Unfortunately this post contains some major errors which I can't resist correcting.

(1) Norway does pay the EU. See here: https://fullfact.org/europe/no...

(2) The EU would be more than happy to give the UK a Norway option (see e.g. this slide: https://ec.europa.eu/commissio... ) The Norway option is shown as the second step from the left, just past full EU membership.

It's the UK that doesn't want this Norway option because it (a) absolutely refuses to accept any further free movement of people between the EU and the UK, (b) absolutely refuses to continue to make major financial contributions to the EU, (c) is adamant that it wants regulatory autonomy (i.e. no more EU regulations, especially since as a non-EU member it will have no more say in what those regulations entail, and (d) is adamant that it wants to pursue an independent trade policy (i.e. zero tariffs with e.g. Africa and China in order to obtain cheaper imports (the UK sports a really big trade deficit where goods are concerned).

Those conditions are known as the UK's "red lines", through which it has basically painted itself into a corner (i.e. leaving the EU without any deal in place).

Starting at midnight of the day the UK leaves the EU without a deal, its trade footing with the EU will basically be the same as that of Mongolia and Zimbabwe. That's the problem. Can you imagine the consequences if e.g. Mexico or Canada would, from one day to the next, be in a situation where they have absolutely no trade deal with the US? That's what the UK is facing with respect to the EU.

Excellent point. Code remains something that is handcrafted rather than machined. Besides which, as far as I understand, race conditions are difficult to find and easy to overlook in any event.

In fact, it illustrates the point that code correctness is one of nature's 'hard' problems. As in, the _only_ way to achieve correctness is to give a mathematical correctness proof for a piece of code. And anyone who's ever tried that knows how hard that is for any piece of non-trivial code (e.g. the textbook examples that information science students see the technique demonstrated on).

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, see e.g. here for a basic introduction: https://www.cs.cornell.edu/cou....

I like the understated way in which the lecture introduces the subject:

Today's dominant practice in the software industry (and when writing up assignments) is to prove program correctness empirically. The simplest form of this technique consists of feeding various inputs to the tested program and verifying the correctness of the output. In some cases exhaustive testing is possible, but often it is not. More sophisticated versions of this technique try to choose the inputs so that all, or at least the majority of the possible execution paths are examined. Independent of their degree of sophistication, these empirical methods do not actually that the respective program is correct. The only thing we can actually prove with the empirical approach is that the program is not correct - for this purpose, a single example of incorrect behavior suffices. Absent an observation of incorrect behavior, however, we can not know - in general - whether the program is correct, or whether we have just not tested it with an input that would trigger an error.

There are real-world examples where formal verification was used see e.g. https://cacm.acm.org/magazines... ts.data61.csiro.au/publications/csiro_full_text//Klein_AKMHF_18.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.o... and https://www.schneier.com/blog/...

As usual, Wikipedia has some useful material o nteh subject too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... .

The drawback of this approach is that it tales lots of time, actual computer scientists (as opposed to coders or even software engineers), and hard work. In practice there is no budget for that. As far as I know, proving correctness of a few thousand lines of code is feasible, given a few manyears. Proving correctness of the 20 million or so (I have no idea how big the scheduling part of the kernel is) of lines in the Linux Kernel is currently out of reach.

What we all know happens in practice is that some functionality is designed, implemented, and tested. If software faults happen infrequently enough for the software to actually do some useful work, then it's released (and tested further in production). At least the company can start billing customers for the product to fund further development and bug-hunting.

Hmm.

You realise that "importing cheap labour" would not be profitable if employers paid decent minimum wages and "illegals" would never get work unless employers are happy to employ someone who can't show an ID?

And that the plain fact is that it's a lot easier to squeeze a superior work/wage ratio from people who are illegal (and thus truly desperate for their job) than from an average US-born Joe? And that illegals usually are the hardiest and most motivated segment of the population? What's not to like for an employer?

Razzing on "illegals" and "foreigners" is popular, but probably not the root cause of US wage problems.

In addition, just compare the number of jobs replaced by automation (30% of the workforce) with the number of "illegals" and "imported cheap labour" (get your estimates from reputable republican wall builders). You'll realise that imported labour can account for no more than about 5% of jobs.

Most of what Dirty Donald does is completely appalling. People write about that, it fills the Internet, so Google reflects it, as per the page-rank algorithm.

