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There's just no comparison. The current administration routinely, publicly, accepts literal bars of gold as bribes for favorable treatment. Trump just got a new one from Switzerland this week.

It's not a joke and I don't know it. Trump is gradually demanding the authority to control every aspect of American life, and you're enabling it by not taking his entry-level steps seriously. I hope you'll realize your mistake while he's still stuck on relatively harmless things.

A gag, a giggle.

> Trump is gradually demanding the authority to control every aspect of American life

Trump, or the federal government? This trend is bipartisan, and renaming the Gulf doesn't really hold a candle to PRISM.


You, and people like you, are a part of the problem.

By recognizing that both teams take away my autonomy at every opportunity? How does that make me part of the problem?

You don't recognize that, which is why your point of comparison to a random thing Trump did openly his first week in office had to be a secret program started 18 years ago and revealed 12 years ago. You just feel obligated to make it a both-sides thing, because you've internalized the idea that a wise or savvy person will always diagnose a problem as systemic rather than blaming specific individuals.

I genuinely don't mean this as an insult! I know what you're thinking because I've been in your shoes, and that's why I can so confidently encourage you to step out of them before it's too late. Donald Trump thinks everyone in the country, including you, should be required to support him and acknowledge his greatness; if you haven't yet felt that pressure, it just means he hasn't gotten around to your interests yet.


> will always diagnose a problem as systemic rather than blaming specific individuals.

We should bring back public executions; I have no problems blaming individual people. I'm just a little less extreme on HN, and Trump doing cartography is unimportant. The guy is an aesthete, he just happens to have the political will of the moment and might save our economy. I don't think so, but infinity illegal immigrants and more infinite debt is the alternative so this is fine I guess.

Both-sides is real, though. Generally members of government are self-interested, and if you disagree with that, you're a fool. The differences are small but occasionally important.


No, it's not. As your quote says, the Department of Defense was created by Congress; the President has no authority whatsoever to rename it or designate a secondary name for it. Writing the words "executive order" on a document doesn't make it legally effective.

Any citizen, of course, can use whatever fake names they'd like for people or places or government organizations. It's a free country. But I don't see any reason to choose this particular fake name except for the purpose of delivering propaganda to your readers.


The entire conflict here is that norms about what's considered responsible were developed in a different context, where vulnerability reports were generated at a much lower rate and dedicated CVE-searching teams were much less common. FFmpeg says this was "AI generated bug reports on an obscure 1990s hobby codec"; if that's accurate (I have no reason to doubt it, just no time to go check), I tend to agree that it doesn't make sense to apply the standards that were developed for vulnerabilities like "malicious PNG file crashes the computer when loaded".

The codec is compiled in, enabled by default, and auto detected through file magic, so the fact that it is an obscure 1990s hobby codec does not in any way make the vulnerability less exploitable. At this point I think FFmpeg is being intentionally deceptive by constantly mentioning only the ancient obscure hobby status and not the fact that it’s on by default and autodetected. They have also rejected suggestions to turn obscure hobby codecs off by default, giving more priority to their goal of playing every media format ever than to security.

I think the discussion on what standard practice should be does need to be had. This seems to be throwing blame at people following the current standard.

If the obscure coded is not included by default or cannot be triggered by any means other than being explicitly asked for, then it would be reasonable to tag it Won't Fix. If it can be triggered by other means, such as auto file type detection on a renamed file, then it doesn't matter how obscure the feature is, the exploit would affect all.

What is the alternative to a time limited embargo. I don't particularly like the idea of groups of people having exploits that they have known about for ages that haven't been publicly disclosed. That is the kind of information that finds itself in the wrong hands.

Of course companies should financially support the developers of the software they depend upon. Many do this for OSS in the form of having a paid employee that works on the project.

Specifically, FFMPEG seems to have a problem that much of their limitation of resources comes from them alienating contributors. This isn't isolated to just this bug report.


