Brainiac Academy (thread for interesting articles, blogposts, lectures and other stuff to expand ur mind)

[LongJohn]

Rat-faced Man is great. More people need to get that the boomer wealth gap is a big part of why the labor participation rate is so low among young people (and therefore why there are so many NEETs nowadays).

I don't know if this engages with your point at all but the ANOM thing, Operation Trojan Shield, seemed to work pretty well. Like obviously the stuff happening in Australia with FriendlyJordies is a pretty good example of intelligence services being abused but I just thought I'd give an example of spyware being used well?

[AdamZane]

Rat-faced Man is great. More people need to get that the boomer wealth gap is a big part of why the labor participation rate is so low among young people (and therefore why there are so many NEETs nowadays).

I don't know if this engages with your point at all but the ANOM thing, Operation Trojan Shield, seemed to work pretty well. Like obviously the stuff happening in Australia with FriendlyJordies is a pretty good example of intelligence services being abused but I just thought I'd give an example of spyware being used well?

Do you mind going into this more?

[LongJohn]

Do you mind going into this more?

Wow so polite, yeah I'd love to. I mentioned it a little in mchat but basically, the FBI made a private messaging app (called ANOM) for drug dealers and were using it to keep tabs on international drug trafficking between ECHELON/five eyes countries (like enigma they had to let some get away so that it wouldn't be obvious how they were being caught, make up bogus lines of inquiry, etc), this all started in October 2018. Anyway, then this blogger "canyouguess67" downloaded the thing and was like "yo this app seems to be talking a lot with google whenever I send a private message" I don't really know about phones but suffice to say he made a post about how it was sus and then three months later (June, 2021) the FBI and police in USA, AUS, and NZ all launched a synchronized worldwide drug bust called operation trojan shield (operation ironside in Australia) which they made a big show and tell about how successful it was, and how the goal was ultimately to undermine faith in encrypted messaging apps -- but the antithesis of that is that they shat themselves and tried to catch everyone they could before it was too late and word got out about their app being phony. I don't have any facts or stats about how it disrupted international drug trafficking but they say they did a good job, and if true it's a win for spyware. The original blog was taken down but it's been reuploaded or archived or somthing here https://anomexposed.wordpress.com/2021/ ... m-exposed/

[Art+F4]

https://newmodels.io/proprietary/irony- ... -citarella

this is kind of cool and highlights the aspect of the performative participation of gen z in politics, mostly as an effort of self-definition, interesting article but I must say the way the author expresses about the alt-right hits me with a little bit of lefty cringe.

[rocko]

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015 ... t-is-code/

Classic. I work as an SWE and I'm constantly learning more new facts and cool stuff about computer science/coding. Worth finishing, there's a treat at the end if you do

[rocko]

Even more stuff:

-> Found this link roundup of cool, interesting stuff that I'm unfortunately too busy to deep dive right now: https://clivethompson.medium.com/a-diy- ... 3fc5130445

-> I'm a big computer fan, and I recently learned that Dijkstra's memo collection was published online in full way back: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/index02xx.html

A few favorites of mine are:

• "The end of Computing Science" https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd13xx/EWD1304.PDF

• "On hygiene, intellectual and otherwise" https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd10xx/EWD1054.PDF

• "Why American Computing Science seems incurable" https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd12xx/EWD1209.PDF

[containercore]

Even more stuff:

-> Found this link roundup of cool, interesting stuff that I'm unfortunately too busy to deep dive right now: https://clivethompson.medium.com/a-diy- ... 3fc5130445

-> I'm a big computer fan, and I recently learned that Dijkstra's memo collection was published online in full way back: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/index02xx.html

A few favorites of mine are:

• "The end of Computing Science" https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd13xx/EWD1304.PDF

• "On hygiene, intellectual and otherwise" https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd10xx/EWD1054.PDF

• "Why American Computing Science seems incurable" https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd12xx/EWD1209.PDF

