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Comment Re:Papers please, comrade. (Score 1) 214

When did anonymous free speech become a thing? I'm all for free speech. I'm also all for the responsibility that comes with it and having your identity tied to what you say. If true free speech is a thing, having your identity tied to your speech is not a problem. Anonymous speech should be the exception rather than the rule and it is only a relatively new thing.

Comment True Democracy at Work (Score 1) 214

This is democracy at work. When both sides of politics support something and pass laws that are against the vested interests of massive companies, you see at least a glimmer of hope that democracy is not completely corrupted by those vested interests. Of course Elon won't be happy. But our Prime Minister isn't eating McDonalds with him on his private jet!

Submission + - Perseverance Mars rover spies big sunspot rotating toward Earth (space.com)

SonicSpike writes: NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has given us a sneak peek of an intriguing patch of the sun that's not yet visible from Earth.

Perseverance photographs the sun daily with its Mastcam-Z camera system to gauge the amount of dust in the Martian atmosphere. Such an effort captured a big sunspot moving across the solar disk late last week and over the weekend, as SpaceWeather.com reported.

"Because Mars is orbiting over the far side of the sun, Perseverance can see approaching sunspots more than a week before we do," SpaceWeather.com wrote in a post highlighting the sunspot photos. "Consider this your one-week warning: A big sunspot is coming."

Comment Market Driven (Score 2) 180

I hate to burst the government conspiracy theories bubble, but this is completely (free) market driven. People stopped using cash in COVID. The market chose to preferentially deal with businesses that accepted cards for small payments. Now consumers find it far more convenient. The Reserve Bank (central bank) is just reacting to supply and demand. Less demand for cash so they don't replace all damaged cash. That is a free market economy. Cash is still around though for those who choose that!

I'm sure the outcome fits the "big brother"/"nanny state" narative but this is just the result of the freedom of citizens to choose cashless transactions.

Comment Re:Not that I have a problem with nuclear, per se (Score 1) 39

This is not a power reactor. It is designed for a different purpose. A little research indicates it is actually a pool style reactor design. The "pool" of water acts as the shielding. As it is not a power reactor, generating heat is not the aim. This reactor may not even have a pressure vessel of any kind. Based on https://www.pallasreactor.com/..., you can see observe the core through the water. I don't think being 1 foot above sea level is really a risk here. It is already underwater!

Comment Possible bias towards moving toward midnight? (Score 1) 136

Ok, I'll admit I haven't read the bulletins! Just the headlines. I do wonder though whether there is a bias toward moving to midnight rather than away from it. Many threats become apparent quickly and suddenly and then slowly fade away. Do they really consider the reduction of threats they initially took into consideration at the last "reset" (from https://thebulletin.org/doomsd...)? This is particularly true of a nuclear armagedan threat. But it seems like these threats don't fade away on the clock. There is always a new threat to capture the attention of the clock setters. And of course, moving closer to midnight is better for PR and branding than moving away.

The process of doing a qualitative study (a board talking to leading scientists) and then determining the value to "reset" the clock, resulting in a fine-grained quantitative measure seems unlikely to produce consistency over 75 years. If this is science (the clock is set by "scientists" after all), then it is no wonder people don't get vaccinated.

Comment Re:Interesting (Score 1) 289

Funny but completely misrepresentative. The phones are removed 100% of the time during the school day. They are not "removed 100%". The school still has to deal with "phone-related issues" when the phone and student go home at the end of the day. Bullying doesn't only happen in school time and it is still the school's problem when it happens between students but outside school hours.

Comment Re:he reported the issue to Tesla's security team (Score 0) 57

Seriously, people need to be careful with this kind of thing. Did he get consent from the owners or was it unauthorised access? He's interacted with 13 jurisdictions. Some might have extradition treaties with the US. Others might just put him on a watch list and wait for him to enter the country. Does he know the law of those lands? And why did he need to conduct tests across 25 vehicles? I know in Australia this would be unauthorised access to a computer system with up to 2 years in jail.

Comment Re:Mainly jealousy (Score 2) 238

Not just jealousy but also hypocrisy. Most westerners are in the top 1% global wealth holders. Would a person from a developing nation ask the same kind of question of everyone one of us that can read slashdot? What is perhaps observable on the extreme scale with billionaires is also observable in our (western) lives at a small scale. Perhaps we should turn this around and ask if we ever do anything that uses resources for the purpose of our own fun or adventure. Do we consider giving that up and donating that money to causes? I suspect we all do what Geoff Bezos has done, but just on a smaller scale based on the resources we have.

Comment The power of monopolies (Score 1) 177

Whether you agree with the Australian government position or not, the warning here is the risk of monopolies. If they choose to do something that impact you, there is not much you can do about it. In this case, there is significant collateral damage to non-media communications. I hope there is collateral damage to FB.

Comment Re:I hate Google's reCAPTCHA (Score 1) 66

Actually reCAPTCHAs are presented internationally and not every country will call an RV an "RV" (try motorhome). Some places don't use the word sidewalk (footpath) or crosswalk (pedestrian crossing). Traffic lights don't always hang from wires and fire hydrants can be underground with a cover on them. And now I know google is trying to learn from our responses, next time they present geographically inappropriate pictures, I'm going to stop pretending I'm american and answer for my part of the world. Bring on the RVs - they're busses aren't they?

Comment USA - Please don't go to a public system (Score 1) 858

As someone from a public healthcare country, I implore you please DO NOT go to a public system. I don't want to loose your subsidy.

You pay market prices for drugs and provide big profits for pharmaceutical companies to develop and profit from those drugs. Our public monopoly purchasing system ensures that if a drug company wants its drug prescribed in volume in my country, they need to cut a very good deal on the price. Your market even encourages competition, meaning we can play companies off each other to get the best deal on similar products.

No doubt this happens in other areas such as equipment too.

So thank you USA for ensuring that drug and medical companies profit from you and we can squeeze them on price for our entire market. Please don't change.

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