#reverse engineering testing services

[ynrenggcluster]

Unveiling the Power of Reverse Engineering Testing Services

In the dynamic landscape of software development, staying ahead of the curve is crucial. One key strategy gaining traction is the utilization of Reverse Engineering Testing Services. This innovative approach involves dissecting and understanding existing software systems to enhance their functionality, security, and overall performance.

Reverse engineering testing services are not just about breaking down code; they're a strategic tool to uncover the intricacies of complex applications. By deconstructing software, developers gain insights into its structure, enabling them to identify vulnerabilities, enhance functionality, and streamline performance.

One primary advantage of reverse engineering testing is its ability to unveil hidden features or diagnose issues that may not be apparent through conventional testing methods. This process helps developers create more robust and resilient software by understanding the underlying architecture.

Moreover, reverse engineering testing services play a pivotal role in ensuring compliance with industry standards and regulations. By dissecting software components, organizations can identify potential security loopholes and rectify them before they become exploitable vulnerabilities.

In a nutshell, the power of reverse engineering testing services lies in their ability to unravel the mysteries of existing software, paving the way for innovation, security, and improved performance. As the software development landscape evolves, embracing this approach becomes increasingly essential for organizations aiming to stay competitive and resilient in the digital realm.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Conspiratorialism as a material phenomenon

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

I think it behooves us to be a little skeptical of stories about AI driving people to believe wrong things and commit ugly actions. Not that I like the AI slop that is filling up our social media, but when we look at the ways that AI is harming us, slop is pretty low on the list.

The real AI harms come from the actual things that AI companies sell AI to do. There's the AI gun-detector gadgets that the credulous Mayor Eric Adams put in NYC subways, which led to 2,749 invasive searches and turned up zero guns:

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nycs-subway-weapons-detector-pilot-program-ends/

Any time AI is used to predict crime – predictive policing, bail determinations, Child Protective Services red flags – they magnify the biases already present in these systems, and, even worse, they give this bias the veneer of scientific neutrality. This process is called "empiricism-washing," and you know you're experiencing it when you hear some variation on "it's just math, math can't be racist":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/23/cryptocidal-maniacs/#phrenology

When AI is used to replace customer service representatives, it systematically defrauds customers, while providing an "accountability sink" that allows the company to disclaim responsibility for the thefts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

When AI is used to perform high-velocity "decision support" that is supposed to inform a "human in the loop," it quickly overwhelms its human overseer, who takes on the role of "moral crumple zone," pressing the "OK" button as fast as they can. This is bad enough when the sacrificial victim is a human overseeing, say, proctoring software that accuses remote students of cheating on their tests:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/unauthorized-paper/#cheating-anticheat

But it's potentially lethal when the AI is a transcription engine that doctors have to use to feed notes to a data-hungry electronic health record system that is optimized to commit health insurance fraud by seeking out pretenses to "upcode" a patient's treatment. Those AIs are prone to inventing things the doctor never said, inserting them into the record that the doctor is supposed to review, but remember, the only reason the AI is there at all is that the doctor is being asked to do so much paperwork that they don't have time to treat their patients:

https://apnews.com/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-health-business-90020cdf5fa16c79ca2e5b6c4c9bbb14

My point is that "worrying about AI" is a zero-sum game. When we train our fire on the stuff that isn't important to the AI stock swindlers' business-plans (like creating AI slop), we should remember that the AI companies could halt all of that activity and not lose a dime in revenue. By contrast, when we focus on AI applications that do the most direct harm – policing, health, security, customer service – we also focus on the AI applications that make the most money and drive the most investment.

AI hasn't attracted hundreds of billions in investment capital because investors love AI slop. All the money pouring into the system – from investors, from customers, from easily gulled big-city mayors – is chasing things that AI is objectively very bad at and those things also cause much more harm than AI slop. If you want to be a good AI critic, you should devote the majority of your focus to these applications. Sure, they're not as visually arresting, but discrediting them is financially arresting, and that's what really matters.

All that said: AI slop is real, there is a lot of it, and just because it doesn't warrant priority over the stuff AI companies actually sell, it still has cultural significance and is worth considering.

AI slop has turned Facebook into an anaerobic lagoon of botshit, just the laziest, grossest engagement bait, much of it the product of rise-and-grind spammers who avidly consume get rich quick "courses" and then churn out a torrent of "shrimp Jesus" and fake chainsaw sculptures:

https://www.404media.co/email/1cdf7620-2e2f-4450-9cd9-e041f4f0c27f/

For poor engagement farmers in the global south chasing the fractional pennies that Facebook shells out for successful clickbait, the actual content of the slop is beside the point. These spammers aren't necessarily tuned into the psyche of the wealthy-world Facebook users who represent Meta's top monetization subjects. They're just trying everything and doubling down on anything that moves the needle, A/B splitting their way into weird, hyper-optimized, grotesque crap:

https://www.404media.co/facebook-is-being-overrun-with-stolen-ai-generated-images-that-people-think-are-real/

In other words, Facebook's AI spammers are laying out a banquet of arbitrary possibilities, like the letters on a Ouija board, and the Facebook users' clicks and engagement are a collective ideomotor response, moving the algorithm's planchette to the options that tug hardest at our collective delights (or, more often, disgusts).

So, rather than thinking of AI spammers as creating the ideological and aesthetic trends that drive millions of confused Facebook users into condemning, praising, and arguing about surreal botshit, it's more true to say that spammers are discovering these trends within their subjects' collective yearnings and terrors, and then refining them by exploring endlessly ramified variations in search of unsuspected niches.

(If you know anything about AI, this may remind you of something: a Generative Adversarial Network, in which one bot creates variations on a theme, and another bot ranks how closely the variations approach some ideal. In this case, the spammers are the generators and the Facebook users they evince reactions from are the discriminators)

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

I got to thinking about this today while reading User Mag, Taylor Lorenz's superb newsletter, and her reporting on a new AI slop trend, "My neighbor’s ridiculous reason for egging my car":

https://www.usermag.co/p/my-neighbors-ridiculous-reason-for

The "egging my car" slop consists of endless variations on a story in which the poster (generally a figure of sympathy, canonically a single mother of newborn twins) complains that her awful neighbor threw dozens of eggs at her car to punish her for parking in a way that blocked his elaborate Hallowe'en display. The text is accompanied by an AI-generated image showing a modest family car that has been absolutely plastered with broken eggs, dozens upon dozens of them.

According to Lorenz, variations on this slop are topping very large Facebook discussion forums totalling millions of users, like "Movie Character…,USA Story, Volleyball Women, Top Trends, Love Style, and God Bless." These posts link to SEO sites laden with programmatic advertising.

The funnel goes:

i. Create outrage and hence broad reach;

ii, A small percentage of those who see the post will click through to the SEO site;

iii. A small fraction of those users will click a low-quality ad;

iv. The ad will pay homeopathic sub-pennies to the spammer.

The revenue per user on this kind of scam is next to nothing, so it only works if it can get very broad reach, which is why the spam is so designed for engagement maximization. The more discussion a post generates, the more users Facebook recommends it to.

These are very effective engagement bait. Almost all AI slop gets some free engagement in the form of arguments between users who don't know they're commenting an AI scam and people hectoring them for falling for the scam. This is like the free square in the middle of a bingo card.

Beyond that, there's multivalent outrage: some users are furious about food wastage; others about the poor, victimized "mother" (some users are furious about both). Not only do users get to voice their fury at both of these imaginary sins, they can also argue with one another about whether, say, food wastage even matters when compared to the petty-minded aggression of the "perpetrator." These discussions also offer lots of opportunity for violent fantasies about the bad guy getting a comeuppance, offers to travel to the imaginary AI-generated suburb to dole out a beating, etc. All in all, the spammers behind this tedious fiction have really figured out how to rope in all kinds of users' attention.

