Most of large engineering orgs use niche software built for windows. CAD, CAE, many don’t have Linux or Mac versions. See - solidworks, Siemens simcenter, ansys… to name a few. Engineering orgs have to build infrastructure around this and are forced to choose Microslop

prompt -> LLM -> flying car should be just around the corner guys!

Do they ship internationally

Isn’t this already a requirement? Can you really buy a burner phone/sim without providing identifying information?

not at all, it’s easy to buy cash only tracphone, mint, boost, etc. and there are plenty of explicit anonymous providers such as phreeli.

That said, I don’t think its a problem whatsoever and we shouldn’t have laws restricting it.

the only solution is to upgrade the phone system to require ID, but that would cost billions to AT&T, so that ain't gonna happen

Back in the late 2000s-early 2010s you could grab some Verizon bubble pack flip phones and just dial an activation string on the handset itself and it'd set up a new phone number for you and you'd just have to go add airtime with a prepaid card or credit card without having to provide anything.

Some of the LTE tablets even powered up and put you into a walled garden with data (heh, DNS tunneling worked out of it) to let you sign up for a mobile plan out of the box.

When I did some activations with PagePlus with an actual dealer-level account, it cost me nothing to activate a 'customer' handset and the only info I had to provide on the activation screens was the phone's serial number and the requested ZIP/area code for activation.

And fine, okay, the FCC will force American telecoms to require IDs, but nothing's stoping Redtea Mobile's foreign eSIMs from roaming into the US for data connections. You're just one eSIM global roaming provider away from bypassing all of it!

They'll just add regulation that requires KYC for roaming agreements.

So basically people from Africa won't be allowed to use their phones in the USA by order of the government? (If they can even get into the country without ending up in an ICE camp, of course)

That will be a feature and not considered a bug.

I had reason to pick up a couple cheap pre-paid phones at a gas station once. I wasn't asked to give an ID to anyone to buy them, but once I had them I needed to call a company to activate the phone and they were very particular about what phone number it would work from. It had to be a landline. Payphone wouldn't work. My work phone didn't work. It was difficult to track down a phone line they'd accept and even then one of the phones refused to register.

It seemed to me like they wanted to make sure they could tie the phones to an individual through activation.

T-Mobile prepaid accounts for example

You can just walk in there with cash and walk out with a fully activated SIM without them asking for ID?

Correct

Yes, I recall doing that. I'm a foreigner but I was in the US on vacation. Went to T-Mobile, so easy to get a SIM card.

I used to buy test phones for software testing at a bodega where they had a laundry basket full of phones, and they would sell prepaid SIMs no questions asked.

In the US you can buy a SIM card and activate without providing any information at the airport. At least in NYC. I was really surprised the first time

Why were you surprised?

Because I’m from Europe, and we need to provide an ID to get a SIM card

Not who you were responding to, but most of the western world requires IDs already. The US is an outlier on this issue.

I don't think that's true. At least not in the European countries I visit.

It’s a EU wide requirement

I dunno. I can go to Tesco in Ireland and the UK (fine, UK is not EU no more, but still Europe) and get a sim without ID.

You’re right, I was mistaken. A proposal circulated to have an EU wide ID requirement but it went nowhere. So it depends the country

Nordics, Baltics and a couple of other countries are the places this still works. The rest of Europe is locked down.

But flock hit is the entire reason for the cops to go arrest them. And you’re right if they did careful assessment of other flock camera data, even the data of this particular flock camera they would have known this car was 5 miles away 23 seconds later. The whole point being misusing/abusing flock data to wrongly jail people and that is precisely what happened here. Flock is the center of this story.

> [T]hey would have known this car was 5 miles away 23 seconds later.

Tack on a reckless driving charge and a speeding ticket.

782.6mph is way too fast.

As long as the vehicle traveling above Mach 1 remains a ground vehicle, the FAA won't get involved.

Police would just argue that the second datapoint was wrong.

Schrodinger's flock - the 'hit' helped us catch the criminals and the hit is wrong. but we are going ahead with prosecution nonetheless.

Obviously so, maybe society should hire criminals to catch the police.

RAM shortage is really hitting the legislators hard

I found an incredibly simple solution for this. Screen time in iOS can block specific websites and apps installed on your device. Set harmless time limits - 5 min for instagram. 2 mins for Reddit.com etc.

Ask your spouse or a friend you trust to set screen time passcode. You can’t bypass it and you’re not going cold turkey either or losing an important utility like Safari.

Doom scroll all you want in 2 mins then it’s locked for the day.

I have succeeded and it’s been 3+ months.

I'm so addicted I'd find a way around. It's incredible how many times I type x[enter] in my browser even if I'm met with a login screen. Being logged out stops me from mindlessly scrolling, but won't stop me from going on auto-pilot and opening X three times in a row.

When a set of banal traffic observation cameras turn into surveillance of a particular individual, then you’re being unreasonably searched/tracked/stalked. This should require a probable cause and proper warrant "we want to identify this individuals movements because …"

This is a clear violation of the 4th amendment.

They undid public charge from my memory. It doesn’t exist anymore.

I looked it up, and we were required to complete form I-864 "Affidavit of Support Under Section 213A of the INA". My wife, her grandmother, and her grandfather all needed to complete one, and when considered together, prove that they earned 125% of the HHS poverty guidelines. As my wife didn't have provable income (we were moving together), we needed to dig into their social security income and complete the forms. I remember feeling sad that I needed to ask for such personal information from them.

My salary in the UK was many multiples of this guideline, but _earning potential_ is not considered. Pragmatism is not really a service offered by USCIS, it's too political. To be on-topic: this move will disincentivize smart but not-yet-wealthy people from immigrating to the "land of opportunity". It was already harder than it had to be.

How recently? As of about 2010, it was very much still there. I understand that is 16 years ago.

It has always existed, but how strictly it’s interpreted (i.e., just cash welfare, or also Medicaid, SNAP, and other means-tested benefits) has shifted between administrations. If you applied during Biden’s administration, I could believe the public charge rule was applied very laxly, particularly because it’s rare to get direct cash welfare in the US these days, and even less for an extended period.