I have very low latent inhibition - basically a fancy way of saying my brain has its noise threshold much lower so I process more incoming stimulus consciously - and one of my coping mechanisms is to maintain "overlays" on my vision where I can break down information visually.

I think of it like Humane's AI pin (although I've been doing this since I was a kid), or to go back to the roots, the Crysis menu system, which was what inspired me to develop this way of coping with the torrent of information in my childhood.

Exactly. If you know you're going to order a cool 25 million transferred, 1-5-10 thousand dollars of CPU time is very good investment by anyone backing you.

Ever since vTuber tech appeared a few years ago, I've been waiting for something like this to happen. The ability to do real-time motion mapping with a moderately-powerful laptop onto a custom 3D model was just begging to be souped up with image generation and real-time voice modification and used for nefarious purposes.

The title of "US Must Beat China Back To the Moon, Congress Tells NASA" makes it sound like the Chinese originally came from the Moon. I guess that's the source of their Moon Rabbit legends?

You might be underestimating the budget groups like these have. I've read about South American drug runner gangs using custom-built subs that were - quite frankly - ingenious pieces of engineering, clearly built for long-term use and containing comfort features you would not expect in a vehicle built in the jungle by a bunch of drug runners.

Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

By Neal Stephenson

Damn, just what I was about to comment. My kingdom for mod points. Or just consider this a "+1 Funny".

Ooooh, link please, I can't remember that! It's been a while since I saw that series, but I loved how accurate space flight was, all the way from "Amos, hit your boots and hold on, we're doing high-G maneuvers!!" to "Ship, plot a course from here to Ganymede, thrusters only, no engines!".

At that rate of rotation, I would think it's going to start messing with the inner ear and cause all sorts of vertigo problems. Not to mention how the high rate of spin will affect trajectories inside the structure, so nothing's going to work as humans expect it, least of all their balance...

Okay, I like to bash invasive trackers as much as the next person, but is it really Meta that's at fault here?

The Pixel only submits information it's configured to collect, and by default, that set is fairly small. To me, it sounds more like the marketers at these medical centers/sites (mis-)configured their tracking to capture way too much data, in the hopes of being able to optimize their placement with it.

So it's not really a case of Meta being evil for me, the same way mass shootings are not the rifle's fault strictly, but the person wielding it.

Based on the last two years, we're not even prepared for contamination across countries.

Of course, a lot of that was people being assholes for the sake of being assholes, exacerbated by politics, but it still doesn't bode well.

That was my gut feeling as well, except I was thinking of just subverting the system by redirecting or falsifying transactions.

What I was thinking of is a finer-grained manipulation of the chain, such as manipulating transfers maliciously by redirecting or changing amounts, or capturing payment information (much like credit card payments data, I guess). Not quite destroying but subverting it to your needs.

That aside, I agree that right now it's a game of global hot potato - I like that metaphor. But I do see merit in the underlying technology.

I think Erste has converted its internal accounting to use Ripple XRP, and they reported a massive increase in internal transaction throughput. So there's merit in the blockchain itself, but not in its current form, I'd guess.

Because what I'm thinking of is not simply hacking an exchange or wallet and siphoning off the funds, but the ability to completely subvert the payment system of an entire state, to the point of redirecting legitimate payments or manipulating transferred amounts. That's not quite like the $5 wrench attack.

Before I form a solid opinion, a question: just how viable is it, right now or in the near future, to conduct a 51% attack on the core BTC chain?