The Turing test (which involves having a 1 to 1 conversation with an AI agent) has fuck all to do with astroturf posts, dummy.

Not by a long shot. Unsafe is scoped. 20% of Rust packages may use unsafe, but the amount of code in unsafe sections is far far far lower. Unsafe means "I accept the risk of doing unsafe things" but because it's scoped, just because a package uses Unsafe, it's still benefiting from the memory safety of bounds checking and borrow checking 99% of the time.

That's a far far cry from "it's just the same thing as doing it in C"

Meanwhile, the Alexa team is hoping to have a conversation with ChatGPT on how to successfully monetize Alexa.

The infection was already there. Anyone who'd invested in any mortgage derived securities was compromised because the underwriting and scoring process was fundamentally fraudulent. Securities are rated and, at least in theory, those ratings are supposed to reflect the degree of risk. But the scoring agencies essentially became captives of the folks minting the securities and just handed out great ratings like halloween candy.

The Fed and the money printing and all that -- concerning as it all was -- really had more to do with making sure the national banking industry and therefore the currency didn't fail. There was a moment there when it really felt like a financial 9/11... like everything could come crashing down all across the world as a result of something that happened in Manhattan.

It's just an anecdote, but I vividly remember the short-term credit markets freezing up and everyone collectively realizing that nearly every business in the country uses short term credit to manage cashflow so that they can decouple employee paychecks and infrastructure purchases from sales and client payments in terms of timing. Most people just didn't know that and, without credit to make the accounting process move fluidly, like half the country was looking down the barrel of "well, we'll pay you when we know we have money in the accounts."

It's easy to run the Fed down now, but we were one or two days away from a grim fable with an unhappy, bloody ending.

This all powerfully reminds me of the deals the big banks like Lehman Brothers and Bear Sterns struck back in 2006 and 2007. If you're too young to remember that particular shitshow, the mortgage industry was fundamentally toxic and a bunch of securities were created by mushing bad mortgages in with good ones so that the combination looked secure enough to invest in.

And then THOSE securities were subdivided up and repackaged into even more securities. And so on. And so on.

Bad debt ended up "infecting" the entire market such that it was essentially impossible to invest in "safe" mortgages and so, when the collapse happened, many of the banks found out that the bets they *thought* they were making to hedge their bets on the risky side of the housing bubble were, in fact, just MORE BETS on the risky side of the housing bubble.

At this point it's essentially impossible to invest in technology without investing in AI which means its very hard to bet against AI in the tech industry. And that feels very, very dangerous.

Zillow is an effective monopoly on internet real-estate listings, that is bad.

Google is an effective monopoly on anything internet search related that it decides to dip its fingers into, that is worse.

Usually with our money... Right and Left = Divide and conquer. No option options. I stopped trusting any of them decades ago. ;-)

That's the entire goal of flooding the zone with shit. Trusting nobody is not the smart position I suspect you consider it to be.

I'll be surprised if I find out EOs have any authority outside the executive branch of the federal government. Otherwise a presnit could just unilaterally ban abortion, change federal, state, and locals laws and tax rates, disband Congress...

So join ANTIFAI - anti-f*-ai.

Though it might get you labeled as a ter'ist. Especially if you don't buy the products they're pushing.

ya basic, son

What's the point of having a national military if you can't use it to pump taxpayer dollars into corporate coffers?

*scenario*

"Fox company, we'll airdrop a licensed mechanic and a licensed parts salesman onto your position around 0930, as soon as they finish repairing some stuff the enemy captured last year and make their way back to our side of the lines. Division says hold your position as best you can until then -- and remind the riflemen not to use their weapons as clubs, as that will void their warranty. It would be better for the overall war effort to let you position be overrun."

"No, Davies can't fix the autocannon even if your lives depend on it. Division says to shoot him in the arse if he so much as touches it."

Windows 365 Subs were just raised at the beginning of the year, from $99 MSRP for a family plan, up to $139. It's still possible to buy the $99 plan but you have to very carefully navigate to find the option that doesn't include Copilot AI bullshit.

Right... I worked for The Beer Store, the brewer-owned private company which distributes beer across the Province of Ontario. Our Premier (roughly equivalent to a State Governor) made a campaign promise of "A buck a beer!".

So, a new empty can cost roughly $0.20 at the time. The law in Ontario is that shelf prices include tax and deposit. So, the can is $0.30 - twenty cents for the can itself, plus another dime for the deposit to make sure the used can comes back for recycling.

Now, on top of that, you have to make a food-grade beverage, pay your excise tax to the federal government, and then there have to be profits for the manufacturer and the distributor/retailer (that would be Brewers Distributing Limited dba. The Beer Store).

