With 65,502 bytes left over.

Can you explain why determinism is crucial? Not all systems are the same, nor should they be. I can see an argument that timestamps and source paths should remain embedded. From a security point of view, you won't be able to simply hash the binary file directly, you'll have to know what the file format is so that you can mask out the bits. But so what? Security practices should adapt to the developer needs, not the other way around

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

Not flat, 10% increase. Some of that increase may be due to more dual-income households, but we were already pretty well along that transition by 1999.

That's an extreme formulation. It does imply that certain efficiencies would be equivalent to perpetual motion, but if the amount of energy required were sufficient to offset the gain in relativistic mass & potential energy I don't believe the argument fails. And it might be able to use half that energy, as the contradiction doesn't occur until it returns to the origin. And there's no thermodynamic reason that staying stable in a gravitational field should require any energy. (Anything in orbit is an example of that.)

I don't believe that this device will work, but I believe that your argument doesn't work either.

That is not the mainstream belief in the industry. Read Sutton's bitter lesson, and realize that Peter Norvig convinced everyone at Google that simple models and a lot of data always trump more elaborate models.

The trend is not for mixtures of experts, which people liked in the 1990s. The trend is to let the data magically solve the applied math modelling problem, There will be a reckoning, but it likely won't be in your or my lifetime.

He doesn't need to go to space. He just needs to strap the magic machine on a cart in an icerink and let it push the cart forward at 1g.

I remember the world before Facebook. It was perfectly workable. Same with the world before everyone had phones in their pockets. You simply agreed to meet somewhere or chat at a particular time on a particular date. It was arguably better than now, because you couldn't just flake out on a meeting when you felt like it, or if you did that there were more serious consequences. So this encouraged everyone to be a bit more reliable and considerate. Same with government announcements. You could get them from the news or the radio or the people you talked to in RL, it was never a problem.

Let's do that: GDP per capita of the UK: $46k. GDP per capita of China: $12k. But maybe China does better at distributing the wealth? Nope. UK Gini coefficient: 35, China, 47 (higher is more inequality). Until recently China had phenomenal growth rates, but that's only because (a) they started from a very depressed level and (b) they mostly abandoned socialism. As Xi is reasserting more socialist policies their growth engine has largely stopped and their growth rate is currently below that of the UK. It's still positive at the moment, but if Xi continues what he's doing, it will likely go negative.

Socialism -- not social democracy, which is a thoroughly capitalist economy that accepts high but strongly progressive taxation to fund a strong safety net -- consistently drives economies into the toilet whenever applied on any scale larger than a kibbutz. Without fail, every time.

It's not a term for which there is a "generally accepted" definition. It's slang, which is widely variable between sub-populations.

The general idea of "drone" is usually someone who's useless.
The general idea of "suit" is someone who dresses excessively formally.
These are both judgements based on the perceptions of the one doing the describing.

I don't think this is true. If you enable emergency mode video recording you have to enter your PIN to end the recording, but biometrics will still unlock the lockscreen. While the recording is going, hit the power button to activate the lockscreen, which will be unlockable with biometrics. You can also swipe up from the bottom (assuming gesture navigation) and switch to other apps. The device is not locked and not in lockdown mode while in emergency mode.

What you can do is press power and volume up to bring up the power menu, and then tap the "Lockdown" icon. That will lock the device and disable biometric authentication.

If you really, really want to lock it down, power the device down, or reboot it and don't log in. Android's disk encryption scheme uses your PIN/pattern/password ("lockscreen knowledge factor", or LSKF) along with keys stored in secure hardware to derive the disk encryption keys. It would make for a long post to go into all of the details, but given the hardware-enforced brute force mitigation,if the attacker gets a device in this state it's extremely difficult to decrypt any of the credential-encrypted data on the device without your LSKF. This is particularly true on devices that implement "StrongBox" (all Pixels, some Samsungs, some others). Android StrongBox moves some crucial functionality, including LSKF authentication and LSKF brute force resistance, into a separate hardened, lab-certified[*] security processor with its own internal storage, a "secure element".

Of course, note that appellate courts in the US have split on whether or not your LSKF can be compelled. Some have ruled that unless the PIN/pattern/password is itself incriminating, it's no different than compelling the combination to a safe, which has long been held to be constitutional.

[*] For anyone interested in the details, the required certification is Common Criteria EAL 4+ (5+ is recommended, and common, many devices meet 6+), using protection profile 0084 for the hardware and equivalent "high attack potential" evaluation for the software, plus AVA_VAN.5 penetration testing, all performed in a nationally-accredited security testing lab. While certification isn't a guarantee of security (nothing is), the required certification applies the highest level of scrutiny you can get for commercially-available devices. Apple also uses a similarly-certified SE in their devices, but it's not clear whether they use it for LSKF authentication, or whether they use their (uncertified) Secure Enclave.

Maybe not hundreds, but at least dozens. For most people their phone is their digital assistant in all sorts of ways... not only for communication for for calendaring, looking up random things, reading the news or books, listening to music, getting directions, checking their bank account/brokerage, doing calculations, fitness tracking, managing shopping and to-do lists... the list goes on and on.

I've long held that the use of biometrics to replace passwords is a mistake.

That would be because biometrics is "identification" and that alone is not not enough for "authorization/authentification".

Or not at all. Here in Australia we have a system called HECS (or at least that was its name when I did it in the 90s). The idea is the govt covers your fees with a loan that you pay off via a slightly higher tax rate once your income goes over a certain level. When I did it there was no interest rate associated, but after I graduated a new conservative govt got in and changed it to market interest rates. I'm *still* paying the damn thing off, and I just found out that despite being down to the last $500 owed, my HECS debt will end up higher this year than when I started as the interest rate is now higher than the repayment rate. I'll probably just when I get a week with lower than usual costs just slap that thing with a one off payment to finally get that albatross out from around my neck.

To be clear though, thanks to interest rates, ones that did not exist when I agreed to that loan,, a debt I would have paid off in about 8 years, turned into a debt thats hounded me for 20.

If you think of it as a missile, you've also got a different idea than what I'm talking about. It's sort of a cross between a missile and a fighter that is designed to work in swarms, run by a "home base" that could be a large truck for small swarms of short distance versions. Imagine *highly* souped up model airplanes that are designed to act like missiles, if called upon. Long distance versions would probably always be more ammunition than craft (sort of like cruise missiles) for cost reasons, but shorter range versions would be expected to be refuel-able, and reusable unless the particular craft was used for an attack.
FWIW, I expect most of them to be relatively short-range, but too fast for the quad-copter design to work. Perhaps one model could be designed for "site defense".

I don't expect swarms to use the same form factor as a fighter. Really I expect them to be a cross between a fighter and a missile. No guns on board, and no missiles on board. Yes, fly like a plane, and land safely back home if you can, but also the attack mode is to crash into the target (or get close enough, and explode). Size will (and design details) will be dependent on desired range and speed.

As a result, each individual craft will be a LOT cheaper than current fighters. But a swarm may well be even more expensive. (Depending on swarm size and desired range and speed.)