cultural reviewer and dabbler in stylistic premonitions

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  • 802 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: January 17th, 2022

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  • $ systemd-analyze calendar tomorrow
    Failed to parse calendar specification 'tomorrow': Invalid argument
    Hint: this expression is a valid timestamp. Use 'systemd-analyze timestamp "tomorrow"' instead?
    $ systemd-analyze timestamp tuesday
    Failed to parse "tuesday": Invalid argument
    Hint: this expression is a valid calendar specification. Use 'systemd-analyze calendar "tuesday"' instead?
    

    ಠ_ಠ

    $ for day in Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun; do TZ=UTC systemd-analyze calendar "$day 02-29"|tail -2; done
        Next elapse: Mon 2044-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
           From now: 19 years 4 months left
        Next elapse: Tue 2028-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
           From now: 3 years 4 months left
        Next elapse: Wed 2040-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
           From now: 15 years 4 months left
        Next elapse: Thu 2052-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
           From now: 27 years 4 months left
        Next elapse: Fri 2036-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
           From now: 11 years 4 months left
        Next elapse: Sat 2048-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
           From now: 23 years 4 months left
        Next elapse: Sun 2032-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
           From now: 7 years 4 months left
    

    still image from "Zach Galifianakis Math" gif, with Zach looking contemplative with math notation floating in front of his face

    (It checks out.)

    Surprisingly its calendar specification parser actually allows for 31 days in every month:

    $ TZ=UTC systemd-analyze calendar '02-29' && echo OK || echo not OK
      Original form: 02-29
    Normalized form: *-02-29 00:00:00
        Next elapse: Tue 2028-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
           From now: 3 years 4 months left
    OK
    $ TZ=UTC systemd-analyze calendar '02-30' && echo OK || echo not OK
      Original form: 02-30
    Normalized form: *-02-30 00:00:00
        Next elapse: never           
    OK
    $ TZ=UTC systemd-analyze calendar '02-31' && echo OK || echo not OK
      Original form: 02-31
    Normalized form: *-02-31 00:00:00
        Next elapse: never           
    OK
    $ TZ=UTC systemd-analyze calendar '02-32' && echo OK || echo not OK
    Failed to parse calendar specification '02-32': Invalid argument
    not OK
    

  • Funny that blog calls it a “failed attempt at a backdoor” while neglecting to mention that the grsec post (which it does link to and acknowledges is the source of the story) had been updated months prior to explicitly refute that characterization:

    5/22/2020 Update: This kind of update should not have been necessary, but due to irresponsible journalists and the nature of social media, it is important to make some things perfectly clear:

    Nowhere did we claim this was anything more than a trivially exploitable vulnerability. It is not a backdoor or an attempted backdoor, the term does not appear elsewhere in this blog at all; any suggestion of the sort was fabricated by irresponsible journalists who did not contact us and do not speak for us.

    There is no chance this code would have passed review and be merged. No one can push or force code upstream.

    This code is not characteristic of the quality of other code contributed upstream by Huawei. Contrary to baseless assertions from some journalists, this is not Huawei’s first attempt at contributing to the kernel, in fact they’ve been a frequent contributor for some time.






  • After a minute of research I’m inclined to believe Godzilla egg-laying only happened in Roland Emmerich’s 1998 film.

    Here is some contemporary reporting about it: https://www.chicagotribune.com/1998/05/19/godzilla-lays-an-egg-does-this-surprise-you/

    Big, buff and bodacious, he’s so cool he can even reproduce himself–or herself. Turns out, Godzilla’s a hermaphrodite.

    Consistent with the mythology, this giant lizard is a mutant by-product of nuclear radiation. As the only member of its species to have survived a bomb test in French Polynesia, Godzilla must assume male and female reproductive functions to maintain the lineage.

    Why Godzilla feels compelled to travel all the way to Manhattan to lay its eggs is a mystery not clearly explained in the script, but, like any Sinatra fan, the monster probably thought, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” So, it was off to New York, New York, where–like the Knicks–the creature lays a lot of eggs in Madison Square Garden.

    see also: https://fictionhorizon.com/how-does-godzilla-reproduce/





  • The headline should mention that they’re breaking 22-bit RSA, but then it would get a lot less clicks.

    A different group of Chinese researchers set what I think is the current record when they factored a 48-bit number with a quantum computer two years ago: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.12372

    I guess the news here is that now they’ve reached 22 bits using the quantum annealing technique which works on D-Wave’s commercially-available quantum computers? That approach was previously able to factor an 18-bit number in 2018.

    🥂 to the researchers, but 👎 to the clickbait headline writers. This is still nowhere near being a CRQC (cryptanalytically-relevant quantum computer).