Of course, the spammers don't get much from this. There isn't such a thing as an "attention economy." You can't use attention as a unit of account, a medium of exchange or a store of value. Attention – like everything else that you can't build an economy upon, such as cryptocurrency – must be converted to money before it has economic significance. Hence that tooth-achingly trite high-tech neologism, "monetization."

The monetization of attention is very poor, but AI is heavily subsidized or even free (for now), so the largest venture capital and private equity funds in the world are spending billions in public pension money and rich peoples' savings into CO2 plumes, GPUs, and botshit so that a bunch of hustle-culture weirdos in the Pacific Rim can make a few dollars by tricking people into clicking through engagement bait slop – twice.

The slop isn't the point of this, but the slop does have the useful function of making the collective ideomotor response visible and thus providing a peek into our hopes and fears. What does the "egging my car" slop say about the things that we're thinking about?

Lorenz cites Jamie Cohen, a media scholar at CUNY Queens, who points out that subtext of this slop is "fear and distrust in people about their neighbors." Cohen predicts that "the next trend, is going to be stranger and more violent.”

This feels right to me. The corollary of mistrusting your neighbors, of course, is trusting only yourself and your family. Or, as Margaret Thatcher liked to say, "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families."

We are living in the tail end of a 40 year experiment in structuring our world as though "there is no such thing as society." We've gutted our welfare net, shut down or privatized public services, all but abolished solidaristic institutions like unions.

This isn't mere aesthetics: an atomized society is far more hospitable to extreme wealth inequality than one in which we are all in it together. When your power comes from being a "wise consumer" who "votes with your wallet," then all you can do about the climate emergency is buy a different kind of car – you can't build the public transit system that will make cars obsolete.

When you "vote with your wallet" all you can do about animal cruelty and habitat loss is eat less meat. When you "vote with your wallet" all you can do about high drug prices is "shop around for a bargain." When you vote with your wallet, all you can do when your bank forecloses on your home is "choose your next lender more carefully."

Most importantly, when you vote with your wallet, you cast a ballot in an election that the people with the thickest wallets always win. No wonder those people have spent so long teaching us that we can't trust our neighbors, that there is no such thing as society, that we can't have nice things. That there is no alternative.

The commercial surveillance industry really wants you to believe that they're good at convincing people of things, because that's a good way to sell advertising. But claims of mind-control are pretty goddamned improbable – everyone who ever claimed to have managed the trick was lying, from Rasputin to MK-ULTRA:

https://pluralistic.net/HowToDestroySurveillanceCapitalism

Rather than seeing these platforms as convincing people of things, we should understand them as discovering and reinforcing the ideology that people have been driven to by material conditions. Platforms like Facebook show us to one another, let us form groups that can imperfectly fill in for the solidarity we're desperate for after 40 years of "no such thing as society."

The most interesting thing about "egging my car" slop is that it reveals that so many of us are convinced of two contradictory things: first, that everyone else is a monster who will turn on you for the pettiest of reasons; and second, that we're all the kind of people who would stick up for the victims of those monsters.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/29/hobbesian-slop/#cui-bono

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[collapsedsquid]

But Kirkpatrick soon discovered that some of the obsession with secrecy verged on the farcical. A former Air Force officer was visibly terrified when he told Kirkpatrick’s investigators that he had been briefed on a secret alien project decades earlier, and was warned that if he ever repeated the secret he could be jailed or executed. The claim would be repeated to investigators by other men who had never spoken of the matter, even with their spouses.  It turned out the witnesses had been victims of a bizarre hazing ritual.  For decades, certain new commanders of the Air Force’s most classified programs, as part of their induction briefings, would be handed a piece of paper with a photo of what looked like a flying saucer. The craft was described as an antigravity maneuvering vehicle.  The officers were told that the program they were joining, dubbed Yankee Blue, was part of an effort to reverse-engineer the technology on the craft. They were told never to mention it again. Many never learned it was fake. Kirkpatrick found the practice had begun decades before, and appeared to continue still. The defense secretary’s office sent a memo out across the service in the spring of 2023 ordering the practice to stop immediately, but the damage was done.  Investigators are still trying to determine why officers had misled subordinates, whether as some type of loyalty test, a more deliberate attempt to deceive or something else.  

[mintedwitcher]

Reasons to believe that Bobby is dead:

the show made a point of reminding the audience that the virus Bobby contracted had no treatment.

the super-strain of the virus only had two doses of antiviral made to counter it, and we as the audience were told it would take weeks to make another.

we just sat and watched as Chimney very nearly died of the exact same virus. if Hen hadn't thought of flooding Chim's nasal cavity with water, we would have watched him bleed to death.

Bobby's remains were held, because he died in an act of biochemical terrorism. his body was most likely stored in quarantine, while they ran tests to ensure that the virus behaved and died like it should, since this was a modified strain. there would've also likely been a variety of tests to try and reverse-engineer the virus as well.

Athena's case. it was never about paralleling Bobby and Micah (the baby). it was paralleling Leah (the mother) and Athena, their incapability to accept the truth in the moment, their grief and the way their actions - or inaction, in Athena's case - were harming those close to them. that's why the case wraps with Athena finding and presenting concrete proof that Cameron (the little boy Leah tried to abduct) was not her son. if it had been a Bobby/Micah parallel, it would've been revealed that Cameron was Micah, that Leah had been right all along, but it wasn't. the writers might've taken inspiration from a real life case for this arc, but it was never going to pan out the way it did in reality. what would be the point?

Bobby's death was foreshadowed, a lot. Bobby's story was always going to end in death. it was the first thing we learned about him once he opened up. and yes, his priorities changed over time, but Bobby Nash has walked hand in hand with Death his entire life. there was no other way for his story to end. he gave his life to save his team. that is who Bobby has always been.

we didn't see a body, because the corpse of a person who has bled to death is not something that people typically want to see, especially to a character who embodied life as much as Bobby Nash. that was a kindness. it's the same reason we didn't have to sit through another 40 minutes watching him slowly bleed out and his organs shut down like we just saw with Chim. if you want 'realism', go watch a murder documentary.

his funeral. a ceremony like that, a procession that big, would've taken government approval, at the very least on a local level. there would've been mountains of red tape and paperwork and licenses and contingencies in place for a funeral of that size. if the government was really covering up something shady, do you really think they would've allowed that? bringing that much attention to the circumstances of Bobby's death?

bringing Bobby home. if that casket had been empty, it would've been mentioned. if Bobby was somehow alive inside the casket, it would've been noticed. sedatives remain in the system for about 24 hours, but that's not how long it keeps you unconscious for. metabolism also plays a part in how quickly the drugs wear off. if you look at the time it would've taken to prepare the casket and place Bobby inside, plus the duration of the service, the procession, the transport to the plane (with any precautionary checks done before boarding), the plane ride itself, transport to the cemetery in Minnesota, preparation for burial (which would likely include another check of the casket to make sure that it hadn't been damaged in transit), plus the graveside funeral and burial? Bobby would've woken long before he was buried. it would've been noticed. not to mention, Bobby was buried roughly three weeks after he died. that's not an abnormal amount of time. there is a LOT of paperwork that goes into handling and processing remains, especially remains that were infected with a major virus. I'm actually surprised it only took two weeks for his body to be released.

lastly, a few questions to think about, if this hasn't convinced you: what point would it serve, narratively, for Bobby's death to be fake? who would benefit from that arc? what would be the purpose of that arc? remember that we are talking about a TV show, not a real person, so in that vein, how would faking Bobby Nash's death impact the plot of this first responder procedural show?

[ms-demeanor]

Okay so, how exactly do Password Managers work?

Because I'm pretty sure that giving some random corporation all my passwords would just make it EASIER for my personal info to get leaked.

