I'll tell you what would stop them from doing anything after that point: The armed, jackbooted THUGS occupying Apple's offices. If they're willing to do this, then that's not very far from an armed takeover of Apple's corporate offices, placing Tim Cook and Apple executives into custody, and threatening any Apple employee that refuses to co-operate with jail, likely under the so-called Patriot Act, in which case they'd be deemed terrorists and enemies of the State, denied legal representation, detained without charge, and generally stripped of all their rights as citizens.Welcome to the Police State, if they go through with this then that's where we're at.
Here's another follow-up for anyone who might be interested: I found an old USENET archive with information on how to build various resonators that might improve WWVB signal strength in your house: http://rec.radio.amateur.homeb...
You misuse the word 'troll' like kids on the Internet misuse the word 'autistic'.
Troll: One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.
I'm not going to waste my time shitposting in the Internet just to get a reaction out of people; I write what I actually think, and if you or anyone else doesn't like what I think, then that's tough for you, but not liking what I have to say doesn't make me a 'troll'. Get it right.
I needed to replace my rear wheel after about 5k miles
That shouldn't happen. A good wheelset should last you for years, at least 4 or 5 times that many miles.
Shimano gears
Probably one of their low-end groupsets but still better than no-name Chinese garbage that breaks in 3 months.
I find your pompous attitude that $1000 is the minimum buy-in to be a cyclist to be destructive.
Yeah sure thing buddy, you get all triggered. What I know is there are plenty of people out there who don't know any better than to buy cheap shitty Walmart (or other department store) bikes that start falling apart in just a few months, and then they think that all bikes are a ripoff and they won't risk spending more on something decent. If they'd buy a decent one in the first place then things would be different. You can even get a better deal buying a quality used bike off Craigslist or similar than buying a garbage bike from wherever. Even Performance Bike's house-brand bikes are better than much of the garbage for sale out there. If you're going to ride all the time and not just on a Saturday when the weather is nice then you need to buy something quality, not cheap, and you get what you pay for when you buy a bike.
I'm saying driverless cars aren't going to fix problems with congestion and pollution.
Well, at least we can agree on that. So-called 'autonomous cars' aren't going to be the reality that some think it'll be, it'll be an option on luxury cars, and it'll be more like a sophisticated cruise control, not a box on four wheels with no controls for a human driver. The vast majority of people are going to be driving themselves for quite some time to come.
Had another thought: If you're an electronics person, it should be relatively trivial to build a 60KHz repeater that will radiate the amplified signal inside your house.. or in your underground bunker.. or into the Faraday cage you built your house inside of.. or whatever it is that's blocking the signal, in the extreme cases where you're not getting sync reliably. I haven't had to do it but it wouldn't be very complicated, just a loopstick antenna in a tuned RF circuit, and a single transistor amplifier feeding an antenna inside your house, far enough away from the receiving antenna to prevent oscillation.
What I think some people don't know is that while the 60KHz WWVB signal penetrates most buildings very well, the antenna inside these clocks is a loopstick type, and is very directional; you have to know how it's oriented in the clock in question, and you need to know which direction Fort Collins is, so you can place the clock correctly. The Sangean atomic clock-radio I have in my bedroom even has the WWVB antenna in a separate housing on a cable, so you can orient it however you need to in order to get the signal. As stated above I have 4 of these type of clock (likely a 5th soon enough) from three different manufacturers, and all of them get synched at least 90% of the time. The worst that will happen is your clock will be off by a second or two until it's next scheduled sync, and if you can't tolerate that then I'd have to say you're expecting way too much of it.
Sure. A crappy, heavy, low-quality bike, with a no-name component groupset, that you likely won't get your moneys' worth out of before something on it fails, then at that point you may as well chuck it in the recycle bin and get another one. You need to spend more like $1000 to get something of decent quality that, properly maintained, will give you your moneys' worth.
99.9% of pedestrian injuries and deaths are caused by motor vehicle drivers
Sure. Because cyclists are a tiny minority. You'd do better to express your statistics in this case as per-capita instead.
