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Is it unused? I assume he's not Scrooge McDuck - chances are whatever money he has is invested in something.
When we we're looking for a HS for my daughter the selective public schools were weirdly like that. They tended to pound the kids with little to no hand holding - I likened it to tossing the kids into the deep end of the pool and shouting advice to them about how to swim.

The private schools would get the kids to the same place but they'd toss tons of resources at any kid who needed it to get them to that place. Unless the kid was disciplinary; in that case they'd show 'em the door.

Rock bottom was the non-selective public schools. I don't think it was that they didn't care it was ended up with a lot of kids that those first two groups wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. Not just kids who didn't want to be in school (which would be tricky) but one's who's parents didn't care if they were in school. That enough trouble that it creates trouble for the kids who want to be there.

Re:The Fall of Scientific American on Wednesday October 28, 2026 @10:58AM (#50274768)
Dinosaur fossils? I don't know about the magazine but the podcast they do "science quickly" just had a bit on the future of Medicare For All.

I mean, that's about as political as you can get. I do not believe they're approaching the issue as anything other then an advocate. Which is fine.

They should just be aware that they are picking their audience. And they will dance to the tune of that audience.

Re:The Best Monopoly Strategy, Tested on 300M Games [video] on Saturday October 24, 2026 @12:13PM (#50222690)
That almost makes me want to play a game of Monopoly.
No. No. No. Don't ruin it for me.
I'd take that 214,000 figure with at least a grain of salt. That's the number he was asking to get paid back. Call me crazy but I don't totally trust him when it comes to details.
Woody Allen's line was that “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” and he's absolutely right.
Re:There isn't an easy exploit for this PHP vulnerability on Thursday October 22, 2026 @01:41PM (#50198627)
Attacks never get better or stay the same. They only get worse.
Re:Artificial intelligence is capitalism's final destination on Friday October 16, 2026 @05:21PM (#50124938)

  The instruction from the US Army high command to the young officer sent to end his fellow marine’s insurrection is unambiguous: “Terminate with extreme prejudice.”

Technically they were all in the Army none were in the Marines.
Re:Artificial intelligence is capitalism's final destination on Friday October 16, 2026 @05:14PM (#50124827)
Buddhists have been trying to master desire for a very long time. Who knew the answer was just to build a better LLM.

I tend to think the nature of desire is that it's never satisfied. The Red Queen says run as fast as you can to stay where you are and twice as fast again to get anywhere.

Re:Jev Meets the Trolley Problem on Friday October 16, 2026 @10:31AM (#50118827)
We'd all think we were Captain Kirk in that situation I think. We'd somehow manage to kill all 6 people trying to come up with a solution that avoids anyone getting killed. Except for the actual Captain Kirk of course, who would do just what we wanted.
Re:Jev Meets the Trolley Problem on Friday October 16, 2026 @10:28AM (#50118788)
Read Smith's Theory Of Moral Sentiment. Especially his comparison between reading about a faraway disaster and a more personal loss. It's been awhile but I think Smith would say there's a difference between how people would think about that choice and what they would do.
Re:Jev Meets the Trolley Problem on Friday October 16, 2026 @10:22AM (#50118730)
The joke I heard was:

Don't anthropomorphize computers - they hate that.

Re:Wayland desktop for Linux with skeuomorphic design on Thursday October 15, 2026 @05:30PM (#50110589)
That's a no for me - it seems like it would be a bear to use for more then 5 minutes.

I'm not sure if I feel the same way about skeuomorphism as a general design philosophy. Maybe this is just the wrong metaphor?

Re:Suicide rates highest ever among middle-aged men on Thursday October 15, 2026 @03:36PM (#50109108)
"not into dogs".

That's OK, most of the single woman I know don't care if you like pets or not. As for how you look that's not a huge problem - again most of those same women have expectations in the looks department that are best described as average. And you're gainfully employed! This is better and better.

The only thing I can suggest is to put yourself in a position to meet more women because the more actual real life women you meet the better the chance of finding one that feels that spark.

  So far as I know (and maybe you can come up with more) there are two solid ways of meeting women.  One is to hang out where they are.  This is tricky because the closer this gets to a cattle call (think going out to a bar ) the more artificial and tricky this gets.  Dating apps are like that but in spades.  

  Option two is those woman who didn't "feel the spark".  Here me out.

  Here's what you say.  "This clearly isn't working out for you.  But rather then this being a total loss, want to get to get together with some friends of mine and just hang out as friends?"  or even, "Hey, you have friends - maybe there's no spark here but how about if I hang out with your friends?".