Have you ever read Scott Locklin's blog? His main thing is that all engineering has been competely stagnant since some time in the 70s and that AI will never happen, which I think is probably accurate. But he writes about a lot of different stuff.
https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/

[rocko]

Even more stuff:

-> Found this link roundup of cool, interesting stuff that I'm unfortunately too busy to deep dive right now: https://clivethompson.medium.com/a-diy- ... 3fc5130445

-> I'm a big computer fan, and I recently learned that Dijkstra's memo collection was published online in full way back: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/index02xx.html

A few favorites of mine are:

• "The end of Computing Science" https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd13xx/EWD1304.PDF

• "On hygiene, intellectual and otherwise" https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd10xx/EWD1054.PDF

• "Why American Computing Science seems incurable" https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd12xx/EWD1209.PDF

Have you ever read Scott Locklin's blog? His main thing is that all engineering has been competely stagnant since some time in the 70s and that AI will never happen, which I think is probably accurate. But he writes about a lot of different stuff.
https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/

This is good, thanks for the recommendation! His design posts are neat, too.

[containercore]

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/12 ... .html#more

Brutal read fellow trainbros

As more and more reliable train routes are shut down in favour of high speed lines, international train travel becomes prohibitively expensive. Strangely enough, many of these abolished routes are almost as fast, and sometimes even faster, than the new, expensive high speed connections.

The Thalys is two to three times as expensive as the Étoile du Nord, while it's only 25% faster. For most people, the time gained by taking the high speed train is not worth the extra cost. However, since the Étoile du Nord has vanished, they are left no other choice than to pay more when they want to travel by train.

The Thalys is not an isolated case. The completion of the last link in the high speed line between Barcelona and Paris on December 15, 2013, had a predictable consequence: the abolishment of the direct night train between both cities, the Trenhotel Joan Miró. This very popular train ran daily in both directions and covered the distance in about 12 hours, leaving around 20h30 in evening and arriving around 08h30 in morning. It was introduced in 1974, and received its present name and rolling stock in 1991.

Again, this is not the time to marvel about the comfortable cabins, the linen table clothing in the dining car, or the many friends I have made on this trip. Let's just look at the numbers. The fare for a one-way trip on the Trenhotel Joan Miró was between €70 (ordered more than two weeks in advance) and €140 euro (ordered shortly before departure). The standard fare on the new high speed train covering the same trajectory is €170, up to twice as much. As with the Thalys, heavily advertised cheaper fares (€59 euro) are available for early bookers, but the availability of these tickets is very, very limited.

At first sight, it seems that you get something valuable in return for this steep price: a travel time of slightly over six hours. However, numbers don't tell the whole story here. On a night train, passengers sleep about seven to eight hours, which brings the perceived travel time back to between four and five hours -- faster than the high speed train. Furthermore, the night train meant you arrived in Paris or Barcelona in the early morning, which can be very practical. If you want to arrive early morning by high speed train, you need to take a train the day before and book a hotel, increasing the overall cost.

Despite its supposed efficiency, the high speed train will not make my travels any more sustainable. Passengers who switch from low speed trains to high speed trains, like I have to do now, increase energy use and carbon emissions. However, most Europeans aren't like me. If they travel between Amsterdam and Barcelona, they take a plane. If we are to believe the European Union, who has made the high speed train a key element in its strategy to make long-distance transportation less energy and carbon-intensive, passengers who now take planes will switch to high speed trains.

However, if you compare the ticket prices, it's obvious that this won't happen. You can fly back and forth between Barcelona and Amsterdam with a low-cost airline for €100 if you book one to two weeks in advance, and for about €200 if you buy the ticket on the day of departure. [6] That's compared to €580 for what the journey would cost you if you would take the high speed train. Furthermore, the flight only takes about two hours. Flying has become so cheap in Europe that it's now cheaper to live in Barcelona and commute by plane each day, than to live and work in London. [7]

[containercore]