wildzzz (u/wildzzz) - Readit News

wildzzz commented on Brookhaven Lab's RHIC concludes 25-year run with final collisions hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/... · Posted by u/gnufx

wildzzz · 15 hours ago

Probably a third hand story at this point but what I was told from someone that worked there for a long time is that at one point, the winch that raised the cesium source got jammed in the up position. Obviously this was a problem because no one could approach it. They brought in a marksman who somehow shot the winch or rope or whatever which dropped the source back into it's pig.

I will say that this experiment only exposed the plot of land to radiation, not contaminated it. Unless the source was broken or eroded, there would be no detectable radiation on that land once the source is sealed up.

That's not to say BNL hasn't contaminated the land, it is a Superfund site. They do a lot of medical experiments there (they invented the PET scan) but medical waste hasn't always been disposed of properly like now. They had "glass holes", a hole in the ground where you'd chuck in your contaminated labware.

wildzzz commented on Man who videotaped himself BASE jumping in Yosemite arrested, says it was AI latimes.com/california/st... · Posted by u/harambae

etrautmann · 2 days ago

then we need tort reform to address the root cause. This is so silly and unfortunate that wild spaces are litigated and made illegal for things that are normal and wonderful elsewhere.

wildzzz · a day ago

You can pretty much do whatever you want on BLM land but just not in national parks.

wildzzz commented on The first good Raspberry Pi Laptop jeffgeerling.com/blog/202... · Posted by u/thomasjb

wildzzz · a day ago

A used Thinkpad costs less than that and has higher specs. I understand wanting to make a pi work as a general computing device but damn, it's never going to compete with existing commodity hardware that's built at scale.

wildzzz commented on Recreating Epstein PDFs from raw encoded attachments neosmart.net/blog/recreat... · Posted by u/ComputerGuru

jjwiseman · 3 days ago

Or one person types 76 pages. This is a thing people used to do, not all that infrequently. Or maybe you have one friend who will help–cool, you just cut the time in half.

wildzzz · 2 days ago

Typing 76 pages is easy when it's words in a language you understand. WPM is going to be incredibly slow when you actually have to read every character. On top of that, no spaces and no spellcheck so hopefully you didn't miss a character.

wildzzz commented on 221 Cannon is Not For Sale fredbenenson.com/blog/202... · Posted by u/mecredis

bookofjoe · 4 days ago

Remember when credit cards required your signature on the back?

wildzzz · 4 days ago

My mom used to tell me to write CHECK ID in the signature block. Someone only ever asked me once. It's probably been like 10 years since I've signed the back of a new card. An older woman at an antique shop actually checked for a signature and made me sign it in front of her.

wildzzz commented on The largest zip tie is nearly 4 feet long and $75 thedrive.com/news/youll-h... · Posted by u/PaulHoule

Nextgrid · 4 days ago

Isn't cable lacing just inferior? Let's say you need to replace a chaffed/damaged conductor. With cable ties you cut the ones around damaged area, splice in a replacement, and slap new ties on there. With cable lacing, cutting the lacing anywhere would cause the lacing of the whole cable to lose tension and unravel?

wildzzz · 4 days ago

It's not too hard to slip a new wire into a laced bundle. In the places that still use lacing (aerospace), they use tefzel insulated wires that have the benefit of being super slippery against each other. This makes it easy to slip one in but it also helps reduce stiffness in the bundle because the insulation isn't sticking to itself as much as other things like vinyl.

Last cable I made: https://ibb.co/4gw3GQGL

wildzzz commented on The TSA's New $45 Fee to Fly Without ID Is Illegal frommers.com/tips/airfare... · Posted by u/donohoe

spike021 · 5 days ago

Today was the second time in a year I went into one and my crotch got flagged because of my pants zipper. nothing in my pockets. no belt. nothing hidden. etc.

I was then subjected to full pat down and a shoe chemical test as a cherry on top.

Might need to try convincing them next time to let me do the metal detector instead.

What's the point of this higher fidelity scanner if it can't tell the difference between a fly and a restricted object?

wildzzz · 5 days ago

Almost always my back sweat from wearing a backpack shows up on the body scanner. Then a TSA agent has to put their gloved hand on my sweaty back. What a shit job lol.

Whenever my backpack has been pulled aside for various reasons (large metal tools, too many loose wires, water bottle), I'll often get the bomb sniffer wipe.

wildzzz commented on The TSA's New $45 Fee to Fly Without ID Is Illegal frommers.com/tips/airfare... · Posted by u/donohoe

sargun · 5 days ago

What ethnicity are you? I went through an airport -- and nobody else got screened except me. What was special about me? I was the only non-white person in the airport. Upon complaining, this was the response:

> Random selection by our screening technology prevents terrorists from attempting to defeat the security system by learning how it operates. Leaving out any one group, such as senior citizens, persons with disabilities, or children, would remove the random element from the system and undermine security. We simply cannot assume that all terrorists will fit a particular profile.

wildzzz · 5 days ago

I am a white male and have TSA pre-check and after walking through the metal detector, maybe one out of several times I get randomly selected for the body scanner. I've never gotten the dreaded SSSS though. I've very rarely traveled alone not on a work trip and never alone on a one way ticket so maybe that helps.

wildzzz commented on Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle dmitrybrant.com/2026/02/0... · Posted by u/zdw

throw101010 · 7 days ago

> Yes, even today there are users who want this kind of dongle instead of, say, cloud-based validation. They feel secure only if they have something tangible in hand.

In my experience this continues to this day due to people who require drawing on air-gapped computers, because the drawings/simulations they work on are highly sensitive (nuclear, military, and other sensitive infrastructure).

But I'm sure there are also old-fashioned people who like the portability/sovereignty of not having to rely on a third-party license server as you suggest.

wildzzz · 6 days ago

Hardware dongles are incredibly rare now. Even on airgapped machines, you'll see a local Flex license server running. This is especially true when you have a small network of multiple machines that may require the use of a network license. Dongles are just too delicate, they get lost or break. Or you end up with overzealous security software that decides to block anything that isn't a mouse or keyboard. There are plenty of modern day solutions for a transferable license.

wildzzz commented on Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle dmitrybrant.com/2026/02/0... · Posted by u/zdw

analog31 · 6 days ago

I use one engineering app that has a "soft" license. It has a lot of failure modes, all of which are essentially administrative not technological. A fair number of departments have to work together: IT, purchasing, and accounts payable (in case the company is on credit hold for non-payment of a previous license renewal) across multiple corporate divisions. It can eat up a few days of my life, and sometimes I lose access to the software for a few days.

The IT department restructures the license server or it goes down.

The vendor changes their license technology every few years.

If you have a physical dongle, the vendor will beg you to send it in and receive a soft license. The few remaining users with dongles refuse. The hardware is more reliable.

wildzzz · 6 days ago

We use Flex license server for so many pieces of software. It works well as long as everything is up and running. Several years ago, we merged with another company and slowly began to consolidate IT infrastructure. The license server was moved many times without giving proper notification to users until it eventually settled at the main DC we use. Then came the issue of renewing the license. Previously, license renewal was managed at the department level which means the users only need to go to their boss if there's an issue and only had to send one email to our local IT to apply a new license. Funding for licenses came out of a special budget so department heads didn't have to beg. Very simple and it worked fine for years. Now, everything is centralized which sounds great except that the people that manage the license server are so far removed from where we are that it can take months for a license renewal. You're not talking to people you have an email address for, you're submitting tickets to our central system where they forward it onto the license group somewhere. It used to be incredibly painful but has gotten better now that the license group is more aware of the entire division of employees that now require their services too.