Melania Trump's visa questioned in congressional hearing
Posted on r/politics |
Score: 27043 |
Comments: 798
During a congressional hearing, Democratic Representative Jasmine Crockett questioned the legitimacy of Melania Trump's EB-1 visa, which is typically reserved for individuals with extraordinary abilities. The hearing highlighted perceived double standards in visa enforcement, especially amid the Trump administration's stringent immigration policies.
Key Points:
Melania Trump's EB-1 visa, known as the 'Einstein visa,' was scrutinized for potentially not meeting the criteria of 'extraordinary ability.'
The hearing occurred against the backdrop of the Trump administration's hardline stance on immigration, including visa bans and social media screening.
Representative Crockett accused Republicans of selective outrage over visa policies and questioned the lack of scrutiny on the president's family.
Crockett emphasized the disparity in visa enforcement, citing Melania Trump's modeling career as insufficient for the EB-1 category.
The hearing underscored broader debates about immigration integrity and free speech in visa adjudication.
""Let me tell you how you receive an Einstein visa," Crockett said. "You're supposed to have some sort of significant achievement, like being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize or a Pulitzer; being an Olympic medalist; or having other sustained extraordinary abilities and success in sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics. Last time I checked the first lady had none of those accolades under her belt.""
RFK Jr. Admits Removing Fluoride From Drinking Water Will 'Probably' Lead to More Cavities in Children
Posted on r/politics |
Score: 9193 |
Comments: 453
RFK Jr. acknowledged that removing fluoride from drinking water would likely increase cavities in children, especially among lower-income families. The American Dental Association criticized the move, emphasizing the benefits of fluoridation. Social media reactions ranged from ridicule to concern over the public health implications.
Key Points:
RFK Jr. admitted that removing fluoride from water would 'probably' lead to more cavities in children.
The American Dental Association opposes the move, citing negative impacts on vulnerable populations.
Social media users criticized RFK Jr.'s stance, highlighting the lack of medical expertise and potential harm to public health.
RFK Jr. argued that parents should decide, referencing Europe's fluoride ban without a cavity uptick.
Critics pointed out the economic and health costs of neglecting dental care for low-income families.
""As dentists, we see the direct consequences fluoride removal has on our patients and it's a real tragedy when policymakers' decisions hurt vulnerable kids and adults in the long term. Blindly calling for a ban on fluoridated water hurts people, costs money, and will ultimately harm our economy," said ADA President Brett Kessler, D.D.S."
Canadian citizen dies while in U.S. ICE custody in Florida
Posted on r/politics |
Score: 5762 |
Comments: 433
A 49-year-old Canadian citizen and U.S. permanent resident, Johnny Noviello, died while in ICE custody at the Federal Detention Center in Miami. Medical staff attempted CPR and used a defibrillator, but he was pronounced dead shortly after being found unresponsive. The cause of death is under investigation.
Key Points:
Johnny Noviello, a Canadian citizen and U.S. permanent resident, died in ICE custody in Miami.
He was found unresponsive and pronounced dead less than an hour later despite medical intervention.
The cause of death remains under investigation.
ICE notified the Canadian consulate of Noviello's death by telephone.
The detention center is approximately 12 minutes from the nearest hospital.
"The Canadian, identified as 49-year-old Johnny Noviello, was found unresponsive Monday at the Federal Detention Center in Miami and was attended to by medical staff, but was pronounced dead the same day, ICE said in a statement Wednesday."
Programming as Theory Building: Why Senior Developers Are More Valuable Than Ever
Posted on r/programming |
Score: 365 |
Comments: 53
The article discusses Peter Naur's concept of 'Programming as Theory Building,' emphasizing that programming is about creating a shared mental model of a system, not just writing code. It highlights the growing issue of 'theory-less' code due to reflexive AI usage and the increasing reliance on junior developers, making senior developers more valuable as they maintain the system's theoretical and architectural integrity.
Key Points:
Programming is fundamentally about building a shared mental model (theory) of a system, not just writing code.
Reflexive AI usage and domain-blind code generation lead to 'theory-less' code, lacking understanding and context.
Senior developers are crucial as they construct and maintain the theoretical framework connecting business domains to software architecture.
The rapid growth of inexperienced developers using AI tools exacerbates the problem of incoherent codebases.
Senior developers act as guardians of architectural theory, ensuring new code aligns with the system's foundational principles.
"Naur argues that programming is fundamentally about building a theory—a shared mental model of how a system works, why it works that way, and how it should evolve. The source code is merely a written representation of this theory, and like all representations, it’s lossy."
Posted on r/programming |
Score: 177 |
Comments: 25
The article emphasizes the importance of kindness in engineering, arguing that the most successful engineers are those who practice kindness in their work. This includes being patient, helpful, and considerate of colleagues and users, which ultimately leads to better teamwork and productivity.