When a bicyclist doesn't stop for a pedestrian, they bump and (both, probably) fall down
You're assuming all cyclists are going only about as fast as an average person can run, and that's not a valid assumption. Being hit by a bicycle can send you to the ER or to the morgue almost as often as being hit by a car would, and crashing on a bicycle is also more likely to send you to the ER (or the morgue) as getting in an automobile accident, because you have nothing around you to protect you from a collision.
health benefits
The way the average person, if forced to ride a bike instead of drive a car (or take a bus) rides? Little to no 'health benefits', because they toodle along at maybe 10mph, turning the pedals really slow, and coasting a lot. Lucky if they get their heart rates up over 100bpm that way. While we're on the subject of 'health' with regards to riding: what do you tell someone who is physically disabled, or too old ride, or too unsafe to ride, or someone who is sick, running a fever? 'Tough shit, ride anyway'? How about the mother of three, one of which is still in diapers? You expect her to, what, stick the baby in a pannier, or in a backpack? Never mind that it's raining out. Oh, and how about the parts of the country where it's below freezing during the winter, and there's snow everywhere? Ever ride in the snow? I may live on the West Coast but I'm not ignorant of the facts of living in somewhere like Minnesota; are you? I suspect not.
I don't think you even own a bke, let alone ride one, and as such you're basing your presentation on a lot of assumptions that are incorrect or ill-conceived in the first place. I, on the other hand, ride 6 days a week, at least 200 miles a week on average, and think I have a better read on what's what with this subject than you do. You're not who I'd choose to be the representative of the cycling community, advocating more cycling and less driving, fewer cars. Please, educate yourself better on the subject before attempting to be an advocate for cycling. We're already hated by the average person for one reason or another, we don't need people misrepresenting us and making matters worse.
You want to help cycling in general? Write your congresspersons and tell them you think we should have more transportation funds spent on creating new cycling infrastructure and improving existing cycling infrastructure, new cyclist education and training, and PR campaigns to raise public awareness and positive image of cyclists and cycling. Meanwhile I suggest you take a dose of your own medicine and actually buy a bike and learn how to ride it so you know what you're talking about.
See, you're just speculating, because it's a total crap-shoot so far as what's secure and what isn't; nobody really knows, and it's not like I could pick only open-source apps (because there is no such thing) download only the source code (because there is none), examine it thoroughly, then compile it and install that binary on my phone (because you're not allowed to do that anyway, ironically enough for 'security' reasons, or so I believe it to be the case). I don't even feel they're secure enough for me to not get hit by an exploit just using a web browser in a smartphone. Add to that how much the cost of a decent smartphone makes me squick, and the fact that I'd either have to get gouged for an overpriced, undersized dataplan, or take my chances on wifi hotspots, and it's just so much a non-starter that it isn't even worth the amount of time I just spent explaining the above to you. Get me a 'smartphone' that I can run entirely on open-source OS and software, that I can personally vet as secure and safe, and maybe we can have a conversation. Until then, I'll just stick with nice, safe, read-only, relatively inexpensive dumbphones, which I barely even use as a phone. If I didn't think it was a gigantic waste of money comparatively speaking, I wouldn't even have that, I'd go back to a landline.
Oh look the Tea Party modded me down, what ever shall I do? What a bunch of losers, just like Trump. He'd be the absolute worst thing to ever happen to this country, he deserves all the grief he gets.
I'm not 'sticking my head in the sand' you jackass. Why the hell would I get a goddamn smartphone then stand there tapping my feet impatiently demanding someone else make it 100% secure when I know damned well the only factor involved in that that is in my control is not owning one in the first place? Wireless companies only care if they're getting sued over it. App authors who write apps that steal data obviously don't give a crap. The government also doesn't care until some law is broken. The only control you I or anyone else has over the problem of smartphone insecurity is to not own one in the first place until such time as the issue is taken seriously and there is a 100% effective way to secure them 100% of the time -- and that isn't happening anytime soon so far as I can see, and in fact the problem is getting worse not better. Can I control what stupid things peope around me do? No, I can't, and I'm not going to worry about that because why should I bother raising my stress levels over something I can't control? In the meantime I choose not to own a smartphone so no one can directly steal data from me via it, can't track me with any built-in GPS, break into my bank account with it, or use it as part of their botnet. It's the best damage control I can implement so I think I'll just continue not owning a smartphone rather than just throw up my hands and be another one of the sheep who own them.
