... and then to secure Ukraine into the European economic and defence structure as firmly as possible. At this point they're far ahead of NATO on how to use drones and robots in war, and they're clearly getting very, very good at building them too. European military and aerospace people both will have a lot to gain from cooperation with Ukraine after the war is over.

As cadets were so memorably told a generation ago: remember always, your duty is clear - to build and maintain those robots!

Sounds good - DDG is pretty bad lately, it typically just returns a list of AI generated SEO slop pages, so I've been switching back to Google in a private tab for a lot of things. Might be worth trying this one now!

If they leave them there, the next administration might be able to switch them back on and start gathering woke climate science data again.

Long ago, the UK courts ordered all the major consumer ISPs to block The Pirate Bay along with various other popular services. Ever since, we've had to keep up to date on what the latest proxy address might be.

Of course, thanks to the new censorship laws introduced more recently, we're all on VPNs now, so as to avoid having to hand our ID to the wallet inspector for every last website we ever use. And once that was set up, it was nice to discover that the original is still in play!

The jokes about Darth Jar Jar were everywhere of course, but it could have worked. Star Wars lifted a few ideas from classic SF sources including Asimov's Foundation series - in which, we might recall, the terrifying, unstoppable galactic warlord known as The Mule was hiding in plain sight as a clown, who seemed to be merely a harmless entertainer at court. His military success was chiefly thanks to his psychic ability to manipulate others' minds to his liking - Darth Jar Jar could have done very well that way!

I saw three Star Wars movies when I was young. They were great. Mainly because I was a child and this stuff was new and fresh and exciting to me. Even the Ewoks.

I saw three more when I was not quite so young. They were... poor.

I saw a couple more when I was older. One was great, the other was okay but a retread of one of the old ones, and I never got round to seeing the rest. Didn't care enough.

Now they've got more, and apparently they're based on a TV series they did, which I didn't watch because I wasn't subscribed to that streaming platform at the time. So I'm not going to see those either. Same reason I've not seen a Marvel superhero film since the first Avengers one - just too much homework required with all the backstory. Every scene is a shout out or reference that I won't get. Every character seems to be getting ever louder and angrier and more and more of them have access to time machines. I just don't have it in me to care anymore.

I like the sound of these horror films, though. They're going to tell a complete story? In one film? With a beginning, middle and end, that don't ask me to be up to date on an entire Cinematic Universe? Sounds great, time to check where they're showing!

A modern version of GTA London would be the absolute dream. Been long enough now, you could set it in the nineties and have the same retro value to it!

... why unions aren't much more common among technology workers. Especially given what you hear about the videogame industry in particular, with that mad 'crunch time' culture in which workers are ruthlessly, well, crunched. I'd always ask, well, what does your union say about it? And what do you know, there isn't one, how about that.

Nice to hear of some progress being made, then. I suppose the risk with this for the rest of us is that GTA 6 might be late to release, but, uh, at this point I think we're over that

The parent is obviously sarcastic. Not wise in such a forum as this.

More exceptionalism.

Always has been. If you believe that you are intrinsically superior to everyone else - the "lesser breeds without the Law" - naturally you resent anything they have or do. And you are constantly frightened that they might suddenly pop up and deprive you of your vast entitlements.

That's the logic that was used to justify the Korean and Vietnam wars. The "domino theory" - "if they win in Korea, they will win in India and Africa and eventually reach New York and take away some of the billionaires' assets to give to the poor".

Which would obviously be the end of civilisation.

Very true. It seems quite unlikely that the UK government has any information that China doesn't already know or couldn't easily obtain.

'“What I’m saying is that some Strap stuff was compromised and vast amounts of data classified as extremely secret and extremely dangerous for any foreign entity to control was compromised.

'“Material from intelligence services. Material from the National Security Secretariat in the Cabinet Office. Things the government has to keep secret. If they’re not secret, then there are very, very serious implications for it"'.

Every time I hear about such very, very secret "material from intelligence services", it turns out to be something embarrassing that the government wants to keep from its own citizens. And of course we can never be told what the terribly secret information is, because it's so terribly secret. Possibly some dirty inside knowledge about who blew up Nord Stream (obviously the USA) or all the help given to the Kiev mob (with untold billions of UK taxpayers' money but without their permission).

It's safe to say that the UK government does not have any military secrets that would matter to China - or Russia. A sardine does not frighten a whale.

Unfortunately, capitalists (especially the most successful ones) loathe and detest competition. That's why markets always tend towards monopoly and/or monopsony. Microsoft and Amazon are shining examples. Also, I suspect, Oracle judging by Larry Ellison's bank account.

That's good practice when writing anything that any of your readers might not understand. You just have to provide the expansion at the first mention, which doesn't cost much time or space. There are so many acronyms, abbreviations, and in-jargon terms that it's very easy to get confused. And I hope Slashdot articles are sometimes read by people other than the regular suspects.

https://8billionangels.org/ear...

https://data.footprintnetwork.... (Click UK on map)