FFMPEG does autodetection of what is inside a file, the extension doesn't really matter. So it's trivial to construct a video file that's labelled .mp4 but is really using the vulnerable codec and triggers its payload upon playing it. (Given ffmpeg is also used to generate thumbnails in Windows if installed, IIRC, just having a trapped video file in a directory could be dangerous.)

> CVE-searching teams

Silly nitpick, but you search for vulnerabilities not CVEs. CVE is something that may or may not be assigned to track a vulnerability after it has been discovered.

Most security issues probably get patched without a CVE ever being issued.


It is accurate. This is a codec that was added for archival and digital preservation purposes. It’s like adding a Unicode block for some obscure 4000 year old dead language that we have a scant half dozen examples of writing.

When someone comes up with a clever reason why drunk driving might be OK, I don't get in an evidence-based debate with them. It may very well be the case that they've found a scientific error in official guidelines! But if I carefully explain why the error doesn't change the baseline conclusion, they'll just find something else to fixate on. They're not looking for an increased understanding of pharmacology; they've decided that they want to drive drunk, and they're shopping for a reason why it's not shameful to inflict pointless risk on themselves and their community.

If your argument can’t hold up to scrutiny, then I think you may not know the position well enough or you need to adjust it. We can explain and show evidence why driving drunk is dangerous. We can show that vaccines are safe and effective. I don’t like wasting time with bad faith people, but to assume anyone who disagrees is wrong and not worthy of discussion is bad.

I don't agree. I think that shame is an important social technology for things like vaccines and drunk driving, where there's really no rational basis for disagreement. I don't know any vaccine hesitant parents who encountered some clever argument that proved to them they need to vaccinate their kids, but I know multiple who overcame their hesitation because they understood that it was expected of them and they would be judged harshly otherwise.

> really no rational basis for disagreement

If you want to have a good faith version of this conversation, I've seen many people have voiced rational concerns and be shouted down because people simply don't want to hear it.

Primary example - Many parents, including myself, made sure our kids got every single one of their vaccines...but we wanted to avoided giving more than 2 per month so we altered the schedule slightly.

Fully vaccinated, just took a simple precaution that put our minds at ease.

The number of people who will call you "antivax" for that, for simply questioning the dosing schedule and taking a minor precaution is shocking. And that's what really made all of this so much worse.

Nobody that I saw, prior to the Covid vax at least, questioned whether or not vaccines did what they said they do. People just question whether sometimes there can be side effects. The answer to that is obviously yes. There are vaccine courts and people have been awarded lots of money from them. So the next rational question that anyone would ask is..."If there can sometimes be side effects, in what circumstances are they likely? Are there any precautions that can be taken if we can identify what those circumstances may be?"

It's no different than if somebody is lactose intolerant, has a gluten allergy or a peanut allergy. Some people are predisposed not to respond well to conditions that many of us have no issue with.

That's not a rational basis for disagreeing on the efficacy of vaccines themselves. It is a rational basis to ask about the conditions that can create unintended side effects; we already know they are happening. Denying that is irrational on its own...so why not have the conversation?


> but we wanted to avoided giving more than 2 per month so we altered the schedule slightly.

Why do you consider this a rational concern/precaution? What evidence lead you to believe the vaccination schedule, which is generally-accepted in the medical community, should be spread out?

I can give you a reason it's likely not rational: babies are protected by their mother's immunity for approximately 6 months after birth. The current vaccination schedule[1] is largely built with this in mind. Delaying vaccines for no other reason than "it's too many too fast" concerns does nothing but increase the chance your child ultimately gets infected with one of the pathogens vaccinated against.

1. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/imz-schedules/child-easyread.ht...


Sure. The number 1 thing to understand is that without a clearly defined cause or even a hint of contributory factors for autism (think everything caused cancer or X may increase your risk of heart disease), there is an information vacuum.

Based on that people are left to speculate as to what influences appear to be probable on their own. One of the simplest correlations to make is of course, the sheer volume of vaccines on the schedule and whether the combined effect is creating any impact.

