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Comment Re:Cisco vs. TP-Link (Score 1) 180

One of the lessons we've had as the Federal, multi-branch nature of the US governmennt has frustrated Trump is that the government may be fucking us over, but it's not doing it in *unison*. It's doing it piecemiel, on the initiative of many interests working against each other, just as the framers intended. The motto on the Great Seal notwithstanding, there are myriad roadblocks to consolidating power in the hands of a single individual. It takes time and repeated failures. This is why the second Trump Adminsitration is worse than the first; they've figured out ways around things like Congressional power of the purse, put more of their henchmen in the judiciary, and normalized Congress lying down and letting the president walk all over them. It's a serious situation, although fortunately Trump isn't long for this world.

Comment Why we don't polygraph people anymore (Score 2) 116

I can think of a few things leading to Voight-Kampff-style polygraph tests being phased out in this timeline

1. Several U.S. states have banned reliance on polygraph test results by employers. "Polygraph" on Wikipedia lists Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Delaware and Iowa. In addition, the federal Employee Polygraph Protection Act 1998 generally bans polygraphing by employers outside the rent-a-cop industry.
2. Autism advocacy organizations raised a stink about false positive results on autistic or otherwise neurodivergent human beings.
3. The LLM training set probably picked up answers from someone's cheat sheet, such as "The turtle was dragging its hind leg, and I was waiting for it to stop squirming so I could see if it needed to go to the vet."

Comment Re:Are they not old enough to remember...? (Score 1) 65

While that's true, a responsible generation aims to boost the next generation to a *higher* level than the education they received. The world has become more complex and faster-paced, and even if that weren't true, the consequenes of aiming high and falling short are better than the consequences of aiming for the status quo and falling short.

So while I'm 100% onboard with skepticism that technology will magically make education better, I think the argument that "the education I got worked for me should be good for them" isn't a strong argument. What we need is a better ecducation that would have been a better education fifty years ago: stronger math, science, and language skills, general knowledge, and, I think critical thinking and media literacy. Possibly emotional intelligence -- it's kind of pointless to teach people critcial thinking skills if they are carried away by emotions.

Comment Free apps are more likely to use protocols (Score 1) 68

you have your itinerary saved in a note taking app that isn't on the appstore

If an app meets F-Droid's licensing policy then it is more likely to follow the principle that protocols are better than platforms. This means there are probably other apps, probably including apps on Google Play Store, that can reach the document repository where you saved your itinerary.

Comment Apple was beaten to Tivoization by decades (Score 1) 68

insane market (started by Apple) of personal devices that you buy that you literally don't have admin access on

That was 1985 with the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Atari 7800 ProSystem, the first popular home computing devices to use cryptography to lock out unauthorized software. Between that and the iPhone was the TiVo DVR, the first popular home computing device to use cryptography to lock out unauthorized derivatives of copylefted software.

Comment Re: "helping" yeah so good of them to "help" (Score 4, Insightful) 151

There are no economic or security reasons to blockade Cuba, so that leaves *political*.

It used to be believed that bullies were low status individuals who are lashing out out of frustration. But research has shown that bullying is an effective strategy for achieving and maintaining social status. In other words it's a political winner. So the focus of research has shifted from the bully to the people around him who enable the bullying. The inner circle are the henchmen -- people without the charisma and daring to initiate the bullying, but join in when the bully gets things started. Around them are the audience, the people who wouldn't risk participating but enjoy the bullying vicariously. And around them are the much larger group of bystanders, who don't approve but are waiting for someone else to stop the bullying. Then off to the side are the defenders, who stand up to the bully.

Perhaps the least appreciated supporting factor in the phenomenon of the high-status bully is the silence of the bystanders, which is dependent upon the perception of widespread approval. Since you can't visibly see the the line between the approving audience and the apalled bystanders, the silence of the bytstanders is absolutely essential in sustaining the bullying.

Lot's of Americans are apalled at the idea of using military force to inflict suffering on the Cuban people. But that's only politically advantageous *because* of *them*. Tney are indistinguishable from the relatively small number of people who are thrilled when Trump announced he can do anything he wants wtih Cuba. The gap between actual approval and *perceived* approval is absolutely critical in establishign and maintaining any kind of authoritarianism. This is why would be authoritarian leaders are so focused on punishing and marginalizing any kind of expression of disapproval.

Comment Re:I hope (Score 3, Insightful) 144

In 1790, the US population was 94.9% rural. There is no country. in the world today that rural -- Burundi, which looks like blanks spot in the world at night satellite picturs, is 88% rural.

The largest city at the time was New York, with a population of 33,000. Northern Manhattan was near-wilderness, mid-town was farms and country houses.

In 1790 the US was. country you could "police" with sheriffs and volunteer posses, largely to keep the peace. If you got robbed, you hired a private thief catcher. This works in a 95% rural country with just 3.4 million inhabitants. It would be chaos in a country 87x larger.

Comment Apple used x86 in 2005-2020 (Score 1) 329

In 2005, Mac computers used Intel Core Duo x86 processors. From 2006 through 2020, Mac computers used Intel x86-64 processors. starting with Core 2 Duo. macOS on x86-64 could still run x86 applications until macOS 10.15 "Catalina Wine Killer", released in June 2019.

What CPU architecture were you using on the desktop from 2008 through 2020, if not x86 or x86-64?

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