Nothing fishy or "biased" about that.It would be biased if those stories did *not* appear in the search engine.

Besides which, Dirty Donald has a long history of lashing out with accusations and conspiracy theories whenever he's pushed into a corner. As happened last week for example,

How? Well, the logical conclusion of Mr. Cohen's testimony seemed to be that Dirty Donald had personally ordered Mr. Cohen to commit a federal crime.

Combined with the conviction of Mr. Manafort olus the news that Mr. Allen Weisselberg (Dirty Donald's longtime financial man) was about to testify against him. Ouch.

That's the kind of stuff that could even get a sitting president in deep trouble. My guess is that it made Dirty Donald nervous. Very nervous.

And what does Dirty Donald do when people make him nervous? Well, he tries to divert attention from his predicament by changing the subject and he lashes out against people with all kinds of accusations. We saw him do both.

As to trying to change the subject, he suddenly started talking about a preliminary draft agreement with Mexico and desperately tried to pass of what he had achieved (a few minor adjustments to the existing NAFTA treaty) as a major win.Plus he was quite desperate to call it something other than "NAFTA-plus-a-few-minor-adjustments".Considering his base, he may well get away with that.

As to lashing out, he always picks whoever he thinks he can sufficiently muddy the water against. The media. Search engines. Institutions. Mrs. Clinton. Illegal immigrants. The Government. Anything really. As long as it resonates sufficiently with his base to provide a target for a good smear campaign. In this case that would be Google.

As regards explanations for his coverage this explanation looks much simpler than any conspiracy theory about who met whom how often three to four years ago. It's all based on known facts about Dirty Donald's behaviour. As reported in the media.

Small wonder he hates the media that consistently put his grotesque and puerile antics on display.

Does he really have any credibility left? Apart from his diehard fan-base that is?

In play? You mean the trade war against China that Dirty Donald has just kicked off?

You mean the trade war that had already begun with steel tariffs?

No, I mean the trade conflict that Dirty Donald has grown into a trade war by promising tariffs on 200 bln. worth of trade.

Business was (and is) strongly in favour of it.

"Business" is always in favor of making money, no matter the cost to somebody else or the longterm future of the nation.

You mean mainstream business ethics that has for the past century or so consistently made our firms No.1 in the world and is the cork upon which our collective prosperity floats?

You can either put in place conditions that take care of the needs of business (such as the rule of law, free trade, and fair shot at getting a level playing field), or you can sacrifice all that for a short-term BS publicity stunt trade war, and end up with a big recession in a world where the rule of law is absent and success is determined by whoever has the best collusion between state and business.

Take your pick. Oh wait ... you already have. Silly of me.

Surely you understand trade issue with China is still in play? No, you do not, because you are in Denial Land.

In play? You mean the trade war against China that Dirty Donald has just kicked off? Which is probably going to cost a few thousand soy-bean farmers their farms? After a humiliating display of inane backslapping, rudderless posturing in return for "concessions" that will benefit Japan, South Korea, and Germany more than the US? You call that a success? Who's in denial here?

The devil is in the details. Signing a bad deal to try and get a better deal with China doesn't make sense.

TTP wasn't "bad" in any sense of the word. Business was (and is) strongly in favour of it. That means there's money in in. If you're afraid that US workers aren't going to benefit from that, that's a totally different problem.

Plus it was still not quite settled when Dirty Donald withdrew. It would have ensured that US norms and values governed trade in the Pacific, if not world-wide. Not Chinese ones. And with one populist stroke of the pen Dirty Donald threw all that away. Wow, what a huuuge success, right?

And now he's (a) alienated and atagonised US allies in the Pacific by showing them that there is little advantage for them in dealing with a fickle US instead of with consistent Chinese (b) proven to them that the US is stupid enough to abandon long-term objectives in favour of chasing a limited, short-term objective, (c) driven home the fact that they had better be very polite to Chine and make sure their own long-term strategy is aligned with China's.

That's what doesn't make sense.

In the mean time Dirty Donald has adroitly manouvered the US to the sidelines so that developments in the Pacific will more or less run their course without the US being in the lead. Well, hoo-rah! Let's sell that to the fan-base, shall we?

