Did you think for a New York minute that I was saying we should not assess a person's mental state? There is a difference.

There are people he who think that you are deranged you know. Same with me. Sometimes it rises to the level of more attack than analysis. You might not like it, but your idea that we actually attack people and in large part because we politically disagree with them, is how we get the deranged (in my opinion) idea that young people are smart, and older people are senile. So what do you propose? Involuntary Euthanasia? A person hits 65, and it's over?

Yes, term limits are a sideways solution, but one that doesn't allow the Feinstiens and McConnell's and a few others to make it a career out of government. Yes, it can kick very competent people out, but your idea of basic competency tests is what? What determines competency to hold office? I want people better than basic. But since you think my methiod is bad, how bow outlining yours, from local to presidential. What tests, what to do with failures.

If you're talking about students, maybe. If you're talking about tech bros (I wasn't), probably not possible,

My point in all of this is technology changes, and always has. The present day speed is accelerated, but ya gotta run with it.

AI is here to stay, although not likely in it's present form, which is unsustainable. But you really don't need gargantuan Data Centers to write code, or do a lot of other AI stuff, as well, the needed size is going to shrink - a lot. I look at present AI in fahion not unlike Early computers like Goliath or ENIAC.

And you should learn to spell. And why are you obsessed with my sex life? That's a little off. Not that is any of your business, but I average three times a week, although it varies depending on my wife's and my schedules. Sometimes more, sometimes less. And she usually initiates.

So fantasize on that for a while, weirdo.

I think it is a bit more nuanced. Some older people like Feinstein, McConnell, and You Know Who are definitely dotard, and some are batshit crazy, like RFK.

That being said, there is a good possibility that many people equate all older people as senile and incapable, and younger people as smart, and knowing how it is.

It's definitely more nuanced than that. I go along with most Democrat touchstones, other than a few problems they had following ivory tower far left wing academics, abandoning the working class, and a couple other awkward positions they took the last general election. But I don't want to get too far into the weeds here.

I believe in complete separation of church and state, single payer health coverage, a woman's right to choose abortion, Most of the touchstones, with a few exceptions.

I'm 72 years old, an age based enemy according to many. According to the people I work for, I'm at the top of my game. Which is part of why I was sought out post retirement because all the young and less expensive people washed out badly.

I always remember doing financial work with my 85 year old terminally ill father who died the next morning. He was old, sick and yet sharp as a tack.

My point in all of this is that there is a really important and complex problem of trying to figure out how people like Feinstein, McConnell, and Cheeto. can be removed from office without a simple reason of age. Because just as age doesn't by itself indicate dotage, youth does not indicate ability.

One way that doesn't attack anyone's mental state is term limits. Even then, you could lose some very competent people young and old. Not a simple problem to fix.

Feinstein is obviously demented, McConnell is now looking animatronic, maybe something stolen from Madame Tussaud's wax museum, and Cheeto is obviously suffering from cognitive issues, delusions of grandeur, probable heart failure, and neurological problems. And there is the common thread, mental incompetence, not based solely on how many years they have been on earth.

When I was in school, a local company donated some core memory units to us. A couple were kept for display, but we got to dissect some others. It was pretty darn fascinating.

But he lives rent free in their heads.

Yes, I know a few Dems that expressed concern about people like Bill Clinton, but everyone I know and I know a lot of people want all of the pedophiles identified and punished if possible (might be statute of limitations involved)

I'm not a Dem, but I can't come up with a good political reason to not punish people that screw underage people. I can come up with a lot of ethical and moral reasons that they should be pointed out and punished.

One thing I do know is that the Dems would never bring out Weekend at Bernie's Mitch McConnell.

So some say. Unless he declares martial law and the military enforces it (and don't be too sure they will), his power is going to be rather constrained. At that point, it might be a race between him emulating Mitch McConnell and impeachment. His health both mental and physical, is deteriorating, and at an accelerating pace.

I ended up with a bad taste about tape backup after several failed restores from the institute's IT department I need up setting up my own servers with redundant backup. Maybe they had a bad implementation on their part. I dunno, but I didn't trust it.

This! Early on in the cloud era, I tried to point out that the claims of perfect security was utter bullshit. That you might have some pretend unbreakable encryption, but if your data is lost through bad actors or calamitous loss, you still don't have it, and that means no real security.

In discussions with a provider, I asked about this hardware security. Eventually he said I should have a local backup of everything as well. Which kinda defeats the entire concept of storing possibly critical data on someone else's computer.

The only purpose of the cloud is getting rid of employees, and most importantly, the CYA of having someone to blame when the inevitable happens.

I look at all that as giving the rugrats exposure, not as some career. If a kid is interested, they can continue down that path. But no one should think that AI in 6 or 7 years is going to be anything like the unsustainable LLM paradigm proposed today.

Good point on the math on paper, I still see it.

Different technology altogether. So not really relevant. And you should see how plumbing tech has changed, if you are trying to defend the good ol days.

When I saw the reference to the ill fated learn to code "movement", I had to chuckle a little. Technology moves on. The coders trained under that system are easily replaceable by AI coding, they were nothing special other than a very few who went on to become experts - those few would probably have anyhow.

But what it also brought to mind was a historical aspect. Having been around a while, I saw the resistance to solid state technology in full force as I was going through school. Yet we're talking about the late 60's early 70's. Considering that the first all transistor computer was put together in 1952, well before I was born, that's some serious time lag. There were tube radios being made well into the 70's. You can still listen to some Amateur radio operators yakking, claiming that their tube radios are better than my state of the art SDR radio.

I actually did some RTL design before TTL took over, I programmed on punchcards for IBM360's, did wire wrapping for digital boards. All skills, all pretty useless now. The main difference between then and now is the rate and speed of change. a related example is the 80's Personal computer that was obsolete a week after you bought it.

There are other areas of technology that have had similar histories. But my point in all of this is that if a person is interested in a technological career, they really need to be an agile, lifelong learner. And that is what needs to be taught in school, not "Learn to code, and you'll have a lifelong career!" Same with whatever AI merde is being taught.

Today's version of AI is not going to be

Does it matter of it's true or not? Other countries will take it as licence to deploy their own weapons, or to paint the US as the bad guy.

It's possible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Flickering might work just as well, or better. Less energy and heat needed, and might screw up exposure or auto levelling. I have not tried it.

The problem is that if you walk around in public with a high brightness IR LED on your head, sooner or later some minimum wage security goon is going to notice their camera is blinded and get upset.