motd - 09/##/2024
-----------------

09/27/2024    NIST's new recommendation on passwords:

              https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-4/sp800-63b.html#passwordver

              "1. Verifiers and CSPs SHALL require passwords to be a
                  minimum of eight characters in length and SHOULD require
                  passwords to be a minimum of 15 characters in length.

               2. Verifiers and CSPs SHOULD permit a maximum password
                  length of at least 64 characters.

               3. Verifiers and CSPs SHOULD accept all printing ASCII
                  [RFC20] characters and the space character in passwords.

               4. Verifiers and CSPs SHOULD accept Unicode [ISO/ISC 10646]
                  characters in passwords. Each Unicode code point SHALL
                  be counted as a single character when evaluating
                  password length.

               5. Verifiers and CSPs SHALL NOT impose other composition
                  rules (e.g., requiring mixtures of different character
                  types) for passwords.

               6. Verifiers and CSPs SHALL NOT require users to change
                  passwords periodically. However, verifiers SHALL force a
                  change if there is evidence of compromise of the
                  authenticator.

               7. Verifiers and CSPs SHALL NOT permit the subscriber to
                  store a hint that is accessible to an unauthenticated
                  claimant.

               8. Verifiers and CSPs SHALL NOT prompt subscribers to use
                  knowledge-based authentication (KBA) (e.g., "What was
                  the name of your first pet?") or security questions when
                  choosing passwords.

               9. Verifiers SHALL verify the entire submitted password
                  (i.e., not truncate it)."

09/27/2024    Mobino:

              https://www.core77.com/posts/133749/This-Beautiful-Espresso-Cup-Made-by-Combining-Digital-Fabrication-with-Handwork

              "[The] Mobino [espresso cup] takes the shape of a Mobius
              strip - a single twisted surface that symbolizes infinity."

              Reminds me of Cliff Stoll's Acme Klein Bottles:

              https://www.kleinbottle.com/

09/26/2024    Why the US can't build icebreakers:

              https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-the-us-cant-build-icebreaking

09/26/2024    HP Perfect Output:

              https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/in-rare-move-from-printing-industry-hp-actually-has-a-decent-idea/

09/26/2024    RCE in CUPS:

              https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-CVSS-9.9-Rating
              https://www.evilsocket.net/2024/09/26/Attacking-UNIX-systems-via-CUPS-Part-I/

              Mitigation on Redhat is to disable cups-browsed:

              https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-hat-response-openprinting-cups-vulnerabilities

              $ sudo systemctl stop cups-browsed
              $ sudo systemctl disable cups-browsed

              Mitigation on Debian should be similar.

              Good post about the impact of this vulnerability:

              https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/sysadmin/CUPSAttackVariesBySize

09/26/2024    Picard's tea cups:

              https://trekmovie.com/2024/09/26/bodum-bringing-back-clasic-picard-tea-cups-from-star-trek-the-next-generation/

              Personally, I prefer the Voyager stainless steel mugs
              (unbreakable - I have one).  I suppose Sisko's Raktajino mug
              is okay, but it was probably also glass or ceramic and more
              breakable.

09/26/2024    Estimating the size of a olive oil molecule:

              https://www.atomsonly.news/p/franklin-oil

              "Rayleigh carefully measured a tiny volume of olive oil -
              0.81 milligrams, to be exact - and placed it onto a known
              area of water. The oil quickly spread out and covered an
              area, which Rayleigh precisely measured. And then he ...
              divided the volume of the oil by the area it covered, thus
              estimating the thickness of the oil film. Assuming that the
              oil formed a single layer of molecules - a monolayer - then
              the thickness of the oil film is the same thing as the
              length of one oil molecule."

09/26/2024    OpenAI agrees to make its training data available on an AEO basis:

              https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/26/openai_training_data_author_copyright_case/

              Stipulation (local copy): https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2024/09/gov.uscourts.cand.414822.182.0.pdf

              "3. Training Data shall be made available for inspection in
              electronic format at OpenAI's offices in San Francisco CA,
              or at a secure location determined by OpenAI within 25 miles
              of San Francisco, CA; or at another mutually agreed
              location.

              ...

