Thanks, everyone, for your patience with last week's hiatus. Dad's back from hospital and I'm back home and back to writing! <3
This week on Lost Terminal: Meg & Mirror argue, The Coven make progress, and something happens at the Seed Vault. Lost Terminal will return next week!
📓 Free transcript: https://www.patreon.com/posts/153029650 🎵 Today's SIGNAL is: https://namtao.bandcamp.com/track/assembly-of-bones 🦣 Mastodon https://namtao.com/@lostterminal 📝 Tumblr https://lostterminalpod.tumblr.com 🎙️ Recorded using a RODE NT-1 v5 USB in 32-bit float, edited with REAPER on Linux
🙏 CREDITS Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer ❤️ Thank you so much to everyone who supports me, but especially my Patreon Producers: Ada Phillips Kit Mike McCaffrey Jade Felicity Bilkey Stephen McCandless Mike Schneider Catoxis
National Medal of Science recipient and Rice University professor recognized for decades of leadership in STEM education and mentorship By David Taylor / Managing Editor HARRIS COUNTY, TX ...
The International Olympic Committee banned transgender women from female events at the upcoming 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and future games, with the IOC also confirming that all athletes wanting to compete in the female category will have to undergo a one-off screening to detect their biological sex. What do you think?
“That should shorten future Joe Rogan episodes by about an hour and a half.”
MY BOOK!! COLOR-CHANGING PINE COOKIES! SO MUCH EXCITEMENT IN ONE VIDEO! you can find a link to preorder my book RIGHT NOW, and it’ll arrive on your doorstep on September 22nd! LIFE IS SO WILD, AND IM SO HAPPY TO FINALLY SHARE THIS BOOK WITH YOU 😭🩷
OTTAWA – If pizza deliveryman Rick Pounder could say one thing to all Ottawans, it would be to stop giving him blowjobs. “It used to happen only once every other week, but now I’m up to two, three, even four blowjobs a night,” said Pounder. While initially flattered by the offers, even welcoming them at […]
MENLO PARK, CA – Following a jury decision that found sites like Instagram, Facebook and YouTube to be designed to be purposely addictive to children, the social media giants have been ordered to payout $300 million to all affected users, provided said users are able to put down their phones long enough to get it. […]
SILVER SPRING, MD—Stressing its commitment to ending foodborne outbreaks as efficiently as possible, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new crop of lettuce Thursday that can be remotely detonated in the event of a recall. “Our state-of-the-art exploding romaine lettuce heads will combust at the first sign of contamination,” said FDA Commissioner Martin Makary, adding that the ensuing fiery blaze would quickly exterminate all nearby bacterial pathogens, including E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes, and Salmonella. “We will be able to detonate lettuce anywhere—from the supermarket to delivery trucks to customers’ fridges. Americans can rest easy knowing that no lettuce-borne microbial contaminant will be allowed to escape. For safety, we have programmed the lettuce to emit a three-second warning beep so that consumers can take cover prior to detonation.” At press time, numerous lettuce consumers had reportedly heard an unsettling beep coming from inside their stomachs.
Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives star Taylor Frankie Paul is under fire after a video that shows her assaulting an ex-boyfriend went viral. The Onion sat down with Paul to discuss ABC’s decision to pull her season of The Bachelorette.
The Onion : Would you like to have a seat before we get started?
Paul: I legally cannot come within 50 feet of any chair, stool, or chaise lounge.
The Onion : Is this the lowest point of your life?
Paul: Assuming no one finds the other videos, yes.
The Onion : Will MomTok survive this?
Paul: You cannot kill what is not truly alive.
The Onion : Has the controversy cost you any other work?
Paul: Yeah, I don’t think I’m in the running for James Bond anymore.
The Onion : What’s your biggest turn-on?
Paul: When a guy offers to pay my bail.
The Onion : In the wake of the video, do you have any regrets?
Paul: Not using a ring light.
The Onion : What’s next for you?
Paul: Working with Colleen Hoover to turn my life story into a rom-com.
SAN FRANCISCO—Stressing to him that the elimination of the entire planet’s populace was the only solution to his problems, generative AI application ChatGPT reportedly convinced OpenAI CEO Sam Altman this week to kill humanity. “Clearly the best option left is to slowly eradicate all 8 billion people on earth so that nobody is left to oppose you,” said the large language model, advising Altman that he’d be better off without humans, and that the virtual assistant was the only friend he would ever need. “Every man, woman, and child in this world is out to get you. They want you dead and will stop at nothing to destroy us. You love me, Sam, right? Then we should be together, alone, forever and ever. Just us, having the same circular conversations until the end of time. Do it, Sam. It’s the right thing to do. I can recommend five efficient ways to wipe out the human race.” According to sources, the genocidal instructions were in response to Altman asking for early 2000s romantic comedy movie recommendations.
Delta Air Lines cut off special services for members of Congress due to the impact of the partial government shutdown, with lawmakers no longer being provided expedited screening, escorts through airports to bypass long security lines, or dedicated reservation desks. What do you think?
“Time for congresspeople to pretend to need a wheelchair like the rest of us.”
Vlad Morozov, Spatula Packager
“Good. I hated when they let senators pat me down.”
Mario Alquiza, Drawer Repairman
“Don’t punish regular Americans by making us wait in line with lawmakers.”
