There are existing prototypes of laser systems for killing fast moving insects such as mosquitos. Imagine a device on a fence pole covering the surrounding acre.
There are plenty of slow moving pests, weeds and the like as well.
Yes, without question. Systemd provides me absolutely no benefit when running a server and adds considerable complexity and fragility in a critical component.
A traditional SysV init is just fine. Want orchestrated service invocation on startup? Run it from SysV init instead of replacing SysV init.
There is no need to conflate the "sysv rc system" with "sysv init." They are entirely separate things.
So you're saying to just use SysV init to launch processes from inittab, and have one of those processes be a systemd/launchd clone that launches everything else. I mean, I guess that's a possible design, but at that point I would question whether using the SysV init program is really buying you anything.
In any case, most people wouldn't consider that design "SysV init". The SysV init ecosystem is built around rc files.
I teach unix internals to engineers as part of my job and I've found most engineers aren't intimately familiar with the distinction between the RC system and the init system at all. I agree there isn't widespread understanding of this distinction but I think it is because most engineers simply don't know how any of this works.
The reason to keep these things modular is flexibility and ease of analysis and improvement. The major criticism I see with systemd is that has undefined operational scope and unbounded feature creep. It has no stable interface between components and changes behavior in incompatible and difficult to predict ways fairly regularly. From a systems perspective it's a big ball of mud and the lack of a formal interface makes it prohibitively difficult to change or replace its subsystems.
I don't like that systemd performs ANSI animations on my machine's serial console, for example. Have you seen the "marquee" animations it does when certain services start? I sure would like to force it to print sequential lines of text instead, but I can't.
I don't like that when systemd updated basic utilities like "reboot" I lost the ability to use them in a chroot. Even "reboot -f" which does not need to talk to init. I had to write my own one-liner to call reboot(2) myself not too long ago.
System components need to be well scoped and replaceable. There's a major design problem brewing in this area.
/sbin/init is pid=1, the single process that the kernel starts when a system boots. It typically runs a command to kick off bringing up userland to the correct runlevel, maybe something like "/etc/rc.d/rc 3". It doesn't do anything more than just execute this command.
The command is part of the RC system. Typically written in shell, it handles walking /etc/rc.*/ and running the scripts contained therein to configure and invoke the various services for a particular runlevel.
You can boot linux using your own init and skip the rc system. From grub, add "init=/bin/sh" to your kernel parameters and you will get a shell as pid=1 and no other processes -- from there you can run commands as you wish to bring your system the rest of the way up. If you were to run "/etc/rc.d/rc 3" by hand you would invoke the same scripts that normally run on bootup to runlevel 3.
You could also delete all these shell scripts and replace them with your own code for configuring the system.
It's not only possible, it is how the System Resource Controller worked in AIX from version 3.2 back in 1992 onwards. srcmstr is run from an entry in inittab, which at the same time shrank to just one run level in real use.
You have erroneously conflated rc and init, as others have pointed out.
"The average speed can vary according to weather conditions and ability, but expect an overall average of around 17mph -19mph for a ride of 60 miles"
Furthermore, an average speed will have significantly faster and slower portions along the ride. The OCC will drop to far slower speeds uphill and will ride far faster on the downhill.
Yes, of course downhill is faster. On a mountain bike I've only knowingly once managed to break 30mph, but that was going for it and definitely not erring on being safe. My average road speed at the time was about 15mph.
The top speed for powered cycles should be around the normal average as then there's not a large differential between powered and unpowered bikes making it safer when they share road space.
That appears to be a ride where they've deliberately set a slower pace for a ride based around socializing. 12-13 mph is about right if you're going to be leisurely carrying on conversations with fellow riders. Any faster and wind noise becomes an issue. I can't talk to my fellow riders at 20+mph.
"lycra clad racing-bike riders" ride far faster.
Capping a vehicle at 15mph means you'll be constantly getting passed on trails. I have ridden a 15mph capped scooter, I was one of the slowest vehicles in my local area that day. I returned it.
25kph is a meandering speed for an adult on a road bike. 30kph is quite common and 35kph isn't unusual. I regularly ride paved commuter trails with bikes doing all of those speeds and it really isn't a problem.