If these things concern you that much, then take example from me: I don't currently have, and do not wish to own, a smartphone of any sort. Seems like every single day I read some news story or other about precisely what you're talking about: some security breach on smartphones due to such-and-such app or exploit. Why would I subject myself to owning a device that's got all the integrity of a colander? Or is dealing with an unsecurable technology worth it for mere convenience?
Okay.. listen, buddy: I'm now not sure what the hell your point is. Is this some sort of trolling attempt, trying to make me all scared and shit? Whatever it is, you can stop now unless you have something else to discuss. Death is an inescapable fact of life for any given organism. Being 'afraid' of it is silly.
Try becoming an inconvenience to the government and see how fast they utilize the panopticon surveillance machine to find you and destroy your life in extra-legal ways.
Oh, I am well aware of that. The joke is on them, though; I have little enough of a life to 'destroy'. There is a certain power in having nothing to lose. Even if I were killed for daring to speak out, my last words would be of defiance, and I'd spit in their faces if I could. You can kill me, but you'll never defeat me. XD
I've lived long enough to experience with my own senses that the course of human events and society is cyclic, and therefore I am cognizant that much of what I'm seeing is one end of that great cycle -- but that does not mean I am comforted by that fact, either. I am neither a masochist (although some who know me might argue that point) nor am I a sadist; I do not wish to see people suffer to no good purpose (and yes, there might be a 'good point' to someone suffering, but that is another subject entirely and beyond the scope of this discussion); ideally I would wish for none to suffer, as unrealistic as that might be. At the same time I do not wish to be required to suffer the doings of Evil people, or see their workings cause suffering to others, even if it does not affect me. Given my druthers I would seek balance rather than the needle slamming from one end of the scale to the other.
Control, you say? Again, I have lived long enough to have learned what I believe is a valuable lesson in life: I only wish to 'control' myself, and that attempting to 'control' others is largely pointless, and also Bad Kharma; it will come back on you, sooner or later, so better to not do it in the first place. It may be my own sin of arrogance to say it, but I feel this is the wiser course and wish others would embrace it.
We apparently are rapidly approaching living in a world where normal, law-abiding citizens of the United States will be treated like criminals, or animals in a zoo, or small children that never grow up: surveilled all day, every day of their lives. Some of you say we're already there and it's too late, but I beg to differ for the simple reason that I can be posting these words in relative anonymity (i.e. under a pseudonym) on the public Internet, without any fear of having my door kicked in when I'm asleep, being beated, black-bagged, and dragged off to some enprisonment somewhere, with no due process, legal representation, etc, because I dared to criticize the government (unlike some countries). But if you take a step or two back from everything and take a good hard look at it, that's the direction things seem to be going, now isn't it? We have politicians all throughout our government who want to destroy the efficacy of encryption, ostensibly for reasons of national security ('we have to keep America safe!') and law enforcement ('how will we catch pedophiles?') -- except for two points: one, how did we manage to catch criminals and terrorists before, and two, how can so many politicians, including out current POTUS, manage to have such terrible technology advisers, that they all don't understand that what they're asking for is more or less equivalent to outlawing encryption entirely? I really didn't want to believe it, but the answer is simple: They know damned well that what they're asking destroys encryption, they've all been advised that it destroys encryption, and they've all said 'I don't give a damn, and you won't say otherwise to anyone or you're fired!'. They don't care about anyone's privacy, they don't care if people get their data and/or identity stolen, they want control of everyone all the time, the ability to poke around into anyone's life, regardless of the lack of evidence of criminal or terrorist activity, regardless of their Constitutional rights, regardless of their Human rights, and regardless of how anyone else feels about it. My last, best hope is that the politicians, political activists, and citizens who are paying attention and understand what's going on, are enough to at least hold off the coming of the dystopian future dictatorship until I'm long dead so I don't have to deal with it; at best, there might still be a slim hope that there is enough power for the people left in the Constitution and the people in D.C. who are defending it, to pull us back from the no-return point, and get these anal-retentitive, power-hungry types out of positions of authority, and return control of the country to The People. Otherwise, look to the Middle East, to countries like Syria and the Assad regime, for how, in the dystopian future, U.S. citizens will be treated by it's government. I'm talking about a world where people in the U.S. will be fleeing it's government to even places like mainland China, because even there it'll be better than living here.