My wife and I went far beyond that and did speak to a retired OB who shared his own career observations with us. His explanation was that people naturally filter heavy metals, like aluminum, out of their systems but some people do it slower than others. Since aluminum is used in many vaccines, he recommended spreading them out to reduce the stress on the body to filter it out.

He went on to explain that he eventually started testing pregnant mothers and identified that when the high levels were often present in the mother, then many children ended up with the same issue. He started recommending a specific prenatal regiment to the expecting mothers to help correct it. Would even go as far as testing couples who were planning to try to have a baby before they were even pregnant.

Very kind man.


>The number of people who will call you "antivax" for that, for simply questioning the dosing schedule and taking a minor precaution is shocking. And that's what really made all of this so much worse.

Okay, but why does it matter what morons say? A doctor or immunologist would usually say "Eh, whatever" to this request. Did a doctor call you an anti-vaxxer?

>it's no different than if somebody is lactose intolerant, has a gluten allergy or a peanut allergy.

Guess what! A bunch of doctors 15 years ago were scared of peanut allergies and suggested without evidence "a simple precaution", of "don't give young kids peanuts", and now something like 8 million people have peanut allergies that could have been maybe prevented.

That's what this is all about. "Smart" humans don't exist. Tons of times what we expected is not what science finds. That 15 year advice that lead to millions of peanut allergies was overturned not by random people getting uncomfortable about not understanding things, but by doctors studying the actual question and coming to a conclusion that fit the data.

Is there any data any which way on your belief that a delayed vaccination schedule like that is "Safer"? Safer than what? Safer how? What theory is it done under? But your doctor didn't care. Tons of parents do that. Some researcher will pull those stats someday and say clearly "Eh, it doesn't do anything good or bad" or "it's clearly better/worse" and then we can make an educated decision.

Until then, it is unscientific by definition. Does that make you feel bad? It shouldn't, most of what humans do is unscientific. But that won't make it wrong.

There is zero "safe" things you can do to a human body. Giving someone a sandwich is not safe and in rigorous study would result in a "side effect" list a mile long, and maybe even a death. 1.7 out of 100k deaths are from choking.

>Nobody that I saw, prior to the Covid vax at least, questioned whether or not vaccines did what they said they do

There is tons of public information to the contrary. Jenny McCarthy for example was anti-vax two decades ago and shouting it from the rooftops.

>"If there can sometimes be side effects, in what circumstances are they likely? Are there any precautions that can be taken if we can identify what those circumstances may be?"

And we did that with the Covid vaccine and every vaccine ever made before it and it has always been clear that the vaccine is just as safe as any other. Anti-vaxxers are people who don't understand the statistics of that studying.

The conversation was had, anti-vaxxers don't like the outcome of the conversation.


> Okay, but why does it matter what morons say? A doctor or immunologist would usually say "Eh, whatever" to this request. Did a doctor call you an anti-vaxxer?

The doctor did act like it was a hassle and their office now has a sign refusing service to any parents who wish to deviate from the official schedule.

> There is tons of public information to the contrary. Jenny McCarthy for example was anti-vax two decades ago and shouting it from the rooftops.

Did she ever challenge whether or not vaccines worked to prevent what they were supposed to prevent? Pretty sure she was just talking about total volume.


Thanks for explaining your reasoning. I can see shame working for some, but I don’t think that is effective for a large group. It also has the adverse effect of making those who are shaming others look wrong and scared of discussing the subject. Also, there is a point where you can be wrong or need to adjust your perspective. Shaming others is not a good way to go about that. The enlightenment wasn’t built on shame but instead it used reason and open inquiry. It was a rejection of using shame which was a prevalent part of forced rules.

As the article dances around, the problem is not typically random individuals falling for social media misinformation about vaccines, but communities where the importance of getting vaccinated doesn't spread. It's hard for officials to message straightforwardly, because you're not going to get a community to listen to you if you're simultaneously running around telling the rest of the country that the outbreak is their fault.

The communities you cite have always existed, and herd immunity was not a problem. How do you think Canada had eliminated measles in the first place?

