But you propagated the vacuous AC Subject.

Some potential for Funny in the story, but I'm not expecting much humor from Slashdot these decades.

Mod parent Funny and I can't even figure out why some troll wanted to censor the joke.

NAK

Mostly thanks for the relatively good FP, and it deserved the Interesting mod, but... Insight would have called for deeper consideration of the problem and Slashdot has no mod to encourage solution-oriented thinking. My anecdote below might qualify for interesting, but first a word about the solution approach I still favor...

I think someone (perhaps the police) should be collecting targeting data and trying to find the money. Cutting off the money would stop a lot of the scamming. Many examples, but I'm going to use email because it's the easiest one. In this story's scenario the victim probably has an email message from the criminals. I imagine a website where the email (preferably the full source with headers) would be submitted into a webform and then analyzed (presumably with AI these days) and the donwannabe (don't-want-to-be (but perhaps-already-a)) victim would confirm the details. Might involve several iterations of analysis and confirmations and the victim might even have to check into some details. For example, maybe the victim has forgotten about an earlier phishing email that triggered the attack, but could dig it up with a bit of guidance? Adding that email to the report might provide more clues for the investigation. However the important thing is that such a website could collect lots of data and direct targeting at the biggest criminals and focus on cutting the criminals' money flows.

Now the anecdote. Already a couple of months old, but I'm sure it was an AI GAIvator of a famous person. The email was beautifully written and really had me fooled, even after a couple of exchanges. The style was that good, but the only suspicious part was how quickly the responses came back. Not instantly, because that would have been too obvious, but within a day or two, and I became suspicious that our discussion could have such a high priority for such a busy person. So I checked via the celebrity's website and got confirmation that it was a scam.

Meanwhile the cops are chasing their tails and the criminals continue laughing all the way to the bank. Except when there are crooked cops who are wetting their beaks--but I better not cite that book I'm currently reading. I've already got enough enemies, thank you.

I'm still updating my Tripod page. But you're still failing to motivate curiosity or interest or civility or whatever. You do have a reason to post, right?

Me? I'm certainly not expecting much in the way of intelligent discussion on Slashdot these years. Mostly I'm trying to clarify my own thinking on whatever topic has managed to perturb my ADHD.

Productive FP thread though I couldn't find much on the angle I was interested in, the battery capacity of hybrid vehicles versus pure electric. However it seems there should be a fairly direct optimization problem for the engineers lurking around here. Weight of the engine versus the weight of the batteries versus typical driving behaviors and refueling versus recharging times... Sources of the electricity for recharging are also important. My basic guess is that the optimum solution for each driver is mostly controlled by that driver's typical driving pattern.

Just read Nexus and now into Pegasus to make sure I get on all the right enemies lists. Been a while since I've read any books about Amazon... And much longer since I read one from Amazon.

Sound the bugle call "More Funny mod points".

Again, I suspect a movie reference and I haven't seen it. And you have failed to motivate me enough to look up the possible meme. I think there was a time when movies were not weapons of mass stupidity. But perhaps my memories are slipping.

As regards your accusation, your post was so sloppy I have no idea what you were referring to within my comment or talking about in general. Unless you were going for Funny and didn't make it. Brevity is often the soul of wit, but I lack concision.

Acknowledged, but I was just focusing on a relatively minor symptom with a fairly obvious solution approach. Your aspirations seem higher.

Sadly on target.

But we already knew they were targeting the so-called smartphones.

You lack credibility to motivate research. But I vaguely recall your handle as sometimes Funny. Perhaps an accident or side effect of a lack of wit?

Make me laugh. Try to convince me you read a book this year.

But I'd prefer that the censorious sock puppets at least give me a hint as to which bit pissed them off. Perhaps the part about service?

You should read Iain M Banks.

I think the police need to be trained to think, not trained to shoot first and think about asking questions afterwards. If you really are the quickest gun, then it's reflexes, not thinking. And yet if your mindless skill guarantees that you're going to win every shootout, then I also think that limits any claims of bravery.

However, given the American situation, it's really hard to argue that the police shouldn't assume any person they see might be packing.