Key Points:
Kindness in engineering involves patience, directness, and helpfulness, not just politeness.
Documentation, code readability, and error messages are areas where kindness can significantly impact team efficiency.
Kindness fosters cooperation, collaboration, and transparency, leading to more productive teams.
The best engineers are those who combine technical skill with kindness, elevating the entire team's effectiveness.
"The most productive teams I have worked on were not smartest but the kindest and the least productive team I ever worked on was ironically probably the smartest."
Malicious npm eslint-config-airbnb-compat Package Hides Detection with Payload Splitting
Posted on r/programming |
Score: 61 |
Comments: 5
The article discusses how dynamic analysis can uncover malicious activities in open source packages by monitoring runtime behaviors such as network connections and binary executions. It highlights the importance of identifying outliers in these behaviors to detect potential threats, using examples like suspicious IP addresses and binaries. The approach complements static analysis and reduces reliance on manual review.
Key Points:
Dynamic analysis helps observe runtime behaviors of packages in a sandbox environment, complementing static analysis.
Suspicious network connections and binary executions are key indicators of malicious packages.
Outliers in IP address distributions and rare binaries can signal potential security threats.
Known malicious domains like OAST are often used for data exfiltration and command & control.
The system analyzed 380,000 packages and 28 million events to identify anomalies.
"Irrespective of specific TTP, some payload will eventually be executed by a malicious package. The payload will either make a network call or execute a command (eg. curl) in an unusual way."
The article introduces a mobile app called Paperless Mobile, designed to interact with paperless-ngx instances, enabling users to upload, view, and search documents from their mobile devices. The app was initially intended for quick photo uploads but expanded to include features like authentication, document viewing, and search functionality.
Key Points:
The app allows users to upload documents to paperless-ngx by taking photos, reducing the need for physical copies.
Features include authentication via token or credentials, document viewing, and search by name or content.
The creator was unaware of existing similar apps and later provided links to other mobile versions.
A screen recording demonstrates the app's functionality.
The app is available for testing upon request.
"The idea is to be able to upload files from your mobile to your paperless instance. I had a thought that sometime a person could have a document (receipts, results etc) that they will probably just need for records, so user could quickly take a snap and it will save it to paperless-ngx for OCR and physical paper could be discarded."
The article discusses the potential short-term negative consequences of a Land Value Tax (LVT), particularly the risk of decreased land prices leading to widespread foreclosures and a banking crisis similar to the 2008 financial crisis. While the long-term effects might be favorable, the short-term impacts could be severe.
Key Points:
An LVT could cause a substantial decrease in land prices.
Decreased land prices might lead to foreclosures on loans like mortgages.
This could trigger a local mass foreclosure and banking crisis akin to the 2008 financial crisis.
The long-term effects of decreased prices could be favorable, but short-term impacts might be harmful.
"Presumably an LVT would cause a substantial decrease in land prices, so why would this not cause foreclosures on loans like mortgages all around the region in which the tax is in place, causing a local 2008-esque mass foreclosure and banking crisis?"
OpenTelemetry is an open-source observability framework that standardizes the collection, processing, and export of telemetry data like logs, metrics, and traces. It is vendor-agnostic, supports multiple languages, and unifies telemetry data to break traditional silos. The article explains its components, benefits, and what it is not, emphasizing its role in avoiding vendor lock-in.
Key Points:
OpenTelemetry combines tracing, logging, and metrics into a single framework, enabling data correlation and establishing an open standard.
It is vendor-agnostic, allowing users to easily switch between observability backends without changing their code.
OpenTelemetry is not a data storage, dashboarding solution, or performance optimizer but a toolkit for telemetry data collection and export.
The OpenTelemetry specification ensures interoperability across languages and vendors, providing a consistent model for observability data.
It supports various programming languages and platforms, making it versatile for different development environments.
"OpenTelemetry's most significant benefit is that it frees your code from any vendor instrumentation, hence keeping your code free from any vendor lock-in. That's why it has become so popular."
Finding a 27-year-old easter egg in the Power Mac G3 ROM
Posted on r/programming |
Score: 6 |
Comments: 0
Downtown Doug Brown discovered a 27-year-old easter egg in the Power Mac G3 ROM, involving a hidden JPEG image of the development team. Through reverse engineering and using tools like Ghidra, he uncovered clues in the ROM's SCSI Manager code that hinted at how to display the image, a mystery previously unsolved.
Key Points:
Discovery of an undocumented easter egg in the Power Mac G3 ROM.
Use of Hex Fiend and Ghidra for reverse engineering the ROM.
Identification of a hidden JPEG image of the development team.
Clues found in the SCSI Manager code, including Pascal strings like 'secret ROM image'.
Previous attempts to display the image were unsuccessful until this investigation.
"I was recently poking around inside the original Power Macintosh G3’s ROM and accidentally discovered an easter egg that nobody has documented until now."