bitcoins are highly trackable; most activities that can convert large sums of crypto to spendable cash are typically trackable. At least by nation state actors.

The norm right now and they way they get away is people say - "Oh Salt Typhoon, nothing more we can do than have the ambassador send a pointed but respectful letter" is in China.

If instead we just had some human intelligent asset, kill some of those operators, things might actually change. They could also escalate of course, but then that is really just acknowledging we are in a real conflict rather than letting our enemies bleed us and gather all the intel they'd like.

For private enterprise I'll agree you might we right that private enterprise paying ransoms emboldens criminals, and encorages more of the same. I don't agree people should be told they can't pay. It is not *MY* responsibility to fall on my sword suffer the destruction of my enterprise because law enforcement / national defense can't or won't do what is needed to protect me. Kinda like I have a dead bolt on my door, someone could still kick it in. I rely on the local sheriff to create an environment where few criminals would be so bold.

Everyone needs to pick up a Koran and read those sword verses at the very least.

Islam isn't just a religion it is also a political system and it hell bent on conquest. We are at war with Islam, it is wholly incompatible with western culture. Islam does not make any room for pluralism, unless subjugation of people 'of the book' counts and you are alright with death for everyone else.

That is what the text says, there ain't any getting around it. Anyone who especially if they claim to be islamic either actually isn't, or is lying to you (something the Koran also tells them to do).

Anyone professing to be a follower of Islam fundamentally can't be trusted, full stop! We need a Muslim ban, or the very instant they think they have the numbers, our culture, our freedoms, our very lives, will be lost!

None of it matters unless the threat actors believe there is no degree of pain to severe they could inflict that would make governments chose to pay.

These are at least in some cases foreign state sponsored actors - there is no reason to think say that when attacking hospital / public health administration, that some number of people literally dying because care can't be manage is 'a problem' for them.

So all no ransom payment policies do unless they are truly absolute is make the threat actors so their are serious first. Just like resisting ransom payments in kidnapping results in a few severed fingers or an ear in the dead drop.

I don't think society has the stomach for an absolute under no circumstances, even if that billion dollar power plan will be permanently disabled as a resulting in local industry will be crippled for years, we won't pay policy. It just does not relfect real world needs. Better to pay the ransom and make a big show of then following the money and running down the people responsible, taking kenetic action against them. Like when you find the guy the CIA/MI6 or whatever takes care of them with a car-bomb, or you have the air-force stike their yacht in Caribbean. What will stop these guys is making it clear they will be treated as terrorist-combatants and doing this shit will have them looking over their shoulder for the rest of their lives, and force them into hiding, because if found they will be killed, no trials, no plea bargins, just BANG

His surname is one transposition away from "AI Mode".

Would he actually be more comfortable with our Elected non-tech elites making the big decisions?

I just don't see our legislative process, or administrative state terribly equipped to deal with shaping AI technology.

I think their job is to:
1) Ensure societies existing guard rails are uniformly and fairly applied to all, independent as to if AI has anything to do with the activity or not.
2) Respond reactively. If we identify a specific activity when coupled with AI is in some way corrosive to the society we generally want to have, then enact legislation to curb it in that area. While generally speaking anticipating problems and trying to avoid them is good practice, with something like this evolving this rapidly, I believe you usually create more issues if you go trying to solve problems you don't really know you yet have.

A good example is work force reduction, a lot of people are convinced there is going to be a huge wave of job losses that are directly attributed to AI, we don't really have any evidence of that yet. There are plenty of equally plausible explanations for unemployment rate increases right now. So if you go legislation a bunch of 'things' companies are not allowed to use ML/AI tech for and it turns out the UE uptick isn't ai related all you have done is limited productivity gains and created more economic drag.

It is important to keep in mind this is mostly just computers filling out paper work, taking down orders, and churning out questionable quality music and video clips. Hardly things we can't 'shut off' if need be. It isn't like nearly as destructive and irreversible as all kinds of development projects we often give the private sector a long leash to run with.

Yeah, because all even/all odd is (from basic statistics) rare, and happens to be rarer than the percentage of people who play all-even or all-odd, so you'd be more likely to split any winnings.

Modern models will take into account statistical biases in lotteries. For example, here's ChatGPT:

Pick good lottery numbers for the Virginia powerball lottery

Good question. First, a reality check: Powerball is pure chance — there’s no “good” numbers that are more likely to win. Every set of 5 white balls (1–69) + 1 Powerball (1–26) has exactly the same probability.
wwwuat.valottery.com
+1

That said, I can give you a few tips + a sample “random but balanced” pick, if you’d like to pick your own numbers rather than use Quick Pick.

