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> The NIST elliptic curves that power much of modern cryptography were generated in the late ‘90s by hashing seeds provided by the NSA.

I find this deeply troubling. So the seeds were provided by the NSA and they said "don't worry, they were generated hashing a trivial sentence. Unfortunately we forgot it now, but trust us, it's just Jerry joking about getting a raise, nothing more..."

I can't believe this didn't undergo further scrutiny earlier, and I can't believe the seeds haven't been chosen in a more sensible way, such as combining random seeds provided by different parties with competing interests, also including hardware RNGs, etc...


> I can't believe the seeds haven't been chosen in a more sensible way, such as combining random seeds provided by different parties with competing interests, also including hardware RNGs, etc...

This is because you're looking at it from the perspective of someone living in 2023 with knowledge of what happened between the 90s and now. While that would have been a good way to go, at the time few people would have seen the need for it.


Well, with today's internet traffic mostly being encrypted, what would they need their large data centers such as Bluffdale for?

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


Protons are non-perturbative, indeed, but this does not mean that there are no virtual particles exchanged inside a proton. It seems like your comment implies that, sorry if I misunderstood.

On the contrary, this means that there are too many virtual particles (gluons) being exchanged inside a proton, so many that perturbation theory is not applicable.


Virtual particles are part of an indexing scheme for perturbation series - saying that you leave the perturbative regime when you have "too many" of them is like saying that crystalline solids melt when they have too many normal modes.


Finally an analogy where I understand neither comparison :)


Are gluons virtual? (Or are they virtual inside a proton?)


Your question is can be posed as “is there a well-behaved resonance of the gluon field in a proton, that lasts long enough for it to be identified”. It's kinda like identifying a bubble in a pot of cold water vs a pot just starting to boil vs a rolling boil.


Gluons are real.


Virtual particles are also "real", and if you don't believe me, at least you have to admit that virtual photons alone lead to real energy (e.g. Casimir effect) - and it has also been stated that gluons within protons can be interpreted as "virtual"... so I'm pretty sure your comment is wrong. I'd downvote you if I could since that seems to be what the cool kids here are doing but I used up all my karma telling the truth.


"Virtual particles are also "real"."

No doubt, and Casimir is probably sufficient evidence, but it seems to me a lot of confusion would be saved if we changed the name.

To what I don't know - perhaps something like say quantum energy disturbance but more eloquent or descriptive.


100%. "Possible" particle? :)


Part of these renewables are the so-called "biomass", which leads to pretty substantial CO2 emissions.

So basically they replaced a CO2-neutral energy source, with another which is pretty CO2-intensive.

Renewable does not mean good for the environment!


Biomass use in certain European countries is... all sorts of questionable. Some of it is wood imports from America for use as "green" energy, discounting the energy cost of shipment.


Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.


Still, cheating at chess is not murdering someone!


And being banned from competitive chess is not an execution or lengthy imprisonment.


I believe that your position is utterly immoral and cruel. Everyone deserves a path to redemption, and a kid cheating at chess in his childhood does not deserve an eternal punishment for the rest of his life because of it.

Imagine if he is a generational talent and one of the best in the world, are you really ready to deprive him any future just because he did stupid things as a kid?


Please, please, please stop with the waste management taking point!

There are super-safe and rather cheap ways of treating and storing nuclear waste!

It’s essentially a scaremongering talking point.


Which ways? Dumping them in some salt mines as we have done for the last 50 years? There is not a single "super-safe" and "cheap" way for Germany.


Nuclear wastes are incredibly small, the whole energy you would need in your life would fill a soda can of wastes, if only nuclear was used.

Geological repositories are an excellent solution. Those place are geologically stable, and can contain thousand of years of wastes. It’s not very expensive to collect wastes there, as well!


> researchers invented a fundamentally new kind of problem that a quantum computer should be able to solve exponentially faster

Telling of the status of the field.


I think the idea is that you might be able to reduce other problems to this problem space.


Is that a dig? I think it sounds promising and exciting


Ironically enough, the research itself is “quantum”


It’s very cool, but every update of mac OS resets it! After a while I didn’t bother to reactivate it…

Is there a permanent solution, that does not involve cron scripts or other hacks?


iTerm 2 password manager is a close no hacks required solution that's slightly more involved but not all that much - add your password and on sudo prompt hit cmd+shift+f, touch id and enter.

The touch id part is once per iterm session so overall it's not too bad and reasonably secure as it uses built-in keychain to store passwords I think.


I think there is a filesystem extended attribute that marks that file as part as the rootless system. If you exclude that attribute it might prevent it from being overwritten. I haven't tested it tho.


Just go with that. Far from being a hack, converging Unix-like system configuration from scripts run out of cron is downright mundane.


Why does every company need to try to take over the world?

They make toy bricks, they actually make the freaking best toy bricks ever… Just stick to that!

I know I might be exceedingly idealistic, and as soon as MBAs and consultants take over a company things need to change, but have strong feelings towards LEGO and I am fine being idealistic here!


When do you suggest companies to stop "innovating" to find new excellent products they can offer?

If Lego was to just continue doing what they initially did, they would still be doing houses and furniture as it was a carpentry shop initially.

If they would stop after their first "hit product" (The Lego plastic bricks), then we probably wouldn't have either Legoland nor Lego Tecnic, as just two examples. Some Lego video games have been excellent as well, and I wouldn't want to miss out on more in the future.

If they were to stop developing new ideas now, who knows what we're missing out on from the future?

As many companies have proven before, it's not impossible to remain competitive in their current market (plastic bricks), and still be able to create new cool stuff.

So I hope you're wrong, mostly for my own sake, because I still love the Lego bricks, and hope they remain the same, while I also look forward to what they can bring out in the future.


> they actually make the freaking best toy bricks ever

I’d disagree.

They used to, but currently the best toy brick would be chinese makers’ technic blocks (which might be 10% weaker than Lego bricks, but cost a third of the price and are available in bulk), coupled with an alternative controller like Sbrick or Buwizz or a few others that entered the market.

For simpler, more “classic” sets, the buckets are still good value to buy in physical retail stores, but otherwise frustrating to use compared to single or two/three color sets.


They can all smell all the cash left on the table from secondary revenue streams. Not saying they're doing this but potentially they could do: (1) the toy, (2) the app and cloud subscription for it, (3) spying, tracking and selling the user data, (4) ongoing subscription to automatically buy more of (1).

Some companies are going for all four! Eg https://www.usa.philips.com/c-e/pe/sonicare-subscription/hom...


World would be a better place if companies didn't turn into profit machines but instead tried to make affordable products for everyone. And perhaps open up their expertise for other companies.


You’ll have my mozzarella from my dead hands!


Dairy is not going anywhere in your lifetime, you (and I) don't have to worry. Choice is good.


[flagged]


You look forward to mozzarella? That’s a very good thing to do, probably best food ever! :)


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