Yeah, PayPal doesn't offer any of the protections of a bank. That's why everyone should use Bitcoin!

Not every site that I use is important enough to need a secure password.

When AI goes rogue, the problem won't be "we can't figure out how to turn it off", it will be "We can't figure out how to turn off just the parts we don't like, without accidentally disable the parts of it which we have become completely dependent on for the past decade"

As an absurdist example: preventing Tesla AI from intentionally ramming human drivers when it detects them, without also requiring all 100,000,000 drivers worldwide suddenly pay attention and take emergency manual control of their vehicles (not to mention the 200,000,000 with no human operator, which will suddenly become obstacles that it would be really nice to have a coordinated AI to navigate around)

random_hex ()
{
        local n="${1-40}";
        head -c "$(( $n / 2 + 1 ))" /dev/urandom | xxd -c 256 -p | tr -d '\n' | head -c "$n" && echo
}

usage: random_hex <maximum allowed length of the password field>

If we make the assumption that it is possible to simulate this reality multiple times, it follows that the odds of living in the "top universe" are practically nil.

That first part is already a huge leap, but it would make much more sense to estimate: "how likely is it that we will (eventually) be able to simulate this universe", and just assume that we are living in a simulated universe if and only if this is possible.

The test for whether or not someone ought to be provided a mobility scooter is "can they comfortably walk through a Wal-Mart in order to retrieve the item they want to purchase?", and has nothing to do with what the specific reason for their being uncomfortable with walking that far might be.

Wal-Mart's prime competitor is one which requires zero walking, so it makes sense to offer a reduced-walking option for any customer who might desire it.

The simplest proof would be to sign a message from the owner of the "genesis block".

Craig Wright pretended to do this, but actually copied&pasted a random signature from an early transaction, proving only that he's trying to commit fraud

Driving tests are a lot more rigorous in the U.K., true, but given the average U.K. driver, I'd say they're still laughable. (maybe just an automatic fail if you show up in a BMW?)

Software copyright should not apply at all when complete source code is not available

or both networks were called "home" and had the password "no1willguess"

in England, even roads with a "central white line" are almost universally only wide enough for a single car at a time to drive down them by any sane measure. When there is no white line, cars will often drive down the middle of the road, and "slow down"/"move over" when another car approaches, entirely out of necessity.

When there *is* a white line, most cars won't do this, despite the same necessity still being there.

England's roads (the ones they are talking about) are basically foot-paths which were widened over time enough to allow horses through, but which were never widened or maintained enough to allow multiple cars through in any case. Two American cars would literally not fit side-by-side on these roads.

What is actually needed is wider, better-lit roads, with real shoulders and barriers at the side. But that costs money, so instead we get proposals like "what if we don't bother to even repaint the lines anymore?" and "people will slow down if we stop lighting the roads entirely"

As for "slowing down", the speed limit on most roads (even ridiculously tiny roads) is "meh, whatever". If they really want people to slow down, reducing the speed limit would be the *first* thing I'd try. It seems not to have occurred to anyone in England, though.

Modern techniques have made this sort of testing a *lot* easier than it used to be.

It hasn't made it any more common, though.

cloudfront, as far as I am aware, usually operates via per-distribution subdomains.

But then, based on your follow-up, "CDN-style spying", I might simply have no idea what you're talking about. Do you consider CDNs to be a form of spying?

You seem to have read his comment backwards.

"There was no before" as in "there was no before the universe", ie: everything has a cause / turtles all the way down

Yeah, the impracticality of a permanent moon-base also meant that the Space Race was a complete waste of time