I mean it is genuinely complicated; I don't know if you saw my explanation about dominoes yesterday, but basically you're not giving the company your information. You are creating an account with a company and they are handing you a tool that is extremely securely encrypted to store your passwords in. The company never has access to your passwords, or to the key you use to unlock your account. What they have access to is the cryptographic hash of your key to prove that it is you trying to access the account, but they can't reverse engineer the key that you use.

It's the same sort of process that encrypted email services like ProtonMail use. It's zero-knowledge storage. All that the password manager company is storing (in the case of a good password manager like Bitwarden) is up to 1gb of encrypted data for free users. They don't have access to your information. They couldn't get into it if they wanted to. All that they know about you is whatever information you used to register for the service and broad information about creation of the account.

Part of the reason that I recommend Bitwarden is that it is both open source and pretty widely used and recommended.

Open source security products are often considered more secure than closed-source tools because they can be examined and tested at the source-code level by *anyone* to check for vulnerabilities and holes in the security. Functionally what this means is that you have very smart, very motivated, and very security-conscious people testing products like Bitwarden for flaws and reporting them immediately.

I'm not great at explaining cryptographic hashing so I'm in a position where basically all I can tell you is "Trust me it works, and if that's not enough you have to go do some reading about hashing because I can't explain it." This is the barrier that a LOT of people have to using a password manager, and it's frustrating because genuinely, it is not something that people who work in security worry about *at all.*

When we're working with security the concern about password managers is *never* that a zero-knowledge company is going to have a leak. The concern is that data might actually be stored in plaintext (something you don't have to worry about with bitwarden because if that was the case everyone on the forums would be screaming their heads off at all times, and they are not) or that a phishing campaign is going to trick a user into handing over their password to the password manager.

But yeah, when you start using a good password manager with zero-knowledge storage, you aren't handing your data to a company. What's happening is that the company is handing YOU a tiny safe. The tiny safe has a ten-thousand-digit combination lock that you set the code for, and the company has no way of figuring out that code. They're hoping that you will pay them for the safe. And if you forget your code, you're screwed - the company can't get you access because, again, they have no way of getting the code. They don't store it, they don't see it, they don't know it, they can't produce it if ordered to do so at trial, and they can't reset the code.

[amessageonthewind]

Bad Eggs

Despite the efforts taken to test and confirm that Pokémon can remain stable when converted into data when placed in the PC, sometimes a Pokémon’s data can get accidentally corrupted while inside due to an internal error. How the Pokémon physically responds to this is to essentially revert to their most base form – an egg. It is an extreme reaction to a Pokémon encountering something going very very wrong, so they revert to the form that they feel safest in as a sort of ‘natural error handler’ as a result of the Pokémon’s biology being converted into computer data.

However, the egg they turn into does not function like Pokémon eggs typically do. Unlike other eggs that indicate the species it will hatch into in some way, these eggs – Bad Eggs, as they are called – are pale yellow with green spots, the colour desaturated and greyish in appearance and no matter what, these eggs will not hatch (though rumours do circulate about what happens if they do) and if left in the PC can sometimes spread this condition to the data of neighbouring Pokémon like a virus.

This phenomenon doesn’t happen very often and is scarcely documented, often chocked up to just an urban myth or a baseless rumour by Trainers and children. It has even been the subject of internet horror stories – known colloquially as creepypastas – in early internet culture, contributing to this almost mythological status surrounding Bad Eggs and elevating it as something of an urban legend.

However, not very well known by people is that Bad Eggs are a natural phenomenon in nature. Sometimes when a Pokémon lays an egg, they will lay an egg that is empty or rotten and unable to be hatched. It’s unknown why this happens since the actual process of reproduction is a private matter between Pokémon almost never directly observed by humans, and thus research is scarce to practically nonexistent. But when it does happen, the Pokémon will often just bury them since they have no scent indicating anything alive inside.

Bill, being the man responsible for inventing and developing the Pokémon Storage System, immediately began to get to work in order to remedy this once he heard about it and saw the evidence for himself when he caught a Cleffa as a companion for his Clefairy and it turned into a Bad Egg after he put it into the PC System, asking local Breeders if they’ve encountered a similar phenomenon before making this his priority.

He accomplished this by experimenting on himself and his Clefairy (who volunteered for the experiments). It was both a way of engineering teleportation technology and to research how his own biological data would fare when being tampered with and accidentally fusing himself with his Clefairy in the process. He, however, learned a great deal from these experiments and how to manipulate the biological data of Pokémon and eventually engineered a method of converting Bad Eggs back into the original Pokémon they’re supposed to be and restoring them. Bill has since offered a public service for any Trainers whose Pokémon have been turned into Bad Eggs while in the PC and continues to operate it to this day.

The Eevee that Rachel receives from Bill in Goldenrod City while she travels through Johto – affectionately named Potential – was a Bad Egg whose condition he was able to reverse with the help with his sister and her knowledge on machinery. It was his primary test subject in figuring out how to reverse the process. It eventually evolves into Umbreon. He received it from a confused Breeder to use as a test subject in order to discover how to reverse the process and begin making his service public globally. The Eevee was his first test subject as he was a bit hesitant to test on his Cleffa until he successfully reverted Eevee back to its true form.

Since accomplishing this, Bill has since sought out the help and expertise of Lanette and Professor Elm in order to engineer a completely foolproof method for reversing the condition. Eventually, with their combined efforts, they succeed and Bill sets up a service for Trainers to be able to send him their Bad Eggs in order for him to revert them and then return them to their Trainers.

It’s uncommon and rare to occur naturally in Pokémon, but there is a rare to almost impossible chance for it to even happen to humans. No such case has ever been documented as of yet, but the chance of this happening is possible if extremely unlikely. It doesn’t stop the anxiety of new expecting mothers, however.

Though the chance isn’t significant, overbreeding and placing the stock in the PC can lead to an increased chance of the offspring becoming Bad Eggs due to the data bloat.

Taglist:

@earth-shaker / @little-miss-selfships / @xelyn-craft / @sarahs-malewives / @brahms-and-lances-wife

-

@ashes-of-a-yume / @cherry-bomb-ships / @kiawren / @kingofdorkville / @bugsband

Let me know if you'd like to be added or removed from my taglist :3

[cyberstudious]

An Introduction to Cybersecurity

I created this post for the Studyblr Masterpost Jam, check out the tag for more cool masterposts from folks in the studyblr community!

What is cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is all about securing technology and processes - making sure that the software, hardware, and networks that run the world do exactly what they need to do and can't be abused by bad actors.

The CIA triad is a concept used to explain the three goals of cybersecurity. The pieces are:

Confidentiality: ensuring that information is kept secret, so it can only be viewed by the people who are allowed to do so. This involves encrypting data, requiring authentication before viewing data, and more.

Integrity: ensuring that information is trustworthy and cannot be tampered with. For example, this involves making sure that no one changes the contents of the file you're trying to download or intercepts your text messages.

Availability: ensuring that the services you need are there when you need them. Blocking every single person from accessing a piece of valuable information would be secure, but completely unusable, so we have to think about availability. This can also mean blocking DDoS attacks or fixing flaws in software that cause crashes or service issues.

What are some specializations within cybersecurity? What do cybersecurity professionals do?

incident response

digital forensics (often combined with incident response in the acronym DFIR)

reverse engineering

cryptography

governance/compliance/risk management

penetration testing/ethical hacking

vulnerability research/bug bounty

threat intelligence

cloud security

industrial/IoT security, often called Operational Technology (OT)

security engineering/writing code for cybersecurity tools (this is what I do!)

and more!

Where do cybersecurity professionals work?

I view the industry in three big chunks: vendors, everyday companies (for lack of a better term), and government. It's more complicated than that, but it helps.

