> D. Kriesel, a German Ph.D. student studying computational geometry, encountered a strange problem when scanning a blueprint on a common Xerox office scanner. The numbers denoting the square footage of rooms were totally wrong, and what's more, they changed when he scanned the blueprint again.

>Intrigued, Kriesel tried scanning a table of costs and figures. Numbers changed again—but not wildly, just by a little bit: 54.60 became 54.80, for instance.

Another article on that same news: https://www.theregister.com/2013/08/06/xerox_copier_flaw_means_dodgy_numbers_and_dangerous_designs/

Yeah, that could potentially result in lawsuits or other legal mess with Xerox being caught in the crossfire. Such as a purchase contract's or construction plan's numbers being silently changed.

Find insurance companies that instead charge doubled/tripled premiums or something equally expensive I guess. :P

The last part of the article was what got my attention:

> "Hyundai is also providing free steering wheel locks, as available, to select law enforcement agencies across the country for distribution to local residents who own or lease affected models," Gabriel wrote. "Owners may also bring their vehicles to a local Hyundai dealer for the purchase and installation of a customized security kit."

> The kits are available for purchase and installation at Hyundai dealerships and Compustar authorized installers across the country. They start at $170 and there are also charges for installation.

Maybe I'm just being biased, but Hyundai should be footing the bill for extra security now that all of the thieves are specifically targeting their cars. On another subreddit, I read about someone who discovered their car wasn't stolen at the end because the thieves couldn't figure out how to drive a stick shift. But that didn't stop them from destroying the steering column and ignition. $6K worth of damages and the car was sitting in the repair shop for about two months. Their concern was all of that could happen again once the car is repaired, and this time the insurance might drop him or jack up his rates.

As two people commented in another subreddit:

> "It’s like Apple on hard mode. Create a problem, then sell the solution. Except nowhere near the level of brand loyalty"

> "Apple’s stuff at least is enjoyable when it works. This is some Spirit Airlines shit."

I remember hearing some noise with the garbage cans at night and turned on my phone's flashlight.

Over half a dozen pairs of eyes were staring back at me.

Cue the cat meowing at the owner to fix the weather.

I looked at the references and it seems all of the Plan X stuff came from this book: https://www.amazon.com/Stasi-Untold-German-Secret-Police/dp/0813334098/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

And the Stasi (East Germany's version of the KGB) took a tall glass of nope when given that order.

> On 8 October 1989, Erich Mielke and Erich Honecker ordered the Stasi to implement "Plan X"—the SED's plan to arrest and indefinitely detain 85,939 East Germans during a state of emergency. According to John Koehler, Plan X had been in preparation since 1979 and was, "a carbon copy of how the Nazi concentration camps got their start after Hitler came to power in 1933."[65]

> By 1984, 23 sites had been selected for "isolation and internment camps." Those who were to be imprisoned in them ran into six categories; including anyone who had ever been under surveillance for anti-state activities, including all members of peace movements which were not under Stasi control.[66]

> According to Anna Funder:

> "The plans contained exact provisions for the use of all available prisons and camps, and when those were full for the conversion of other buildings: Nazi detention centers, schools, hospitals, and factory holiday hostels. Every detail was foreseen, from where the doorbell was located on the house of each person to be arrested to the adequate supply of barbed wire and the rules of dress and etiquette in the camps..."[67]

> However, when Mielke sent the orders, codenamed "Shield" (German: Schild),[65] to each local Stasi precinct to begin the planned arrests, he was ignored. Terrified of an East German version of the mass lynchings of Hungarian secret police agents during the 1956 Revolution, Stasi agents throughout the GDR fortified their office-buildings and barricaded themselves inside.[68]

Some of the hardliners wanted a Tiananmen Square style crackdown in an attempt to stop the fall of East Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_inner_German_border#Refugee_crisis_of_September%E2%80%93November_1989

> Honecker's more fundamental miscalculation was the presumption that by closing East Germany's last open border he had finally imprisoned his country's citizens within their own borders and made it clear that there would be no reform whatsoever – a situation that most East Germans found intolerable. Small pro-democracy demonstrations rapidly swelled into crowds of hundreds of thousands of people in cities across East Germany. The demonstrators chanted slogans such as Wir bleiben hier! ("We're staying here!") – indicating their desire to stay and fight for democracy – and "Wir sind das Volk" ("We are the people"), challenging the SED's claim to speak for the people. Some in the East German leadership advocated a crackdown, particularly the veteran secret police chief Erich Mielke. Although preparations for a Tiananmen Square-style military intervention were well advanced, ultimately the leadership ducked the decision to use force. East Germany was, in any case, in a very different situation from China; it depended on loans from the West and the continued support of the Soviets, both of which would have been critically jeopardised by a massacre of unarmed demonstrators. The Soviet army units in East Germany had reportedly been ordered not to intervene, and the lack of support from the Soviet leadership weighed heavily on the SED leadership as it tried to decide what to do.[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_Revolution#Tiananmen_Square_protests

> The Neues Deutschland, the official newspaper of the SED, supported the crackdown by the Chinese authorities. The German People's Congress proclaimed it was "a defeat for counter-revolutionary forces." Sixteen civil rights activists in East Berlin were arrested for protesting against the actions of the Chinese government.[49]

...

