In December 2013, a curator and archaeologist purchased an antique silk dress with an unusual feature: a hidden pocket that held two sheets of paper with mysterious coded text written on them. People have been trying to crack the code ever since, and someone finally succeeded: University of Manitoba data analyst Wayne Chan. He discovered that the text is actually coded telegraph messages describing the weather used by the US Army and (later) the weather bureau. Chan outlined all the details of his decryption in a paper published in the journal Cryptologia.
“When I first thought I cracked it, I did feel really excited,” Chan told the New York Times. “It is probably one of the most complex telegraphic codes that I’ve ever seen.”
Hobbes OS/2 Archive: "As of April 15th, 2024, this site will no longer exist."
In a move that marks the end of an era, New Mexico State University (NMSU) recently announced the impending closure of its Hobbes OS/2 Archive on April 15, 2024. For over three decades, the archive has been a key resource for users of the IBM OS/2 operating system and its successors, which once competed fiercely with Microsoft Windows. //
Archivists such as Jason Scott of the Internet Archive have stepped up to say that the files hosted on Hobbes are safe and already mirrored elsewhere. "Nobody should worry about Hobbes, I've got Hobbes handled," wrote Scott on Mastodon in early January. OS/2 World.com also published a statement about making a mirror. But it's still notable whenever such an old and important piece of Internet history bites the dust.
Like many archives, Hobbes started as an FTP site. "The primary distribution of files on the Internet were via FTP servers," Scott tells Ars Technica. "And as FTP servers went down, they would also be mirrored as subdirectories in other FTP servers. Companies like CDROM.COM / Walnut Creek became ways to just get a CD-ROM of the items, but they would often make the data available at http://ftp.cdrom.com to download." //
This story was updated on January 30 to reflect that the OS/2 archive likely started in 1990, according to people who ran the Hobbes server. The university ran Hobbes on one of two NeXT machines, the other called Calvin. //
Today we celebrate 80 years of Colossus, the code-breaking computer that played a pivotal role in WWII.
Today we have released a series of rare and never-before-seen images of Colossus, in celebration of the 80th anniversary of the code-breaking computer that played a pivotal role in the Second World War effort.
The Colossus computer was created during the Second World War to decipher critical strategic messages between the most senior German Generals in occupied Europe, but its existence was only revealed in the early 2000s after six decades of secrecy.
Any judicial nominee named by Joe Biden knows he/she is going to have to answer questions in a hearing for the job, and they know that they're going to have to face Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) and his test of basic legal questions. Yet, Biden nominees invariably seem to have issues when it comes to those questions. //
Sen. Kennedy asked how many motions she had argued before the Court. Meriweather had to admit that she hadn't argued any. He then asked how many cases she had tried in the Court of Federal Claims. Again, she had to admit that the answer was zero. Generally, if you're naming someone to a court, you would hope they would have at least some experience in that court.
"Tell me the grounds for granting a new trial in the Court of Federal Claims," he next inquired. //
Meriweather finally had to admit that she didn't know, "Senator, that is not an issue I have had occasion to consider before, despite my extensive civil experience and my familiarity not only with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, but I've also reviewed the rules of the Court of Federal Claims." She said she would review the rules if presented with the question. //
Then he asked her what a "contract of adhesion" was, another basic question. He said you would see a lot of that because it's some of what the Court of Federal Claims deals with.
She was completely stumped. //
Kennedy has nailed multiple nominees before with his test. A prior Biden nominee recently withdrew her nomination in the face of failing the Kennedy test when she couldn't answer what Article 5 and Article 2 of the Constitution are,
Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan
·
“about 10 members of Israeli special forces dressed in civilian clothes went to the third floor [of the hospital], where they killed the men using weapons fitted with silencers”
In any other country, we’d call this a government death squad. Sheesh.
bbc.com
Israeli forces kill three Palestinian militants in West Bank hospital raid
8:42 AM · Jan 30, 2024
I mean, yes, it was a "death squad" in the sense that it was sent to kill dangerous terrorists. Special operations against enemy combatants are not a new concept. Hamas could simply surrender if this is all too messy for people like Mehdi Hasan. //
I've been told repeatedly that Israel must cease all attacks that result in civilian casualties. Well, this was an attack that resulted in no civilian casualties. It's almost as if Hasan and people like him weren't actually concerned about that but just support terrorism. Who could have guessed?
Do you know what I noticed the most about this operation? No one was raped. No one was beheaded. No innocent people were gunned down. Instead, those involved operated as a professional force should. That some find that more upsetting than the October 7th attacks is telling. //
Boblo
3 hours ago
Looked surgical to me! Haha! Get it? Surgical, hospital, no?
Granny Cuyler -> Boblo
3 hours ago
The operation was a success!