I don't really understand the question. They eliminated measles in the first place by convincing more of those communities to have higher vaccination rates than they have today.

20% of American workers (38% of those under 30) report that they use ChatGPT to help with their job (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/06/25/34-of-us-...). I suppose it's possible that none of that group are "ordinary", but my anecdotal experience has been that random nontechnical people have no problem using or finding value in generative AI.

While only 20% of workers (a very very small number) use AI at their job fewer than half of those say it actually helps them work faster and fewer than 30% said it improved the quality of their work (https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2025/02/25/u-s-wor...). I'm not seeing a lot of people "finding value" there

What about it? There simply isn't any information format that's both perfectly accessible and reproduces what you're seeing with perfect fidelity. In the happy path you can make the important parts match, but almost by definition, when someone's reporting an issue it's because what they "should" see and what they are seeing don't align.

There are many accessibility issues with using a screenshot of text instead of text directly:

- displaying a white background image of text when I'm using dark mode;

- using a small font to a user with a visual imparement or on a high DPI display;

- using a colour scheme with low contrast, or colours that are indistinguishable for people with a form of colour blindness;

- using a font that is difficult to read for someone with dislexia;

- etc.

And others have mentioned not being able to search for the text within the image, or select/highlight the text (useful for copying a function name, link, or term in the text, or for keeping track of where you are when reading).


Well, that's not the scenario relevant to the article and not a scenario I encounter much these days. I'm not a designer or a front end dev anymore so I rarely encounter a situation where "perfect fidelity" is relevant to me.

I'm biased, but I can't help but feel like chances are, if the screenshot is text, the content of the text is important, not the visual aspects.

99% of the time I get a screenshot these days, it's people sending me screenshots of text logs or code, and almost always cropped in a way that eliminates any context anyway. Give me plain text or give me death.


> the content of the text is important, not the visual aspects.

Columns actually aligning in columns? Indentation being preserved? Lines not getting interrupted with overflowing previous lines?

When I send a screenshot, it's precisely because the visual aspects do matter. (Obviously, when they don't, then I just send the text.)


It sounds like we agree.

In some cases visuals are important, and in other cases, they're not. Hence why I said "chances are" and declared my bias rather than using absolutist language. However, somewhat ironically, you chopped off that part of my reply. I find it odd you chose to respond the way you did, but I digress.

I also carefully indicated my every day interactions with screenshots do not align with those requirements.

Of course there are situations where visual aspects are critical. I'm not disputing that. I'm stating my _preferences_ and my _opinion_ that situation is exceptional.


A large number of people, myself included, are now radicalized against the concept of immigration enforcement. I think everyone has a duty to make sure that ICE is as ineffective as possible and ICE agents are as miserable as possible. There's a lot of talk, for example, about how the asylum system is easily abusable; that's true, but now we will not be able to fix it because no immigration reform compromise that doesn't destroy ICE is acceptable.

My city, capital city, local PD (also in Washington state) put out this press release after ICE blocked up a busy intersection in peak hour chasing someone:

> [Department] was not notified of or involved in this enforcement action. By state law, city resolution, and department policy, [we do] not cooperate or coordinate with federal immigration enforcement.


Like all civil disobedience, it occupies an awkward middle ground. You don't necessarily want to make prosecutors' lives easier, but your protest is a lot more powerful if you make it clear to the world that you really did violate the law, because then anyone who supports you has to acknowledge that the law is unfair.

If a random person throws a sandwich at you, or touches your shoulder for example to say "mind the gap", it is indeed assault under the law. Whether it rises to the importance of requiring legal sanction is, however, up to the jury.

> If a random person ... touches your shoulder for example to say "mind the gap", it is indeed assault under the law.

You mean, if they say that with the intent of helping you? I doubt that's assault.


Merely touching people is not unlawful. Intent and context are critical and your example falls well below any sort of threshold for harassment or violence.

They're talking about impeding, not about the assault. Also, tapping someone's shoulder to help them is not assault under the law.

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