  See, if you have female friends it's like another person helping you find someone to be not single with.  Woman are a gregarious lot and they tend to both know a lot of people and to know a lot of women.  I trust that it's not hard to see how this can work.

   Eh, that's how it worked for me but your millage may vary.
I like the idea that this was something like The Producers.

  Get some money from investors to make show
  Have a giant party
  Oh no AI deleted the show!
  Go home and nurse hangover.
I mean yeah but you can always go one step back for root cause.

Why did they pick that insane option? Why was it available to them?

One of my co-workers in security always seems to think that just saying "No." is the job. If someone is asking to do something stupid you say No, and then you talk to them to figure out what the goal is and the n you help them to get to that place.

Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? on Monday October 12, 2026 @05:37PM (#50063393)
What was done to Swartz was terrible. That said there are some really clear differences. Swartz acted like he understood that he was breaking the law. OpenAI acted like it was a mistake from the first second.
Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? on Monday October 12, 2026 @05:33PM (#50063344)
If you really didn't know and didn't mean for it to happen? And assuming you were the first to find out you immediately went to the authorities/injured parties?

If all that's the case I'd say you at least should be in the clear. There's going to be at least one if not more public agencies that would presumably be looking at you with a proctoscope so I'd be hoping all of those claims would stand up to a lot of daylight.

One of the more interesting things I've read about cats is that the tail swishing they do isn't - as some think - a sign of anger but rather indecision. You see it when it's a fight/flight situation but also if there's an open door on a rainy day; the animal wants to be out but also doesn't want to be wet.

The interesting supposition was that it was a physical manifestation that reflected an emotional state. That is to say a moment in balance - and for cats balance is corrected with their tails. I don't know if it's true but I kind of want it to be.

Yeah. Even when I was child I knew that compared to a cat I was gigantic. It wasn't hard to realize that if you wanted the animal to stick around you were quiet, crouched and led with an out stretched hand.

I mean, except for our cats where you'd just walk up and grab 'em about the middle, drag them up to eye height for a quick scratch under the chin and about the ears.

Re:I'm still around.. I'm just not writing here on Saturday October 10, 2026 @10:23AM (#50033319)
Close the open door once you're inside.
Re:Will AI kill us all on Thursday October 08, 2026 @01:07PM (#50008555)
On one level sure. On another level - either UFO's are aliens or they're not. 50/50
Re:Will AI kill us all on Thursday October 08, 2026 @01:05PM (#50008520)
This is the issue I have with everyone running agents writ large. Will Muse do people harm? Eh, maybe through some sort of bug because software has bugs and software bugs have hurt (and even killed!) people in the past. Those are the edge cases though.

Will malicious people take advantage of Muse? Now you're talking. Muse is functioning like the world's most open ended API that people are running without having any idea what it does. You're inviting other people to run it so that they can do good things for you. Doordash use my API (Muse) to send me food! Random stranger use my API to do something good for me! Random stranger wants to do something bad? Well the API is designed to do that. Hopefully it does it well but when it's people vs. API, people have a track record (especially when incentivized by money) of doing pretty well.

Re:It may soon be possible to create "mirror life" on Wednesday October 07, 2026 @10:14AM (#49993159)
The second order effect is obvious. There's some hard of hearing person working on a nefarious device using a phone successfully only because of your dastardly work. How you can sleep at night is beyond my ability to comprehend.
Or at least nothing criminal with that. :-)

That's my larger problem personally. The idea that everything that is wrong should be a crime and everything that is not a crime is not wrong. I'm pretty sure none of those things is true but sometimes it seems like everyone believes they both are.

5 million people have installed Muse in the US.
Re:I'm the AGI that's wiping out humanity on Tuesday October 06, 2026 @02:54PM (#49982505)
sheep are 82% of the population of New Zealand. If they were 80% last year and are 85% next year would people be worried that sheep were going to take over New Zealand?
Lawyers and judges have spent a lot of time with this. Agree or disagree about their conclusions but questions like those tend to get answered (and INAL but I've read a little) by adding follow up questions to get at the truth. i.e. Did they say a specific time? was there a plausible manner? Was the place specified? You can probably imagine other things to add to that.

We all know that famous "I know it when I see it definition" but I think that's an exception rather then a rule. A lot of those things really can be given a reasonably clear definition.

"for whatever reason" is the hard part. Would you make a habit of breaking into houses and reading they're diaries. If someone committed a crime how would feel if they accused you have being an accessory because you didn't break into the persons house to look at their diary?

What if you get a peek at the diary of someone you actually know. You've know them for 20 years and they've never done anything violent in all that time - just the opposite in fact. The entry says they got a gun but you have no evidence of that other then the words in the diary. Do you call the police? Plot twist it's your Mom - do you still call the police?

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