              5. Training Data shall be designated 'HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL -
              ATTORNEYS' EYES ONLY' pursuant to the Stipulated Protective
              Order ... and [an] Inspecting Party may disclose Training
              Data only to those authorized to view 'HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL
              - ATTORNEYS['] EYES ONLY' information."

              In re OpenAI ChatGPT Litigation, No. 3:23-cv-03223-AMO,
              Training Data Inspection Protocol, D.N. 182 at 2 (Sept. 24,
              2024).

09/26/2024    eVinci nuclear microreactor:

              https://newatlas.com/energy/evinci-nuclear-microreactor/

              "[Westinghouse's] eVinci microreactor, [] is less than 10 ft
              (3 m) in diameter and generates up to 5 megawatt electrical
              (MWe) with a 15 megawatt thermal (MWth) core design.

              ...

              [I]t has no moving parts once in normal operation and
              requires no water or other coolant circulation.  It uses
              highly robust TRISO (TRi-structural ISOtropic) fuel, which
              consists of uranium enriched to 19.75%, sealed into pellets
              the size of millet seeds made of uranium, carbon, and
              ceramic. These pellets are combined into small spheres that
              are then packed into rods and inserted into the core. The
              result is a fuel assembly that is extremely durable,
              resistant to heat and corrosion, and produces a
              self-limiting nuclear reaction that cannot go out of
              control.

              ...

              Instead of circulating water, air, helium, or molten salts,
              the reactor uses a solid-steel monolith to house the core
              and absorb heat. From there, alkali heat pipes passively
              conduct the heat away using phase changes in the alkali
              metal to cool the reactor and convert the heat into
              electricity.

              The result is a compact, inherently safe design."

09/26/2024    Ecofactor v. Google will be heard en-banc by the Fed Ciruit:

              https://cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/23-1101.ORDER.9-25-2024_2390752.pdf

              The en banc ruling looks like it will be limited to the
              comparable license / per-unit royalty determination made
              by Ecofactor's damages expert:

              "The parties are requested to file new briefs, which shall
              be limited to addressing the district court's adherence to
              Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow
              Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), in its allowance
              of testimony from EcoFactor's damages expert assigning a
              per-unit royalty rate to the three licenses in evidence in
              this case."

              Ecofactor, Inc. v. Google LLC, No. 2023-1101, Slip Op. (D.N.
              76) at 2-3 (Sept. 25, 2024).

              Panel opinion: https://cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/23-1101.OPINION.6-3-2024_2327090.pdf

09/26/2024    Video of the 1st performance of Ganz kleine Nachtmusik (K. 648):

              https://www.openculture.com/2024/09/watch-the-performance-of-a-mozart-composition-that-had-been-lost-for-centuries.html

09/26/2024    Vertical farming:

              https://www.core77.com/posts/133736/A-Space-Saving-Year-Round-Farm-Plentys-Vertical-Solution

09/26/2024    Two rights:

              Q: If two wrongs don't make a right, what did two rights
                 make?
              A: The first airplane.

              Saw this joke somewhere on the web, but I lost the URL.

09/26/2024    Use vi(1):

              https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2024/09/23/ghost-in-the-shell-part-8-use-vi-editor/

09/26/2024    Audi's UFO brakes:

              https://www.thedrive.com/news/audis-ufo-brakes-were-ahead-of-their-time-but-people-hated-them

09/26/2024    The ultimate guide to pen refills:

              https://www.jetpens.com/blog/The-Ultimate-Guide-to-Pen-Refills/pt/231

09/26/2024    Spaceships inspired by everyday objects:

              https://www.core77.com/posts/133688/Product-Based-Inspiration-for-Spaceship-Designs-by-Eric-Geusz

09/26/2024    C until it isn't:

              https://aartaka.me/c-not-c

              Reminds me of "Better C" and Bournegol:

              https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The_Secret_to_Better_C
              https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/programming/BourneGol

09/26/2024    OverSight v.2.4.0:

              https://github.com/objective-see/OverSight/releases/tag/v2.4.0

09/26/2024    Freya Castle:

              https://science.nasa.gov/blog/a-striped-surprise/

              "The [Perseverance] science team thinks that this [black and
              white striped] rock [which they have named 'Freya Castle']
              has a texture unlike any seen in Jezero Crater before, and
              perhaps all of Mars.  [Their] knowledge of its chemical
              composition is limited, but early interpretations are that
              igneous and/or metamorphic processes could have created its
              stripes.  Since Freya Castle is a loose stone that is
              clearly different from the underlying bedrock, it [] likely
              arrived [] from someplace else, perhaps having rolled
              downhill from a source higher up. This possibility has [the
              science team] excited, and [they] hope that as [they]
              continue to drive uphill, Perseverance will encounter an
              outcrop of this new rock type so that more detailed
              measurements can be acquired."

