Technically I basically had that some time around 30 years ago. It wasn't the gas pedal though, it was on the steering wheel as part of cruise control.

In a world that isn't totally encrapified, self-driving should be a module kit you can get for basically any car that's built to an open standard where you just plug in the control module and the sensors, etc. into a bunch of standard receptacles and your car from any manufacturer will then have self-driving provided by the module from some other manufacturer. Seriously, a self driving system is so fragile that it can only as a built in from one specific manufacturer and its driving model can't work with a set of parameters for a different car (things like turning radius, a braking model, etc.) then the self-driving system is probably garbage to start with. Manufacturers can sanitize vendor lock-in with terms like "vertical integration" if they like, but the reality is that they're just trying to screw us all over.

Ummm. I mean, it could. What would the point be? I mean, there are much easier ways to make it inactive than de-orbiting it, including ones that also don't require blowing it up into shrapnel, etc. It doesn't really seem to introduce any new vulnerabilities. Unless you're suggesting dropping it on a target, in which case it's still far easier to just use the rocket you used to launch your interceptor as a missile to fire at the ground based target anyway.

Not really sure what you're trying to say about "conspiracy theories". I'm pretty sure there aren't too many people on this article with that kind of mindset. As far as whether it has been done before, the basic concept has, but this seems to be the first mission with independent booster systems that join up with a main robotic mechanic system. I am also not sure what you mean by "it takes the same fuel, energy, etc." The same as what? Basically this is using Xenon propellant in Hall effect thrusters that are more or less like what we've had for 50+ years, so yeah, nothing fantastically new there, but no-one is really suggesting that there is, or that the rocket equation has changed, etc.

In the hopes of clarifying some concepts and descriptive words:

The US army runs under fascism. Management is top-down, everyone has to do what their superior says to do, and if you don't do it there are grave consequences.

All militaries across the globe run under fascism. All militaries throughout history have run under fascism.

Almost all businesses are run under a similar system: there is one person at the top, usually with a vision of what he wants to happen, and everyone from there down what their immediate superior says to do. There is some leeway in the case of business: you can disagree with your superior and perhaps have a discussion, doing the right thing against orders is OK if it works out, and the penalties for disobeying aren't as severe (getting fired versus getting sent to Leavenworth, or being shot).

The fascist model of governance is one of a handful of governing types we know about, and is useful in situations where decisions need to be made quickly based on experience (military planning) or based on vision (business planning). Military actions fall squarely within those situations. It's not the best model for an economic system, where divergent opinions and "try it and see" is more efficient, or a political system where individual corruption can lead to violations in human rights or reasonable policy.

The US military is not capitalistic, but it is not "anti-capitalism" system in the sense that it works against capitalism in any way.

The US military isn't socialist, except that it tries to provide for it's members in compensation for the risks they take. It's similar to businesses providing health insurance or stock options or reimbursement for college courses - we don't normally think of employment perks as "socialism", and in the same manner we shouldn't think of military benefits as socialism either. Socialism is a foundational principle, not a system of perks.

I don't know that using AI is a weakness of the system. The military is famous for actually studying the effects that certain decisions have. You can look up the government's studies on whether and how much coffee improves performance, whether sleep learning is of any use, and the minimum IQ to allow before it takes more resources to manage an individual than the resources the individual brings by enlisting.

Looking into new technologies and their application to warfare is something the US military does very well.

And apropos of nothing, it's completely obvious that drones are a tectonic shift in military technology, this came as a complete surprise from the Ukraine war, and we totally should be pivoting away from expensive missiles and more towards swarms of cheap drones.

I don't know why you're characterizing drones as trendy and popular, either.

One sided views are indeed tiring and pointless. The problem here is that you are the one with the one sided view that simply favors Russian official propaganda over all else on this matter. Myself and others arguing your point are not actually taking a side. I am considering everyone's position in this and data from many sources and Russia basically always comes out in the wrong on this one.

As for your origins, it should be very simple to say whether you are Russian or not. It does make something of a difference. I mean, the troll farms are more heavily populated with AI these days, but early on, it was very common to see people claiming to be Americans who used a very particular grammatical structure that suggested a non-english speaker from a certain linguistic background. Not that you're from a troll farm. Obviously you have been on Slashdot for years. I'm just saying that with the Ukraine war, it has been common to see Russians hiding their origins and biases posting in favor of Russia. So, since it affects the interpretation of whether your opinion on this is based on rational examination of the facts or pure partisanship, knowing whether you're Russian does indeed make a difference.

