Some famous Frenchman once said: Give me ten lines, written by the most innocent man, and I'll find something in them to hang him for.

Once the government becomes oppressive, there is no such thing as non-problematic data.

Corporations never, ever (pinky-swear) destroy evidence. What they do is destroy data before it BECOMES evidence. That's the whole trick. It's what they try to argue here: As soon as they asked, destroying the data they had asked to see became illegal. I sincerely hope this gets thrown out.

Can we please pressure Apple and Google into making duress passwords a standard feature on all OSs?

We need this to become common.

When my father was starting out as a young physician in the late 1950s, he had a meeting with the president of Chemical Bank to get a loan. The guy told my dad that the reason rich people are rich is because they watch the pennies.

People have gotten so used to renting every aspect of their lives that they have no clue why they feel poor. In this case, people keep their OnStar subscription even though they probably never use it and as good as cellular coverage is, the reason for having it is pretty much gone. Once SpaceX gets they tech into phones, there will be zero reason to have OnStar. But people are clueless. Wasting money on subscriptions has reached epidemic proportions.

The real concern is what happens when OnStar is totally obsolete. Is GM going to cheerfully give up all that free money? Hell no. They're going to find another way to nickle and dime their customers.

When I bought a new Toyota last year, I got a trial subscription to not just SiriusXM (which sucks, btw, compared to Spotify) and a one-year trial to their digital key nonsense on your phone (which also sucks, btw). I never started paying for those things.

There will come a day, not too long from now, when you won't be able to own a vehicle outright. You will only be able to rent it and every cool feature will be on a subscription basis.

I don't think I've ever googled something and it came up with anything that wasn't .com, .org, .edu, or .gov. Are search engines, and now more importantly AI engines able to scour other domains for information?

Who the fuck leases a PHONE.

I think that's the question we should be asking. Just buy the thing. If you can't afford to buy the thing, then get a loan/card to buy the thing.

And a phone just shouldn't be that expensive or difficult to maintain or break so often that you can't do either.

You can keep your vanity plate names and waste all the money you want on them.

Nobody cares any more. They just google or bookmark you.

Yeah, I mean, who would call a website slash dot, because it then becomes w w w dot slash dot dot org....

Here's my question: the AI doomsayers, particularly those in government, are demanding guardrails for security. In other words, mere mortals shouldn't be allowed access to sophisticated hacking functionality. Okay, but what if you want to use those tools to look for vulnerabilities in your own systems so nefarious entities won't be able to hack them? Will you have to go to some supposedly trusted government agency to have them tell you whether or not your systems are secure (for a nominal service fee)? How do you know you can trust them? Because they're the government?

So someone is going to jail for it?

Because if ordinary people do something that is very very illegal, they do.

Seriously, "now" ?

These types of vans exist for a decade at least. Maybe not this specific model from that specific manufacturer, but I don't think that's the point here.

Yes, your government is spying on you. While hiding from you some of its most serious and worrying internals. Don't we just love how we are the people and in charge? lol.

That's the question. Is it truly that some plastic CAN'T be recycled or is it more likely that they aren't because it's too expensive or time consuming to do so and there's no market for it? Places like California love to stroke their own egos when they have 27 different trash containers for every conceivable use-case and then it's out-of-sight-out-of-mind. Just like everywhere else that uses one recycle container.

We used to stick AM radios next to those early computers to give the illusion of sound for games.

My biggest beef with the whole self-driving thing is that we should NOT have started with cars.

Why not a self-driving cart that takes you around the store? Or a self-driving golf buggy? Or a self-driving airport passenger carrier to get you to your gate? Or even those little "trains" that some shopping centres have for the kids which are just wheeled vehicles?

THAT'S where we should have begun. A limited controlled environment, low-speeds, little impact, useful, even a pay-for service (do you want to walk to your gate, or get on a little cart that'll drive you there for $1?), and iron out all the myriad problems with driving in close proximity to pedestrians, etc. in a safe and controlled environment.

The fact that those things AREN'T mature technologies tells me that self-driving car people have NO INTEREST in our safety. None whatsoever. If they did, they would have started small and built up.

Hell, even a self-driving bus makes far more sense, even if it goes slower. They often already have their own dedicated lanes!

What they did is exactly what you describe in your last sentence. Think about the quickest way to profitability and screw the testing, research, consequences, even the laws in some cases.

Not strange if you've ever played a fighting game against someone not into computer games. They learn quickly that by just mashing buttons randomly they can often get a win without actually learning anything about the game. Same principle.