              See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezero_(crater)

09/24/2024    Star Trek coffee:

              https://trekmovie.com/2024/09/24/star-trek-coffees-adds-janeway-and-borg-themed-blends-along-with-line-of-collectible-mugs/

09/24/2024    Ubuntu 24.10 ARM will support Thinkpad X13s:

              https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/09/ubuntu-24-10-arm64-iso-now-supports-thinkpad-x13s

              OpenBSD supports them too:

              https://www.openbsd.org/arm64.html

09/24/2024    High C Compiler language extensions:

              https://duriansoftware.com/joe/the-lost-language-extensions-of-metaware's-high-c-compiler

              Underscores in numeric literals (1_000 for 1,000) and
              ranges in case statements seem like nice extensions.

09/24/2024    AI finds previously unknown Nazca lines:

              https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/ai-discovers-new-nazca-lines-0021477

              "[An] AI system was used to scrutinized imagery collected by
              drones that ranged far and wide across the entire Nazca
              desert region[.] ... According to [] researchers, the newly
              discovered lines depict a wide variety of figures, including
              abstract human-like creatures, decapitated human heads,
              domesticated animals, non-domesticated animals like fish and
              birds, [and] humans and animals interacting[.]"

              Research paper: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2407652121

09/24/2024    ~/.digrc:

              https://www.ncartron.org/using-digrc-to-simplify-your-dns-troubleshooting.html

09/24/2024    Working with CD-ROMs:

              https://www.mistys-internet.website/blog/blog/2024/09/13/the-working-archivists-guide-to-enthusiast-cd-rom-archiving-tools/

09/24/2024    Enable/disable SMT on Debian:

              https://www.servethehome.com/a-guide-to-quickly-enable-and-disable-smt-and-hyper-threading-on-ubuntu-and-debian/

              Enable SMT:

              $ echo on | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/smt/control

              Disable SMT:

              $ echo off | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/smt/control

              Check the status of SMT:

              $ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/smt/active

09/22/2024    Ganz kleine Nachtmusik (K. 648):

              https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/sep/19/previously-unknown-mozart-music-discovered-in-german-library

              "A previously unknown piece of music composed by Wolfgang
              Amadeus Mozart when he was probably in his early teens has
              been uncovered at a library in Germany.  The piece dates to
              the mid to late 1760s and consists of seven miniature
              movements for a string trio lasting about 12 minutes[.]"

              Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganz_kleine_Nachtmusik

09/18/2024    Fast blue optical transient:

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

              "[A]n explosive transient event similar to supernovae and
              gamma-ray bursts with high optical luminosity, rapid
              evolution, and predominantly blue emission.[] The origins
              of such explosions are currently unclear ... [and is]
              largely defined by the observational properties rather than
              the underlying mechanisms/objects."

09/18/2024    Disable Sequoia's monthly screen recording permission prompt:

              https://tinyapps.org/blog/202409180700_disable_sequoia_nag.html

              1. Open the app that needs screen recording permissions

              2. Quit the app

              3. Set the system date far into the future (say April 5,
                 2063)

              4. Open the app and trigger the prompt

              5. Click "Allow for One Month"

              6. Restore the correct date

              See also: https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2024/8/10.html

              1. To stop the prompts set the date to far in the future
                 for a particular app:

                 $ defaults write ~/Library/Group\ Containers/group.com.apple.replayd/ScreenCaptureApprovals.plist "[Application Full Path]" -date "3024-09-21 12:40:36 +0000"

              2. Logout and login again so replayd recognizes the new
                 setting.

09/18/2024    CMS confirms prior measurements of the W boson's mass:

              https://home.cern/news/press-release/physics/cms-experiment-cern-weighs-w-boson-mass