The idea that a 10kph speed differential between vehicles is a problem doesn't make any sense considering you have a 25kph speed differential with stationary objects on your commute. Or 50kph if you consider two 25kph bikers passing each other.
It's really a non issue. 25kph is an unreasonably slow limit. The energy levels involved in a bike crash simply don't compare to the potential for damage in a car crash, in part due to the lack of mass.
> It's really a non issue. 25kph is an unreasonably slow limit. The energy levels involved in a bike crash simply don't compare to the potential for damage in a car crash, in part due to the lack of mass.
If I crash my car at 50 km/h collision speed chances are quite good that I'll be sleeping in my own bed that day.
If I crash my bike at 50 km/h collision speed, I'm lucky if I survive.
Energy levels are irrelevant. When I'm riding a bike, my body is the crumple zone.
We're talking about two vehicles colliding with each other. The mass of the vehicle is absolutely relevant.
Crashing a bike at 30mph/50kph is not as dangerous as you suggest, you can find plenty of higher speed bike crashes on youtube with no fatalities. Road rash and broken bones are the most likely outcome. I've crashed at this speed and I walked away with road rash only.
There is an enormous difference between a bike crash which results in sliding along the pavement and a car crash.
Your argument doesn't make sense to me. When do two bikes pass each other? That literally never happened to me, if it did I would yell the other biker saying they're going the wrong direction. When are there stationary objects on the bike lane? When a car is stopping, and that annoys the hell outta me and by no means ok or the norm. If there is a >10kph differential between me and a bike I immediately try to let them pass me. Why are they going so fast, threatening all bikers' lives?
> It's really a nonissue
Well, it may be for you. I've been biking for 15 years and it really is an issue for me. I don't want pedestrians, cars or fast objects on bike lane. If there are a lot of bikes on the bike lane and convoy goes at 30 kph that's perfectly fine, I go 30 too. But if people go 25 and some asshole is trying to go at 35, then we have a problem.
> Well, it may be for you. I've been biking for 15 years and it really is an issue for me. I don't want pedestrians, cars or fast objects on bike lane. If there are a lot of bikes on the bike lane and convoy goes at 30 kph that's perfectly fine, I go 30 too. But if people go 25 and some asshole is trying to go at 35, then we have a problem.
Speed differentials like that are the norm where I bike. Bikes mainly share a section of the road with pedestrians. So you get people standing around, going 0kph; you have people walking 5kph; people jogging 10kph; kids, the elderly, and people loaded with groceries biking 15kph; normal cyclists who aren't in a hurry doing 20-25kph; fit cyclists and people in a hurry up to 35-40kph. I don't think anyone's got a problem with it really. We kinda know how to share the road, even with people going different speeds.
Drivers, mainly, are afraid of fast cyclists jumping red lights.
I, as a cyclist, am more concerned about dogs, but that phenomenon hasn't bothered me much in the recent years. I once got bitten by a dog that gets excited by cyclists..
Seriously people doing 40kph in a city street? The average for a Tour de France pack was somewhere between 26-29mph ~= 41-47kph. That's assuming no stop signs , obstacles and plenty of the pack grabbing a wheel.
I think you're over-estimating average possible speed on a city route.
The speeds I listed were not averages, but instantaneous; the purpose were to outline the speed difference between different moving things that share the path.
Yes, more or less any grownup in fair shape can pedal 40 kph on a flat, as long as they don't run out of gears. Maintaining over 40 kph average (which means going much faster at times) for the duration of a long race is a completely different thing.
And yes, some people actually like to sprint like hell for fun. Sometimes I do too.
Think about it for a moment. Club cyclists often aim to average around 27 kph for something like a 80 kilometer trip. Hitting 40 on a nice flat or downhill section on your commute of 3 km is nothing.
I think we'll have to disagree about what the 25kph limit means. It allows untrained, unprepared, possibly drunk folks to man a vehicle which does all the work for them at that speed.
You prefer freedom for the avid electric cyclist, I want safety for pedestrians and slower cyclists.
Why are cycles held to a higher standard than cars in that regard? People drive without licenses, and they DUI, and they drive without appropriate training, and they text and drive, and they kill people. We still don't limit the whole class of vehicles to a maximum speed that won't kill.
