I have some bad news for you about how farmers fertilize the plants you eat...

In this case it's more than just being arseholes, though this is part of it. I feel sorry for them because they have a tarnished soul.

If you agree with Trump on 80% of what he's doing I feel genuinely sorry for you.

> our own oligarchs will demand its availability here

Why would they? They can get the vaccine for themselves from overseas (obviously, FDA rules don't apply to them) or travel to Europe to get the shot (and also pay European prices). Making the vaccine available in the USA would mean the hoi polloi wouldn't get some preventable diseases and won't need to keep paying the oligarchs.

Yes, there are absolutely reasons to expect that. The main one is that it's Google. Google has a long history of promising great privacy measures and policies for some new product and later, after capturing many customers, going back on their word and revoking or changing the policies - and from what I've seen, always in the sense of less privacy.

Here are some examples:

- combining user data over multiple services. For years, search, GMail, YouTube and other products had separate privacy policies, which meant data collected by one service will be siloed to that service. However, after capturing a big enough market share Google announced they're switching to a single Google-wide privacy policy and combining all the user data from the different services. Google was widely criticized by privacy advocates and got investigated by EU regulators.
- using GMail contacts for GBuzz connections. This was an abuse of the user's data: the customers created contacts for a specific purpose, and Google took them and used them for something completely different and unexpected (and with no opt-in either). This led to such a backlash that Google had to backpedal. Fortunately GBuzz died quickly, but if it hadn't, I'm sure Google would have tried the same thing again later.
- location history: the expectation was that turning off Location Services would stop Google from collecting location data and sending it to advertisers and others. However investigators discovered it was not the case.
- when Google acquired DoubleClick they made assurances that advertising data will not be combined with personally identifiable information. This was reversed when Google changed policies to allow this data mingling.

In other words, Google can not be trusted to abide by their word. Even if they publish good privacy policies, and even if they respect them for some time, all of their policies have wordage reserving the right to modify the policies in the future. Historically, they often do change those policies, to the detriment of customers. Buying into Google's promises is a fool's game.

I wish you were right, but I'm afraid history shows us you're much too optimistic. America isn't a nation of laws anymore, not even at the middling level it was before. I don't see how it can get back to being one. The situation reminds me very much of Yeats' verse: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity"

We've been in very similar situations before: Dubya started the war in Iraq to deflect attention from his failing presidency, nominated incompetent leaders based on loyalty to the GOP instead of ability, covered the loss of billions of dollars to corruption, mishandled the post-war Iraq - leading to the rise of ISIS, completely bumbled the Katrina aftermath (again because the person in charge was a Dubya loyalist not someone who knew what needs to be done).

The similarity with the current situation is obvious; I think we can extrapolate to what will happen after the next elections (assuming there will be elections: doubting there will be some was unthinkable not long ago, but it's not anymore). Just as nothing happened to Dubya, to the GOP or to anybody in the administration after Democrats won the presidency and Congress, nothing will happen to Trump, his administration, Republicans at all levels, corrupt SCOTUS judges or anybody who created this mess. There will be no consequences. Maybe a few rather low level hirelings will get token jail sentences, but there'll be no sweeping establishment of justice. The billions stolen from the people will not be recovered, wars started on whims, or in order to distract attention from the Epstein files will not be investigated, there'll be no punishment for criminals.

More importantly, there will be no significant changes that could stop ill-intentioned actors from gaming the system again - for example, the Electoral College will remain in place, jerrymandering will remain legal (as long as it's done by Republicans), the Supreme Court will be more and more politicized, obvious corruption will not be punished, all control and balance mechanisms will be dismantled, the constitution will become even more of a joke than it is now.

That's true; totally not worth designing your grid to handle such a rare event. I mean, how often do once a decade storms happen? Once every hundred years or so?

I'm pretty sure vibe coding is going to create any number of new vulnerabilities, but it's not quite clear to me from the summary what was the role of AI in this case. Was the vulnerability found in code developed by AI or was it found by AI in code developed in an unspecified manner?

Both of those issues are concerning, on different time scales. On a medium to long term, I expect we'll be flooded with vibe-developed apps, with all kinds of issues. The second issue is more concerning for the short term. I'm sure there are lots of undiscovered vulnerabilities in all kinds of software (as we have seen only last weeks, with the exploits in almost all Linux distributions). Lately attackers have started to use AI successfully in finding previously unknown vulnerabilities. This makes attackers more effective, as it will take some time until those avenues of attack get patched.

Damn youngsters with their PC ATs, grumble, grumble...

I had a good old XT, with a CGA green monochrome monitor, chock full with 640k of RAM (which, let me tell you, was sufficient for everybody!) and an enormous 20MB hard disk, so big the OS couldn't even conceive such a thing can exist - so I had to split it in a 4MB partition and a 16 Mb one!

You haven't had fun until you played "The Secret of Monkey Island" on a 320 x 200 pixels screen in 4 shades of green, with PC beep sounds.

True that! This happens to me every other week, so I clearly need to plan my big budget purchase to account for this scenario.

This doesn't seem to be the case here though. There were no "first weeks". The guy was fired as soon as the White House got wind of the hire. It doesn't appear to be an issue of competency; rather it's an issue of loyalty to Trump.

I'd actually like to see that - it would be a very cyberpunk image. Like something from Blade Runner or Akira!

"Suffering" is probably not the correct word here - if you're born deaf, not hearing is normal for you. However, a deaf person is excluded - not by their fault, of course - from large areas of global culture; somebody born deaf will never be able to enjoy Beethoven's Ode to Joy (or whatever your favorite song is), never hear their child laugh, never go asleep to the sound of rain. As a deaf person, maybe you never had a chance to live those experiences. Would you choose to deny them to your child if you could give them that chance?

If linked in any way to the identity of the user then yes, it should be banned. If used for anything beyond finding out what product features people use (for example, selling usage data to insurance or ad companies) then yes, it should be banned. If collected without the user being clearly notified this is happening, and without the user's explicit opt-in then yes, it should be banned.

You forgot one final item:

      A considerable percentage of the most affected customers blame the additional costs on the previous administration and continue to vote for the same people...