Vendors make and sell security tools or services to other companies. Some examples are Crowdstrike, Cisco, Microsoft, Palo Alto, EY, etc. Vendors can be giant multinational corporations or small startups. Security tools can include software and hardware, while services can include consulting, technical support, or incident response or digital forensics services. Some companies are Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs), which means that they serve as the security team for many other (often small) businesses.

Everyday companies include everyone from giant companies like Coca-Cola to the mom and pop shop down the street. Every company is a tech company now, and someone has to be in charge of securing things. Some businesses will have their own internal security teams that respond to incidents. Many companies buy tools provided by vendors like the ones above, and someone has to manage them. Small companies with small tech departments might dump all cybersecurity responsibilities on the IT team (or outsource things to a MSSP), or larger ones may have a dedicated security staff.

Government cybersecurity work can involve a lot of things, from securing the local water supply to working for the big three letter agencies. In the U.S. at least, there are also a lot of government contractors, who are their own individual companies but the vast majority of what they do is for the government. MITRE is one example, and the federal research labs and some university-affiliated labs are an extension of this. Government work and military contractor work are where geopolitics and ethics come into play most clearly, so just… be mindful.

What do academics in cybersecurity research?

A wide variety of things! You can get a good idea by browsing the papers from the ACM's Computer and Communications Security Conference. Some of the big research areas that I'm aware of are:

cryptography & post-quantum cryptography

machine learning model security & alignment

formal proofs of a program & programming language security

security & privacy

security of network protocols

vulnerability research & developing new attack vectors

Cybersecurity seems niche at first, but it actually covers a huge range of topics all across technology and policy. It's vital to running the world today, and I'm obviously biased but I think it's a fascinating topic to learn about. I'll be posting a new cybersecurity masterpost each day this week as a part of the #StudyblrMasterpostJam, so keep an eye out for tomorrow's post! In the meantime, check out the tag and see what other folks are posting about :D

[jyotishdiaries]

Hello. I'm not sure if you'll be able to respond to this but I'm hoping you could help me figure this out for myself since you seem so informative and knowledgeable about vedic astrology. What are some ways to guess someone's lagna or your own lagna without a birth time? What are some ways to go about it? Thank you.

I will try my best to help you out. It is possible to get a sense of your (or someone else’s) Lagna without a birth time, but it takes observation, pattern recognition, and patience. My father does not know his own time of birth and over the years through deep research and looking at his life experiences + planetary transits, he has tried to find a ballpark. Here are some ways to start:

1. Physical appearance and aura Each rising sign gives off a distinct physical vibe. And not just looks, but in how someone carries themselves. Take a look at what each sign represents when it sits in the first house and try to work backwards. For example:

Ashwini or Aries: sharp features, fast walk, active energy

Taurus: sturdy frame, slower movements, calm voice

Leo: strong bone structure, proud posture, confident eyes, CRAZY hair/hairstyles/colour almost always

Virgo: neat appearance, observant eyes, delicate or refined features

But remember that aspects always modify appearance, and there could be other influences affecting your looks. Or if you have a Mars Atmakaraka for instance, you would embody a lot of those Martian vibes even if your first house isn't even ruled by Mars (Aries, Scorpio). So to get deeper into it, after you're narrowed your rising to 1-2 signs, look on the descendent. Which is the 7th house. Apply the same characteristics of the Zodiac to that lens. Does that sign describe how you relate to others?

 2. House rulership themes Without a time, track life patterns. Are relationships a dominant theme? Maybe Libra or Scorpio Lagna. Career struggles but slow strength? Possibly Capricorn or Aquarius Lagna that makes your "self" feel heavy initially, but brings delayed strength. Emotional life always under pressure? Could be Cancer or Pisces Lagna. Look for which house themes are most activated and you’ll often find the Lagna ruling them.

3. Moon sign clues Many people resonate with the sign or nakshatra 7th from their Moon. For example, a Shravana Moon person might be deeply drawn to Ardra or Punarvasu energy. This can offer insight into relational polarity and help reverse-engineer the rising.

4. Dasha periods If you know major life events (marriage, loss, big moves, breakthroughs, career shifts), a skilled astrologer can test different Lagnas using Vimshottari Dasha to see which fits the timing best.

5. Ask your body Sit with charts that feel close and notice how your body reacts. Our true rising sign often evokes a kind of internal "click" like recognition. Especially if you look at the chart with transits and life events layered in. And if you know your birth DAY, you can chart literally every other planet placement. Now see where each planet really shines in your chart (as in what house). Start with Rahu and Ketu. Because they're an axis of constant themes of push and pull with obsession on one end and detachment from the other. Here is what each axis signifies:

1/7 → Self vs Partnership

2/8 → Security vs Surrender

3/9 → Speech/Skills vs Faith/Wisdom

4/10 → Home vs Career

5/11 → Creativity vs Community

6/12 → Structure vs Surrender/Service Nailing this axis can often help you pin down the rising sign. From there, test transits and dasha patterns for confirmation.

Lastly, don’t rush it! Sometimes the correct Lagna is revealed slowly over time. When you really understand your "self" which is the first house. I am a Cancer lagna and only after I turned 25, I realized how much of the Cancer characteristics I identified with. If you want to talk through possible Lagna options, feel free to DM me anytime.

[mariacallous]

President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency has cut through the federal government aggressively, firing employees across agencies while testing legal boundaries. The speed of the cuts raises questions about how well DOGE teams understand the roles and responsibilities of those affected. Unsurprisingly, as key political appointees are confirmed by the Senate and take office—and as Republican lawmakers gain points of contact—some early, hasty decisions are being reversed. Here are some examples so far.

The most significant reversal came on Feb. 24, when the White House, through the Office of Personnel Management, announced that Elon Musk’s directive for all federal employees to email him a summary of their work for the week was voluntary only and that noncompliance would not result in termination. Some MAGA leaders, including newly appointed FBI Director Kash Patel, instructed their employees not to comply. Similar orders came from the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, Health and Human Services, Energy, and the State Department.

The reversal came not only due to legal concerns but also because the order was impractical for large parts of the government. For instance, the Secret Service agents protecting President Trump probably carried out numerous tasks in preparation for his upcoming trips—should that be reported? What about undercover agents abroad? Should they document efforts to recruit assets or spies? And FBI agents working to infiltrate the infamous Sinaloa drug cartel—should they be required to write memos that could compromise their operations?

Earlier DOGE reversals include the dismissal of more than 300 employees from the National Nuclear Safety Administration on Feb. 13. By Feb. 18, however, the vast majority of them were in the process of being rehired. The agency, part of the Department of Energy, oversees the safety and security of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

On Feb. 18, the Trump administration temporarily paused layoffs of nearly 1,000 probationary civil servants at various NASA facilities. These layoffs were later postponed. This follows at least 750 NASA employees who voluntarily accepted the deferred resignation offered by the federal government. Many affected employees are in their probationary period—young scientists and engineers who could play a role in NASA’s efforts to reach Mars, a key goal of President Trump.

At the Department of Agriculture, 58 facilities responsible for responding to the bird flu were notified that 25% of their staff were being laid off, but they were quickly rehired. With the price of eggs already high, delaying bird flu research could keep costs elevated and undermine one of the key issues that helped elect Trump.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. verbally rescinded the layoffs of about 950 Indian Health Service (IHS) employees just hours after they received layoff notices. OPM had originally planned to lay off 2,200 probationary employees at IHS, a move that would have significantly affected the 214 tribal nations relying on IHS for health care.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth halted the planned firing of 55,000 Pentagon officials in order to comply with a law requiring the defense secretary to review any firings for their impact on military “lethality and readiness.” He is now reviewing the cuts and determining which employees the Pentagon will fire.