Dirty Donald's touting a reduction in car import tariffs is an optical result only when the real issues are untouched. Reducing car tariffs somewhat is such a small result that it can only be called optical. In the mean time he has spent his powder, and this is all he got for it in return. Surely you understand that?

Those big underlying issues are something you can only change if you're able to isolate China by building trade blocks around it. Like TPP (and TTIP). And guess what? That was the first thing Dirty Donald destroyed.

Preferring instead to try his off-the-cuff macho man approach. Which yielded only optical results, embroiled the US in two major trade wars, and totally blew away any chance of isolating China. Both Putin and Xi couldn't have believed their luck.

Some people are happy to go along with his continuous fake-it-until-you-make-it approach. They're known as his Fan Base.

Other people (like me) insist on him actually earning some of the credits he doesn't tire of claiming. Anyone who does that has a claim to being fact-based and a realist. Except to his Fan Base, who knows us as "Trump Haters".

Twisting arms is something Dirty Donald might be able to do against small building contractors, but it doesn't seem to be getting him (and more importantly: the US) any results on the world stage.

Oh really?

Yes, really.

The fundamental trade issue between the US and China on is _not_ tariffs.

Instead it's China's routine use of state interference (subsidies, dumping, wholesale IP theft, espionage targeted at overseas military projects, tarif barriers, non-tarif barriers, requirements to deposit IP and source code for those wishing to open a plant in China, installation of a Chinese "partner", etc.) to ensure that China grows firms that suck in global state-of-the-art knowhow, build a local logistics chain, and as a result are globally competitive. Followed by said firms wiping the floor with overseas competitors.

See e.g. here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...

Of course it all depends on your negotiation objective. If your negotiation objective is to ensure a level playing field, then Dirty Donald's antics so far have failed miserably.

If your objective is to engage in some political window-dressing (like opening up the Chinese car market a little bit so that Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes, Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi and, yes, Ford and GM too, can duke it out there) in order to sucker voters into misinterpreting the meaning of what the results achieved so far, then his antics are a thundering success of course.

So: 10/10 for political window dressing and 1/8 for actual achievement. Yup, Sounds like a certain real-estate dealer we all know.

China, the provider of North Korea's military umbrella, has fought the US to a stalemate in Korea before. And it has only gotten stronger since then. Much stronger. It has kept North Korea in the saddle militarily, politically, and economically ... and there's nothing the US could have done about that.

That's a flat-out lie, because as Trump showed, the US had leverage with China that it was too afraid to use. It was Trump that succeeded in getting China to get tough on sanctions.

There, there. Don't strain yourself now. By checking up on facts for example.

(1) Take Wikipedia for example: North Korea's missile program and the start of its nuclear programme dates from 1962. Good idea to blame those failings on President Obama, but that won't wash. Except perhaps with the Trump base.

(2) Much as I'd like to hear that Dirty Donald had actually scored a major win against North Korea, I'm skeptical about the extent to which North Korea will actually, well, get rid of its nukes. I surely hope so, and if it does I'll be happy to accord Dirty Donald due credit. Only, so far it looks as if Little Rocket Man has scored a major PR win without actually doing any concessions. The phrase "Work towards de-nuclearisation" doesn't have a firm end date, does it? And it doesn't promise any actual deliverables or other concrete results does it?

It might go either way, but as I see it, an over-eager greenhorn politician just got suckered into granting a major PR coup to a dictator who has zero intention of making good on the suggestions he used as bait.

And you might also note that China hasn't given an inch on the North Korea issue before it was made to lose face when North Korea actually exploded a nuke.

I know, I know, never pester someone from the Trump base with facts ... it upsets them. But here we're among grown-ups, yes?

Granted, some arm-twisting can sometimes go a long way. But only competent arm-twisting. Not the incoherent verbiage coming out of the WH now.

Funny, because here you realize Trump actually succeeded with arm-twisting, but then seek to immediately discredit it. Let's get real: Obama was a doormat when it came to foreign affairs.

Yes, very funny, because I happen to think he failed in achieving any results at all on North Korea. Like Pres. Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush Jr., and Obama before him. Except for putting his face in yet another a photo op. That's why I made that remark. Twisting arms is something Dirty Donald might be able to do against small building contractors, but it doesn't seem to be getting him (and more importantly: the US) any results on the world stage.