Hawkdriver -> Boblo
2 hours ago
Their policies evidently covered the procedures. //
emptypockets
2 hours ago
"They executed the three men as they slept in the room," the hospital's director, Dr. Naji Nazzal, told Reuters. "They executed them in cold blood by firing bullets directly into their heads in the room where they were being treated."
Which was mercy none deserved. They weren't raped or stabbed repeatedly or tortured or made to watch their child cooked in an oven.
The president of the United States, who for years illegally kept Top Secret documents in his garage, has intentionally alerted Iran, the world’s largest exporter of terrorism, to the details of his retaliation plans.
As a result, in the next little while, if not already, our highly-trained volunteer pilots and/or special operators can head out in their country’s service to avenge fallen comrades in the firm knowledge that their commander in chief has told the enemy their targets and when they might be arriving.
That should give the targets plenty of time to hide their equipment and themselves, ensuring that the "retaliation" is nothing but a PR stunt.
To provide more context, the European Institute for Gender Equality is behind this latest display of stupidity. The agency released a document recommending changes to various phrases and terms to supposedly make them more inclusive.
The phrase, made famous by Captain Kirk (William Shatner), has a red cross next to it in a 61-page toolkit on gender-sensitive communication.
EU agency the European Institute for Gender Equality calls it an example of “where women may be subject to invisibility or omission”.
World War One phrase “no man’s land” should be “unclaimed territory”, they say. //
William Shatner @WilliamShatner
·
😳👇🏻Presentism at work yet again. Why start at Trek? 🤨Isn’t it better to start at the beginning and redo foundation material such as the Magna Carta, religious writings, works of Shakespeare before worrying about a silly TV show opening that reflects social commentary of the time? If people are offended by 6 seconds of dialogue recorded in 1966 without a modicum of understanding of the social issues at the time there’s bigger issues that they need to deal with first - like educating themselves.
You should avoid symlinks, it can make nasty bugs to appear... one day. And very hard to debug.
Use mount --bind:
# as root
cp -a /root /home/
echo "" >> /etc/fstab
echo "/home/root /root none defaults,bind 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
# do it now
cd / ; mv /root /root.old; mkdir /root; mount -ait will be made at every reboots which you should do now if you want to catch errors soon ///
Better to use rsync -a /root /home/ instead of cp -a because cp will not copy hidden files.
Watching the video "America's Top 10 Ugliest Aircraft" from Youtube:
At around 7:40 into the video when discussing the Vought Pirate, there are a few seconds of a picture where the Pirate was flying in formation with another aircraft that I personally find gorgeous. //
The "ugly aircraft" from your video is a Vought F6U Pirate, the aircraft furthest from the camera: you saw it flying in formation with Chance Vought Cutlass F7U-1
Now Biden has been saying prices are coming down and claiming credit, even though prices are still up more than when he came in. In his latest remarks in South Carolina, he also blamed the greedy corporations for Bidenflation. //
But now, Treasury Janet Yellen just threw him under the bus with what she had to say about inflation. She was being interviewed by ABC when she was asked how she would convince people that prices might not go back to what they were before the pandemic. This is an astounding statement, especially in light of what Biden keeps saying now. //
"Well, I think most Americans know that prices are not likely to fall," Yellen said. "It's not the Fed's objective to try to push the level of prices back to where they were."
Oh.
So sorry, just accept we broke everything //
anon-372u
2 hours ago
Inflation was the objective. Make no mistake about that. Inflation is an incredible tool for raising taxes without ever having to discuss it, write legislation or pass a bill in to law. Inflation raises income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, you name it. It depletes your savings, destroys your emergency fund, and crushes your retirement. But it does get the government a lot more $$$ and most people never get that. //
Q1. What kinds of batteries does the FAA allow in carry-on baggage (in the aircraft cabin)?
Q2. What kinds of batteries does the FAA allow in checked baggage (including gate-checked bags)?
Though they say they've suspended funding, that only applies to new projects. Projects the Biden White House is supporting today will continue to be funded. It would be a safe bet that all the other funding suspensions are precisely the same.
The UNRWA isn't being defunded now, and when the war ends, you can bet it will be back in business with even more of your tax dollars supporting Hamas terrorism.
GregInFla
2 hours ago
The law used by Carroll to sue Trump (which was limited to one year life) was passed for the sole purpose of suing Trump for the supposed rape, a rape that occurred so long ago that the victim cannot even say what year it occurred in. Carroll's lawyer was one who pushed the law in Albany. I think this travesty is a worse travesty for law than the King fraud case. Corrupt persecution at its finest.
anon-kje4 -> GregInFla
20 minutes ago
The New York law changing the statute of limitations for one year to get Trump is essentially a bill of attainder: "A bill of attainder is legislation that imposes punishment on a specific person or group of people without a judicial trial." Such bills, or laws, are unconstitutional and the Supreme Court needs to swiftly knock it down in the interest of due process. How can anyone expect to gather evidence and witnesses 30 years after the fact, especially where, in this case, the charge was never brought to the defendants attention for years and years after the alleged incident.
