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Comment Re:Yes, but let me simplify this. (Score 1) 243

Meanwhile I also own a Tesla, and am using a CarPlay adapter with it. Maps is better, particularly lane guidance and actually telling me which motorway junction number I'm coming off at. I can share an ETA with my contacts. I can listen to subscriber-only (paid) Podcasts. I can use WhatsApp (via voice of course), something sadly essential in the UK as the vast majority use that. I can listen to audiobooks from other than Audible. I can use the BBC Sounds app. I can...

You get the idea. I agree with you about integration - the time I will use the built-in map is if I'm on a longer journey that needs charging on the way, or if the journey is so short that none of the above really matters.

Personally I hope the rumours about CarPlay integration being worked on by Tesla are true, although I'd be surprised I must admit. But for me - works well.

Comment Re:Welcome to the 1980s panics (Score 2) 47

I'd guess, but stressing guess and agree would need to be studied, that your bias would be correct. I'm not necessarily a fan of the every single person's study plan is different school of thought, and think there's a lot to be gained from structure.

On the socialising I'm not quite so sure though - it's definitely changed the nature of it though. My 'kids' (now all adults, youngest about to enter final year of university) socialising all the time on-line. Voice chats with friends, Discord is how they organise meeting up etc.. They've also all three kept a healthy in-person socialisation side too, which is the part I was initially worried by when I saw this panning out over several years. I think that last bit is key - if you can balance both, then you get the benefits of going out with your friends with also the benefits of having a wider geographical friend base and the ability to stay in touch more easily.

Comment Re:Welcome to the 1980s panics (Score 1) 47

Perhaps read the actual comment? I am agreeing with the study - quoted directly: ""The findings suggest that screen time can support children's and adolescents' cognitive processing. Presumably, the essential point here is what kind of things they do in their screen time. Teachers and parents should encourage children to use devices and screens in such ways that promote active thinking, problem-solving, creativity and learning," states Doctoral Researcher Petri Jalanko from the University of Jyvaskyla.".

Comment Welcome to the 1980s panics (Score 2, Interesting) 47

Yes, it's nice to see a study backing it of course but this has been intuitively obvious for a while. The "screen time is killing our kids!" crowd is just the latest generational re-incarnation of the "computer games are killing our kids" from the 1980s, or "Dungeons and Dragons is killing our kids!" from the late 70s through the 80s, "TV is killing our kids!"...right back to Socrates moaning about writing. Just another moral panic.

Since we're in 80s mode, let's quote The Karate Kid: "concentrate on quality of what you know, not quantity". It's the nature of the screen time that's important, not necessarily the raw bulk. Are you interacting with people online, are you reading stuff? Are you watching some videos where you learn some things as well as just the latest cat videos or TikTok dance? In short, are you using the screen as a portal to the generalities of life instead of just watching brainrot all day every day?

I suspect knowing that will be key to whether the screen time is hurting or helping. And as ever, a balance is required. 100% screen and no in-person interactions is obviously harmful, provably so thanks to the pandemic providing us with data here. I'd also posit that 100% outside and in-person will be good, but not as rounded as a decent mix between the two since you gain access to different experiences online.

Comment Re:Beneficial use of the EM spectrum (Score 5, Interesting) 136

Dude!! Think about what happened in February - that has to be the most inconsequential and incomplete state of the union speech I can possibly imagine. Within days he attacks Iran and just destroys everything of substance a real state of the union would've covered. All the low fuel prices, great economy, poof. Gone. I'm not very old, but I can't remember a bigger waste of time SotU speech than this one in 2026.
Anyways back on topic I agree w/ sibling AC, nothing Trump/MAGA idiots can say has merit as long as right wing AM talk radio is the most biased ridiculous thing to possibly exist soaking up the "public" air waves. And further, the main stream media IS NOT something of or from the left at all. It's maybe centrist and maybe right wing/corporate. But it's not left.
I realized I wasn't a Republican when I'd listen to right wing talk radio and just get fuming mad at the utter stupidity I'd hear during the Bush and early Obama years. I moved on and listened to NPR. They're dumb too and say stupid things, but I would get less angry at the radio. And there were less advertisements. I'm still not a Democrat yet, but man, Trump is sure pushing me closer. Where's the fiscal conservatives at? Where's the I-hate-Hunter-Biden anti corruption Republicans at? It's dire.