War is, indeed, a racket. It is also evil. I think though, that you need reminding that "evil is not a big happy family" (which is a trope on TV tropes that I'm not going to turn into a link, because it is a dangerous black hole). So, while there might be figurative smoke filled back rooms full of shadowy characters behind most wars, it turns out there isn't just one, there are many, and they don't all have one unified goal. They might have goals that appear superficially similar like, for example, "lots of money!", but you have to remember that's qualified with "lots of money... for ME!!!!" where the "ME!!!" in question is actually any of a large number of people and groups. Also, if there's one main smoky room behind it fall it will be at the Kremlin

I'm not really all that interested in the latest prime minister until we know they have staying power, but it does sound like you are mischaracterizing it.I just checked on the rough sleeping thing and it looks like he's not actually talking about just beating up homeless people to make them go away (time will tell and we'll see of course, but it does seem to be part of a housing first initiative which is definitely better than your characterization.

Since there is monetary value attached to the account, yes they are.

Z80 was also my first assembly language. Perhaps not super important for me, but it's nice to know the Z80 will continue to exist in some recognizable form.

IIRC, LANtastic cards (another relic of the past) had a Z-80 on them. It was socketed, no less.

Sorry, can you point to any time limits or mentions of coups, militarization, NATO expansion, fights between Ukrainians, civil wars on the border, etc.? There are none. You're just making up ex post facto rules in your head to justify the war. Not to mention making up stuff about coups, heavy miltarization, etc. The supposed Civil wars on the border also aren't really civil wars when they're actually covert Russian operations. All the people behind them were GRU agents, Russian citizens, FSB agents, Russian political operatives, etc. I mean, Girkin and Borodai make it pretty obvious. They barely even tried to hide it in the first place and there's just so much evidence available now. There are tons of intercepted phone calls between the leaders and the Kremlin on funding, armament, troop movements, etc. I mean, seriously, right from the start, members of the supposed breakaway Republics of Luhansk (that's probably Lugansk for you) and Donetsk were getting Russian pensions. I know you'll brush that off, but it's pretty damning for supposedly independent republics.

There's another of those weird, disconnected from reality things to say. Obviously the position on the UK relative to Russian fossil fuels shows how much the war was a disadvantage to them. Not to mention all the Russian billionaires and capital tied up in London. Britain did everything they could diplomatically before the war and at the start to try to stop it, not to mention that they released all kinds of intelligence that would not normally be made public to blow up Russia's propaganda excuses for the war to try to head Russia off by exposing their pretexts as lies. Claiming that somehow the UK wanted and wants this war to be ongoing is ridiculous.

Whatever Russia says in these contexts is pretty much always exposed as a lie. In any case, none of that is honoring their agreement. As far as the "rights" of Eastern Ukrainians (at least, the healthy, militarily eligible ones) to Russians that seems to mostly mean the right to be conscripted and sent to die or be maimed in Russia's war. As far as Russia wanting the war to end, that's clearly with the proviso that they get to keep the invaded territory as their own. There's no real interpretation of protecting the rights of Eastern Ukrainians that actually requires that.

Wow. recognition of "Novorossiya"! I mean, you're not even denying there that it's purely a war of conquest. As for a neutral rest of Ukraine, you seem to think that demanding Neutrality of a sovereign nation is a reasonable request? The resf of your fantasy, about Russian fragmentation, regime change, and plunder? Well, anyone sane at this point wants Russian regime change. It became clear about two decades ago or more that Putin was a dictator who murders and oppresses his own people. I mean, just look at that sentence "two decades ago", there's basically two (maybe three) terms for anyone who has been ruler of a country for two decades or more these days: there's King (or potentially emperor) most of whom are just symbolic these days, and then there's dictators. Interestingly though, most Western governments were still fine with dealing with a dictator all that time. After 2022 though, what sane person would not want regime change in Russia? They let serial teenage girl eating cannibals out of prison while locking people holding blank signs up for a decade. As far as Russian fragmentation, who cares about that? I mean, I would be happy enough for Siberians if they got to profit from their own mineral wealth instead of being ruthlessly exploited by Russians in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but once again, no major government (outside of the Russian Federation or its immediate allies, anyway) seems to have had that as its goal. As for plundering, I mean, there are people like Trump who want to plunder everywhere, but they're kind of generalists. Plundering Russia is, once again, mostly a dream of Russia's allies due to the the geographic and logistical issues and the whole inhospitable frozen wasteland thing. That's basically "I shot this squirrel for looking at my gold!" frothing at the mouth levels of paranoia.

There was no Nazism problem in Ukraine that wasn't as bad or worse in Russia (and frankly probably not any worse than the US either). I mean Jebus, the Wagner group didn't get its name because Wagner was Winston Churchill's favorite composer. The simple fact is that Nazis and nationalists obviously flock together and intersect and so they do tend to concentrate in militias. So, sure there were some Nazis in militias around Azov the region. Of course, it's been overblown to the point where even the poster you're replying to seems to be confused hat the name Azov somehow applies to those nationalist militias. They were right that they're basically gone. Naturally, when frothing at the mouth nationalists nazi types volunteer to kill Russian soldiers, no-one in Ukraine can afford to say no right now, but you can bet that if those nazis run into a group of Russian soldiers with a grenade, they're not going to be weeping for the Nazi any more than for the Russian soldiers.

