So it's interesting that the summary mentions Geoffrey Hinton, with his 10% or 20% estimate of AI ending the world. In the consensus of the ML community 10 years ago, neural nets had less than a 10% probability of becoming as artificially intelligent as they are right now. Making a useful estimation of risk is impossible when probability is near 0 and consequence is near infinity.

Yeah, but that will happen with your Kodak scooter and Bell and Howell Fire extinguisher too, which are the same exact products

Sometimes I just want to look for stuff made by brands I want because I'm doing something somewhat professional and need the name brand to not be SHJWEHAS or I'll get made fun of relentlessly. Its the cost of being accepted and getting work sometimes. You over pay for the hammer to communicate something to the other people you're swinging it with. I don't like it, but I can't change it.

Ugh, I agree with you in general, but forks that go in mouths.... of ... kids... You don't care what those things are made of ? At all? Thats where you lose me. But I'll buy a flash light or screw driver from WE*(H(*@#!HUW#QEUGHGFSWUIHSGE for $5 delivered same day.

I mean thats the honest truth. They would just take the money. There really aren't industries that competitive where they would gain a whole lot of market share if they could charge lower interchange fees. It would make a difference on the margin for small struggling businesses. Its one of those things where they look at costs, and see the large number next to processing fees and try to figure out ways of not paying it. They're doing the same with electricity, wages, costs of products they sell, taxes, etc. Its just what companies do: Maximize revenue/profits, minimize costs.

Da fuq are you on about? What is the product I can buy or service I can get?

I mean is it news for nerds? Not really.

Is it par for the course for slashdot? Yup.

Yell at the cloud, I won't stop you.

No, No no. Silly people who think they understand things. The money is charged to the merchant, yes thats true. However, you with a rewards card get charged the same price as Joe Schmoe who does not have a rewards card. You are paying less because you get the reward. Joe Schmoe is getting screwed. So get the rewards you can so you pay lower prices.

Here's the thing you have to balance.

Piracy => getting near unlimited stuff for free screwing those that created it.
Non piracy => paying for limited stuff that sometimes can be taken away from you if its drm locked.

It would seem the ethical choice would be

Hybrid piracy => paying for limited stuff, but also pirating it if drm locked.

You pay for the items to keep incentivizing things you like, and you get to keep your purchases.

Which is why OP used "cure cancer!" as a joke.

However, much progress has been made. I am alive right now because of a breakthrough cancer therapy that was FDA approved in 2011. (Well after Nixon!)

This fall I am going to get a therapy that mass-replicates your own immune cells in a lab for re-injection. It's so expensive (and has uncertain benefit) that it's not generally available in the UK or Canada yet. Automation will be a key to making it cost-effective.

It's such a complex area, I think information retrieval and computational science / simulation, or AI if you prefer, will help.

"Direct to Satellite" tech is coming right along and both the satellites on cell towers and the batteries to power them are going to be obsolete fairly soon.

Latency to LEO is not a dealbreaker for backup usage. 25-50 ms for Starlink.

Granted, your issue about bandwidth still stands and seems hard to fix. They form virtual cells on the ground with beamforming, but I don't know how many satellites are in view of a city at the same time to divy it up.

I had one breakthrough DMT experience where I saw 'the machine elves' (I just saw what I describe as fast-moving fractals that I 'felt' were beckoning to me); but, we have matching experiences w/the other primary psychedelics: I only had relatively minor on-top visual distortions with even the largest doses of LSD (1500+ mcg) or mushrooms.

That said, everyone is different. I know that some of my friends absolutely lost their fucking minds on a few tabs of LSD and, purportedly, experienced wild hallucinations that I have to trust were real to them but haven't ever experienced myself.

This guy gets it.

We're old here. The kids that used snap ten years ago are adults still using snap.

Yes, wierprints. We here at slashdot have the pulse on fashion in a way that most ordinary citizens do not. Your commentary is quite obvious to us, the arbiters of high fashion.

This is why Gay men will never break into High fashion, they simply do not understand fashion the same way that hetro men do.