> Officially Honecker resigned due to ill health, but he had been sharply criticized by the party. Although Krenz, 52, was the youngest member of the Politburo, he was a hardliner who had congratulated the Chinese regime on its brutal crushing of the Tiananmen Square demonstration. The New Forum were doubtful about his ability to bring about reform, saying that "he would have to undertake 'tremendous efforts' to dispel the mistrust of a great part of the population."[54]

It would be a very different timeline (and a cursed one) if East Germany's government went forward with the 86,000 arrests or a Tiananmen Square style crackdown in an attempt to stop the reunification with West Germany. Maybe Nuremberg Trials 2.0 with Stasi and military officers trying the "just following orders from Honecker and Mielke" defense argument?

Back in high school (many years before MAGA took off), I knew someone that posted on Facebook about how they considered 1910-1920 to be the best time for the US in terms of society.

I asked them about the Chinese Exclusion Act in that FB thread, just to see if they were willing to die on that hill.

He stirred up quite a bit of high school drama when he told me that I was not welcomed in the US (which also implicitly included my siblings). Bear in mind that I was born in the US a couple years after my parents fled from China in the aftermath of the Tienanmen Square Massacre.

Then he caused more drama when he had a messy breakup with his girlfriend (something about her disagreeing with his stance of not wanting women to vote) and picked a fight with her large group of friends.

Also bear in mind that this high school was +95% white which he made himself an outcast of. Of the ~600 students, there was only one African American, one Hispanic, and the only Asians were me and my siblings.

They also got pissy with South Korea pushing forward with a missile defense system: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-china-southkorea/china-lodges-stern-protest-with-south-korea-over-thaad-deployment-idUSKCN1BI0TL

Meanwhile North Korea be like: "Let's yeet 50 ballistic missiles into the air."

We all know that allowing Germany to annex half of Czechoslovakia back in 1930's prevented WW2.

All of that WW2 history stuff is fake information. There was no war in Europe.

/SARCASM

Along with allowing Russia to conduct a naval blockade of Italy by capturing Sicily, Sardina and Corsica.

Yes I know the last island belongs to France. But that hasn't stopped Sweden from being concerned about Gotland Island being captured: https://www.dw.com/en/swedens-gotland-gets-ready-for-anything-amid-rising-russian-threats/a-60620892

Funny thing is, Putin could have kept the DPR/LPR and Crimea gains, had he not pulled a "We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down” on Ukraine.

> They rather push for negotiations.

Negotiations only work when one side has no intentions of breaking a deal less than 24 hours after signing it: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/23/russia-fires-missiles-odesa-port-hours-after-grain-export-deal

> Barely 12 hours after Moscow signed a deal with Ukraine to allow monitored grain exports from Ukraine’s southern ports, Russia targeted Ukraine’s main port of Odesa – through which grain shipments would take place – with cruise missile strikes.

The protestors were calling for Italy to stop shipping weapons to Ukraine as part of their demand for peace.

About a year ago, this was Putin's set of demands before the invasion of Ukraine: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/russia-issues-list-demands-tensions-europe-ukraine-nato

> The demands, spelled out by Moscow in full for the first time, were handed over to the US this week. They include a demand that Nato remove any troops or weapons deployed to countries that entered the alliance after 1997, which would include much of eastern Europe, including Poland, the former Soviet countries of Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and the Balkan countries.

> Russia has also demanded that Nato rule out further expansion, including the accession of Ukraine into the alliance, and that it does not hold drills without previous agreement from Russia in Ukraine, eastern Europe, in Caucasus countries such as Georgia or in Central Asia.

> Those proposals are likely to be viewed extremely negatively by Nato countries, in particular Poland and the Baltic states. They have warned that Russia is attempting to re-establish a sphere of influence in the region and view the document as proof Moscow is seeking to limit their sovereignty.

There's a reason they were at war with almost every other Islamist groups during mid 2010's, while also simultaneously at war with multiple countries.

I did that once with a kitten.

It then rubbed its head and body against my hand while purring. So I scratched its back gently.

And then it started biting my hand hard. When I pulled my hand away, it went after my ankle to bite it. :(

Cue me running away from the kitten in panic while it chased me.

Or Ford's Pinto moment.

Or when Takata decided it would be a REALLY GOOD IDEA to ship claymore airbags and defective seat belts to car manufacturers around the world, guaranteeing that when the scandal breaks, they would be sued both by consumers and the car manufacturers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takata_Corporation

> During 2013, several automakers began large recalls of vehicles due to Takata-made airbags. Reports state that the problems may have begun a decade before,[11] with the faulty airbags placed in some Honda models starting in 1998.[12]

...

> On January 4, 2019, Ford issued a recall for an additional 953,000 vehicles, including 782,384 in the United States and federalized territories and 149,652 in Canada. Affected vehicles included 2010 Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX, the 2010 and 2011 Ford Ranger, the 2010 to 2012 Ford Fusion and Lincoln MKZ, the 2010 and 2011 Mercury Milan, and the 2010 to 2014 Ford Mustang. This was a planned expansion of previously recalled vehicles as identified earlier by the NHTSA.[42]

...

> In June 2021, Joyson announced that they had discovered over a thousand cases where Takata had falsified seat belt safety test data.[43]

That connector design is the kind of stuff you would find in USB cables that are not compliant with even USB 1.1 specs so they either don't work, or could set your phone on fire.

Or no-brand "500W" PSUs that cost $20.

> "Except the connectors are cheap and break easily. But that's not nvidia's fault!"

Except if you read the article or looked for my TLDR comment, you would see that the whole cable melting drama is purely due to Nvidia's poor connector design or they had accepted low quality cables from a manufacturer. Meanwhile PSU manufacturers' and other 3rd party cables don't have the same problem.

Flatscreen TV warning label: "Do not transport lying flat down."

Customer: "That sign warning can't stop me because I can't read!"

TV predictably breaks