IF this is true, it's a perfect, real-world, textbook example of rent-seeking. The classic example is putting a chain across a river used for commerce; this is exactly the same, updated for modern technology. Excellent! Economics students take note!

The surveillance is one problem. Another problem is that this was implemented without any opportunity for open discussion, public comment, or a vote. That isn't democracy. And "locals and city officials 'have raised concerns about who can access the data collected locally, along with data security, privacy invasions and use by federal authorities'", which is a third problem.

Thanks for the examples. While not specific to license-plate readers, I could also mention FBI surveillance and harrassment of Martin Luther King, Jr and COINTELPRO. Would the world now be better if the FBI had had more-effective surveillance? (Given the recent evisceration of the Civil Rights Act, apparently some people think so.)

Returning to the previous post, there are a couple of things I found interesting about it:

Clearance rates for murder were much higher in the 1960s, with no video cameras, than they are now. See graph labeled "Homicide Clearance Rate". There are several reasons for this. Maybe the police are now more careful to respect civil rights.

What a peculiar statement. Seems to imply, "If I haven't heard of it, it never happened."

If this is sincere, this person believes the police are willing to torture people but can't imagine they would ever abuse ubiquitous surveillance. Their facts seem uncorrelated.

Very interesting and informative, but you left out a couple of things, like bisphenol plastics are hormone (endocrine) disruptors. Mayo Clinic: "Some research has shown that BPA can seep into food or beverages from containers that are made with BPA. Exposure to BPA is a concern because of the possible health effects on the brain and prostate gland of fetuses, infants and children. It can also affect children's behavior. Additional research suggests a possible link between BPA and increased blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

"However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said that BPA is safe at the very low levels that occur in some foods. This assessment is based on the review of hundreds of studies. The FDA continues to monitor the research."

It's also hard to avoid: "Epoxy resins are used to coat the inside of metal products, such as food cans, bottle tops and water supply lines." And soda cans.

Because some people were concerned about BPA, some manufacturers started providing "BPA-free" alternatives and advertising same. This was often done by replacing BPA with BPF or BPS, which have not YET been shown to be toxic. That's how regulation works in the US: manufacturers can create new compounds or metal alloys and use them, including in food packaging, until and unless they're shown to be dangerous and someone files a complaint.

Math checks out. Your logic is unassailable.

"Law of Demeter"? We don't use de meter in America! We use feet and yards, as God intended!

It seems there would be advantages in individual countries using their own national clouds. Countries within the EU still compete against each other.

Are you talking about this?: "Jensen Huang promised “several new chips the world has never seen before” at GTC 2026, which opens today in San Jose (March 16-19). The most anticipated: the N1X, an Arm-based system-on-chip developed with MediaTek that integrates CPU, GPU, and NPU into a single package. Leaked Lenovo support pages and Dell shipping manifests confirm at least eight laptop models in development, spanning IdeaPads, Yoga Pro 7, Legion gaming systems, Dell XPS, and Alienware."

Not announced at GTC. Maybe at Computex in June? Or maybe nVidia is just busy with Vera CPU, Purpose-Built for Agentic AI: "The NVIDIA Vera CPU delivers results with twice the efficiency and 50% faster than traditional CPUs." And the Feynman ecosystem.

Sounds like the Car Talk investment plan. They guarantee a 50% return. If you give them your money, they'll return 50% of it.

This is one of the ways some news stories fail: saying "above average" without saying by how much, which matters. Like actual news stories saying that a state is 39th in education. By how much? What's the distance between first and 39th? Is it enough to matter?

Has Dawkins ever claimed to be an expert in AI or LLMs? As far as I can tell from the Guardian article, he chatted with Claude (or "Claudia") over a period of three days and then wrote an essay (somewhere) which included his subjective impression that his friend Claudia was conscious. (By some definition.)

For some reason, presumably because he's famous, people seem to care about what he said. Seems to me that's a problem with them, not him.

Watson and Dawkins have publicly disagreed previously on an entirely different topic.

I was curious about that, but I couldn't find any definite statement.

NASA announcement, with selected excerpts:
"During the test, the team achieved power levels of up to 120 kilowatts."
"the gentle but steady force Psyche’s thrusters provide over time accelerates the spacecraft to 124,000 mph." Seems like passing an asteroid at 124,000 mph is going to limit their observation time.
"Fully developed and paired with a nuclear power source, they could reduce launch mass and support payloads"

Benchmarking AI performance in medicine is an active area of research: what to measure, how to measure it, and how to decide which AI model is best for a particular application. This is made more challenging when new models are relased frequently.

I assume you're referring to this incident of negative patient outcome.

Aye, there's the rub, innit? Competent surgeons also don't remove the wrong organ in the first place. To be more than fair, minimally-invasive surgery does require special skills, and it can be hard to find one's way around without seeing a full surgical field. Still, surgeons should at least know left from right.

Organs are occasionally found in surprising places. (Like Einstein's brain?) Rarely. But you can usually find them with CT or ultrasound. If the organ isn't where you expected, that seems like adequate reason to stop the procedure until you figure out what's going on. Letting this person get anywhere near patients was a very very serious failure of the system. Luckily such extremes are rare.

Not good for New York. New York City has buildings, big buildings. Not a good environment for parachutes.