Customers would come to me and - with that "I know more than you even though I haven't held a job in 16 years" expertise - tell me that we were going to be carrying "buck a beer" because they voted for Doug Ford (who also cut their welfare increases).

"When do you get it? It's gotta be soon!"

"The first shipment arrives February 31st, so mark your calendar!"

I must have used that line 500 times. Only one person realized that there's no February 31st. To his credit, he had to come back to the store to tell me. LOL

Exactly ONE brewer made the Buck A Beer - Cool Brewing of Etobicoke, in Doug Ford's riding. We were lucky if we got a single case (24 beers) a month. Promise fulfilled... Right.

Anyway... The Beer Store's shelf tags were printed at the distribution center and sent to stores with truckloads of beer and empties in and out. Of course, you always had too many tags you didn't need, and were always short of the shelf tags that you did need. If a tag was outdated and wrong, you have to - ethically if not legally - honour the price. And, of course, if a tag was damaged or lost, there was no tag for that product. All of this hearkened back to The Beer Store's roots as Brewer's Retail where everything was behind a counter and we had a selection wall. In a newer self-service store like mine, this did not work.

Electronic shelf tags were implemented. It was amazing. Snap the tag into place on the shelf. Scan the tag. Scan the product. Press a button. The scan gun would beep and a moment later, the tag would update with the item description and price.

Price changes? Automatically updated on all tags.

Now, something about selling addictive substances: Sometimes someone decides that the item's price is what they have, not what the shelf tag says. And they will argue with you until the cows come home. You get jaded to it.

"That will be $2.25 for the can of Pabst Blue Ribbon 5.9."

"The tag says $1.95 so you have to give it to me for that. You forgot to update the sticker."

"No sir, I assure you that it doesn't. They're not stickers, they're electronic and tied to the POS."

"It says $1.95."

"Sir, if the shelf tag says $1.95 for Pabst Blue Ribbon 5.9, I will give you a full case of it. On the house."

For a moment, they're elated. And then they realize that I'm coming out from behind the counter to call their bluff. In front of the lineup of impatient customers during the daily 10:01AM opening rush. Catcalls. Whistles. Jeers.

Walk over with the dude... shelf tag says $2.25 for PBR 5.9. Now, at this point, I'm annoyed, and I'm not going to short my till $0.30 for him. Or suggest to him an alternative beer that is $1.95 a can. If he'd just passed me all his change and come up a little short, I would have covered it. Personally, out of my pocket, if I didn't have a few nickels and dimes perpetually floating around my cash. I've spent way too much time on both sides of the counter at The Beer Store, so I have plenty of empathy - just don't be an asshole.

Anyway... Dollar stores are dealing with customers who are on the very bottom economic rung, whether from addiction or for some other bad life event. Now, sometimes these people are a nickel away from being able to afford a can of beer - or a jar of baby food. I have seen split tender three ways for a $2 item - $0.50 from returning 5 empty cans, $0.97 by scraping a prepaid Mastercard from last Christmas to the last cent, and then $0.55 from under the sofa cushions or wherever. Unexpected price changes can drastically upset plans these people have made to get a few supplies with their very last dollar.

"I can get a box of Kraft Dinner at Dollarama for $0.50, and two cans of cat food at A Buck Or Two with the other $0.50..." I've seen it, and I've personally lived it.

The shelf tags, especially at a dollar/discount/alcohol/cannabis store of any sort, must be accurate. As an experienced retail manager, electronic shelf tags are simply essential.

You can sell the boss on implementing them with the operational savings, the labour of having to change stickers with every price change. Electronic shelf tags will pay for themselves in very short order.

They're dragging buzzwords through the water, so see whether they get any nibbles.

Your MBA/PHB eats this shit right up.

It's because it's very difficult to imagine circumstances other than what we live in. I agree with what you're saying in general but only in general. Plenty of liberals live in small towns and plenty of conservatives live in big cities.

But a LOT of liberals have only ever lived in a big city and a lot of conservatives have only ever lived in rural areas. And for those people, a move is transformative

For the conservative, the idea that government can do anything useful seems insane. But move to a big city where government services form the backbone of your water, sewer, mass transit, snow removal, etc and it's really hard to look at government and say it can't do anything right. Government somehow keeps Chicago clear of snow. Like -- really think about that. That's an ongoing and ENORMOUS project and it goes off largely without a hitch. It's difficult to see that in person and really say "government can't do anything right."

For the liberal, the opposite is true. They've spent their life surrounded by largely competent government. They move to small town America and suddenly the entire local government is run via the good-ol-boys network. Distance makes it all but impossible to actually get services to the people who need them. Taxes seem like they take a lot out of your pocket and don't put much back.

The problem is that our votes -- especially at the national level -- govern both groups.