This whole thing is so backwards. These limitations just reward people who take the big metal box, and punish those who would prefer a combination of muscle power and some electric aid.
Also, I think you're seriously overestimating the amount of danger 250W can do. I still hold that it's very unlikely for a drunk cyclist to do any significant damage to anyone except themselves with that much power, speed limits or not.
Aren't you focusing the potential negatives a little too much here? Allow a few bad apples to ruin the whole thing? If cars were invented today, you wouldn't let them on the road.
Vehicular traffic is all about taking a controlled risk for convenience. I think we could take the risk of removing the speed cap on low power bicycle motors and we wouldn't see a massive surge in pedestrian/cyclist injuries or deaths or accidents in general. Even in the hands of a drunk idiot, the bike is still far less dangerous than a car, and easier to evade should it come to that.
My daily commute (when I rode a bike) was much shorter than a Tour de France stage. You have to consider that that's the average over more than 20 consecutive day-long legs.
I think you are underestimating the difference between maintaining an average speed during a whole day and maintaining that same speed for 20 minutes.
Are you thinking only of riding on roads? I often ride on paved bike trails. They're usually maybe two meters wide with mixed pedestrian and bike traffic.
Even in a bike lane you're still passing stationary objects. You asked "when would there be any" and then immediately gave one of the most common examples. An even more commmon example, of course, is the ground you're riding over. You have a 25kph speed differential to the earth.
There is no serious threat to your life from a bike going 35kph. I've crashed at that speed or faster numerous times on downhill courses. No need to be so melodramatic.
No, you haven't. You maybe have fallen at 35 kph. That's different.
If a car hits you standing still at 35 kph, that's about the same energy as you crashing into a wall riding a bike at 35. I would not recommend it.
I think you might be confused. We are talking about the danger involved with two bikes going the same direction with a 10kph speed differential (25kph / 35kph). When crashes like this happen, people fall off their bikes.
I mentioned that I have fallen off at this speed with relatively minor injury. People generally do not die from falling off a bike at 35kph.
Nowhere did I say anything about being hit by a car at 35kph not being dangerous. No one is saying that.
Actually, I think you are confused.
You spoke about passing stationary objects, and you wrote you crashed at 35. I wrote that you didn't, you fell down with 35 (which you seem to concede). If you would have crashed with 35, in something hard, parked car, tree, wall of a house, or another stationary object, it's as bad as if a car hits you with 35, which indeed is very dangerous. (It's actually slightly worse, because a) the car is designed to minimize damage, and the wall is not, and b) a house is often heavier than a car, car and house building practices in the US non-withstanding)
I spoke of the ground being a stationary object (the most common one anyone will encounter, as I put it). I did in fact fall onto the ground.
Crashing into stationary objects is indeed a much greater danger than a fellow cyclist riding with a 10kph speed differential. That was my point, which you are now re-stating.
I witnessed a bike crash just last week (in Boston) where the convoy was biking (around ~30 kph I think) and some asshole opened his car's door without looking his surroundings, and the biker in the front bumped into the door and flew over her car. Luckily, the road was clear (so she wasn't crushed by a car) and she had a helmet. She was fine but she had a concussion. Clearly, if we were going at 25, the likelihood of she dying would be even lower, and if we were going 50, it would be significantly higher (her bike could break door's glass and she could have permanently injured herself).
I don't understand this whole thread. If you're biking in a city like Boston or SF early in the morning or around 5pm, you're trying to go office/home. What's the point of biking at 50 kph? This is not recreation. This is something I do every day and my highest priority is doing this as safe as possible. Similarly, would you drive significantly faster than speed limit with your car, because you arbitrarily think "it's not dangerous"? It's nice that you think bumping into things at 30/50 is not dangerous, I respectfully disagree and consider it absolutely dangerous and kindly invite you to stick to whatever speed limit you have in your city. People are just trying to get to their work or kids and be done with their days, please don't try to be Superman.
Where are you getting 50kph from? Nowhere did I suggest that was a safe speed for daily riding.