Apple's browser engine concession isn't entirely without barbs. As Mozilla has observed, it doesn't apply to iPadOS and so Mozilla needs to bear the cost of maintaining two versions of Firefox in the EU.
While legal experts expect the EU to challenge Apple's insincere compliance with the DMA, developers should take this opportunity to rethink their native app serfdom. They should push web apps to their limits and then demand further platform improvement.
The web doesn't require commission payments, technology fees based on usage, or permission from platform rentseekers. The web can set the iPhone free, even if Apple won't. ®
The US military is almost entirely dependent upon China and Russia for a metal used in many military applications, such as explosives and armor-piercing bullets. The metal is antimony, and China currently owns 53 percent of the world's supply. However, it processes over 80 percent of antimony ore through contracts with other producers. The US's last source of antimony, the Stibnite mine in Idaho, ceased operations in 1997.
It isn't just the military that relies on antimony, though it does appear insane to import the key element in manufacturing modern military munitions from your most likely adversary; the private sector is also heavily reliant on the metal.
This issue has hit the front burner of Capitol Hill. The House Armed Services Committee is investigating the status of the Defense National Stockpile, which is charged with maintaining a strategic reserve of rare minerals. Our stockpile and the infrastructure to operate it will largely cease to exist by 2025 unless urgent action is taken.
Crap like this simply validates the idea that we are ruled by fools and buffoons. Congress has nearly sold off the stockpile of to, according to Defense News, " over the past several decades to fund other programs."
The stockpile was valued at nearly $42 billion in today’s dollars at its peak during the beginning of the Cold War in 1952. That value has plummeted to $888 million as of last year following decades of congressionally authorized sell-offs to private sector customers. Lawmakers anticipate the stockpile will become insolvent by FY25.
“A lot of what happened is Congress just getting greedy and finding politically convenient ways to fund programs that they weren’t willing to raise revenue for,” said [Massachusetts Democrat Seth] Moulton.
Remember Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign slogan? "I'm with her." Not "I'm in favor of her proposals or political track record." No, it was, "I'm with her." How modest.
No matter how much I may respect any given politician, I'm not "with" them. For them, yes. But not "with."
The new Cephas Hour discusses this and other matters, including doing the right thing and a certain amount of longing for heaven, or the Lord's return to earth. Whichever comes first. //
Ofttimes in recent years, I have seen people become caught up, be it pro or con, with the false god of identity politics. For this definition, identity politics consists of over-association with an individual politician, becoming so enveloped and enraptured with them that there is at least in part an identity fusion, an overidentification with the person. The flip side is when we run across a politician we oppose so profoundly that even when their actions and views mirror our own, we immediately run in the other direction for fear of any association with that individual. Said positive or negative opinions can become so enmeshed in our being that they can stretch far beyond the realm of rational discussion regarding political ideology, policies, platforms, and practices.
This is dangerous in the extreme. Over-identification with a politician is a form of cultism. Be alarmed when someone professes themselves to be a leader, yet instead of preaching, “These are truths we must follow,” preaches, “Follow me,” and people do so. //
The only human being worthy of true devotion, following, and emulation is Jesus. //
They, like us, are sinners in need of God’s grace and forgiveness. Our prayer should be they know this and act upon it. Everything else is secondary. Not unimportant, mind you. But it’s still secondary. //
I do not welcome death, but nor do I fear it. My faith and trust is in Christ alone. Despite my stubborn, failing, and often misspent humanity, He has remained faithful throughout. He is faithful today and will be faithful through all the tomorrows. To Him, and Him alone, belongs all the praise and glory.