Getting North Korea to discontinue its nuclear program was never within the capabilities of the US, short of starting WW-III. Which definitely isn't worth it.

The US have been unable to stop the Sovjets from obtaining nuclear weapons. And the Chinese. And the Indians. And the Pakistani. And Israel.

Where do people suddenly get there idea that the US could have stopped North Korea? I think they're wrong.

I can understand that people might be a bit upset about that, but there it is.

China, the provider of North Korea's military umbrella, has fought the US to a stalemate in Korea before. And it has only gotten stronger since then. Much stronger. It has kept North Korea in the saddle militarily, politically, and economically ... and there's nothing the US could have done about that.

The only way North Korea will let of of its nukes is if it wants to. Dangling the view of South Korea has an appeal. Except for the one person in charge. Unfortunately Dirty Donald and his adminstration have made it abundantly clear to North Korea's dictator that he'll be signing his own death warrant if he lets go of his nukes. Do Mr. Bolton's helpful comments on Khadaffi's example ring a bell? Gods, what a fiasco.

Granted, some arm-twisting can sometimes go a long way. But only competent arm-twisting. Not the incoherent verbiage coming out of the WH now.

If there's any message that Dirty Donald is managing to convey, that's: if you're enough of a criminal (Putin, Xi, Duterte) you can be his best pal. At least he'll respect you. If you're an honest, decent type of politician then he'll squeeze you like the sucker you are until you drop dead or put up a real fight. Whichever comes first.

Let's not forget that Mr. Trump has proudly bankrupted several of the companies he ran, and his most impressive accomplishment so far has been to weather those bankruptcies wile avoiding jail time.

It's fascinating how he seems to be repeating that accomplishment with the US Inc. amidst acclaim from political flat earthers who feel disgruntled about something, hear Dirty Donald's incoherent rants, and decide well ... at least it's different from the usual ... let's give it a try.

Well, cheer up! At least the car wasn't hacked by someone who planted some Carmageddon subroutines in the system.

Might still happen though, if the manufacturers keep up the shoddy security we've come to expect from them.

The short answer seems tobe: you don't because there aren't any legal means to do that.

You're obligated to ensure your car has a legible license plate with a registration, in some states as soon as you take it on a public road. And as soon as you do that, *anyone* may photograph, capture, database-store, and database-match that number, and sell any resulting information. Nothing you can do about that under US state or federal law.

The whole purpose of the law pertaining to license plates is to make sure there are no loopholes. So that's how those laws were drawn up: to make sure there are no loopholes. Therefore, if you actually manage to find one, it will be plugged and made illegal. The interests in having set of a viable license plate regulations (law enforcement and repossession of a loan company's property) seem to outweigh any privacy concerns.

Sorry, but there it is. Cars on public roads cannot be anonymous. And if that car is registered to you personally, neither can you.

Don't like that? Start lobbying to get the law changed.

The article says this:

"Put simply, today's machine-learning programs can't tell whether a crowing rooster makes the sun rise, or the other way around. Whatever volumes of data a machine analyzes, it cannot understand what a human gets intuitively. "

Worse, it actually seems to mean it.

Ever heard of the notion of "cargo cult"? How about the Voodoo approach to medicine? What about all the pagan "light bonfires to entice the sun to return" rites? How about all those lets-predict-the-next-doomsday-from the bible idiots.

You can't tell me that this idea that humans "intuitively understand" causal relationships versus correlations is not complete trash when there are millions of "Flat Earth" theorists about.

Good for you. I agree that the GDPR offers more protection of individuals than US laws do.

Gee thanks. Perhaps US lawmakers have been a bit reluctant to legislate the digital world to death the past 10 years? It's not all Dirty Donald's doing, ok? And perhaps being regulation-happy means the EU must get it right once in a while? Is that worth it? Well, you decide.

And err, whatever happened to "Old World courtesy"?

We know even more about Mr. Comey. E.g. we also know that Mr. Comey is:

(4) An excellent judge of character in spotting a mob boss who gained office

(5) Someone with the moral integrity not to give a personal oath of loyalty to an "El Presidente" figure.

I wonder how long Dirty Donald will be able to continue to abuse and debase his political office and menace the world. Personally I can't wait until Mr. Mueller subpoenas his emails and makes him eligible for the extended jail service he so tantalisingly keeps evading.