I'm with the other guy: If I can't hold a believable conversation with it, then it's not 'artificial intelligence' at all, whatever that's supposed to mean. What I want to see is more like 'artificial sentience'. When they come up with a man-made machine that is indistinguishable or at least on a par with a human being, then I'll be impressed. So far they haven't even been able to come up with a reasonable facsimile of how a dog behaves.
North Korea yapping about it's nuclear capabilities. Iran is let off it's leash pending good behavior. Putin's Russia making lots of noise. So-called 'islamic state' assholes doing every violent thing they can think of -- why not a nuclear attack of some sort?
Then here comes these jackasses, spreading more fear, uncertainty, and doubt, by talking about the 'inevitability' of a nuclear attack on U.S. soil, and their alleged ability to detect who did it (as if that would fucking matter all that much at that point). If they were in front of me right now, I'd fucking punch them in the mouth.
{Major Autonomous Car Manufacturer} announced today the discovery of a bug in their control software that prompts a reboot of the cars' systems in mid-drive. "driving stability - the cars' ability to stay up and running. [...] What would happen is they'd get a signal that says either a driving degrade or a driving fail - "something that would force us to restart the cars' autonomous control systems."
This reporter notes that if autonomous cars had a full set of manual controls, instead of just a big red 'STOP' button on the dash, human occupants of the vehicle would have an opportunity to save themselves from a firey death, instead of the surviving family members merely receiving an insurance payout.
What if we don't want the 'latest version'? What if their 'latest version' breaks more things that it fixes? What if they decide to remove a feature that breaks the user experience, or breaks something else for the user? Where is the ability to choose??? How is it a good thing when someone you don't even know is making unilateral decisions about how hardware you depend on and paid for out of your own pocket?
Slashdot Mirror
I'll tell you what would stop them from doing anything after that point: The armed, jackbooted THUGS occupying Apple's offices. If they're willing to do this, then that's not very far from an armed takeover of Apple's corporate offices, placing Tim Cook and Apple executives into custody, and threatening any Apple employee that refuses to co-operate with jail, likely under the so-called Patriot Act, in which case they'd be deemed terrorists and enemies of the State, denied legal representation, detained without charge, and generally stripped of all their rights as citizens.Welcome to the Police State, if they go through with this then that's where we're at.
Here's another follow-up for anyone who might be interested: I found an old USENET archive with information on how to build various resonators that might improve WWVB signal strength in your house: http://rec.radio.amateur.homeb...
Good troll sir, good troll.
You misuse the word 'troll' like kids on the Internet misuse the word 'autistic'.
Troll: One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.
I'm not going to waste my time shitposting in the Internet just to get a reaction out of people; I write what I actually think, and if you or anyone else doesn't like what I think, then that's tough for you, but not liking what I have to say doesn't make me a 'troll'. Get it right.
I needed to replace my rear wheel after about 5k miles
That shouldn't happen. A good wheelset should last you for years, at least 4 or 5 times that many miles.
Shimano gears
Probably one of their low-end groupsets but still better than no-name Chinese garbage that breaks in 3 months.
I find your pompous attitude that $1000 is the minimum buy-in to be a cyclist to be destructive.
Yeah sure thing buddy, you get all triggered. What I know is there are plenty of people out there who don't know any better than to buy cheap shitty Walmart (or other department store) bikes that start falling apart in just a few months, and then they think that all bikes are a ripoff and they won't risk spending more on something decent. If they'd buy a decent one in the first place then things would be different. You can even get a better deal buying a quality used bike off Craigslist or similar than buying a garbage bike from wherever. Even Performance Bike's house-brand bikes are better than much of the garbage for sale out there. If you're going to ride all the time and not just on a Saturday when the weather is nice then you need to buy something quality, not cheap, and you get what you pay for when you buy a bike.
I'm saying driverless cars aren't going to fix problems with congestion and pollution.
Well, at least we can agree on that. So-called 'autonomous cars' aren't going to be the reality that some think it'll be, it'll be an option on luxury cars, and it'll be more like a sophisticated cruise control, not a box on four wheels with no controls for a human driver. The vast majority of people are going to be driving themselves for quite some time to come.
