This is a literary device. The article continues to explain why this isn’t a simple problem, and it’s clear from the conclusion that the author understands the complexity.
>But it’s good to be reminded that we know a lot less about the world than we think. Much of our thinking about the world runs on a statistical edifice of extraordinary complexity, in which raw numbers—like population counts, but also many others—are only the most basic inputs. Thinking about the actual construction of these numbers is important, because it encourages us to have a healthy degree of epistemic humility about the world: we really know much less than we think.
As someone who reads epistemology for fun. Its so much worse than you know.
Everything is basically a theory only judged on predictive capabilities. Even the idea that Earth is not at the center of the solar system is a judgement call of what we define as the solar system and center.
The math is simpler sure, but its arbitrary how we define our systems.
You lost me with your example. What could the word center mean if the thing that all the other things orbit around in the solar system is not referred to as being in the center?
If all you care about is measurements/predictions relative to Earth, then it makes no sense to transform everything into Sol-centric frame, do the math there, and then untransform results back to Earth-centric frame.
Put another way, there's a reason we use latitude/longitude for terrestrial positioning, instead of Cartesian coordinates with Sol being at (0, 0, 0). For one, it keeps the math time-invariant.
You can do math from any position. If you're on a train you'll do a lot of calculations relative to your train. That doesn't mean things are actually orbiting your train. You would never declare to all of humanity that your train is the 'center' of everything.
They orbit the earth in a different shape that is more complex than an ellipse.
For further reading, I like Early Wittgenstein, but warning, he is a meme for a reason, you will only understand 10%...
Imagine we have a table with black and white splotches. We could use a square fishnet with a fine enough resolution to accurately describe it. But why use a square fishnet? Why not use hexagons? They both can accurately describe it with a fine enough resolution.
All of science is built on this first step of choosing (squares or hexagons).
Maybe something easier than Wittgenstein, there is Waltz Theory of International Politics, specifically chapter 1. But that is more practical/applied than metaphysical. I find this a difficult topic to recommend a wikipedia article, as they are too specific to each type of knowledge and don't explain the general topic. Even the general topic gets a bit lost in the weeds. Maybe Karl Popper too.
> They orbit the earth in a different shape that is more complex than an ellipse.
But they don't. We know they don't. Not unless you use a weird definition of orbit that is very different from the one lotsofpulp was using. And if you do that you're not countering their argument, you're misconstruing it.
We know they do. An orbit is a mathematical object, and elliptical orbits only exist in universes that have exactly two objects with mass in them. Add another object, even far away, and as far as we know[0] we no longer even have a closed-form description of resulting motion patterns.
And our universe has tons of matter with gravitational mass everywhere, few other types of interaction beyond gravity, and a vacuum that just doesn't want to stay empty.
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[0] - Not sure if this was mathematically proven, or merely remains not disproven.
> Not unless you use a weird definition of orbit that is very different from the one lotsofpulp was using. And if you do that you're not countering their argument, you're misconstruing it.
All of science is like this. Change your frame of reference/theory. Why did we pick one system vs another? Its arbitrary.
Orbits are influenced by gravity and momentum and are always changing as the objects pull on each other and are pulled on. It only appears to be stable because the scale is so immense and our lives are so short in comparison.
Just cause knowledge can be reduced to predictive capabilities and judgement calls does not mean systems are defined arbitrarily. Everything is defined as to its relative function in/to society and our material endeavors and the social forces that limit or expand on areas of these systems.
First we have to live. That has implications; it's the base for all knowledge.
Knowledge is developing all the time and can be uncertain, sure, but the foundations aren't arbitrary.
> Even the idea that Earth is not at the center of the solar system is a judgement call of what we define as the solar system and center.
If you don't have a definition of the solar system, the question about its center is meaningless. If you have then you can answer it according to that definition.
I remember a lot of pop sci being centered around "elegance", looking for simple models that are broadly predictive. Newton, Galileo, Einstein, Darwin. Feels like people are leaning the other way now, and seeing reality as messy, uncertain, and multifaceted.
A case study of myself as an overeager math student:
I used to focus so much on finding "elegant" proofs of things, especially geometric proofs. I'd construct elaborate diagrams to find an intuitive explanation, sometimes disregarding gaps in logic.
Then I gave up, and now I appreciate the brutal pragmatism of using Euler's formula for anything trigonometry-related. It's not a very elegant method, if accounting for the large quantity of rote intermediate work produced, but it's far more effective and straightforward for dealing with messy trig problems.
I tried to check a list of literary devices (Wikipedia) and couldn't exactly map to a specific category - would be interesting to know if there such a category.
The problem I have with this literary device is that I think it works if most / many questions would fit it then he would go to disapprove it. Using it, for me, kind of indirectly reinforces the idea that "there are many simple answers". Which I came to loathe as it is pushed again and again due to social media. Everything is "clear", "simple", "everybody knows better", "everybody did their research".
How did this literal device make you feel? Interested? Curious? Bored? When I read it my initial instinct was "no, it's definitely not simple, so if that's what are you going to explain me, I will not bother".
The list of literary devices on Wikipedia is a tiny subset of the list of literary devices in reality. Although in this case it is a well-documented one: it's just a rhetorical question.
anyway it is just a writing style. if you don't like it, fine. If you can't parse it, well, now you can.
