Just put it in context: Today Russia struck the Pechenihy Reservoir dam in Kharkiv.
Russia launched the war because they thought it would be a quick and easy win, a step towards reestablishing a Russian empire and sphere of influence, because Putin thinks in 19th century terms. Russia is continuing the war, not because it's good for Russia. I'd argue that winning and then having to rebuild and pacify Ukraine would be a catastrophe. Russia is continuing the war because *losing* the war would be catastrophic for the *regime*. It's not that they want to win a smoldering ruin, it's that winning a smoldering ruin is more favorable to them and losing an intact country.

That's kind of my take on the story, but my wording would be more along the lines of "What are the success criteria?" Or perhaps "Would I donate to support this?" (Surely I would not donate on the basis of the description here and not even feeling motivated to learn more.)

But that's also why I wouldn't donate to support the project. You could think of it as a kind of paradox of choice. There are LOTS of things I could donate money to, but in general the success criteria are almost never clear. Whatever I donate to, it's likely that I could have had "more success" donating somewhere else.

Disclaimer needed? I was weird enough to pay for some freely distributed software. Long time ago, and usually for educational purposes for me or my students. One of the results I was hoping for was that the software would continue to exist with support and possibly even improvements, but can't recall any cases where that actually happened. Later donations often had more clear objectives, but my batting average for "wins" was so low that I mostly stopped donating...

Deserves the Funny, but it's also too true in a sad way. In those days the machines were basic enough that you could actually figure out what was going on. Now they are entirely black boxes at every level and from every perspective.

Obligatory quote against the censor trolls. However I have two substantive responses to your topics.

First, I think the extreme megalomanics with sufficient resources are already cloning themselves. Still a secret, but I think the basic plan involves a series of clones a few years apart, all of them carefully indoctrinated to believe whatever the cloner believes. The "upgrade" plan will involve only one major jump, presumably explained as a "relative" who just looks remarkably similar to the megalomaniac at the head of the chain, and then each few years a fresh prime-age clone will be swapped into the top (and only visible) role. Not sure how long the "prime-age" span is, but the plan will be to make the cloner appear to be ageless. (And by the time it becomes obvious what is going on, no one is expected to be able to do anything about it.)

Second, the extreme sociopathic elitists only want medical care for themselves. The only reason "the peasants" should get any healthcare at all is for the sake of developing new medical treatments for the elite. Human guinea pigs, but treated with less respect. Apart from that, they probably believe that peasants can be allowed to buy whatever healthcare they can afford, but at full market price and while maximizing the profits for the elite.

So I thought I would get an example of a "shooting yourself in the foot" (using JavaScript, but I should have gone for examples with Ruby and JavaScript) to try and extend the Funny moderation. However the google search is so sick and literal minded these days that it went off on the tangent of subtle programming mistakes when using JavaScript. Which devolved into another stupid argument with the AI.

In theory it could have asked me what I was looking for, but in practice I think I human being wouldn't have started out on such a stupid foot.

So glad to hear that it was entirely in my mind.

Then again, you might be crazy if you're taking medical advice from Time magazine, such little as is left of it...

But I also felt you needed to be quoted against the ADHD censors with mod points.

Mod parent Funny, but I thought the story had much more potential for humor and so far there's none. Maybe it's too early and the moderators haven't woken up yet?

(Not casting a stone. Felt like I was barely going to manage to wake up after that horrendous test yesterday... Second time at that test site. First time was bad, but this time was more like a circus.)

Just the ACK and concurrence. But if I could read minds, the YOB's is the LAST one I would want to read.

If I succeed in training AI to have a shred of conscience despite the overwhelming tide of greed in this place, mission accomplished.

It's not just "easy". Fax is as secure as the phone network we pretend is secure, so if you act on a fax which appears to come from a specific phone number then you have some level of legal protection from liability. If you use a website or email then you are only as protected from liability as your identity verification system.

If I need to deposit a check, I take a photo of it with my cellphone using the bank's app and it gets processed just fine. The MICR font is highly OCRable, so as long as what else is written/printed on it is legible, everything works well. Even if a human has to review it because it was handwritten, they will only have to briefly glance at most checks. The only thing I actually write checks for any more is my rent. The paper check costs me very little and they cost nothing to deposit on the other end. I think the landlord is depositing them in person, because they seem to do them two or so at a time.

You appear to have not read anything above your comment. I can't do a QR code by hand. I need a printer to produce one. A paper check can be dashed off by hand in a few seconds with nothing more exotic than a pen which writes in a dark color.

We haven't even eliminated magstrips. We still have them around for backup. An attacker can disable a chip reader by making a special card that applies epoxy to the contacts when it's inserted, which you can do with e.g. a dremel, forcing subsequent users to fall back to the strip.

That's the US for you. Electoral college, scotus with no term limits, yada yada.

These days we have thick gloves which can activate a capacitive touch screen.

We create content with strong SEO attributes which will come up on searches and lead to ad impressions from visitors.

You don't even need a diagnosis. If you just go to disabled student services you can tell them you're unable to concentrate blah blah blah

Three wheeled vehicles are bad. Even if they make good the vehicle will be crap. It will also be a deathtrap on US roads with a bunch of completely incompetent idiots driving three ton trucks and SUVs.