coal mining on National Park and reserve land.