We've been talking about 35kph, or 20 miles an hour, which is a perfectly reasonable speed for a bicycle. You're unlikely to be seriously injured if you crash at 35kph. People regularly ride 35kph throughout parts of their ride. It's normal, common, and entirely legal.
Your comments about "sticking to the speed limit" make no sense whatsoever. We're talking about speeds far, far below the speed limit even on residential roads.
I'm flabbergasted that you're having such a freakout over a bicycle going 20mph. I'd hate to see your reaction to an actual gas powered motorcycle or scooter.
> Your argument doesn't make sense to me. When do two bikes pass each other? That literally never happened to me, if it did I would yell the other biker saying they're going the wrong direction.
On a bike path?
> When are there stationary objects on the bike lane? When a car is stopping, and that annoys the hell outta me and by no means ok or the norm.
(Practically) at pedestrian crossings too, but I assume that GP is referring to objects along bike paths/lanes like trees, sign posts etc.
> If there are a lot of bikes on the bike lane and convoy goes at 30 kph that's perfectly fine, I go 30 too. But if people go 25 and some asshole is trying to go at 35, then we have a problem.
What if there's that one guy going at 15 km/h when everyone else is at 25 km/h? This also assumes that there is a convoy to speak of. I'd regularly ride mostly alone, only occasionally passing other people.
So to summarize, the argument probably doesn't make sense to you due to differences in culture, city planning population density... You name it.
In a dense city with a lot of bicycle riders I personally think that a 25 km/h limit is reasonable, but on a rural bike path without crossings or stops I'll easily exceed that comfortably and safely.
Using credit cards at thrift stores cannot affect your credit score. That article is poorly written and is discussing impact to credit issued by the credit card issuer. It may impact models run by the bank which issues your credit card but it will not impact lending from any other source and will not impact your credit score.
No one can share individual purchase data with other lenders, that sort of data sharing is prohibited.
The data is up for sale, notably Google buys this data (see link below). If Google can buy it, so can one of the hundreds of credit agencies out there, ditto for potential lenders. It is obviously priced low enough for non-lenders to buy transaction history in bulk, seeing as Google is willing to plunk down for a massive amount of transaction data: https://slate.com/technology/2018/08/google-mastercard-data-...
"As the article you linked clearly states the data is anonymized and cannot be tied to individuals."
You should never believe that for two reasons:
1. Companies often get away with lying about that.
2. De-anonymization techniques, esp if having multiple sources of data to cross-compare, are improving every year thanks to an active, research community.
Most incentives work against your privacy. Most companies act on incentives. Best to just not share your data if you're concerned about where it might end up.
With regard to #2, I covered in my comment to the poster your replying to that correlating partial names and the store location with registered voters from your state's freely available voter registry would de-anonymize most transactions in the dataset.
Nevermind that Google has location data for Android users (and Google Maps data on Android), and better profiles of people than the voter database has. Their attempts at user de-anonymization will likely be even more accurate.
Short of reducing the transaction dataset to purchase amounts and dates, or simply respecting customers privacy and not transferring this data, Mastercard is not anonymizing this data.
Google is using this data to link online ads they display with in store purchases, thus Mastercard is giving them enough data that they can correlate who views an ad from Google's ad network with their in store purchase. Partial names would suffice for this purchase, combined with store location for the transaction, one could de-anonymize most customers in a given dataset by correlating using freely available datasets like the state voter registry (which often provides full names, addresses, elections voted in & more).
Nevermind that Google has location data for Android users (and Google Maps data on Android), and better profiles of people than the voter database has. Their attempts at user de-anonymization will likely be even more accurate.
I think a good way to describe it is that PCI-DSS just removes one potential data point out of multiple that are used in a triangulation effort. Loss of any one data point doesn't necessarily ruin the triangulation effort.
Some of the data will also work for a cash system. And it's not just Google or other apps on their phones that people have to worry about now. (Not a popular opinion, but Google is generally a lot better than others at data protection because it doesn't often sell the data on; it works as an interface to the data and if it sold the data outright their other services would be less useful. So it has incentive to protect a lot of what it collects that other companies do not.)
Some surveillance systems recoup costs by selling off data about license plate and other sightings to companies like TransUnion who will aggregate the results and sell them on.[1].