Russell Vought, the new director of the Office of Management and Budget, quietly reinstated the workers responsible for calculating the APOR (Average Prime Offer Rate) each week. This data is critical for maintaining stability in the mortgage market. Without APOR tables, home values could be distorted, and borrowers could face restricted credit access. The APOR was housed in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a frequent target of conservative criticism. A stop-work order had been in place until Vought, a staunch Trump ally, recognized the necessity of publishing the APOR.

Why are these reversals coming now?

Trump’s political appointees are gradually taking office, while Republican members of Congress—many of whom are experienced in government—are recognizing the risks the DOGE approach poses to both the nation and their own careers. Over the past month, DOGE teams operated unchecked in federal agencies due to a lack of leadership.

It took “multiple members of Congress” petitioning newly installed Energy Secretary Chris Wright and highlighting the national security risks of firing personnel responsible for overseeing the U.S. nuclear arsenal before the decision to fire them was reversed. Similarly, Republican lawmakers on the House Agriculture Committee and researchers criticized USDA-related layoffs for potentially weakening the bird flu response. The reversal came just days after Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins assumed office. Meanwhile, several senators have introduced a bill to reinstate the Food for Peace Program—formerly housed at USAID—and transfer it to the Agriculture Department. 

DOGE has an enormous opportunity to improve the federal government—especially in the area of information technology. However, blanket firings and poorly planned demands for employees to justify their work week are undermining its credibility and authority. As court cases continue, expect more quiet reversals. No one wants to be blamed for rising egg prices or the next terrorist attack.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NSF-funded research heads to the international space station on NASA's SpaceX CRS-32 mission

ISS national lab-sponsored investigations aim to enhance drug manufacturing and develop new materials for aerospace, defense, energy, and robotics

Three investigations funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and sponsored by the International Space Station (ISSInternational Space Station) National Laboratory are launching on SpaceX’s 32nd Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) mission, contracted by NASANational Aeronautics and Space Administration. These experiments leverage the microgravityThe condition of perceived weightlessness created when an object is in free fall, for example when an object is in orbital motion. Microgravity alters many observable phenomena within the physical and life sciences, allowing scientists to study things in ways not possible on Earth. The International Space Station provides access to a persistent microgravity environment. environment to advance fundamental science that could lead to improved pharmaceutical manufacturing, new materials with valuable industrial applications, and the next generation of soft active materials with lifelike properties.

These projects build on a strong, multi-year collaboration between the ISS National Lab and NSF, which allocates millions of dollars to space-based projects within the fields of tissue engineering and transport phenomena, including fluid dynamics. To date, more than 30 projects funded by NSF and sponsored by the ISS National Lab have launched to the orbiting laboratory, with nearly 70 additional projects preparing for flight. Below are details about the three NSF-funded investigations launching on NASA’s SpaceX CRS-32.

Improving Medicine Manufacturing

An investigation by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), supported by Tec-Masters, builds on previous research to examine protein fluid flow and clumping—a problem that occurs during manufacturing of protein-based pharmaceuticals that affects the quality of the drug.

“Proteins are used to make various therapies and must be concentrated in medicines to avoid needing to administer large amounts of fluid,” says Amir Hirsa, professor of mechanical, aerospace, and nuclear engineering at RPI. “But above a certain concentration, the proteins tend to form aggregates or clump.”

On Earth, studying protein behavior is complicated by interactions between the solution and the container used to hold it. But on the ISS, researchers can use the Ring-Sheared Drop module to form liquid into a self-contained sphere held between two rings.

Hirsa and his team can use this device to study protein motion and create more accurate models of the factors that lead to clumping, especially during drug manufacturing and dispensation to patients. The team also can test computer models that predict the behavior of proteins of vastly different concentrations and types, such as hormones and antibodies. Findings from this research could help uncover ways to avoid or reverse protein clumping, which would have a significant impact on the pharmaceutical industry.

“Another very important aspect of this work is making this data, which is so difficult to get, available to other scientists through open data repositories,” says Joe Adam, a research scientist at RPI. “Other scientists may see something even more interesting than we do.”

Developing New Materials

An investigation from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, supported by Leidos, will examine the formation of ceramic composites, which have valuable applications in several industries, including aerospace, defense, and energy. The study focuses on polymer-derived titanium carbide and silicon carbide composites that have electrical conductivity, are stable at high temperature, can be made into almost any shape and size, and are lightweight yet strong.

“These materials can be used in different extreme conditions, such as high temperatures and highly acidic or oxidative environments, where other materials become unstable or cannot survive,” says Kathy Lu, a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering.

Studying these composites in microgravity could reveal unique behaviors that cannot be replicated on Earth. Findings from this research could inform new techniques for ground- and space-based manufacturing of materials with specific properties for applications such as heat exchangers, electric systems, energy storage, electrodes, and microsystems.

“Nobody has studied microgravity’s effects on these ceramics, and the results could be helpful for the broader family of ceramics and other possible additives, such as fibers and nanoscale materials,” Lu says.

Studying Active Matter

A research team at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) will leverage microgravity to study active matter—microscopic particles that use energy to produce motion—and its effects on the separation of non-mixable liquids. These liquids, such as oil and water, separate into concentrated droplets of one substance dispersed in the other, a phenomenon known as active liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS). This investigation, supported by Redwire Space Technologies, seeks a better understanding of active LLPS, which plays a key role in physics, materials science, engineering, and biology.

“Active fluids are made of billions of small molecular motors that push and pull on each other and generate a turbulent flow, like a windy day stirs the water on a beach,” says UCSB professor Zvonimir Dogic. “A long-term goal is using active matter in microfluidic devices to stir and control the separation of two substances. We’re trying to create simplified systems that start to mimic biology.”

Active LLPS could be used to create materials with lifelike properties, such as the ability to move, change shape, and self-repair, that could be used to develop more lifelike robotics.

SpaceX CRS-32 is scheduled to launch no earlier than April 21, 2025, at 4:15 a.m., from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

IMAGE: Left: A drop of protein solution less than two and a half centimeters in diameter formed in the RSD onboard the International Space Station. Right: An image showing a computed Newtonian flow diagram for the drop. Credit J. Adam

[ynrenggcluster]

Once the unit system and part dimensions are determined during the reverse engineering services process, the next step is to plan out the design for 3D metal printing. Complex-shaped products require a complete understanding of the object, especially if it is part of an assembly. Critical areas of the part application must be checked to ensure that the functionality of the part does not disrupt the interrelationship between the various parts.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Topics: health care, monopoly

In a recent article for Tikkun, Dr. Arnold Relman argued that the versions of health care reform currently proposed by “progressives” all primarily involve financing health care and expanding coverage to the uninsured rather than addressing the way current models of service delivery make it so expensive. Editing out all the pro forma tut-tutting of “private markets,” the substance that’s left is considerable:

What are those inflationary forces? . . . [M]ost important among them are the incentives in the payment and organization of medical care that cause physicians, hospitals and other medical care facilities to focus at least as much on income and profit as on meeting the needs of patients. . . . The incentives in such a system reward and stimulate the delivery of more services. That is why medical expenditures in the U.S. are so much higher than in any other country, and are rising more rapidly. . . . Physicians, who supply the services, control most of the decisions to use medical resources. . . . The economic incentives in the medical market are attracting the great majority of physicians into specialty practice, and these incentives, combined with the continued introduction of new and more expensive technology, are a major factor in causing inflation of medical expenditures. Physicians and ambulatory care and diagnostic facilities are largely paid on a piecework basis for each item of service provided.

