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Comment Re:Is this for real? (Score 1) 34

Choose your adventure books are AWESOME. I had a time travel one that I probably worked my way through a hundred times, always coming up with different scenarios. It was like training wheels for the imagination, with just enough guidance to keep you from spiraling out of control, but still let you stretch.

There was one called Inside UFO 54-40 that had an ending you couldn't navigate to. You had to "cheat" to find it, by just reading a section of the book that you had no way to reach. I thought that was pretty clever.

Similarly, Infocom had a text adventure game called The Lurking Horror that needed you to enter a computer password at some point to continue with the game. The password was only provided in the physical materials included with the purchased copy of the game. But if you knew how to hack into the game binaries, the password was actually there -- multiple times -- in plaintext. That had to be intentional.

Comment Re:Seriously ...? (Score 1) 255

The same business as any other police officer has in arresting (and shooting, if they feel threatened) people who interfere with their duties.

Except ICE isn't ordinary police. They're described as law enforcement officers, but their jurisdiction encompasses only a very small range of laws, related to immigration and customs (hence the name). Plugging multiple rounds into U.S. citizens who piss them off for some reason is not within their mandate.

Comment Been there, done that (Score 1) 160

Here in British Columbia we just changed our clocks for the last time and will remain on UTC-7 indefinitely. Parts of B.C. (the northeast part) have been UTC-7 all year for a long time. The southeast part has been Mountain time (UTC-7/UTC-6) for a long time. Neither are changing how they do time.

I applaud losing the time change but I'm not crazy about permanent DST. People obviously haven't thought this through, what it's going to feel like come November.

...laura

Comment Just do it! (Score 3, Interesting) 182

Near-lifelong B.C. resident here...

People have grumbled about time changes as long as I can remember. Pick one. Stick to it. Just do it.

I can't say I agree with their choice. Not so much the crazy late sunset in the summer - we're used to that - but the very late sunrise in the winter. The sun will still set by 5 in December and January. So what?

...laura

Comment My big beef (Score 1) 124

"Please" and "thank you" are relics of a bygone age to most people.

The one that pisses me off is the habit of customer service people addressing men respectfully ("sir"), but not addressing women with respect ("ma'am" or equivalent). This isn't an issue in places like Texas, but it's very much an issue here in Canada.

...laura

Comment Re:This is a fundamental problem with education (Score 5, Insightful) 15

I worked in K-12 education for a long time. And one of the things that genuinely shocked me is how much curriculum is in fact just sponsored by giant corporations.

The especially concerning/scary thing this time is that what the giant corporations want is to make computing seem like "magic." Make a wish into the wishing well that is AI, and what you will receive will be what you wished for ... provided, of course, you keep paying the corporation for the privilege of having your wishes granted.

Never mind having the actual skill, talent, understanding, etc. to make your wishes come true yourself. Just pay, wish, and it will be yours ... and never mind anyone who tells you it used to be possible to get what you want to achieve without paying a giant corporation. Just keep wishing, lean how to wish big, and your wishes will come true.

This seems like the antithesis of how anyone who considers themselves an educator should think.

And the really sad part is they're not just saying this to CS students. They're saying it to writers and journalists, artists, musicians ... basically anyone whose job doesn't involve a hammer, a shovel, or a stove.

Comment Re:Enterprise software is bought with blowjobs any (Score 2) 54

Happens all the time. A friend spent a full year flying back and forth from Southern California, staying in hotels, to meet with a cross-company team to figure out how to use the new software they'd licensed from a Perot company. After the full year (or more), they decided the software just wasn't going to work out, so they scrapped the project and the whole effort was for nothing.

Comment Re:A difference of kind or of degree (Score 1) 54

The interesting model, though, is driving. Most of us think that this has been a complete failure. Musk set out to do it and failed, like many of his other enterprises. What we missed is that in fact there is a company that has delivered "full self driving" [youtube.com] by limiting the problem so it doesn't need intelligence.

There are at least two fully autonomous robotaxi companies operating in San Francisco. Waymo, in particular, has been wildly successful and is winning business away from the likes of Lyft and Uber. It will even give you a ride to the airport now.

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