Had another thought: If you're an electronics person, it should be relatively trivial to build a 60KHz repeater that will radiate the amplified signal inside your house.. or in your underground bunker.. or into the Faraday cage you built your house inside of.. or whatever it is that's blocking the signal, in the extreme cases where you're not getting sync reliably. I haven't had to do it but it wouldn't be very complicated, just a loopstick antenna in a tuned RF circuit, and a single transistor amplifier feeding an antenna inside your house, far enough away from the receiving antenna to prevent oscillation.
What I think some people don't know is that while the 60KHz WWVB signal penetrates most buildings very well, the antenna inside these clocks is a loopstick type, and is very directional; you have to know how it's oriented in the clock in question, and you need to know which direction Fort Collins is, so you can place the clock correctly. The Sangean atomic clock-radio I have in my bedroom even has the WWVB antenna in a separate housing on a cable, so you can orient it however you need to in order to get the signal. As stated above I have 4 of these type of clock (likely a 5th soon enough) from three different manufacturers, and all of them get synched at least 90% of the time. The worst that will happen is your clock will be off by a second or two until it's next scheduled sync, and if you can't tolerate that then I'd have to say you're expecting way too much of it.
A bicycle costs $500
Sure. A crappy, heavy, low-quality bike, with a no-name component groupset, that you likely won't get your moneys' worth out of before something on it fails, then at that point you may as well chuck it in the recycle bin and get another one. You need to spend more like $1000 to get something of decent quality that, properly maintained, will give you your moneys' worth.
99.9% of pedestrian injuries and deaths are caused by motor vehicle drivers
Sure. Because cyclists are a tiny minority. You'd do better to express your statistics in this case as per-capita instead.
When a bicyclist doesn't stop for a pedestrian, they bump and (both, probably) fall down
You're assuming all cyclists are going only about as fast as an average person can run, and that's not a valid assumption. Being hit by a bicycle can send you to the ER or to the morgue almost as often as being hit by a car would, and crashing on a bicycle is also more likely to send you to the ER (or the morgue) as getting in an automobile accident, because you have nothing around you to protect you from a collision.
health benefits
The way the average person, if forced to ride a bike instead of drive a car (or take a bus) rides? Little to no 'health benefits', because they toodle along at maybe 10mph, turning the pedals really slow, and coasting a lot. Lucky if they get their heart rates up over 100bpm that way. While we're on the subject of 'health' with regards to riding: what do you tell someone who is physically disabled, or too old ride, or too unsafe to ride, or someone who is sick, running a fever? 'Tough shit, ride anyway'? How about the mother of three, one of which is still in diapers? You expect her to, what, stick the baby in a pannier, or in a backpack? Never mind that it's raining out. Oh, and how about the parts of the country where it's below freezing during the winter, and there's snow everywhere? Ever ride in the snow? I may live on the West Coast but I'm not ignorant of the facts of living in somewhere like Minnesota; are you? I suspect not.
I don't think you even own a bke, let alone ride one, and as such you're basing your presentation on a lot of assumptions that are incorrect or ill-conceived in the first place. I, on the other hand, ride 6 days a week, at least 200 miles a week on average, and think I have a better read on what's what with this subject than you do. You're not who I'd choose to be the representative of the cycling community, advocating more cycling and less driving, fewer cars. Please, educate yourself better on the subject before attempting to be an advocate for cycling. We're already hated by the average person for one reason or another, we don't need people misrepresenting us and making matters worse.
You want to help cycling in general? Write your congresspersons and tell them you think we should have more transportation funds spent on creating new cycling infrastructure and improving existing cycling infrastructure, new cyclist education and training, and PR campaigns to raise public awareness and positive image of cyclists and cycling. Meanwhile I suggest you take a dose of your own medicine and actually buy a bike and learn how to ride it so you know what you're talking about.