As a health care worker, I have personally witnessed this kind of mutual log-rolling between specialists and the never-ending addition of tests to the bill without any explanation to the patient. The patient simply lies in bed and watches an endless parade of unknown doctors poking their heads in the door for a microsecond, along with an endless series of lab techs drawing body fluids for one test after another that’s “been ordered,” with no further explanation. The post-discharge avalanche of bills includes duns from two or three dozen doctors, most of whom the patient couldn’t pick out of a police lineup. It’s the same kind of quid pro quo that takes place in academia, with professors assigning each other’s (extremely expensive and copyrighted) texts and systematically citing each other’s works in order to game their stats in the Social Sciences Citation Index. (I was also a grad assistant once.) You might also consider Dilbert creator Scott Adams’s account of what happens when you pay programmers for the number of bugs they fix.

One solution to this particular problem is to have a one-to-one relationship between the patient and a general practitioner on retainer. That’s how the old “lodge practice” worked. (See David Beito’s “Lodge Doctors and the Poor,” The Freeman, May 1994).

But that’s illegal, you know. In New York City, John Muney recently introduced an updated version of lodge practice: the AMG Medical Group, which for a monthly premium of $79 and a flat office fee of $10 per visit provides a wide range of services (limited to what its own practitioners can perform in-house). But because AMG is a fixed-rate plan and doesn’t charge more for “unplanned procedures,” the New York Department of Insurance considers it an unlicensed insurance policy. Muney may agree, unwillingly, to a settlement arranged by his lawyer in which he charges more for unplanned procedures like treatment for a sudden ear infection. So the State is forcing a modern-day lodge practitioner to charge more, thereby keeping the medical and insurance cartels happy—all in the name of “protecting the public.” How’s that for irony?

Regarding expensive machinery, I wonder how much of the cost is embedded rent on patents or regulatorily mandated overhead. I’ll bet if you removed all the legal barriers that prevent a bunch of open-source hardware hackers from reverse-engineering a homebrew version of it, you could get an MRI machine with a twentyfold reduction in cost. I know that’s the case in an area I’m more familiar with: micromanufacturing technology. For example, the RepRap—a homebrew, open-source 3-D printer—costs roughly $500 in materials to make, compared to tens of thousands for proprietary commercial versions.

More generally, the system is racked by artificial scarcity, as editor Sheldon Richman observed in an interview a few months back. For example, licensing systems limit the number of practitioners and arbitrarily impose levels of educational overhead beyond the requirements of the procedures actually being performed.

Libertarians sometimes—and rightly—use “grocery insurance” as an analogy to explain medical price inflation: If there were such a thing as grocery insurance, with low deductibles, to provide third-party payments at the checkout register, people would be buying a lot more rib-eye and porterhouse steaks and a lot less hamburger.

The problem is we’ve got a regulatory system that outlaws hamburger and compels you to buy porterhouse if you’re going to buy anything at all. It’s a multiple-tier finance system with one tier of service. Dental hygienists can’t set up independent teeth-cleaning practices in most states, and nurse-practitioners are required to operate under a physician’s “supervision” (when he’s out golfing). No matter how simple and straightforward the procedure, you can’t hire someone who’s adequately trained just to perform the service you need; you’ve got to pay amortization on a full med school education and residency.

Drug patents have the same effect, increasing the cost per pill by up to 2,000 percent. They also have a perverse effect on drug development, diverting R&D money primarily into developing “me, too” drugs that tweak the formulas of drugs whose patents are about to expire just enough to allow repatenting. Drug-company propaganda about high R&D costs, as a justification for patents to recoup capital outlays, is highly misleading. A major part of the basic research for identifying therapeutic pathways is done in small biotech startups, or at taxpayer expense in university laboratories, and then bought up by big drug companies. The main expense of the drug companies is the FDA-imposed testing regimen—and most of that is not to test the version actually marketed, but to secure patent lockdown on other possible variants of the marketed version. In other words, gaming the patent system grossly inflates R&D spending.

The prescription medicine system, along with state licensing of pharmacists and Drug Enforcement Administration licensing of pharmacies, is another severe restraint on competition. At the local natural-foods cooperative I can buy foods in bulk, at a generic commodity price; even organic flour, sugar, and other items are usually cheaper than the name-brand conventional equivalent at the supermarket. Such food cooperatives have their origins in the food-buying clubs of the 1970s, which applied the principle of bulk purchasing. The pharmaceutical licensing system obviously prohibits such bulk purchasing (unless you can get a licensed pharmacist to cooperate).

I work with a nurse from a farming background who frequently buys veterinary-grade drugs to treat her family for common illnesses without paying either Big Pharma’s markup or the price of an office visit. Veterinary supply catalogs are also quite popular in the homesteading and survivalist movements, as I understand. Two years ago I had a bad case of poison ivy and made an expensive office visit to get a prescription for prednisone. The next year the poison ivy came back; I’d been weeding the same area on the edge of my garden and had exactly the same symptoms as before. But the doctor’s office refused to give me a new prescription without my first coming in for an office visit, at full price—for my own safety, of course. So I ordered prednisone from a foreign online pharmacy and got enough of the drug for half a dozen bouts of poison ivy—all for less money than that office visit would have cost me.

Of course people who resort to these kinds of measures are putting themselves at serious risk of harassment from law enforcement. But until 1914, as Sheldon Richman pointed out (“The Right to Self-Treatment,” Freedom Daily, January 1995), “adult citizens could enter a pharmacy and buy any drug they wished, from headache powders to opium.”

The main impetus to creating the licensing systems on which artificial scarcity depends came from the medical profession early in the twentieth century. As described by Richman:

Accreditation of medical schools regulated how many doctors would graduate each year. Licensing similarly metered the number of practitioners and prohibited competitors, such as nurses and paramedics, from performing services they were perfectly capable of performing. Finally, prescription laws guaranteed that people would have to see a doctor to obtain medicines they had previously been able to get on their own.

The medical licensing cartels were also the primary force behind the move to shut down lodge practice, mentioned above.

In the case of all these forms of artificial scarcity, the government creates a “honey pot” by making some forms of practice artificially lucrative. It’s only natural, under those circumstances, that health care business models gravitate to where the money is.

Health care is a classic example of what Ivan Illich, in Tools for Conviviality, called a “radical monopoly.” State-sponsored crowding out makes other, cheaper (but often more appropriate) forms of treatment less usable, and renders cheaper (but adequate) treatments artificially scarce. Artificially centralized, high-tech, and skill-intensive ways of doing things make it harder for ordinary people to translate their skills and knowledge into use-value. The State’s regulations put an artificial floor beneath overhead cost, so that there’s a markup of several hundred percent to do anything; decent, comfortable poverty becomes impossible.

A good analogy is subsidies to freeways and urban sprawl, which make our feet less usable and raise living expenses by enforcing artificial dependence on cars. Local building codes primarily reflect the influence of building contractors, so competition from low-cost unconventional techniques (T-slot and other modular designs, vernacular materials like bales and papercrete, and so on) is artificially locked out of the market. Charles Johnson described the way governments erect barriers to people meeting their own needs and make comfortable subsistence artificially costly, in the specific case of homelessness, in “Scratching By: How the Government Creates Poverty as We Know It” (The Freeman, December 2007).

The major proposals for health care “reform” that went before Congress would do little or nothing to address the institutional sources of high cost. As Jesse Walker argued at Reason.com, a 100 percent single-payer system, far from being a “radical” solution,

would still accept the institutional premises of the present medical system. Consider the typical American health care transaction. On one side of the exchange you’ll have one of an artificially limited number of providers, many of them concentrated in those enormous, faceless institutions called hospitals. On the other side, making the purchase, is not a patient but one of those enormous, faceless institutions called insurers. The insurers, some of which are actual arms of the government and some of which merely owe their customers to the government’s tax incentives and shape their coverage to fit the government’s mandates, are expected to pay all or a share of even routine medical expenses. The result is higher costs, less competition, less transparency, and, in general, a system where the consumer gets about as much autonomy and respect as the stethoscope. Radical reform would restore power to the patient. Instead, the issue on the table is whether the behemoths we answer to will be purely public or public-private partnerships. [“Obama is No Radical,” September 30, 2009]

I’m a strong advocate of cooperative models of health care finance, like the Ithaca Health Alliance (created by the same people, including Paul Glover, who created the Ithaca Hours local currency system), or the friendly societies and mutuals of the nineteenth century described by writers like Pyotr Kropotkin and E. P. Thompson. But far more important than reforming finance is reforming the way delivery of service is organized.

