The Death of the Mind

Arizona held its non-presidential primaries on July 30.  Two candidates appeared on the Green Party’s primary ballot for U.S. Senate, Mike Norton and Arturo Hernandez.  Norton was backed by Democratic Party figures and Hernandez was backed by Republican figures.  The Green Party did not approve of either one of them, and endorsed Eduardo Quintana, a long-time Green Party official.

However, Quintana was not on the Green Party primary ballot; instead he was a write-in candidate.  But the Green Party mailed a postcard to every registered Green and asked the voters to write-in Quintana, and it worked.  He received more votes than either of his ballot-listed opponents.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2024/08/17/arizona-green-party-choice-for-u-s-senate-defeats-his-opponents-even-though-he-was-a-write-in-and-his-opponents-were-on-the-ballot/

Everyone knows automation will happen, which is why everyone needs proof of human involvement

Column  Earlier this year I got fired and replaced by a robot. And the managers who made the decision didn’t tell me – or anyone else affected by the change – that it was happening.…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/15/robot_took_my_job/

Is it not a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a thing?

def con  The electronic badges at DEF CON have long been a hot commodity for attendees, tinkerers, and collectors, though this year they’re getting attention for an entirely different reason.…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/13/defcon_badge_disagreement_gets_physical/

You know, when you’ve written as much as I have about trademark disputes, there are times when you think you’ve seen everything, only to have the universe remind you that the depth of silliness around trademarks can always get deeper. The subject of today’s conversation is going to be a certification mark. While afforded similar protections to a trademark, they are primarily used by a third party, with permission of the owner of a trademarked product, to validate that a product meets certain agreed upon quality standards from the trademark owner. You can find some examples here, but one that is easy to understand is the Energy Star certification mark. To have an Energy Star stamp…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/08/09/us-appeals-court-sends-dispute-between-french-cognac-cartel-and-music-label-back-to-uspto/

Texas is one of eight states that have enacted laws that force adults to prove their age before accessing porn sites. Soon it will try to persuade the Supreme Court that its law doesn’t violate the First Amendment. 
Good luck with that. 
These laws are unconstitutional: They deny adults the well-established right to access constitutionally protected speech.
Texas’ H.B. 1181 forces any website made up of one-third or more adult content to verify every visitor’s age. Some adult sites have responded to the law by shutting down their services in Texas. The Free Speech Coalition challenged the law on First Amendment grounds, arguing that mandatory age verification does more than keep minors away from porn — the law nannies adults as well, barring…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/08/08/age-gating-access-to-online-porn-is-unconstitutional/

Enlarge / EUS panel test weld at the Michoud Assembly Facility on Tuesday, February 9, 2021. (credit: Michael DeMocker/NASA)
The NASA program to develop a new upper stage for the Space Launch System rocket is seven years behind schedule and significantly over budget, a new report from the space agency’s inspector general finds. However, beyond these headline numbers, there is also some eye-opening information about the project’s prime contractor, Boeing, and its poor quality control practices.
The new Exploration Upper Stage, a more powerful second stage for the SLS rocket that made its debut in late 2022, is viewed by NASA as a key piece of its Artemis program to return humans to the…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/?p=2041826

Small stay of execution in ‘exceptional circumstances’ promised as lawsuits start to fly

As the DigiCert drama continues, we now have a better idea of the size and scope of the problem – with the organization’s infosec boss admitting the SSL/TLS certificate revocation sweep will affect tens of thousands of its customers, some of which have warned that the short notice may have real-world safety implications and disrupt critical services.…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/31/digicert_certificates_extension/

Today’s links

A profoundly stupid case about video game cheating could transform adblocking into a copyright infringement: Actual property rights are less important than the metaphorical property rights of “IP.”

Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.

This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2019, 2023

Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.

Recent appearances: Where I’ve been.

Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em.

Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em.

Colophon: All the rest.

A profoundly stupid case about video game cheating could transform adblocking into a copyright infringement (permalink)
Here’s a weird consequence of our societal shift from capitalism (where riches come from profits) to feudalism (where riches come from rents): increasingly, your rights to your actual property (the physical…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/29/faithful-user-agents/

Logical replication is a powerful feature in PostgreSQL that allows for real-time data replication between databases. It can be used for performing major version upgrades using a blue/green setup where you have two databases, allowing you to test and switch over to a new version with minimal downtime. Logical replication can also be use to facilitate database migrations between different environments, using the same technique and tooling.
In this post, I will describe the process of setting up simple replication and switchover between two databases using pg_easy_replicate.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://postgr.es/p/6zV