See, you're just speculating, because it's a total crap-shoot so far as what's secure and what isn't; nobody really knows, and it's not like I could pick only open-source apps (because there is no such thing) download only the source code (because there is none), examine it thoroughly, then compile it and install that binary on my phone (because you're not allowed to do that anyway, ironically enough for 'security' reasons, or so I believe it to be the case). I don't even feel they're secure enough for me to not get hit by an exploit just using a web browser in a smartphone. Add to that how much the cost of a decent smartphone makes me squick, and the fact that I'd either have to get gouged for an overpriced, undersized dataplan, or take my chances on wifi hotspots, and it's just so much a non-starter that it isn't even worth the amount of time I just spent explaining the above to you. Get me a 'smartphone' that I can run entirely on open-source OS and software, that I can personally vet as secure and safe, and maybe we can have a conversation. Until then, I'll just stick with nice, safe, read-only, relatively inexpensive dumbphones, which I barely even use as a phone. If I didn't think it was a gigantic waste of money comparatively speaking, I wouldn't even have that, I'd go back to a landline.
Hey, man, I don't know who that was, or whether that person was a follower or a troll trying to make trouble for me, so how about you step off?
Oh look the Tea Party modded me down, what ever shall I do? What a bunch of losers, just like Trump. He'd be the absolute worst thing to ever happen to this country, he deserves all the grief he gets.
About half the time I like what Anonymous does. This is definitely one of those times. :-)
I'm not 'sticking my head in the sand' you jackass. Why the hell would I get a goddamn smartphone then stand there tapping my feet impatiently demanding someone else make it 100% secure when I know damned well the only factor involved in that that is in my control is not owning one in the first place? Wireless companies only care if they're getting sued over it. App authors who write apps that steal data obviously don't give a crap. The government also doesn't care until some law is broken. The only control you I or anyone else has over the problem of smartphone insecurity is to not own one in the first place until such time as the issue is taken seriously and there is a 100% effective way to secure them 100% of the time -- and that isn't happening anytime soon so far as I can see, and in fact the problem is getting worse not better. Can I control what stupid things peope around me do? No, I can't, and I'm not going to worry about that because why should I bother raising my stress levels over something I can't control? In the meantime I choose not to own a smartphone so no one can directly steal data from me via it, can't track me with any built-in GPS, break into my bank account with it, or use it as part of their botnet. It's the best damage control I can implement so I think I'll just continue not owning a smartphone rather than just throw up my hands and be another one of the sheep who own them.
If these things concern you that much, then take example from me: I don't currently have, and do not wish to own, a smartphone of any sort. Seems like every single day I read some news story or other about precisely what you're talking about: some security breach on smartphones due to such-and-such app or exploit. Why would I subject myself to owning a device that's got all the integrity of a colander? Or is dealing with an unsecurable technology worth it for mere convenience?
Okay.. listen, buddy: I'm now not sure what the hell your point is. Is this some sort of trolling attempt, trying to make me all scared and shit? Whatever it is, you can stop now unless you have something else to discuss. Death is an inescapable fact of life for any given organism. Being 'afraid' of it is silly.
Try becoming an inconvenience to the government and see how fast they utilize the panopticon surveillance machine to find you and destroy your life in extra-legal ways.
Oh, I am well aware of that. The joke is on them, though; I have little enough of a life to 'destroy'. There is a certain power in having nothing to lose. Even if I were killed for daring to speak out, my last words would be of defiance, and I'd spit in their faces if I could. You can kill me, but you'll never defeat me. XD
I've lived long enough to experience with my own senses that the course of human events and society is cyclic, and therefore I am cognizant that much of what I'm seeing is one end of that great cycle -- but that does not mean I am comforted by that fact, either. I am neither a masochist (although some who know me might argue that point) nor am I a sadist; I do not wish to see people suffer to no good purpose (and yes, there might be a 'good point' to someone suffering, but that is another subject entirely and beyond the scope of this discussion); ideally I would wish for none to suffer, as unrealistic as that might be. At the same time I do not wish to be required to suffer the doings of Evil people, or see their workings cause suffering to others, even if it does not affect me. Given my druthers I would seek balance rather than the needle slamming from one end of the scale to the other.
Control, you say? Again, I have lived long enough to have learned what I believe is a valuable lesson in life: I only wish to 'control' myself, and that attempting to 'control' others is largely pointless, and also Bad Kharma; it will come back on you, sooner or later, so better to not do it in the first place. It may be my own sin of arrogance to say it, but I feel this is the wiser course and wish others would embrace it.