Some tips when choosing your Powerball numbers

Spread your numbers
Try to pick a mix across the range (low, mid, high). According to lottery-strategy advice, not clustering all your numbers in one group is better.
samlotto.com

Avoid patterns
Many people pick birthdays, anniversaries, or sequential numbers. That’s fine—but if you win, you might have to share with more people because these are popular picks.
lotteryvalley.com

Use “due” or “hot” numbers carefully
Some sites (like lottery-analysis tools) track which numbers are “hot” (drawn recently) or “overdue” (haven’t appeared in a while). But remember: past draws don’t change future odds.
m.lottostrategies.com

Mix even and odd
According to some statistical analyses, it’s less likely to draw all odd or all even numbers.
samlotto.com

Play responsibly
Odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are extremely long: 1 in ~292 million.
lotterycritic.com

Sample “balanced” Powerball pick

Here’s a random-but-balanced combination you could use just for fun (or as a basis to tweak):

White balls: 8, 23, 41, 57, 65

Powerball: 12

If you like, I can generate 5 different “smart random” picks for the next Virginia Powerball draw (balanced by probability and number distribution). Do you want me to do that?

It's a damned shame '99942 Apothis' will miss us in a few years

It's not too late to fix that.

The thing is, it very much *won't* be random numbers. It's about as far from a random number generator as you can get.

In a really bad model, one would expect it to likely be "numbers it's seen the most in the context of a lottery". But in a good model, esp. a thinking model, one would expect it to think over which sorts of numbers are statistically over-chosen (birthdates, etc) and avoid them in giving its answers.

The funny thing is, think of how this woman will interact with ChatGPT from now on. ChatGPT could say "Abraham Lincoln was married to John Wilkes Booth", and she'd be thinking, "Okay, that sounds really, really wrong, but on the other hand, it picked the right lottery numbers, so..."

I'll go with NHTSA and NASA over the "Barr Group" ambulance chasers, thank you. Barr found that it's possible if you get like a cosmic ray to flip just the right bit you could stick the throttle on (but still not make it overpower the brakes). NHTSA and NASA investigated not just the software but the actual cases. In not a single actual case that they investigated did they find that it wasn't well explained by either stuck pedals or pedal misapplication (mainly the latter).

Oh hi, I remember chatting with you earlier :) Sorry to hear about your back. If you're ever planning on visiting Iceland, drop me a line, I can make recommendations. :)

There's some fascinating new work on "inverse-vaccines". In the same way that antigens can be flagged as "foreign", they can also be flagged as "non-foreign" by attaching N-acetylgalactosamine (pGal) to them. The liver recognizes that tag and uses it to suppress immune activation against that antigen.

That's not the goal of a vaccine against a dormant virus (destroying B-cells), it's about developing a more capable immune reaction against the virus itself. See for example the shingles vaccine (targets dormant VZV, aka shingles / chickenpox). With a strong immune recognition of the virus, as soon as it tries to reactivate, it's immediately targeted, preventing it from becoming problematic.

Dormant viruses use a combination of (A) techniques to suppress immune recognition of them, and (B) low / no reproduction until your body's immune recognition of them has weakened. Vaccines help deal with both issues.

(BTW, if you're getting up there in age and haven't gotten your shingles vaccine, do so. It's one of the "rougher" vaccines, IMHO (both on my initial and followup doses I had "flu symptoms" for a day, when I normally have no reaction at all to vaccines), but that's *way* better than getting shingles)

The funny thing is that as soon as I saw "[condition] may be linked to a common virus" I thought, "It's Epstein-Barr, isn't it?"

Seems it causes bloody everything under the sun :P

As soon as there's even a clinical trial I can sign up for to get vaccinated against it, I'm getting it. I had mono in my late teens, so I can be expected to have dormant Epstein-Barr in me. A horrible autoimmune condition that my mother has (which leads to among other things her skin regularly feeling like it's on fire) seems to be linked to Epstein-Barr reactivation.

Also, the only realistic way to create a true "unintended acceleration" without pedal misapplication is something getting stuck in the pedal or the pedal getting stuck down, which is not actually a subtle thing (again, these things have happened, but they're dwarfed by how often people hit the wrong pedal). Just sensor readings alone don't cut it. As a general rule, pedals have multiple sensors reading the pedal position (typically 2-3). They have to agree with each other, or the target acceleration is set to zero. A sensor failure doesn't cut it. Also, Hall-effect sensors are highly reliable.

Oh, and there's one more "failure mechanism" which should be mentioned, which is: creep. Some EVs are set to creep or have creep modes, to mimic how an ICE vehicle creeps forward when one lifts their foot off the brakes. If someone forgets they have this on, it can lead to "unintended acceleration" reports. There have been cases where for example the driver gets in an accident, but not intense enough to trigger the accident sensors, and the car keeps "trying to drive" after the accident (aka, creep is engaged). People really should not engage creep mode, IMHO - the fact that ICEs creep forward is a bug, not a feature.