The ability to narrow the focus is a bit lower, as it can't tie you to a specific store unless it has a dedicated parking lot (which is fairly rare and not easily predictable).
But if you look at what else is possible when all surveillance is up for sale, it's a bit scary how easy de-anonymization can potentially be.
Take the same sources of data to what's already actively sold and resold to/by TransUnion, and add Facebook/Google tech for identifying people instead of numbers seen on vehicle plates. Anyone who walks by a camera, which are ubiquitous in any marketplace, and who has photographs of themselves and whose identity has been tied to that image by one system, could have their location detected and further sold on to whoever wants it.
This doesn't even need to be a voluntary release of the data like tagging photos on Facebook, or actively collected by other people volunteering it by tagging you.
As an example, take something innocent like a trip to the grocery store. Even if they are not selling their parking lot surveillance to TransUnion for license plate tracking, they could potentially be selling or aggregating other data
for the same purpose. The self-checkout line camera which they might show you very pointedly to discourage dishonesty isn't limited to their self-checkouts. But the footage of you in that location is a great training source for a recognition algorithm.
And right beside it is a register machine to tell the company your name, either from the credit card transaction or some other way. They might have your name on a reward/discount card that they insist you use to get discounts (or to put it another way, to avoid paying extra to opt-out, since these items are hard to identify as a promotion -- they are promoted the same as regular price, often have no competitor, and non-promotional pricing is obscured). Either of these can correlate the video/imagery to the transaction and a person's identity.
It wouldn't take a lot to build an image recognition profile.. just repeat the process a few times and it will probably be good for years even if it isn't reinforced with new data. Collecting information used for stuff like this becomes dead simple without significant data protection laws.
The recent Forbes article is a great example of how current systems like TransUnion's TLO unfortunately have seriously low barriers to use that have enabled things like identity theft [2]. More sophisticated uses are equally possible, highly probable, and likely much less detectable, such as politicians tracking behavior of political rivals and their operatives, or actors working on behalf of foreign governments to track politicians and military figures.
1. Square, for example, does both payment processing and lending.
2. The idea of what you can or can not do varies quite a bit based on jurisdiction. For example, just searching for things related to democracy can lower your credit score in China.
I'm not sure what you mean with the first bullet point. All banks which do payment processing do lending. It's inherent in the nature of the service, that's what the above article is about.
That’s beside the point. It doesn’t currently affect “the” credit score, but nothing stops some Goodhart-ignorant genius from incorporating such information into future models, and nothing stops current lenders from using that information for lending decisions even if the credit score looks good.
Yes, with a per capita expenditure of $700 it's safe to say they aren't covering any serious illness. "Our costs are low because we have a healthy lifestyle" -- more like the costs are low because no one has any serious illness like cancer.
If you read their FAQ, they essentially cover up to $5k annually in expenses, and expenses beyond that debit from a larger community-organization catastrophic fund maintained for such purposes.
They don't reveal the real per capita expenditure for members, they took their total costs and divided by the estimated population (73), of which only a portion receive any benefit.
Honestly what I'd like is a safety oriented cabin designed to minimize whiplash. Restrain my head and neck, surround my body with impact absorbing material and put a screen in front of my face and a keyboard within reach of my hands and we're done.
I don't want a large void space inside the passenger area of my car at all.
You could just do nothing. That's what I'm doing. I care very little if someone defrauds some bank using my identity to open credit cards. I won't be paying for it. It's the bank's problem, not mine. I'm under no obligation to expend effort to maintain their security and datasets.
The more you let this kind of thing be pushed into your lap, the more it will be.
That works as long as you don't need your credit for anything. This isn't limited to opening new lines of credit. Credit cards can be closed or have limits changed based on credit score. In most states, your car insurance rate can be based on your credit score; most policies renew every 6 months. In the event of a judgment against you for delinquent credit cards, your bank accounts can be levied.
You're correct that this isn't your problem, and eventually you'll get your money back. You're wrong with idea that you can be passive and not get screwed.
But arn't you more likely to be screwed, and have to request an investigation in the case of id theft, if you do nothing?