Consider the libertarian alternatives that might exist. A neighborhood cooperative clinic might keep a doctor of family medicine or a nurse practitioner on retainer, along the lines of the lodge-practice system. The doctor might have his med school debt and his malpractice premiums assumed by the clinic in return for accepting a reasonable upper middle-class salary.

As an alternative to arbitrarily inflated educational mandates, on the other hand, there might be many competing tiers of professional training depending on the patient’s needs and ability to pay. There might be a free-market equivalent of the Chinese “barefoot doctors.” Such practitioners might attend school for a year and learn enough to identify and treat common infectious diseases, simple traumas, and so on. For example, the “barefoot doctor” at the neighborhood cooperative clinic might listen to your chest, do a sputum culture, and give you a round of Zithro for your pneumonia; he might stitch up a laceration or set a simple fracture. His training would include recognizing cases that were clearly beyond his competence and calling in a doctor for backup when necessary. He might provide most services at the cooperative clinic, with several clinics keeping a common M.D. on retainer for more serious cases. He would be certified by a professional association or guild of his choice, chosen from among competing guilds based on its market reputation for enforcing high standards. (That’s how competing kosher certification bodies work today, without any government-defined standards). Such voluntary licensing bodies, unlike state licensing boards, would face competition—and hence, unlike state boards, would have a strong market incentive to police their memberships in order to maintain a reputation for quality.

The clinic would use generic medicines (of course, since that’s all that would exist in a free market). Since local juries or arbitration bodies would likely take a much more common-sense view of the standards for reasonable care, there would be far less pressure for expensive CYA testing and far lower malpractice premiums.

Basic care could be financed by monthly membership dues, with additional catastrophic-care insurance (cheap and with a high deductible) available to those who wanted it. The monthly dues might be as cheap as or even cheaper than Dr. Muney’s. It would be a no-frills, bare-bones system, true enough—but to the 40 million or so people who are currently uninsured, it would be a pretty damned good deal.

[darkmaga-returns]

December 06, 2024

Ukraine Has Stopped ATACMS Strikes On Russia

As further ATACMS strikes on Russia seem to have stopped this timeline is of interest.

November 18:

U.S. allows Ukraine to use ATACMS missiles against targets within Russia:

The reversal of policy, nearly 1,000 days since Russia started its full-scale invasion on Ukraine, comes largely in response to Russia's deployment of North Korean troops to supplement its forces, a development that has caused alarm in Washington and Kyiv, a U.S. official and a source familiar with the decision told Reuters.

[Note: There is no evidence that any North Korean troops were deployed by Russia anywhere near Ukraine.]

November 19 and November 20/21:

Ukraine hits an ammunition depot in Russia's Bryansk Oblast, far from any relevant frontline, as well as military facilities in Russia's Kursk oblast:

On November 19, six ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles produced by the United States, and on November 21, during a combined missile assault involving British Storm Shadow systems and HIMARS systems produced by the US, attacked military facilities inside the Russian Federation in the Bryansk and Kursk regions. ... The fire at the ammunition depot in the Bryansk Region, caused by the debris of ATACMS missiles, was extinguished without casualties or significant damage. In the Kursk Region, the attack targeted one of the command posts of our group North. Regrettably, the attack and the subsequent air defence battle resulted in casualties, both fatalities and injuries, among the perimeter security units and servicing staff.

November 21:

Russia fires a new missile with hypersonic kinetic warheads at a military industrial complex in Dnipro:

In response to the deployment of American and British long-range weapons, on November 21, the Russian Armed Forces delivered a combined strike on a facility within Ukraine’s defence industrial complex. In field conditions, we also carried out tests of one of Russia’s latest medium-range missile systems – in this case, carrying a non-nuclear hypersonic ballistic missile that our engineers named Oreshnik. The tests were successful, achieving the intended objective of the launch. In the city of Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, one of the largest and most famous industrial complexes from the Soviet Union era, which continues to produce missiles and other armaments, was hit.

November 23 and 25:

Ukraine continues with ATACMS strikes against targets within Russia:

On 23 November, the enemy fired five U.S.-made ATACMS operational-tactical missiles at a position of an S-400 anti-aircraft battalion near Lotarevka (37 kilometres north-west of Kursk). During a surface-to-air battle, a Pantsir AAMG crew protecting the battalion destroyed three ATACMS missiles, and two hit their intended targets. As a result of the strike, a radar was damaged. There are casualties among personnel. On 25 November, the Kiev regime delivered one more strike by eight ATACMS operational-tactical missiles at the Kursk-Vostochny airfield (near Khalino). Seven missile were shot down by S-400 SAM and Pantsir AAMG systems, one missile hit the assigned target. Two servicemen were lightly wounded and infrastructure objects sustained minor damage by missile debris. After investigating the attacked sites it was confirmed that the AFU delivered strikes by U.S.-made ATACMS operational-tactical missiles.

[supertrainstationh]

Mexico Railways - Ferrocarril Mexicano Class R-1 0-6-0+0-6-0 Fairlie type steam locomotive Nr. 45 (Neilson Locomotive Works, Glasgow 2875 / 1883) - front side by Historical Railway Images Via Flickr:

In Mexico the Ferrocarril Mexicano (FCM) used Fairlies on a mountainous stretch of line between Mexico City and Veracruz, where 49 enormous 0-6-6-0 Fairlies weighing about 125 short tons (112 long tons; 113 t) apiece were imported from England. The largest and most powerful locomotives built there up to then, they were used until the line was electrified in the 1920s.

Nr. 45 was one of twelve Neilson Class R-1 locomotives built for service in Mexico in 1889. Additional locomotives were supplied by the North British Locomotive Works in 1902 and 1907, and Vulcan Foundry in 1911.

From "The Engineer" dated December 01, 1922, page 572:

"The Fairlie engine was built for the Mexican Railway merit special mention, as they have to negotiate gradients of 1 in 25 with numerous reverse curves of 350ft. to 400ft. radius. The wheels have a diameter of 3ft. 6in., the four cylinders are 16in. by 22in., the wheelbase of each bogie is 8 ft. 3 in., and the total wheelbase is 32ft. 5in. The distance between the bogie pivots is 22ft. in. The tube heating surface is 1532 square feet, and that of the firebox is 10 square feet.

With a boiler pressure of 165 lb. per square inch they can exert a drawbar pull of 17 tons. Owing to a brake mishap, one of the engines once broke loose from its train and ran away for a distance of nearly 7 miles over the worst portion of the road. Although the speed rose to more than 60 miles per hour, and the engine fled to traverse the reverse curves of 350ft. to 400ft. radius, one of which describes more than a complete semicircle, it reached the bottom in safety, and was then stopped without any damage to any part of the motion or framing. The materials and workman which stood a test like that can only be described as excellent."

If Reverend Awdry had incorporated double Fairlie locomotives into the RWS, he would have done painstaking pre-internet research to find a story like this, or of equivalent caliber, to adapt into the story.

The writers of Season 9 of the Thomas & Friends TV show did exactly what was asked of them, and did a fine job of it, but, from my perspective, “lol lets have the two halves of the locomotive argue with each other on the basis that they somehow never worked together before in spite of having been described to have worked in shunting yards before this episode” is pretty weak in comparison.

