If global finance ran on Bitcoin instead of on bank ledgers, all that energy would still need to be spent, but then an astronomical amount more energy would be spent on transaction processing on top.
Most likely they are not intentionally burning it for sake of burning it. And they do run almost all of the money in the world, so some energy expenditure is expected.
Wasn’t the payload in a blob in the tests, which is in the source repo? If you were to clone the repo then build from source, you’d have the backdoor, right? Surely distros aren’t using binaries sent by maintainers
No. The payload was in the checked in test files, but the test files were inert. They were only activated by the tarball having different build files than the repository (or rather, different build files than would be generated by autotools for the repository), which extracted the payload from the test files and injected it into the output binary.
The rust compiler refuses to compile code which doesn’t adhere to a strict set of rules guaranteeing memory safety. Unless you intentionally call an unsafe block, misuse in this sense is impossible, not just difficult.
Just stating the obvious: breaking memory safety is only one subset of all the possible misuse available in the space of manners of using an API, data structure, etc.
Look into the crates you use and you’ll find tons of unsafe code, especially around custom data structures doing buffer pointer arithmetic and stuff. If it’s wrapped in a safe interface, you’d never know.
The actual work required to execute such a plan is vastly more difficult than being told how to do it. How the original atomic bombs worked is well-known, but even nation-states struggle with implementing it.
For nukes I agree, and that's the main reason I'm less worried about nukes. But for bio it's mostly a matter of knowledge and not resources: for all the parts that do need resources there are commercial services, in a way there aren't for nukes.
> Warming the climate would increase the amount of arable land.
You mean land that would be arable at some far point in the future. The land reclaimed from ice isn't going to be arable in short-to-mid term - it's going to be a sterile swamp. It will take time to dry off, and more time still for the soil to become fertile.
Public schools are intentionally harming gifted students in the name of equality. The Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax, VA intentionally hid merit achievements from students which would have helped in college applications.
Banning advanced math is just another instance of this. A slower paced class for lower performing students would actually help them. Bringing down advanced students only serves to make the school look more equitable.
I had to Google the incident you’re referring to. Sounds like there was a delay in notifications, it only hurt early acceptance applications, and that it won’t happen again because they got a lot of flack. I don’t think this situation is relevant to schools not offering algebra in junior high, because this was specifically a top school that offers advanced classes. You’re bringing up a quite different point about college admissions, and that debate should be focused on colleges, because they themselves have started sometimes discounting or ignoring the academic achievement list of applicants, due to excessive gaming of the application system, and also acknowledgement that meritocracy is living up to its original coined meaning, as a sign that merit is at least as much an outcome of money as it is of talent, in other words so-called talent is a byproduct of having support and we’ve been failing to support people who might have had a chance largely in favor of people lucky enough to have rich parents.
> A slower paced class for lower performing students would actually help them.
Agreed, bingo! If you don’t have the resources to cater to people who are ahead, the only choice to help those who need help is to lower the bar.