Sweet Jebus, what universe are you living in? Because it's not this one. I know you Russia fans (I mean, I'm assuming that you actually are a Russian or adjacent ex-pat living in South America, but more on that later) like to talk about a supposed slow, but inexorable takeover of Ukrainian territory, but that's just wishful thinking. If you go from the peak of Russian territorial control in Ukraine, Russia has lost 45,000 square km and controls about 120,000 now. Not to mention that they have been losing territory basically all of this year. Russia's economy is on the verge of collapse, their resources have proven to be very vulnerable despite Russia's nonsense cultural myth of being too big to be vulnerable (what is with the Russian cultural obsession with size, anyway?), their "strategy" mostly seems to be to grind up as many of their own soldiers as possible and hope that the Ukrainians drown in their corpses and also to terrorize civilians, and I think you're mistaking fatalism with patience.

Anyway, on that other matter, are you willing to straight up answer if you are Russian? I know you're some sort of ex-pat from somewhere living, at least at one point, somewhere in South America But are you Russian, or from somewhere like Moldova/Transnistra, Georgia or one of the Russian occupied bits, Belarus, Hungary, etc.? One of those former bits of the Soviet Union still full of people who grew up with the propaganda and can't let go? Or somewhere else? Any chance you'll reveal your origins and perhaps how you came to be ride or die for Putin?

Uh... Huh? How was there not going to be a war? Russia was invading no matter what. Unless you mean that Ukraine should have just rolled over and are equivocating being conquered to "peace".

Ok. So you're just a bit nutty then, and, for some strange reason making it about the UK rather than Russia and Ukraine.

I clearly meant that what you were saying was weird to say in part because you seemed to be putting words that they had not spoken into other people's mouths. You seem to have responded with another very weird thing to say.

You mean he could be different by somehow blaming the war on Ukraine instead of the actual invader, or by refusing to uphold any obligations to an ally, or to uphold the basic principles of the post-WWII order regarding territorial integrity of sovereign nations? I mean, he probably will fail to uphold those principles for, for example, Guantanamo bay which is clearly held illegally by the US, but I doubt he will for this relatively fresh and bloody, evil war by war criminals from Russia. There will be some hypocrisy there of course, but it will have more to do with one being a hot war and one being a cold war (although Trump seems to be determined to turn things with Cuba hot eventually, probably right around the midterms so he can find a justification for the state of emergency he's planning).

A simpler explanation is that this is a biased news report intended to stir up outrage. ... and you and the grandparent post fell for it, and are adding to the overall outrage level.

Take a moment to look at the arguments against.

It looks a whole lot like manufacturers are *not* trying to lie about packaging or content, it's the complete opposite of that. The manufacturers want the labels on based on the product material, and not based on whether there are recycling program within the state. The stamp should describe the product, not the availability of recycling to the end consumer.

If the bag your product came in has a polypropylene triangle on it (a "5"), it means the bag *can* be recycled. If California doesn't have facilities for doing that, it doesn't make the bag non-recyclable. California only manages to recycle 2% of this type, manufacturers want to put the stamp there to inform the consumer, the language of the bill would force them to remove the stamp because California doesn't recycle this type of plastic, and of course the manufacturers wouldn't do that for just California they would do it for everyone.

That's what this is about, not lying.

Furthermore, the plaintiffs the Pack act, which would install one standard country-wide, eliminating the maze of state-wide regulations.

Stop adding to the outrage, look at both sides of an issue before commenting.

That's a very weird thing to say. Among other things, how is it "old". That war is going on right now. Russia is still attempting to invade and holding Ukrainian territory, etc.

They do not. The "reasonable suspicion" standard allows for police to decide these things "based on their experience" or to come up with the reason after the fact. While you can fight it in court later and you very well might win, you could have spent the last six months in jail by that point. Generally speaking you are actually much better protected against it if you actually have committed a crime because you can get evidence thrown out as "fruit of the poison tree". If you're completely innocent, you just get your life torn apart, large legal fees, and a justice system that acts like eventually letting you go (which does not actually need to happen immediately after you're found completely innocent) makes the whole thing OK.

It's quite simple. A cooler is obviously bigger than a breadbox, but smaller than a Library of Congress.

People don't do a lot of film photography any more, and modern cameras do some pretty impressive feats of self adjustment to conditions, but still... imagine trying to use a camera flash with orders of magnitude of variation in the strength of the flash, with the majority of the light coming from the flash being in non-visible wavelengths (or even particulate radiation) that may or may not react to your film in various unpredictable ways, not to mention that it is filtered first through a bulkhead and other equipment of varying opacity. Oh, and you don't get to know beforehand what direction it's coming from.
It's still not an impossible idea. Using ambient EM radiation for imaging is not actually a bad idea (I mean, it's how most photography is done, after all), but it would be very challenging under those conditions.