I didn't feel much at all. It's simply a rhetorical question which sets up the explicit claim being made in the title of the article. The structure is quite clear if you account for the entire text which I'm sure the author intended. Do you mean to assert that reasoning through the Socratic tradition is something to loathe and push against? In other words, you are leaning on a lot of ancillary personal concerns which I don't believe the author earned.
He offers no proof, just “trust me bro”. If they actually had found flaws, they would’ve reported them. WhatsApp uses the Signal protocol, which is built by actual cryptographers using proper formal proofs. In contrast, MTProto is not designed from a formal cryptographic approach and is described by cryptographers as “brittle”. https://martinralbrecht.wordpress.com/2025/03/16/analysis-of...
Telegram also has no public security or cryptographic assessments, while meanwhile WhatsApp has had numerous components analyzed by cryptographers for security.
This is typical for the senate. It’s called the “pro-forma session”. This is primarily done so that the senate is never truly in recess and thus blocks the president’s power to make recess appointments.
In Spain the high speed network is separate from the traditional network too. There is some inter connectivity to allow for high speed trains to call at traditional stations, but the high speed network is for high speed trains only.
Yeah, the planned Czech high speed trains (VRT) have the same gauge but are expected to be used by the high speed trains almost exclusively, with a limited number of normal-speed passenger trains and AFAIK no cargo traffic at all.
In engineering the simple solution is often the best solution. Creating a demand-side network of devices is not that.
Plus, such a system would provide even more ways for nefarious actors to sabotage the grid, by influencing the demand side. For example, setting every appliance to run its load at the same time. The grid would be fucked.
I don't disagree with your broad comment but it's not hard to fix by slightly dispersing the control/responsibility.
1. Electricity moves for 5/10 min clearing intervals with defined caps at either end (currently in Western Australia it's simply 2 intervals, peak & off-peak).
2. Expose the pricing/market data via API
3. Develop existing home automation frameworks/tools/device IOTs/routers to access that.
4. End user grants permission/configures it on their smart phone when they set their dishwasher and washing machine on set up ("would you like to enable this smart-go button by connecting to Wi-Fi? It could save you $150 per year").
No control ceded to third parties to turn on equipment whenever they want, just allows the end user to cue jobs for when the PowerCo anticipates lowest prices.
PowerCo not any more of a honeypot for attack, at least not more than they are now with control over critical generation/tx/dx infra.
If the devices are accessing a 3rd party API over the Internet to get this info, that control is still ceded, and attackers can still exploit vulnerabilities in all of these devices to attack large swaths of the network at once.
> While the data itself is encrypted, notice how the values written by the first and third operation are the same.
The fact that Intel and AMD both went with ECB leaves me with mild disbelief. I realize wrangling IVs in that scenario is difficult but that's hardly an excuse to release a product that they knew full well was fundamentally broken. The insecurity of ECB for this sort of task has been common knowledge for at least 2 decades.
Google "intel sgx memory encryption engine". Intel's designers were fully aware of replay attacks, and early versions of SGX supported a hardware-based memory encryption engine with Merkle tree support.
Remember that everything in security (and computation) is a tradeoff. The MEE turned out to be a performance bottleneck, and support got dropped.
There are legitimate choices to be made here between threat models, and the resulting implications on the designs.
There's not much new under the sun when it comes to security/cryptography/whatever (tm), and I recommend approaching the choices designers make with an open mind.
I agree with the sentiment but I'm struggling to see how this qualifies as a legitimate tradeoff to make. I thought the entire point of this feature was to provide assurances to customers that cloud providers weren't snooping on their VMs. In which case physically interdicting RAM in this manner is probably the first approach a realistic adversary would attempt.
I can see where it prevents inadvertent data leaks but the feature was billed as protecting against motivated adversaries. (Or at least so I thought.)
Fair point, my ECB remark was misguided. But I think the broader point stands? I did acknowledge the difficulty of dealing with IVs here.
It's the same issue that XTS faces but that operates under the fairly modest assumption that an adversary won't have long term continuous block level access to the running system. Whereas in this case interdicting the bus is one of the primary attack vectors so failing to defend against that seems inexcusable.
This is a very standard part of responsible disclosure. Hacker finds bugs -> discloses them to the vendor -> (hopefully) the vendor communicates with them and remediates -> both sides publish the technical details. It also helps to demonstrate to the rest of the security world which companies will take reports seriously and which ones won’t, which is very useful information to have.
>They provide third party API's to use APPLE's RCS-Service. The alternative would have been to support registering alternative RCS-services as default on the OS (and then, allow the user to choose a service).
RCS messaging is carrier-controlled and configured via carrier bundles in iOS. Apple doesn't run a "RCS service". TelephonyMessageKit [0] in iOS 26+ exposes a standard interface to the carrier SMS, MMS, and RCS services, as applicable, allowing for 3rd party applications to send and receive carrier standards-based messages.
In 3GPP standards, RCS is just another service using the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) framework. Carriers can either run their own RCS service in their IMS core or use a 3rd party service (as many do with Google's Jibe).
https://youtu.be/7vItnxhWRqw
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