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Comment Re: No, I don't think so (Score 1) 117

Trump doesn't have the will to deploy military strength.

Syria says "Hi".

 

His actions so far have been performance theater (ie, pick on small countries in hopes that Russia and China will be afraid).

We're the United States. The world's most powerful country. Outside of Russia and China, all countries are "small".

And Russia and China... they have nukes. Attacking them means WWIII. If you think this is a good idea, by all means, run for President on your End Humanity platform.

Submission + - Chernobyl's Radiophile Fungus (sciencealert.com)

j_f_chamblee writes: There is a black fungus thriving on the outside of the sarcophagus of Chernobyl's infamous Reactor 4. And it may be thriving because of the high radiation, not in spite of it. From the article:

"That fungus is called Cladosporium sphaerospermum, and some scientists think its dark pigment – melanin – may allow it to harness ionizing radiation through a process similar to the way plants harness light for photosynthesis. This proposed mechanism is even referred to as radiosynthesis."

Submission + - UK to remove right to trial by jury for most charges (theguardian.com)

DesScorp writes: The UK Ministry of Justice will move to eliminate the right to trial by jury for all but the most serious charges in a controversial overhaul of the British court system:

Criminals will be stopped from “gaming the system” by choosing trial by jury in order to increase the chances of proceedings collapsing, the courts minister has said, promising to enact radical changes to limit jury trials by the next election. Drug dealers and career criminals were “laughing in the dock” knowing cases can take years to come to trial, Sarah Sackman said, while warning that inaction would be a road to “chaos and ruin”. Ministers will legislate to remove the right to trial by jury for thousands of cases in one of the biggest and most controversial overhauls of the justice system in England and Wales in generations – promising the changes will significantly shrink the court backlog by 2029. The Ministry of Justice is braced for a backlash from barristers and the judiciary as it presses ahead with the measures to tackle a backlog of nearly 80,000 cases, which will create a proposed new judge-only division of the crown court to hear some cases. Sackman said the “stakes are incredibly high” as she prepared to announce early next month that vast numbers of cases will now be heard by judges and magistrates rather than juries, a response to recommendations in a review by Sir Brian Leveson.


Submission + - Man jailed over possession of 'extreme' music

An anonymous reader writes: Man jailed over possession of 'extreme' music

“A man has been jailed over his music collection which included 'extreme right-wing' recordings .. Norbert Gyurcsik was .. was sentenced to 40 months for each offence at Worcester Crown Court. The terms will be served concurrently.”

Comment Re:29 Months? (Score 1) 166

Did you get one of the high end iPads?

I've got the 2018 base model, and it hasn't received any software updates in 2 years now. We got to the point of getting a new one about a year ago because it was too sluggish, and the limited RAM was causing problems. We still keep it around for simple tasks, but not for anything remotely demanding.

Comment Re: 29 Months? (Score 1) 166

Sounds like you're not from the US.

Most people get their phones from their service provider. And the major providers offer a free phone upgrade every 2 or 3 years if you trade in your old one. It's structured as paying for the phone in monthly installments, and they give you a credit each month to cover the installment. They give you the option of paying upfront for the phone, but you don't get the credits that way, so it's almost always a terrible idea to do.

They are very, very clear about what the full price of the phone is. The catch in all of this is if you cancel your service before the term is up, you lose the remaining credits and have to pay the remaining balance.

The result of this is upgrading more frequently than the 2 or 3 year cycle is very expensive. You can keep your phone longer than the cycle if you really want to, but it rarely makes sense to because there usually isn't any benefit to turning down the upgrade offer.

Comment Absolutely pointless (Score 4, Insightful) 36

There's only 2 reasons to have a new piece of hardware rather than make this an app on your phone:

1)It adds new sensors that your phone doesn't have (yet) that will enable new functionality. This won't be the case, as there's no usecase for it
2)It adds a new IO methods that aren't possible on the phone. AR goggles might do this. An AI assistant doesn't, it's all audio and voice.

This is basically just going to be replacable with a bluetooth microphone paired to an app on your phone. Which means nobody is going to buy it- even if they can actually find a usecase people want AI for (doubtful).

Comment Re:Better if... (Score 2) 166

I suspect you have a different definition of "cheap phone" than the parent poster.

Your logic seems reasonable if you're looking at a $400-$500 Android phone instead of an $800 iPhone or Galaxy.

But you can get $30 Android phones. I would not expect those phones to last for very long, both because the tech quickly becomes obsolete, and due to physical durability.

Also worth noting that most people getting a flagship phone are getting it as part of their service plan, usually on a 3 year upgrade cycle. As a result, upgrading every 3 years is by far the most common cycle, as upgrading at any other frequency doesn't really make sense.

Comment Re:WhatsApp? (Score 1) 84

Those exist, but divide the view count by number of comments. It will show for the most part thousands of views per comment. That means most people aren't using the social part. I've yet to ever write a youtube comment, but I use it daily. So if you asked me if I use YouTube you'd get a yes, but it's not social media for me. If you limit it to those who read/write comments it would be fair, but I'm not sure they did that.

Comment Re:WhatsApp? (Score 4, Interesting) 84

I'd say the same for YouTube. It's used to watch videos. The number of people who comment on them is minimal compared to the userbase. I'd be very curious to the exact definition of "social media" they use is. I don't think it's what most people consider to be social media.

Comment Re:Good use. (Score 1) 74

Not anything. Especially when dealing with nuclear. There are some parts that once degraded cannot be safely replaced. For example, the containment unit. And others where making a new one makes more economic sense than replacing even when technically possible. What state this plant is in I have no idea, and am not qualified to have an opinion on. I just hope experts are making the decision based on economics and power requirements and not politics.

Comment Re:Good use. (Score 4, Interesting) 74

The main question is if the plant is still safe. It hasn't been used in years. Is it still in good maintenance? Was the design meant to be idled for years? What are the risks of restarting that particular design of reactor after all those years? Is the land there safe for workers of the plant after reactor 2's accident all those years ago? And what plans are in place to prevent what happened at reactor 2 from happening at reactor 1?

I actually don't know the answer to any of those questions. But I hope experts are actively asking those.

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