I, Steve Wozniak, did not participate in the theft of the BASIC. It was funny to me to see others enjoying doing this. I had never used BASIC myself, at that time, only the more-scientific languages like Fortran, Algol, and PL-1, and several assembly languages. I sniffed the air and sensed that you needed BASIC to sell computers into homes, because of the book 101 Games in BASIC. I loved games and saw games as the key. It was the [MS] BASIC that inspired me to write a BASIC interpreter for my 6502 processor, in order to have a more useful computer.

It's hard to find people with Tim Berners-Lee's integrity. We should 'own' our own lives. It's a lot deeper than just being watched.

Without European bases, the US will lose its ability to project force beyond North America. I'm done arguing Greenland with Trumpists. You can't reason with a fool.

As a veteran of the last Regime Change/ Nation Building exercise that ended in failure, I can only think that capturing (kidnapping) Maduro was the easy part. Trump has publicly declared we're going to run Venezuela now. But removing Maduro doesn't remove his government. Marudo was just the top of the pyramid. All the other layers are still in place. So I don't know how Trump is supposed to run Venezuela, unless he proceeds with some sort of invasion. I highly doubt the rest of the Venezuelan government will simply surrender to American occupation. If anything, I think removing Maduro was a symbolic exercise for an ego-driven and insecure President, who disparately craves attention and demands respect and fear. Imho. Maduro was a marginal leader, and if anything his replacement will be far more competent and more resilient than Maduro was.

Sounds like just about every '80s action TV series. Get captured, guards leave, lock the door, turn around and have Murdock bite through the ropes until B.A. Baracus can just break free. Then free the other hostages, use tools and scrap materials that the kidnappers conveniently left behind, build some kind of armored vehicle with flame throwers, propane tanks for rockets, and use that to defeat the bad guys. Maybe if you get kidnapped for your crypto, if your hot 20-something daughter can find them, maybe you could hire the A-Team...

It was about tax breaks for billionaires. They needed to offset those tax breaks to make them revenue neutral. The GOP could have offset tax breaks against military spending and probably gotten some bipartisan support, but they chose to offset them against medical insurance for the poor, disabled, children, and the elderly. Then the GOP/Trump expected at least 7 Democrats in the Senate to be corrupt enough to go along with this, so they could call spending reductions on the poor bipartisan. When that didn't work, they lied, falsely claiming the Democrats want "healthcare for illegals". That is untrue, as illegal immigrants are not eligible for healthcare subsidies under the ACA. The GOP created this mess, and they put the Democrats in a no-win hostage situation.

The parent is obviously sarcastic. Not wise in such a forum as this.

More exceptionalism.

Always has been. If you believe that you are intrinsically superior to everyone else - the "lesser breeds without the Law" - naturally you resent anything they have or do. And you are constantly frightened that they might suddenly pop up and deprive you of your vast entitlements.

That's the logic that was used to justify the Korean and Vietnam wars. The "domino theory" - "if they win in Korea, they will win in India and Africa and eventually reach New York and take away some of the billionaires' assets to give to the poor".

Which would obviously be the end of civilisation.

Very true. It seems quite unlikely that the UK government has any information that China doesn't already know or couldn't easily obtain.

'“What I’m saying is that some Strap stuff was compromised and vast amounts of data classified as extremely secret and extremely dangerous for any foreign entity to control was compromised.

'“Material from intelligence services. Material from the National Security Secretariat in the Cabinet Office. Things the government has to keep secret. If they’re not secret, then there are very, very serious implications for it"'.

Every time I hear about such very, very secret "material from intelligence services", it turns out to be something embarrassing that the government wants to keep from its own citizens. And of course we can never be told what the terribly secret information is, because it's so terribly secret. Possibly some dirty inside knowledge about who blew up Nord Stream (obviously the USA) or all the help given to the Kiev mob (with untold billions of UK taxpayers' money but without their permission).

It's safe to say that the UK government does not have any military secrets that would matter to China - or Russia. A sardine does not frighten a whale.

Unfortunately, capitalists (especially the most successful ones) loathe and detest competition. That's why markets always tend towards monopoly and/or monopsony. Microsoft and Amazon are shining examples. Also, I suspect, Oracle judging by Larry Ellison's bank account.

That's good practice when writing anything that any of your readers might not understand. You just have to provide the expansion at the first mention, which doesn't cost much time or space. There are so many acronyms, abbreviations, and in-jargon terms that it's very easy to get confused. And I hope Slashdot articles are sometimes read by people other than the regular suspects.

https://8billionangels.org/ear...

https://data.footprintnetwork.... (Click UK on map)

Indeed. The UK is already housing more than 4 times as many people as it could sustainably hold. Naturally there is increasing pressure on food, water, housing, and everything else. Together with growing hostility as people from different and violently clashing cultures are crammed together in the absurd belief that the pressure will somehow crush them into a homogeneous whole according to the wrongheaded "melting pot" theory.

Now that reality is making itself felt, what is left for the political class to do but blame everything on "climate change" and "Russia"? Their very nature makes it unthinkable for them ever to consider for a moment that they might have been wrong about anything.

However, in placing blame where it does not belong they are repeating the exact same mistake. There is no significant climate change, and Russia couldn't care less about the UK. Until they address the real problem - too many people of too disparate beliefs and assumptions - things will go on getting worse. Much worse.

James P. Hogan's second SF novel, "The Two Faces of Tomorrow" (1979) posits this exact problem. The solution, symmetrically enough, is not to nuke it from orbit but to put it in orbit with firewalls to keep it from escaping or communicating with anything else. A special space station is built where the AI is confined. Hogan, a clever and creative thinker as well as a qualified (ex-RAF) engineer, saw quite deeply into the dangers of AI - which have not really changed in the intervening 46 years although the technology has gone roaring ahead.

Recommended reading.