Starman_Jones

Easy. You’ve already bought into the cultural assumption that this equation will be graphed on a Cartesian plane. Using polar coordinates instead, with an angle of x and a radius of y (a perfectly valid interpretation, even if it’s not what you envisioned), gives us a circle. These outputs have their own cultural associations: the former, music (particularly synthesizers); the latter, radar or sonar indicators. Showing the radius enhances the effect. All else being equal, if a new unexplained technology is said to produce that output, a clever data visualizer can bias the viewer towards viewing it as militant or peaceful. This is strictly a modern cultural bias; a hundred years ago, viewers would not have made either of those connections.

UPS could do this, yes, but ICE isn’t allowed to. All of what you described is, by itself, perfectly legal for US citizens, and ICE has even more restrictions about targeting US citizens than the government as a whole. So why is it okay for ICE to do this?

I have no idea, but why would that change anything?

The irony is that Alaska has ranked choice voting - if in doubt, Dan fans can vote for both, and it will sort itself out.

Malum prohibitum vs malum in se - that which is wrong because it is forbidden, as opposed to that which is wrong in and of itself.

I had a professor who talked about working there. In his words, “Thank God for whiskey!”

While there is some romantic imagery (penguins!) down there, and the disconnect from the rest of the world might be appealing, for large parts of the year you’re just stuck inside.

California’s wine grapes (vitis vinifera) aren’t suitable for eating. Some varieties (vitis labrusca) can be used for table grapes or wine grapes, but those aren’t really grown in California.

The qualifier here is that the public demonstrations must further the propaganda of a foreign power? If so, that doesn’t seem to be much of an obstacle if the people making the arrest are the ones who decide whether or not a protest is furthering foreign propaganda.

American automakers in the 1960s are the prototypical example of the problem being described, and its risks [0]. I’ll grant you that the semiconductor has greatly improved the quality of electronics, but those two examples are exceptions, not the norm. In the intervening decades, almost all products have followed the path of cars in the 60s.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

Because China’s no different, and geopolitics don’t map well onto personal relationships, except that trust matters. Even in your example, it would be that the drug dealer attacked and stole from my great-great-great-grandfather, and now the drug dealer’s great-great-great-granddaughter is returning the property. It’s a bit foolish to treat her with the same level of distrust, and it would be even more foolish to be the one to break the agreement if I know that I will have to keep doing business with her in the future.

Why should one party to an agreement hold the other party accountable to the terms of the agreement?

Let’s see the factory layouts though. Release the blueprints!

Did AI add the typos as well?

The primary detector is the wide-field instrument, which, believe it or not, takes pictures with a wide field of view. The secondary detector is the coronagraph instrument, which uses a bunch of funky filters to block out the light from the star to see the halo around it.

Edit: These are the detectors, which are the cameras. There is only one mirror assembly (with two mirrors) that focuses light into these instruments.

Why? The hacker ethos is all about understanding systems as they actually are; not as the people at the top want them to be. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s pretty clear that the Luddites were right; the industrialization of weaving did destroy their profession, and, contrary to the opinions of the political leaders, this had a direct, negative impact on society for many decades. The curious-minded hacker should not ignore that reality, even if they think the circumstances are different this time.

I’m not convinced on ships yet. The strategic failure in Iran has overshadowed the tactical successes, including the fact that US ships have handled everything Iran has thrown at them. That could change, but right now, drones have yet to prove their effectiveness against warships which are prepared against them.

Did Meta set up the selection criteria for the automated selection system?

I have to assume that this list is pared down considerably. When I opened the list, I fully expected to see Roger Penrose, who believes that the human brain is a quantum computer. This is not a view that is espoused by people who study human brains or quantum computers. The list seems to be limited to scientists holding opinions that have conclusively been ruled out, and not just kooky ideas outside their field of expertise.

I agree with you, but I think it’s worth pointing out that the NFL is balanced because they tried to make it balanced - the salary cap, draft, revenue sharing, etc. are all outcomes of that plan, not the prime motivators themselves.

That happened to me as well! I was asked to tip on an automated coffee dispenser…

Our brains also have evolved rewards for performing life-continuing behaviors, and then evolved to rewarding proxy behaviors, instead of the actual life-continuing behavior. This is perfectly in line with what you are saying, but now we are rewarded for spotting enemy snipers in CODBLOPS, rather than spotting lions/snakes/crocodiles.

We have gotten very good at hacking this reward function. It has reached a point where a thinking-minimization engine will pay a significant amount of resources to, say, Paradox Studios to do what is effectively the opposite of not thinking.

Through Medicare and Medicaid, the US spends more public money per capita on healthcare than any other country spends period. This is largely because Medicare/Medicaid were not allowed to negotiate pricing; they were legally required to accept whatever price companies wanted to set for a treatment.

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

For the cost to develop the polio vaccine, March of Dimes could have bought enough iron lungs to save 12,000 lives. Of course, they had no idea what the actual number would be beforehand; all they knew is that they were spending enormous sums of money on something that could turn out to be a catastrophic waste, rather than saving thousands of lives. At the end of the day, they felt that was a worthwhile risk. With hindsight, we can see that they right.

I just learned earlier this week that he produced “In The Dark of the Night” from Anastasia!

Without condoning this, I think it’s important to be very clear about what this is: it’s an automation improvement to a decades-old existing system. Most retail stores already keep (and share!) photos of suspected shoplifters, with the work being done by printing screenshots from security camera footage. The goal is to discourage them from shoplifting by constantly having an employee nearby, and to only kick them out if they’re caught in the act. Personally, I don’t think increased surveillance is a worthwhile use of resources, and I think it could lead to abuses like you’ve described, but from the POV of the people building this, they’re taking an existing labor-intensive task and making it easier. From their perspective, it’s easy to argue that this won’t lead to blanket bans and lists of undesirables because those could already exist, but they don't.

My grandparents lived north of Salt Lake City, close enough that I’ve been there at least half a dozen times over several decades. Last time I did,I drove across a bridge with no water under it to an island that was fully connected to the mainland by dry land. It was very melancholy to reflect on how the natural world I grew up with is disappearing.

You’re dodging their question.

I apologize if I’m missing the point you’re making, but trench foot and vaccines are completely unrelated.

Vaccines fundamentally impact viruses. Trench foot is not caused by a virus, or any infection. It’s more akin to frostbite.

We’re really pushing the boundaries of what we can do with vaccines, but the root cause of trench foot is poor circulation, and a vaccine can’t really fix that.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. You’re going to need to justify both of those claims.

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...

It reflects incredibly poorly on management, bordering on incompetence. If those 10% of employees were needed, then management obviously shouldn’t fire them just to make the stock price go up. If they weren’t actually needed, then management shouldn’t have hired them in the first place. If they’re only sorta needed, then that means management wasn’t able to come up with any ideas to grow the business.

Furthermore, regardless of what expectations are set, it’s not the remaining employees’ job to figure out how to do 111% of the work. That’s literally the job of management.