Comment Re:Yes drag the financial system into the AI madne (Score 1) 45

When, or perhaps if, AI "falters" do you think Republicans will have an ounce of self reflection after all the screaming they've just "performed" about Socialism and Communism? Trump has already taken public ownership of companies and would surely use it as an excuse to take more when he bails them out. I'm sure he'll frame it as the only rational thing to do and a good deal. We should all hope and pray it crumbles in 2028 before the election so it'll feel like 2008 again.

Submission + - Times Magazine now serves ads that only AI chatbots can see (theregister.com)

mccalli writes: Times Magazine has started serving adverts with 'brand messages' to AI crawlers, which are not part of its main page. The aim seems to be to influence the chatbots to talk about the brand offerings in a positive light that can't be traced back to the actual page. Notably they've excluded Google chatbots from this, likely because Google penalise companies that show different search offerings to their bots vs actual human visitors.

More here as well as on the The Register.

Comment 'Robust Safeguards' (Score 5, Informative) 28

Just for context, when its predecessor RIPA, Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, came in it was said to be used only for cases such as terrorism etc.. Instead, it was found that councils started using to check people were putting things in the right rubbish bins for collection.

Robust safeguards indeed.

Comment Steam Input (Score 1) 36

I've honestly no idea if it's possible, but if they could find a way to get Steam Input into there or the equivalent of their own then I could use it. I have an original Steam Controller, you used to be able to use it on non-Steam games but for a few releases now Steam took that ability away. Some way of emulating or creating an alternative to Steam Input would be superb.

Comment Paints a picture of -what-? (Score 1) 76

"AI safety experts said the new disclosures paint a portrait of a group of cutting-edge labs whose ability to develop dangerous autonomous hacking agents outstrips their ability to keep them under control."

No, it paints a picture of incompetents who don't know how to air-gap. Cutting edge? Lab agents: "Please hack this thing". LLM: "I have hacked this thing". Lab agents: "OMG. Sentience!".

If it's drawing on training data that has humans talking about, lets take a recent example, model x on Hugging Face being a good way to break a boundary and its been told it break boundaries then of course it's going to go to Hugging Face and talk to model x. This isn't unpredictable.

Comment Re:Planet with atmosphere 0.000018 light years awa (Score 3, Informative) 58

Although, from my two second check just now, Venus is technically considered within the Goldilocks zone for this solar system it is right on the very inner edge of it. This finding differs from Venus in that respect, making it more interesting as a possibility.

All highly speculative of course, but to be fair that's exactly what the article says. Atmosphere detected, everything else speculative.

Comment Priorities (Score 4, Interesting) 98

Years back I was interviewing people for a coding position. We went through the standard tech stuff and then did a bit of project to see how they thought. We said (this is circa 2009'ish I think) - imagine you're on a team creating a new phone. You don't have time to test all the functions, so which would be your top two functions to ensure working?

All a bit Kobayashi Maru - obviously you can't release a phone testing only two functions, but we wanted to see what they'd prioritise. The very best answer we received was this one: "I would make sure it has the ability to call emergency services." Their thinking was that this was likely the most critical feature of a phone for both a user, and also for the manufacturer to avoid being sued. Absolutely great answer.

And yet here we are, with the post above. Taking the thinking of this interviewee - the ability to work with emergency services is important for general society, for the user of the vehicle (so they don't get in trouble) and for the manufacture of the vehicle (so they don't get fined/sued/both). Absolutely critical.

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