I would have to counter that argument that using a FOSS project without contributing for a for profit activity isn't great but the people who are behind project always knew that was a possibility, depending on what license they chose.

However just being a user, especially as a corporate entity, means more exposure from the project. Even if you don't publish the fact you use it, you end up with employees who know that might recommend it to others, move on use it elsewhere, contribute themselves, provide useful bug reports and test data etc..

This does none of those things, this is purely parasitic it borrows all the ideas and robs the original project of mind share. Now you *could* argue this is true of FOSS clones, of commercial applications... and I think it would apply to FOSS that isn't also free-as-in-beer case; though I struggle to come up with an example of FOSS that is both clone-ware and inst FAIB.

What can happen to open source can happen to commercial software, too. He's right, too. Excel is so well documented that soon (or now) you might not even need the source code. Just "make this exactly like Excel" and wait two weeks while feeding in more tokens. So, while they might reach for FOSS right now because they don't have an army of lawyers, eventually folks feed in commercial code they have access to (think licensed Windows application developers who've had the Windows source code for decades). So, what's good for the goose is gonna be good for the gander, too. What they do to FOSS today will befall 'Doze tomorrow (or sooner).

Yeah, the blatant disregard for the work and intentions of FOSS authors is breathtaking. However, just keep in mind Windows, MacOS, IRIX, and other code bases are also available. Plenty of folks have the code. If I feed one of these LLMs enough tokens and my private collection of highly copyrighted/DRM'd vendor's code, it's eventually going to spit out a version of MS Windows or whatever that I can license anyway I want (BSD license for Win 11 anyone?).

I doubt M$ or Apple would let that go unchallenged. If they can win in court, then so can the EFF or others. So, I'm not sure how long the legs are on this idea.

Going back to the invasion of Georgia the US government had, overtly (I don't think the IC state department people every really pivoted), to a mostly adversarial relationship with the Russian state.

In the 20 years hence Russia has at various times sought to rehabilitate its image on the world stage thru negotiations like New-Start. The our government would have been able to leverage such events if convincing evidence existed. They did not, under Obama of all people they did not. Additionally Russia had no interests served by further antagonizing the US government thru most of that period, far better for them if we stayed out of their conflicts with the former Soviet bloc.

Conclusion - Russia was not then, though certainly could be now and with reason to be, responsible. However let's be real about that too. Why would Russia risk intelligence assets targeting research scientists. They are being rapidly depleted by our providing Ukraine with mostly end-stage cold war era weapons systems. Even if they (Russia) have more advanced weapons (hyper sonic missiles) at a battle field ready stage, they have no capacity to produce them in battlefield altering quantities. Try to delay us from developing tech we'd be unlike to field for a decade makes little sense, they'd be better served trying to compromise the production teams at our defense contractors and arranging some industrial accidents to shut down production than trying to target the research side of the house.

On the hand China.. who is very much considering a future war and has the resources to fight it; is looking at a situation where they could face next-gen weapons by the time they decide to pull the trigger. They have every reason to want to make sure they fighting the us with 21st century weapons while we are forced to rely on late 20th century relics, in the same way Russia is forced to rely on midcentury relics to fight Ukraine and our late 20th century stocks.

Russia for a foreign policy and security standpoint is a distraction! US policy makers need to internalize they are has beens who don't for the most part matter. They have firecrackers that make it impossible to ignore them entirely but by and large everything fling their direction is stuff we'd be better served to hang onto for an eventual Pacific conflict. Obviously with the exception of those arms with an expiration date.

The biggest problem with education in the US is the educators. There is no getting past that. Record spending per pupil, lots and lots of restorative this restorative that bias opportunities toward demographics that the left claims were historically disadvantage. The one consistent outcome is poorer outcomes no matter what color or economic stratum a kid belongs too.

Modern classroom theory and pedagogical theory are obviously broken. This is the only possible valid conclusion anyone rationally looking at what is happening could reach. However we have these unions which ensure that nobody does anything but fail upward in the public education sector. Basically the only real skill required to succeed (career) as educator is the ability to repeat the party line, and not molest the children (the latter being increasingly seen as optional in the eyes of union leaders as well).

       

there is no deep state and elections have consequences..

Yeah sure.

but you're not dealing with where those orders come from or setting the stage when you pose that question.

There is underlying assumption that if the order is received there is a point to it, that it could win war. If that person knew the enemy missiles were already in flight, would not be intercepted, and nobody they know personally or care about will see the sun come up tomorrow would they still turn the key and kill millions more people - just to get even..?

It really is a very different question. Now imagine you are not the guy in the bunker, you are POTUS. You know it is over. They entire lower 48 is going to be glass starting in about 8 secs over within the hour. Do you really give the order to return fire, or do think maybe just maybe you want to look toward the kingdom of heaven even if you have never held strong belief and hedge your bets and reject 'useless' killing? Because it really isnt about MAD at that point, it is back to Pascal's Wager.

Even if not specifically inventory shrink, it is still the same class for problem. It roll it up one level higher and either the delivery is successful or it isn't.