We apparently are rapidly approaching living in a world where normal, law-abiding citizens of the United States will be treated like criminals, or animals in a zoo, or small children that never grow up: surveilled all day, every day of their lives. Some of you say we're already there and it's too late, but I beg to differ for the simple reason that I can be posting these words in relative anonymity (i.e. under a pseudonym) on the public Internet, without any fear of having my door kicked in when I'm asleep, being beated, black-bagged, and dragged off to some enprisonment somewhere, with no due process, legal representation, etc, because I dared to criticize the government (unlike some countries). But if you take a step or two back from everything and take a good hard look at it, that's the direction things seem to be going, now isn't it? We have politicians all throughout our government who want to destroy the efficacy of encryption, ostensibly for reasons of national security ('we have to keep America safe!') and law enforcement ('how will we catch pedophiles?') -- except for two points: one, how did we manage to catch criminals and terrorists before, and two, how can so many politicians, including out current POTUS, manage to have such terrible technology advisers, that they all don't understand that what they're asking for is more or less equivalent to outlawing encryption entirely? I really didn't want to believe it, but the answer is simple: They know damned well that what they're asking destroys encryption, they've all been advised that it destroys encryption, and they've all said 'I don't give a damn, and you won't say otherwise to anyone or you're fired!'. They don't care about anyone's privacy, they don't care if people get their data and/or identity stolen, they want control of everyone all the time, the ability to poke around into anyone's life, regardless of the lack of evidence of criminal or terrorist activity, regardless of their Constitutional rights, regardless of their Human rights, and regardless of how anyone else feels about it. My last, best hope is that the politicians, political activists, and citizens who are paying attention and understand what's going on, are enough to at least hold off the coming of the dystopian future dictatorship until I'm long dead so I don't have to deal with it; at best, there might still be a slim hope that there is enough power for the people left in the Constitution and the people in D.C. who are defending it, to pull us back from the no-return point, and get these anal-retentitive, power-hungry types out of positions of authority, and return control of the country to The People. Otherwise, look to the Middle East, to countries like Syria and the Assad regime, for how, in the dystopian future, U.S. citizens will be treated by it's government. I'm talking about a world where people in the U.S. will be fleeing it's government to even places like mainland China, because even there it'll be better than living here.
I'm with the other guy: If I can't hold a believable conversation with it, then it's not 'artificial intelligence' at all, whatever that's supposed to mean. What I want to see is more like 'artificial sentience'. When they come up with a man-made machine that is indistinguishable or at least on a par with a human being, then I'll be impressed. So far they haven't even been able to come up with a reasonable facsimile of how a dog behaves.
We know now that we don't need any big new breakthroughs to get to true AI.
But, this isn't 'AI', it's just another 'expert system'.
Oh don't worry about it. They probably just do that so they can wordfilter 'allahu akbar' to read 'we love America'.
Oh, look over there! A puppy!
North Korea yapping about it's nuclear capabilities.
Iran is let off it's leash pending good behavior.
Putin's Russia making lots of noise.
So-called 'islamic state' assholes doing every violent thing they can think of -- why not a nuclear attack of some sort?
Then here comes these jackasses, spreading more fear, uncertainty, and doubt, by talking about the 'inevitability' of a nuclear attack on U.S. soil, and their alleged ability to detect who did it (as if that would fucking matter all that much at that point). If they were in front of me right now, I'd fucking punch them in the mouth.
{Major Autonomous Car Manufacturer} announced today the discovery of a bug in their control software that prompts a reboot of the cars' systems in mid-drive. "driving stability - the cars' ability to stay up and running. [...] What would happen is they'd get a signal that says either a driving degrade or a driving fail - "something that would force us to restart the cars' autonomous control systems."
This reporter notes that if autonomous cars had a full set of manual controls, instead of just a big red 'STOP' button on the dash, human occupants of the vehicle would have an opportunity to save themselves from a firey death, instead of the surviving family members merely receiving an insurance payout.
What if we don't want the 'latest version'? What if their 'latest version' breaks more things that it fixes? What if they decide to remove a feature that breaks the user experience, or breaks something else for the user? Where is the ability to choose??? How is it a good thing when someone you don't even know is making unilateral decisions about how hardware you depend on and paid for out of your own pocket?
Are you mocking me, or are you just pointing out something funny?