Never mind the fact that they had one of the most powerful 2 foot narrow gauge locomotives to have been built within the UK be charged with pulling a single non-bogie passenger car...

[magic-is-something-we-create]

ANDESITE (ANDY) MEYWIN - The Millennium Saga [Firebreathers ; Echoseers ; Goddess-Touched]

My brainstorming makes a spiral around the table, still entirely illegible and layered upon itself, despite the ample room I’ve been given. Still not enough, because even after sending calls for spare Haethrite and Voltimony across the continent, I haven’t pieced together a design that we could test without fear of losing all we have. Today, though, I have another expert in the room to help. Unfortunately, Ember seems as lost in my technical work as they would be on one of the moons.

Basics:

She/her - Trans woman

Sapphic (her sexuality is an enigma but she likes cougars) - 22 (~24 on Earth)

Mae Ehlf - Air Mage

Heavily Autistic-coded

Where she begins:

We first meet Andy when she's in the midst of brainstorming a radio design for her younger siblings to use with Ember's so they can talk late into the night without risking the over-policed streets past curfew. And this context is where we most often see her: deep in her own thoughts, working on some device or another made from discarded scraps scrounged from the more prestigious forges in the area, augmented with Goblin technology rather than the extremely expensive Soulvite expected of proper Starsmiths.

But she makes it work. Most of the time.

Her masterpiece, Wrench--a dragon automaton built to act as security for her rented studio space--still doesn't know not to eat any and all fabric within reach, but Andy's confident she'll find a fix for that. Eventually.

What she finds herself confronting:

Andy's impact on the story is instant and massive, even if she doesn't become a narrator until book three: she's the one who gives the others a safe avenue to determine whether Ember's invitation to the rebellion is legitimate via Wrench, and who negotiates a rather underhanded deal with Emerald K'Ron in exchange for her own services to the Rebellion.

She wants an audience with Eternal Veratrum.

She's always been relentlessly curious, after all. And when the opportunity presents itself, she will always leap on the chance to learn something she's been wondering about.

This is how she blackmails her way into the rebellion. This is how she strongarms her way into the top-secret mission in Glittergale. This is how she sneaks her way onto the ship headed to Deltierin.

This is how she's thrust into the role of saving the world with nothing but scrap metal, her own vague notes, and an ever-ticking timer to reverse engineer her observations before the sea swallows the world whole.

Important connections:

Family: Gab and Annie (triplets), Dian, Iggy, Quartz, and Slate Meywin. Aurora and Mahann Meywin-Tell (parents).

Friends: Nimbus (best friend) and Ember Timber, Beta Altiana.

Enemies: K'Ron Actaea (once she finds out about Actaea's whole deal), Eternal Tieling of Nimia (on principle; also, she thinks he's annoying)

MUSIC

Themes - DRUMS OF GANJA-TAI by Kevin Penkin, Science by Two Steps from Hell and Thomas Bergersen, Dashing and Bashing by Gareth Coker

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The Ultimate Guide to Classic Land Rover Defenders for Sale: What to Look For

If you're a fan of rugged, off-road vehicles, the classic Land Rover Defender is likely at the top of your list. Renowned for its durability and iconic design, the Defender has captured the hearts of enthusiasts worldwide. Whether you're in the market for a classic Land Rover Defender as a collector's item or an off-road adventure vehicle, this guide will help you navigate the process of buying one. Here’s what you need to know to ensure you find the best classic Defender for sale.

Understanding the Classic Land Rover Defender

Before diving into the specifics of what to look for, it’s essential to understand the classic Land Rover Defender’s legacy. Produced between 1983 and 2016, the Defender is celebrated for its robust construction and versatility. The classic models, especially those from the 1980s and 1990s, are highly sought after due to their vintage charm and less complex technology compared to modern vehicles.

1. Check the Vehicle’s History

One of the first things to do when considering a classic Land Rover Defender is to check its history. Request a comprehensive service history report to ensure the vehicle has been well-maintained. Look for any records of significant repairs or restorations, as these can impact the vehicle's value and reliability. If possible, obtain a Carfax or similar report to verify mileage and ownership history.

2. Inspect the Bodywork and Chassis

The Defender’s body and chassis are critical to its durability and performance. Classic Land Rover Defenders are prone to rust, especially in areas like the bulkhead, chassis rails, and wheel arches. Examine the vehicle thoroughly for any signs of corrosion or repair. Pay close attention to the condition of the frame; a rusted or damaged chassis can be expensive to repair and affect the vehicle’s overall safety.

3. Evaluate the Engine and Transmission

The engine is the heart of any vehicle, and classic Land Rover Defenders are no exception. Most classic models come with a 2.5-liter diesel engine, though variations exist. Start by assessing the engine’s performance—listen for unusual noises and check for leaks or smoke. Ensure the engine runs smoothly and responds well to acceleration.

The transmission should also be in good working condition. Test the gear changes to ensure they are smooth and free from grinding. Manual transmissions are standard in classic Defenders, so make sure the clutch operates correctly and the gearbox is responsive.

4. Examine the Interior Condition

The interior of a classic Land Rover Defender should reflect its overall care. Inspect the seats, dashboard, and controls for signs of wear and tear. Look for any modifications or aftermarket parts that may affect the vehicle’s originality and value. A well-preserved interior not only enhances comfort but also maintains the vehicle’s classic appeal.

5. Check for Authenticity and Modifications

Authenticity is crucial for classic Land Rover Defenders. Ensure that the vehicle retains its original parts and configurations, as significant modifications can impact its value. While some modifications, such as upgraded suspension or modern electronics, can enhance performance, they should be documented and preferably reversible. If the Defender has been extensively modified, ensure these changes align with your needs and preferences.

6. Review the Vehicle’s Documentation

Documentation is key when buying classic Land Rover Defenders for sale. Verify that the vehicle has a clean title and that all paperwork is in order. This includes registration, insurance, and any historical documentation of past ownership or significant work done. A well-documented vehicle provides peace of mind and facilitates a smoother transaction.

7. Assess the Price and Market Trends

Pricing for classic Land Rover Defenders can vary widely based on factors such as model year, condition, and rarity. Research current market trends to ensure you are paying a fair price. Compare prices of similar models and consider factors like mileage, condition, and originality. Keep in mind that while some Defenders may come with a premium price tag, their value often appreciates over time.

8. Consider a Professional Inspection

Given the complexity and potential hidden issues with classic vehicles, it’s wise to invest in a professional inspection. A qualified mechanic or classic car specialist can provide a detailed assessment of the Defender’s condition, identifying any issues that may not be immediately visible. This step can save you from costly repairs and provide additional negotiation leverage.

9. Test Drive the Vehicle

A test drive is essential to understanding how a classic Land Rover Defender performs on the road. Pay attention to the vehicle’s handling, braking, and overall driving experience. Test it under various conditions to gauge its reliability and ensure it meets your expectations. A well-performing Defender should offer a smooth and responsive drive.

10. Join Land Rover Enthusiast Communities

Connecting with Land Rover enthusiast communities can provide valuable insights and recommendations. Online forums, social media groups, and local clubs can offer advice on reputable sellers and help you find well-maintained classic Defenders. Engaging with fellow enthusiasts can also offer support and enhance your buying experience.

Conclusion: Buying classic Land Rover Defenders for sale is an exciting journey that requires careful consideration and due diligence. By following these guidelines, you can ensure you find a well-maintained, authentic, and reliable Defender that suits your needs. Whether you’re drawn to its rugged charm or its off-road capabilities, a classic Land Rover Defender is a timeless investment that can provide years of driving pleasure. Happy hunting!

Also Read = Top 10 Custom Land Rover Defender Modifications: Enhancing Your Off-Road Experience