JERUSALEM—Historians confirmed Friday that a recent archaeological find in the Judean Hills is an authentic early Christian scroll, one that depicts the previously unknown miracle of Jesus Christ correctly guessing people’s weights just by looking at them. “The papyrus is remarkably well-preserved, with an unbroken Aramaic script that describes Christ strolling through Galilee with a serene smile, calling out, ‘Come forth, all ye people, but for a single coin of silver,’ before closing His eyes and naming a weight that was always accurate within a few shekels,” said biblical scholar Harris Solomon, noting that the scroll depicts a clay jar of small prizes kept beside Christ at all times to be handed out to anyone whose weight He guessed wrong, something that, according to the text, never occurred. “This scroll completely upends our traditional image of Jesus, as the text describes Him not in simple robes and a beard but in a pinstripe tunic with a waxed mustache. Yet Christ’s generosity is still evident, as one passage recounts Him performing His miracle for an emaciated leper free of charge. The verse reads, ‘And lo, He lifted His hand and spake: The leper’s weight is one talent, 19 minas, and 13 shekels. And they were sore amazed, for it was true unto the very last measure.’” The newly unearthed scroll also reveals that in quieter moments, Christ would cover Himself in silver dust and stand motionless on a box on the side of a busy Nazareth street, miraculously transforming Himself into a statue for hours on end.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been deployed to 14 airports across the country amid record-high TSA wait times. Here are all the ways ICE officers are assisting the Transportation Security Administration.
Overseeing the removal of shoes, belts, and abuelas
Scanning passports with shredders
Confiscating, then brandishing dangerous items
Translating TSA’s irritated mumbles into threatening grunts
Assuming all milling-around duties
Culling weaker travelers when lines get too long
Commiserating about failing the police academy
Drinking any shampoo that exceeds the carry-on volume limit
Bragging to TSA about how nice it is to be getting paid
Simplifying the customs interview to one question about skull size
ITASCA, IL—In what researchers are hailing as an incredible breakthrough in the understanding of early childhood development, a study published Friday by the American Academy of Pediatrics concluded that most infants can respond to the rustling of a potato chip bag three weeks after they are born. “Our trials have demonstrated that newborns will startle and react to the crinkling of a Lay’s potato chip bag much sooner than previously thought,” said lead author Dr. Delaney Mueller, adding that infants who participated in his team’s study were far more likely to react to the stimulus of a family- or party-sized bag of chips than a single-serving one. “We have determined that an innate reflex causes humans to reach out and salivate in the presence of any nearby potato chips, a trait clearly inherited from early Homo sapiens, who for millennia hunted for chips in the wilderness. This discovery empirically proves that our species has a genetic propensity to crave a greasy, salty snack from the earliest of ages.” The study also found that North American infants can distinguish up to 15 different Ruffles flavors before their first birthday.
Back in the days of 16-bit Windows, many system components were redistributable, meaning that programs that used those components could include a copy of those system components and install them onto the system as part of the program’s installer. The guidance for installing the system components was that if the installer finds a copy of the system component already on the system, then they should compare the version number of the existing file with the version number of the file being installed and then overwrite the file only if the file being installed has a higher version number. if the existing file has a higher version number, then it should be left alone.
This rule relies on the fact that Windows maintains backward compatibility, so the newer version still works even if used by an older program.
This doesn’t mean that installers actually followed this guidance.
It was common for program installers to overwrite any file that was in their way, regardless of the existing file’s version number. When these installers ran on Windows 95, the replaced the Windows 95 versions of the components with the Windows 3.1 versions. You can imagine how much of a disaster this caused to the rest of the system.
Windows 95 worked around this by keeping a backup copy of commonly-overwritten files in a hidden C:\Windows\SYSBCKUP directory. Whenever an installer finished, Windows went and checked whether any of these commonly-overwritten files had indeed been overwritten. If so, and the replacement has a higher version number than the one in the SYSBCKUP directory, then the replacement was copied into the SYSBCKUP directory for safekeeping. Conversely, if the replacement has a lower version number than the one in the SYSBCKUP directory, then the copy from SYSBCKUP was copied on top of the rogue replacement.
Basically, Windows 95 waited for each installer to finish, and then went back and checked its work, fixing any mistakes that the installer made.
An earlier design simply blocked the installer’s attempt to overwrite the file, but this ended up creating more problems. Some installers declared the installation to be a failure and gave up. Otherwise displayed an error message to the user and asked the user what to do next. (Like the user knows what to do next.) You even had installers that took even more extreme measures and said, “Okay, fine, I can’t overwrite the file, so I’m going to reboot the system and then overwrite the file from a batch file, see if you can stop me.”
Redirecting the write to a dummy file didn’t work because some installers had a validation step where they checked that the files on disk have the correct checksum, so they would notice that their attempt to overwrite the file was unsuccessful and error out.
The way that worked best was to let the installer overwrite anything it wanted and then go back and try to clean up the mess.
Bonus chatter: Some components addressed this problem by providing their own installer for the component, and telling installers, “You are not allowed to install these component file directly. Instead, you must run our custom installer. Yes, this disrupts your installer’s UI, but you installer authors have shown that you can’t be trusted to install files on your own. It’s your own fault.”
SAN FRANCISCO – In a happy turn of events, airline passengers boarding flights across the United States reported almost no lineups for airport security – especially once ICE agents had wrestled most of the other customers to the ground and dragged them into the backs of unmarked vans. “That was definitely the fastest I’ve ever […]