TargaGTS | January 26, 2024 at 5:24 pm
Can someone explain how the NY legislature was allowed to essentially ”unexpire’ the statute of limitations that had LONG expired before they just changed the law a few years ago…almost certainly to allow this specific case to be litigated. I honestly don’t understand how that’s constitutional considering the limiting principles of the ex post facto clauses. //
DaveGinOly in reply to TargaGTS. | January 26, 2024 at 10:17 pm
The term “ex post facto” refers only to criminal laws. According to Madison, at least two important aspects of ex post facto laws were discussed. The first was if an explicit prohibition was necessary at all, because “everyone” knew such were not lawful (it was decided it would do no harm to make an explicit statement, and much help could be had from it). The second was a discussion of their nature, in which it was agreed that the term applied only to criminal law, and not to civil law. It was suggested the the prohibition should be extended to civil law, but the counter-argument that such a prohibition could be troublesome, for sometimes back-dated civil law is “unavoidable,” won the day. //
Olinser in reply to Olinser. | January 27, 2024 at 12:57 pm
Again, just a blatant lie. Here’s a list of what they were FORBIDDEN by the judge to present to the jury:
1) They were NOT ALLOWED to demonstrate that she had previously accused at least SIX different men of rape – from a random babysitter to Les Moonves – and that every single claim was provably false
2) They were NOT ALLOWED to present as evidence the coat she publicly claimed she wore during the alleged assault, when her own DNA report came back showing it had the DNA of multiple men…. but not Trump
3) They were NOT ALLOWED to present as evidence the Law and Order episode whose plot EXACTLY matched her alleged assault – the show that she had said multiple times she loved to ‘binge-watch’
4) they were NOT ALLOWED to present as evidence her multiple public statements that The Apprentice was her favorite show, the show starring her alleged rapist
...
8) They were NOT ALLOWED to present as evidence that the lawsuit was funded by Hoffman, who is also directly funding Trump’s political opponents
And that’s not even getting into that the was allowed to make an accusation without specifying the day, the month, or even the freaking YEAR that it happened, making it literally impossible for him to provide an alibi.
World Economic Forum Poohbah Klaus Schwab is fond of paraphrasing the Joseph Goebbels quote, "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear," as "If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't be afraid." Fortunately, that dark day in America has been kicked down the road by no less a body than a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
On Tuesday, the court struck down the FBI and Department of Justice in what looks to be a precedent-setting case called Snitko v. United States, dealing a significant blow to the government's expansive search and seizure practices known as "inventory searches."
The case started out with a 2021 raid on a company called US Private Vaults, a California company offering secure safe deposit boxes with minimal personal identification requirements. Though apparently some specific boxes were targeted, the FBI elected to break open some 700 boxes and rummaged through their contents to the extent of bringing drug dogs in to sniff for traces of drugs as an excuse for invoking civil asset forfeiture. //
The central problem was that the FBI's warrant did not authorize "criminal search or seizure" of the safety deposit boxes. The FBI claimed it was just an "inventory search" that would allow box contents to be inventoried and returned to their owners. This requires following a specific set of rules that the FBI didn't bother to use.
If there remained any doubt regarding whether the government conducted a ‘criminal search or seizure, that doubt is put to rest by the fact the government has already used some of the information from inside the boxes to obtain additional warrants to further its investigation and begin new ones.”
The judges grilled the FBI and Department of Justice on how their actions didn't violate the very purpose of the Fourth Amendment.
This raid, targeting hundreds of boxes, opened a Pandora's box of legal and ethical questions regarding privacy rights and the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches; "It was those very abuses of power, after all, that led to adoption of the Fourth Amendment in the first place." //
Many moons ago, when I was an IG investigator for the Army's Recruiting Command, my boss gave me this sage advice on how to read a crowd if you were giving a training session: " If all the recruiters suddenly start writing," he said, "you've just closed a door they've been using or opened a door they didn't know existed."
The government's correct answer at the original trial was, "My bad, we did something wrong, and we'll do the right thing." The fact that they fought this tooth and nail and then tried to get out from under the ruling shows that they routinely use the "inventory search" masquerade to develop evidence in criminal cases and raise cash at your expense.
Though this was a victory, it was also a tragedy. No one was prosecuted. No one was fired. No one cared. "Deprivation of Right Under Color of Law" is a felony. There is a division of the Justice Department that prosecutes these cases. The DOJ IG didn't open a case to see how widespread this problem is, probably because they already know. What about other people who didn't have a high-profile case to attract free legal care? How do they get their property back? And what about the criminal cases launched, cases that helped move someone's career forward, based on patently unconstitutional searches?
Sooner or later, we have to arrive at a point where we admit that the FBI and most of the Department of Justice are much more of a danger to civil liberties than traditional Catholics, pro-life demonstrators, J6 defendants, Donald Trump, and even China. //
anon-goox
2 hours ago
The fact that Klaus is quoting Josef Goebbels as an authority SHOULD tell everyone---including Klaus himself---that he is on the wrong track.
When Silicon Valley entrepreneur David Sacks commented that there are plenty of laws -- there's just no enforcement by Biden, Homeland Security head Alejandro Mayorkas et al. -- Musk was in agreement:
David Sacks @DavidSacks
Jan 26, 2024
·
The border isn’t broken because Congress needs to pass new laws. It’s broken because this administration refuses to enforce the laws we already have.
Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
Exactly
9:42 PM · Jan 26, 2024 //
Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
That is undeniable at this point
David Sacks @DavidSacks
Biden’s policy is open borders. Everything else is noise.
Embedded video
3:50 AM · Jan 27, 2024