              1. The Standard Model predicts that the W boson's mass is
                 "80353 million electronvolts (MeV) within an uncertainty
                 of 6 MeV"

              2. In 2022, the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF)
                 measured the W boson's mass as "80433.5 MeV with an
                 uncertainty of 9.4 MeV, [which] differed significantly
                 from the Standard Model prediction and from [] other
                 experimental results"

              3. In 2023, CERN's ATLAS Collaboration measured the W
                 boson's mass as "80366.5 MeV with an uncertainty of
                 15.9 MeV, [which] lined up with all previous measurements
                 except the CDF measurement"

              4. CERN's CMS experiment has now measured the W boson's mass
                 as "80360.2 [MeV] with an uncertainty of 9.9 MeV, [with]
                 a precision comparable to that of the CDF measurement and
                 [] in line with all previous measurements"

              SM continues to hold.

09/18/2024    Comic Mono:

              https://dtinth.github.io/comic-mono-font/

09/18/2024    Proposed experiment to confirm QED photon scattering:

              https://physics.aps.org/articles/v17/s109

              "A long-standing prediction of quantum electrodynamics is
              that high-energy photons can scatter off each other.
              However, this process has yet to be observed because
              dedicated experiments have an extremely low signal-to-noise
              ratio. Now [researchers] ... have designed an experiment
              that could achieve a high-enough signal-to-noise ratio to
              measure the phenomenon[.

              ...

              [The researchers] propose colliding three laser beams: an
              x-ray beam and two high-power optical beams. The two optical
              beams provide the photons that scatter off each other, and
              the x-ray beam imparts a momentum kick to the scattered
              photons. This kick alters the trajectory of the photons and
              spatially separates them from much of the experimental
              background ... [increasing] the signal-to-noise ratio."

09/17/2024    Please state the nature of the medical emergency:

              https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/west-cancer-center-proto-hologram/

09/17/2024    Not so grim reaper:

              https://wronghands1.com/2024/09/17/grim-reaper/

09/17/2024    Basic Apple Guy's Strokes wallpapers:

              https://basicappleguy.com/basicappleblog/strokes

09/17/2024    Decreased smartphone usage might make people happier:

              https://phys.org/news/2024-09-smartphone-satisfaction.html

              "[T]he researchers assigned the [study's] participants, who
              all came from different professional sectors, to four groups
              of roughly equal size. The smartphone group reduced their
              private smartphone use by one hour a day for one week. The
              sport group increased their daily physical activity by 30
              minutes. The combination group did both, and the control
              group didn't change their routine at all.

              ...

              In the smartphone group and the combination group, the
              researchers found that work satisfaction and motivation,
              work-life balance and mental health had improved
              significantly. What's more, the feeling of work overload and
              symptoms of problematic smartphone use were significantly
              reduced. All interventions led to a reduction in depressive
              symptoms and they increased the participants' sense of
              control."

              Full paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000169182400372X

09/17/2024    Raymond Chandler and Google:

              https://quoteinvestigator.com/2024/09/16/hot-sf/

              "In 1953 Chandler sent a letter to a friend which included a
              jargon-filled passage parodying science fiction writing.
              ... The final sentence of Chandler's passage included the
              word 'Google':

              ...

              'I had exactly four seconds to hot up the disintegrator and
              Google had told me it wasn't enough. He was right.'"

09/17/2024    Vacuum decay may occur sooner than previously expected:

              https://hackaday.com/2024/09/16/the-universe-as-we-know-it-may-end-sooner-than-expected/
              https://www.quantamagazine.org/vacuum-of-space-to-decay-sooner-than-expected-but-still-not-soon-20240722/

              "According to [prior] estimates, a cubic gigaparsec of space
              will see vacuum decay once every 10^794 years ...[;] [o]nly
              10^10 years have passed so far since the Big Bang. ...
              Recently, a group of physicists in Slovenia claim[] to have
              found a small error in the calculation, one that quickens
              the end of the universe as we know it to 10^790 years,
              instead of 10^794 [years]."