Be it first party Amazon vans or 3rd party shippers UPS/FEx/USPS, lost, damaged, and late packages occur in those lanes as well. It just an optimization problem. Either the the (presumed) increase of loss related to drone delivery is less then the offsetting cost savings, including reputation costs that translate to market share and recurring revenue, or they don't.

Either the drone delivers can be made reliable enough or they can't. Pontificating about it might be fun, getting upset about anything isnt worth it, because I don't really see much in the way of externalities here. Sure maybe something gets manufactured and never used because it is destroyed in transit. However if you deliver 10K somethings with electric drones rather than rolling petroleum powered vans, even the waste from an environmental standpoint might easily be offset for a net gain in efficiency.

Amazon's entire business is essentially logistics. They have not gotten to be the huge player they are by being wasteful. Rather they are where they are by ruthlessly optimizing everything they do for cost.

We all have cell phone cameras, tied to phones that mostly have the amazon app installed (if you are prime customer). You photo the package if the carton looks damaged, you photo the item the moment you open the carton lid if you see damage. You report the damaged item, 90% if the time time they agree to send you a new one right away and don't require you to return the damaged item.

So really other than as a customer, you item maybe being delayed a day while you wait for replacement, this is entirely a inventory shrink problem for Amazon to solve. Either increased loss of product (if there even is) costs more than traditional delivery methods or not, either they have incentive to invest is gentler product handling or they don't. Maybe it is just ML problem of learning which SKUs, and which type of SKUs should not go by drone and should instead go out on a truck, because of lower success rate..Maybe (probably) that training is happening already.

I don't believe this is accurate. It assumes that because I am dying I am going to kill you out of spite. If I am resigned to the fact that me and mine are doomed, I very well might decide that I would in fact rather humanity go on even if it is those where my enemies than to simple kill everyone.

I think actually there is quite a bit of evidence some degree of altruism is hardwired into humans, once our own genetic future isn't a consideration we are not actually given to wanton destruction of all possible competitors.

This fact actually makes 'the bomb' more usable in a tactical way. I think people who were fighting the cold war were actually keenly aware of that as well. It is preciously why they were able to find some agreement on things like anti proliferation. They understood that while these weapons remain *almost* to terrible to contemplate mostly they do not represent the 'end of the world' event sold to the public and perhaps most of the legislative bodies. Cooler heads realized nuke war would be horrible, morally unjustifiably most like but probably isnt MAD at all, probably ends up just being whoever shoots first wins...

Paul Ehrlich, is that you? Noel Brown? Well, perhaps a Polymarket bet will open up and you can put some money on that bet (and lose it). I'm with the PP, this is bullshit. They'll be flying around like it's fucking free in 6 weeks no matter what happens in The Strait. I say you can throw this prediction in with "There will be no more sea ice" or "Africa will be depopulated by starvation" or my favorite "entire nations will be wiped out by sea level rise by 2000".

The mistake was the Marshall plan.

We should have turned the EU in to dependent agrarian shit-hole.

I wonder if it could be made into an effective non-lethal crowd control / deterrence weapon.

I bet you could get people to vacate an area pretty fast if suddenly the only thing they could smell was the strong sent of decaying flesh or similar. One of those sents that everyone is programed instinctively to move away from.

Don't forget it also super chargers the general asymmetry between attackers and defenders. That is attackers are there for as long as they want to be, defenders have to be their all the time.

Everytime a newer bigger, better trained, whatever model or a new set of tooling, feedback, etc workflow drops defenders have to buy into it and stand it up, and evaluate a whole new wave of potential vulnerabilities that are now identified, and they have to do it before a threat actor does.

Until we reach a point of stability where we not seeing a new frontier offering with significantly enhanced capabilities multiple times a year, team red is going to be better served than team blue.

That is the real problem. There are to many movies. There is just so much low quality stuff cranked out. The movies have outside of a few big legacy francises lost their social aspect.

30 years ago EVERYONE saw the same movies, talked about them got excited about them. There were always tons of marketing tie-ins, every kid went to MCDs and got a batman toy. Now it is all to scattered and silo-ed. Even if you do go the movies none of the guys at work saw it too. There is no social incentive anymore.

Add to that how far even entry level home video has come. Even the folks are not into that stuff at all have a full HD screen that is probably 42" or larger, and are just as likely to have 4K screen in the 55+ size class. Anyone who actually cares even a little can budget for a 60+" 4k display with some basic HRD capability and decidedly ok sound bar. Recreating damn near commercial theater class fidelity is within reach of anyone who does care to spend their money that way.

So it leaves going to the movies with little to offer other than a very expensive night out.

I don't know how you get back there because it would be one of those someone has to unilaterally disarm situations again, but the studios want a theater channel they actually need to get back to each doing a like one jaw dropping summer block buster a year, they market the crap out of and supplementing with the art-house, horror, childrens releases. They need to tell us what movies to see and why we want to pay $20 just to get thru the door rather than simply waiting a few months and watching at home if we even bother.