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Comment Re:$1,999 for a phone? (Score 2) 68

There is a point of diminishing returns for smartphones, but it's still quite a bit north of one-hundred-twenty bucks.

The value of a phone depends on the potential buyer's goals and expectations. If having a large screen in indispensable, then $2k for that phone may be worth it. If that larger screen adds no personal value, then it's way overpriced. However, there is no inherent value or corresponding worthwhile price that is universal to all people.

Comment Re:Does it matter if the FCC has the power to end? (Score 2) 152

In a way, the US Constitution and the Bible are similar in that they are viewed by many to be sacrosanct writings where each individual word holds outsized meaning. Yet, we don't have the original authors to clarify their intent, so we are left to rely on so-called experts for interpretation. In today's world, those interpretations far transcend the original text, despite non-believable claims of strict construction.

The right-wing six on the Supreme Court are right, and everyone else is wrong ... by definition.

Then again, Trump has discovered the fatal flaw of the Constitution, which is that Executive is the only executor of the law. Congress can make laws, and the Supreme Court can issue commands, but they are powerless to do anything because the Executive can ignore anything and do whatever it wants. Yes, there is a theoretical thing called impeachment, but that only works when the majority party retains some semblance of morality.

Comment Re:Now it has to play Risk (Score 1) 40

Agreed. An AI developed specifically to play a particular obscure game (even if a very complicated one) seems both highly limited and dubiously useful.

There are many esoteric "games" that are highly useful for specific arenas. Stratego itself may not be that practical, but the ability to train an AI to master an arbitrary game is extremely useful.

Comment Re:So we all know they are lying (Score 4, Insightful) 286

We know it was just basic incompetence and a complete disregard for human life.

The first bit of this sentence is absolutely wrong. [Lots of interesting stuff.]

Basically all the interesting stuff that you wrote supports that idea that Hegseth was incompetent and had a complete disregard for human life.

Comment Re:Performance or nostalgia? (Score 5, Interesting) 142

Just because the film attracts a big audience doesn't mean it's any good. If anything, it's either viewers' nostalgia and big hopes or the success of the marketing department.

What I'd like to know is how many people though it was good after the screening. There should be a mandatory exit survey after every film you watch, or those yay/neutral/nay buttons you find in toilets asking you to rate your service today.

To me, from the trailer alone, it looks like they turned an epic cartoon into a boring legal case with lots of PC and guilt-trippiny Coyote, sprinkled with the most prominent lines served at random.

Rotten Tomatoes has it at 96% reviews and 95% audience, which are really high scores. Is it Oscar material? Obviously not. It is nostalgic? Absolutely. But we shouldn't discount nostalgia. For food, nostalgia is often most of the enjoyment for "authentic" or "comfort" food and far exceeds any technical merits of the food. Enjoyment from nostalgia has a far stronger effect than technical merits. Same thing for movies.

Comment Re:My daily dose of confirmation Bias (Score 2) 104

I keep seeing arguments that the "AI Will Kill Us All" argument is a bunch of doomsaying by people who overestimate the potential intelligence of these systems. My own intuition leads me to argue that AI does not have to become self aware or autonomous. It just has to be sufficiently adaptable to make us both dependent and stupid. Today my confirmation bias feels vindicated.

Valid point. But the more important question is whether AI made those people stupid, awaked latent inherent pathways to stupidity, or if the people are just inherently stupid and would have made similarly stupid decisions in the absence of AI. Remember that the US bombed a school in Iran completely without the use of AI.

Comment Re:deploy broadband? (Score 2) 75

AFIK, ATT has NO plans to provide fiber to the entire state.

Of course not, because providing fiber to small towns and isolated homes is not profitable and arguably not efficient. However, they are aggressively rolling out fiber to homes now in many areas, including Silicon Valley. The homes less than 0.5 miles from us had fiber many years ago. This past summer, AT&T not only installed fiber but send hordes of salespeople knocking on all homes in our neighborhood. I'm glad that we now have an alternative to Comcast to provide some price competition. I just switched to AT&T fiber at $50/month for 1 Gbps plus a $200 gift card.

Comment Is Amodei just talking or doing? (Score 1) 128

Sure, Amodei is calling for slower AI development. He's also plunging head-first into a potential $2 trillion IPO. A slowdown of any magnitude compared to many competitors that are going full-steam ahead might impact the IPO. Guess which motivation is going to win out? Sure, Amodei is saying all the right PR stuff right now, but is Anthropic AI development actually slowing down? Amodei could have announced that Anthropic is unilaterally slowing down AI development, but he didn't and won't. He's just trying to attract the PR while cashing in on the IPO.

Comment The abuses will kill the gamer-changers (Score 1) 183

These AI glasses do have practical uses, and in some cases, life-changing uses, like for blind people. The estimates of the number of blind people using AI glasses are in the tens of thousands. Unfortunately, the abuses, including perverted uses, are too numerous. The privacy invasions are arguably not even the biggest problem. The bigger problem is that the good uses will be killed by the abuses.

Comment Re:I'm still wondering (Score 4, Insightful) 224

You'll notice we "liberated" Venezuela's oil reserves for absolutely no goddamned reason, shortly before we started a war with Iran for absolutely no goddamned reason.

Unfortunately, the reason for Trump doing what he did was simply that he could. He had the power to do something that no one else in the world could do, so he did it to show that he could do something that no one else could do. The great irony is that Trump is consumed with his appearance and yet his actions make him look bad. The only reason he doesn't recognize the obviousness of the badness is that he has surrounded himself with yes-men and carpetbaggers that inflate his already enormous lack of awareness.

Comment Re: Summer vs Winter (Score 1) 201

rarely do temperatures in the Bay Area exceed 80 in coastal areas or 90 inland

The Bay Area is famous for extreme microclimates. While San Francisco may be on the chilly side, Livermore in the East Bay is the opposite. In the past month of August, it experienced 15 days of 90+ weather, plus another 5 days of 88-89 weather. That's not that unusual for the East Bay.

Comment Re:Actively stalking is a different behavior ... (Score 3, Insightful) 254

Was it a false report? Did the contractor not feel threatened or harassed?

by a man who has all sorts of clear attention calling signs on him including the logo of his news outlet, so is clearly not hiding, and is just following and filming with a camera, from a distance?

"Three times during the call he raised the possibility the people filming might be armed, though, when asked, he told the dispatcher he had not seen any weapons..."

Isn't this the equivalent of swatting? Swatting is illegal in Georgia.

Comment How about Apple processing and AI? (Score 1) 34

The digital signature is based on the end product of Apple's camera pipeline, which includes a huge amount of pixel processing to deliver the vaunted Apple photo. And in the AI age, Apple might introduce additional processing, possibly at the semantic level beyond just pixels. All of that would be digitally signed by Apple. Apple's idea would only reveal if non-Apple devices alter reality, not if Apple makes the changes. Also, would there be any way to distinguish between photo touch-ups like slight lighting improvements versus semantic AI changes, or are all such edits lumped under the same umbrella?

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