09/16/2024    The Ars Technica MacOS Sequoia review:

              https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/macos-15-sequoia-the-ars-technica-review/

              Overall sounds like a worthwhile upgrade once 15.1 is out,
              especially Chess.app :-), FSKit, rotating random MAC
              addresses:

              https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/macos-15-sequoia-the-ars-technica-review/13/
              https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/macos-15-sequoia-the-ars-technica-review/16/
              https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/macos-15-sequoia-the-ars-technica-review/18/

              But, running non-notarized software looks like it will be an
              annoying two step process instead of the existing
              right-click/control-click method:

              https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/macos-15-sequoia-the-ars-technica-review/17/

              1. "[T]ry to launch the app and dismiss the dialog box telling
                 you that it can't be opened."

              2. "[O]pen Settings, go to the Privacy & Security screen,
                 scroll all the way to the bottom to get to the Security
                 section, and click the Open Anyway button that appears
                 for the last unsigned app you tried to run."

09/15/2024    Two Supermassive black holes heading for a merger:

              https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-022

              "The Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray
              Observatory looked in the heart of a pair of colliding
              galaxies and uncovered twin supermassive black holes
              waltzing around each other. ... They are approximately 300
              light-years apart - the closest AGN [Active Galactic
              Nucleus] pair seen in visible-light and X-ray wavelengths.

              ...

              The two supermassive black holes were once at the core of
              their respective host galaxies. A merger between the
              galaxies brought the black holes into close proximity. They
              will continue to spiral closer together until they
              eventually merge - in perhaps 100 million years - rattling
              the fabric of space and time as gravitational waves."

09/15/2024    BlockBlock 2.2.4:

              https://github.com/objective-see/BlockBlock/releases/tag/v2.2.4

09/15/2024    Miles Edward O'Brien might be getting a statute in Killarney:

              https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/star-trek-chief-obrien-statue

09/12/2024    Bose glass:

              https://phys.org/news/2024-09-discovery-phase-2d-defies-statistical.html

              "Physicists from the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge have
              created the first two-dimensional version of the Bose glass,
              a novel phase of matter that ... has some glassy properties
              and within it all particles are localized. This means that
              each particle in the system sticks to itself, not mixing
              with its neighbors.

              ...

              To create this new phase of matter, the group overlapped
              several laser beams to create a quasiperiodic pattern, a
              pattern that is long-range ordered like a conventional
              crystal, but not periodic, meaning that, like a Penrose
              tiling, it never repeats. When filling the resulting
              structure with ultracold atoms, cooled to nanokelvin
              temperatures ... close to absolute zero, the atoms formed
              the Bose glass."

09/02/2024    Incase is bringing back the Sculpt Ergonomic keyboard:

              https://www.incase.com/pages/incase-designed-by-microsoft

              The Sculpt has been my favorite keyboard for years.  I've
              used it without problems on MacOS, Debian, and OpenBSD.

09/02/2024    Fragments of two lost Euripides plays have been found:

              https://www.colorado.edu/asmagazine/2024/08/01/uncovered-euripides-fragments-are-kind-big-deal

09/02/2024    Converting miles to km:

              https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2024/09/01/miles-to-kilometers/

09/02/2024    A brief history of dc:

              https://howdytx.technology/unix-history-the-dc-calculator/

09/01/2024    Picking up a Quicksilver G4:

              https://rubenerd.com/picking-up-a-powermac-g4-quicksilver/

              I had a 400MHz Graphite, a dual 1GHz Quicksilver and a dual
              2GHz G5.  Of these, the Quicksilver was my favorite because
              it was reasonably fast, easy to work on, and easy to carry.
              I've also thought about picking up one of these, but a 2005
              2.3GHz G5 probably would be more practical since it can run
              both OSX (10.4 and 10.5), OS9 (in Classic), and FreeBSD 13
              (with ZFS!).

Older
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08/##/2024    https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2024/08/motd.txt
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              https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2024/07/index.html

06/##/2024    https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2024/06/motd.txt
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05/##/2024    https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2024/05/motd.txt
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04/##/2024    https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2024/04/motd.txt
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03/##/2024    https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2024/03/motd.txt
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02/##/2024    https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2024/02/motd.txt
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01/##/2024    https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2024/01/motd.txt
              https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2024/01/index.html

##/##/2023    https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/motd.txt
              https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/index.html

##/##/2022    https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2022/motd.txt
              https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2022/index.html

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