My vibrator is a sexual object. Treating it as a sexual object is not demeaning. It's a damned vibrator. Idiot.

Do you mean that images of naked porn stars are "safe for work" because the models are "at work"? Sounds legit.

Ouch. +5, Informative indeed. <sigh>

Mathematicians can argue for any value at all, not just zero or one. This means that neither of your "rules" could take precedence.

Annnnd, on to your rules. Any number multiplied by zero is zero. Any nonzero number divided by itself is one. Of course, mathematicians are wont to generalize "number" to "field element". Go crack out on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_(mathematics)

Sure, better technology exists than topological sort ! Thanks for pointing out a better approach. OP's point, and mine, is that a few minutes of thought can be used to replace a horrible, unmaintainable cludge a graceful, robust approach. In fine Unix tradition, epoch wants to keep ritual animal sacrifice as a neccessary part of system administration. Good for the goat industry, bad for your coldroom floor.

Sounds like you don't know what a topological sort is. Look it up. True, it's designed for a single processor, but the parallel approach is essentially the same: if you have a thread free, take the first thing in the list whose deps are all satisfied. It'll finish faster than a priority system, it's more robust, and much easier to configure.

Funniest thing I've read this week!

So, you're related to some asshole who was one of a faceless hoard fighting against Obama, pushing to maintain the status quo on the ramp-up of nuclear armament? I'd want to stay anonymous, too.

Shockingly? I think it's good that we have experts in a field developing high-impact tools who are pessimistic about the uses of those tools. If 100% were like "yeah guys no sweat, we got this!" then I would be more concerned. The result of this poll, in my mind, is that we have a healthy subset who are going to be actively working towards making AI safe.

Do you mean "noted AI experts Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk," or do you mean "noted celebrities Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk"? Because I think you just conflated the latter with the former, and only the former holds weight.

The summary really emphasizes the minority opinion, "and only a slight majority said it would be a net positive." As if "only a slight majority" is not the majority opinion.

Probably not. The authors made the newbie mistake of saddling their scheme with purpose-built crypto. They make a slight nod to the danger of this in the appendix, and sweep it under the rug (IND-CPA is nice and all, but it's not a proof of security). Experience says that they're overrating the security of their system, and there's a good chance it's broken. Thus, geeks will think they're voting, but The Man will actually be doing the voting for them.

Is that message "Australia is a crucial part of the USA"? I'm a little confused.

Right, cut out the expensive appeals process. Remove the sliver of legitimacy and watch the innocent death rate climb. My primary problem with the death penalty is the certainty that we kill innocent people. Second is a difference of opinion with our criminal justice system: I think we should optimize human wellbeing, not just focus on punishment. Third is a desire to keep our government out of the business of killing civilians or causing civilians to be killed.

But people aren't persuaded by moral or ethical considerations. Big Government Wasting Money... now that makes people mad.

Stupid fuckin capitol punishment is dumbass bullshit. Costs billiontards of dollars, kills innocents around 5% of the time. Lock 'em up and throw away the key for pennies on the dollar!

Well, a 'Oh, shucks, a bad thing happened, that sucks.' press release isn't precisely 'nothing', but it's about what I expect.