Games haven't run off disc for a while, they install to the drive. Even HDD loading speeds are intolerable in a lot of games, forget about optical.

Discs have only been a distribution mechanism now for 2+ generations. You don't run the game off the disc it just installs it to the HD. (Then layers in a 12 GB patch anyways). Two sets of people benefit: those that want to resell the title and those that don't want the gigantic download. The no download crew is pretty much lost as you generally need "day 0" patch to make the game anything but a buggy mess, so this is 100% about resale.

So you're saying that expectations get lower with more digits in /. id? :)

I can think of a few uses, such as being able to read a document or something on the go. My phone is too small, and I don't want to bring a laptop or tablet with me. But I think a six inch screen is too small still, so yeah, not sure what people are using this version for.

It doesn't matter what they say. Whenever the Apple version launches, that will be when a company like Apple was brave enough to launch such an innovative device that no one else ever thought to do. Truly they are the inventive minds of our time, and we should be so lucky to get an iFold of our own, on sale now for $3500.

Oh, c'mon, really? The whole point of the summary is that you read it and understand the gist, and not have to research it. Tech writing 101, first time use of an acronym you spell it out.

All y'all, raise the bar.

In the summary I count 11 instance of the acronym 'ESR', yet nowhere is it defined. Please do better.

If I got one for free, I'd probably plug it in and mess with it a bit, establish that it doesn't really add anything useful, and shove it in a drawer.

If it was $25, I could see a few niche users buying it.

But $230 is insanity.

The historically-bad results of the final at least suggest that doing out-of-class work themselves actually helps students.

... sadly for the Americans, the rest of the world now knows they can't count on a US based provider for this kind of thing any more.

It was uncomfortable enough relying so heavily on American software back when it couldn't be switched off remotely on the say so of an idiot. Today it's an intolerable risk.

...a lot of people online were saying there was an upcoming event called The Halvening that would change everything.

I guess this is it?

Seems to me 'dead' for a taxi isn't 'dead' for a static power bank. If I'm running a taxi I've got hard limits on how large my battery can be and how heavy, and I want to maximise the mileage I get between charges, because while my taxi is charging it's not out on the road earning money. When that battery is keeping only maybe 80% of its original design charge, and now I have to schedule one recharge too many per working day? Bang goes my business plan, so I'm replacing it.

If I'm storing energy for the grid I'm a lot less worried about that. It only stores 80% of what it did when new? Better than nothing, and the taxi firm is selling them off cheap. I'll stack them up!

Perhaps not, but if you pick your moment right then permanently stopping the work of some of the most talented researchers there could very well make a difference. A spectacular incident that makes the headlines might also deter others - bright graduates might decide it's far safer to take up a different line of work, subcontractors and suppliers might decide doing business with AI firms isn't worth the danger, investors might figure the increased risk of loss of premises and equipment into their projections, that kind of thing.

If people genuinely believed AI takeover was a real, present and imminent threat, then they wouldn't just be publishing essays online, they'd be forming direct action groups, along the full spectrum of campaigning: all the way from awareness raising publicity campaigns, through picketing, blockades and sit-ins, up through Black Bloc type actions, right up to menacing intimidation campaigns and terrifying physical force operations. But I don't see any Butlerian Jihad getting started. Which tells me they don't actually believe this at all; they're just bigging up their own importance. 'Oh yes, our technology is so incredibly powerful, if it were done wrong then imagine what could happen! Keep the money coming to make sure it's done right instead! Then all that power can be ours instead!... I mean, uh, yours, Mr Investor sir.'

AI stock valuations don't make a bit of sense unless the technology turns out to be every bit as powerful as that. If they don't keep that thought alive, then the bubble bursts right now. That's what all this hot air is about, and that's why nobody really pulls a Miles Dyson at the AI research lab.

The interesting thing about the Terminator movies is that when AI researcher Miles Dyson became convinced that his work had a high probability of resulting in an artificial general intelligence attempting to replace humanity, he did not go and post a ten thousand word essay on LessWrong about how he had updated his timeline and p(doom) estimates and discussing the full Bayesian analysis of the situation. He went to the lab that very night with some heavily armed companions and he blew the place up.

I keep hearing that one AI researcher or another claims that they believe as Dyson came to believe. Until one of them takes similar action, I simply do not believe that they actually think their research carries such a risk.

You have access to the lab where the work is being done? You regularly meet in person with leading researchers and talents driving the project forward? You are an American and you have the Second Amendment? And the entire future light cone is at stake? Quintillions of hypothetical future lives riding on the outcome of this project here and now?

What's the most effective, altruistic thing you could do for them?

Yeah, exactly. I've never heard of anyone shooting up their AI lab. Which tells me they don't believe their AI is at all likely to wipe us all out.

... and then to secure Ukraine into the European economic and defence structure as firmly as possible. At this point they're far ahead of NATO on how to use drones and robots in war, and they're clearly getting very, very good at building them too. European military and aerospace people both will have a lot to gain from cooperation with Ukraine after the war is over.

As cadets were so memorably told a generation ago: remember always, your duty is clear - to build and maintain those robots!