Freezing credit also may lead to people less likely to open up lines of credit as well. I got a credit card request for temp unfreeze, and I've never gotten around to it.
This article supports freezing: "A credit freeze is a helpful way to reduce the risk of having new credit accounts opened in your name." The article isn't against freezing; only says that you shouldn't stop there.
It's all a matter of reducing attack vectors. I can put a firewall on my network, but that doesn't mean I don't also need smart passwords.
Sure. It just starts to feel like it's pointless when no matter what you do the protection is so inadequate. Medical identity theft is among the most nightmarish to deal with because the identity thief's records are protected by HIPAA so it is difficult to even figure out what you're being charged for.
On the contrary, it works even better if you regularly use your credit report because you don't have to deal with the absolute pain in the ass of freezing and unfreezing it constantly. Time is money and that's a guaranteed loss of both.
The kind of identity theft involving use of a credit report (as opposed to a stolen bank instrument) is relatively rare. Most identity theft involves a stolen credit card and freezing one's credit report offers no benefit in that scenario.
I am absolutely not wrong, the vast majority of people take a passive approach and are fine.
I don't know why you're talking about "getting your money back," this kind of fraud doesn't involve any loss of money from anyone other than a bank. There is no way at all that I can put my own money at risk by not freezing my credit. No one is talking about totally ignoring fraud and allowing a default judgement to occur -- I am talking about not paying upfront fees to micromanage access to pull credit.
> I don't know why you're talking about "getting your money back," this kind of fraud doesn't involve any loss of money from anyone other than a bank.
Not correct. If someone opens a credit card (or anything else at that bank) in your name, and rings up a large balance, you can be sued and levied. It doesn't have to be the same bank; they can and will find your legit accounts in an effort to recover funds. I'm speaking from experience; the actual lawsuit was filed by a law firm that specializes in that type of collection. The protection you get from illegitimate accounts isn't automatic; you'll still have a degree of burden, depending on where you catch things.
Your credit score can be ruined by this and then when you need credit, such as a home or car loan, you are screwed. If you are lucky to be independently wealthy where you can pay for everything with cash, then no problem. But very few of us are in that situation.
Why? You really want to spend all your time fighting someone who gets a hold of your information? It is not a one or two times thing. Go talk to people who had their identities stolen. It is not fun and it can take years to fix everything. I know one person who is still having trouble after 15 years.
The vast majority of people will spend less time as this is a rare occurrence.
Freezing a credit report is not going to prevent someone from getting ahold of your information. It will prevent someone who already has your information from running your credit and opening new lines of credit -- which doesn't matter much. It is completely ineffective for the vast majority (90%+) of identity theft.
It will not protect you from someone stealing your cards or checks.
Yes, credit card theft is not a big deal and you don't really need any protection because the CC companies are pretty pro-active about it. That is not what we are talking about. Yes, real identity theft is rare but it does happen. With a few simple steps, you can protect yourself better in the rare case that it does. Can you completely protect yourself? No, but some protection is better than none.
On the contrary, credit card theft is one of the most common forms of identity theft.
As I said above, it is far, far less time and expense to follow up to actual fraud with a police report than it is to freeze-unfreeze your credit every time you want to pass a credit check.
> As I said above, it is far, far less time and expense to follow up to actual fraud with a police report than it is to freeze-unfreeze your credit every time you want to pass a credit check.
Unless you need monthly credit checks (very odd), I find that statement extremely hard to believe.
Would you care to elaborate? I'm finding your opinion rather odd myself.
The vast majority of people never freeze their credit and never have to expend any energy on the issue of credit security at all.
Most people have their credit run a few times a year, when they sign up for a new service, new credit product, raise a limit, buy a new vehicle, what have you.
Machine Learning still confuses Elephants for Cats.
While it's quite fun if you pin up a cat dressed up in an elephant costume and surely amuses a few colleagues, a self-driving car is not something that should confuse an Elephant for a Cat.
ML is IMO not reliable enough for use in self-driving cars, in complicated situations the driver should take over.
In relative terms the earnings growth was even more dramatic -- the upper class grew 27% larger whereas the lower class only grew by 14%.
There are more people moving up than down.