Correct.

If you are not a tech person, right now from all the hype and news and bullshit, you would rightly assume that AI is an amazing revolution and you would barely have heard about its shortcomings.

Though that might've just been him thinking "stupid Europeans know only Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk. I'll just say Moscow, close enough."

This. I've had to descend a mountain as the sun was going down once (got stuck at the top due to weather for some time, and when it let up enough for a safe descent, it was late). It's absolutely not fun, even when there's still some light. Had it been dark, I think I would've taken my chances staying at the top rather than going down.

That said, anyone not a complete idiot checks things like "time of last cable car" a) in person, b) at the day, c) at the location. Because even there is an official website that is well-maintained (and that's already two big if's) things might change at the location due to weather, workers being ill, no tourists that day or whatever.

Also, checking in person means at least one other person knows that you're up there.

If the people using copyrighted material to train their AI aren't making a profit, that will just make it less desirable for them to "borrow" other people's work without asking or paying royalties especially when you consider how much public domain text is out there and free to use.

That may have been their excuse, but I'd bet that the real reason was for correcting grammar and being right.

Talking to people in public isnâ(TM)t harassment.

Talking to people on taxpayer funded grounds also isnâ(TM)t trespass.

Tax funded?

Not private property anymore.

Yes indeed. I'm constantly appalled here by posts written by people who have (or at least imply that they have) at least one college degree and possibly more but write like a high-school dropout. Poor spelling, (Can't they use their computer's spelling checker?), misuse of it's and its, using the various forms of "their" seemingly at random, constant syntax errors and punctuation put in by guess work. Now I only have a high-school diploma and two years of college before I ended up in Uncle Sam's Navy, but at least I don't have to be ashamed of my writing skills. I only wonder what Henry Higgins would have to say about the writing standards here.

Maybe it was just rash and defensive locker room talk? Maybe you wanted to provoke a response for a conversation?

That wasn't some sort of BS trying to make an impression, it was the reaction you should expect from a soldier or sailor defending an Allie from an invasion. If you can't, or won't understand that, we can never have a meeting of the minds.

I notice your memories don't involve people. And you suggest it's easy to kill them.

The only reason I might be lonely here is would be that all of my friends live about 1,000 miles away now that my sister and I live in our retirement home in a different time zone, but oddly enough I don't feel lonely. And the reason the memories I listed don't involve people is that I don't know you, I don't know what kind of experiences you'd understand and decided to stick to the type of thing that would make sense to anybody reading this. As an example, I have many good memories from the time I spent as a seeing eye person for a diabetic genius who'd gone blind because of diabetic retinopathy and keeping him working at JPL as a computer programmer until he had to retire because of kidney failure. Would you understand why I like remembering getting three cheers every year at a LASFS meeting, first as a Patron Saint and now as a Sacred Object? As you can probably see, my best memories aren't exactly mainstream, but they are my memories and I cherish them. Now, why do you feel that you have to denigrate everything in my life trying to prove that you're better than me? And, as far as it being easy to kill people goes, stop putting words in my mouth.

Judging only by the other responses to your post, your experience with the VA was highly atypical. I'll add my own experiences to that, making yours even more of an outlier.

Some of the clinics at the Los Angeles VA facilities might not have the fastest service, but once you're seeing a doctor (or nurse practitioner) they're highly focused on giving you the best care possible, and that goes double for any facility I've been to in the New Mexico VA system where I get my care now. (I actually live in Colorado, just North of the state line, but the nearest clinic is about 20 miles away in NM, rather than 100 miles in CO.) And, they have a robust Community Care program so that you can get specialist care from a local practitioner at VA expense rather than having to drive several hours to the nearest specialist the VA has to offer. And, you can get your travel expenses reimbursed at a quite reasonable rate.

Now, that's a brief description of my experiences; please tell us yours and explain why you're so opposed to getting care at the VA.

So when you pulled the trigger or pressed the button or whatever it was. How did you know at that moment where the shell would land and who was under it?

Actually, the only time I got to push the button was during target practice in Hawaiian waters, where the target was an uninhabited island. Normally, I had nothing to do with that as my job had to do with a missile system. Still, I did get to fire what might be considered a huge machine gun (a 5"/54 naval rifle) as I got to fire "five rounds, rapid continuous."

You are old. It does not appear you have learned to love life. I hope you find some peace in this world before you leave it.

Yes, I'd call myself old at 76, and do, but I have many wonderful memories to cherish, such as watching both an annular and a total eclipse of the sun, seeing a lava fountain on the Big Island during an eruption from Honolulu, and seeing the Grand Canyon, Half Dome and Fishers Peak. What memories are you storing up for your Golden Years?

When businesses first started to use computers, what they were installing and using were mainframes, because that's what was available. Input was from punched cards or paper tape and output was mostly to magnetic tape or through line printers. (Anybody else here remember the "80 column mindset?") This had no effect on the mail room and only affected the typing pool by turning them into card punch operators. This changed, to some extent, when dumb terminals were developed, so that data entry operators could put data directly into the computer without needing to bother with punching cards. Of course, this also made things easier for programmers as well. Things like email and the changes it made on the mail room (and the number of people needed for that) only came with independent desktop computers and the Internet.

Another war you lost. With you sitting well away from the front line. Really brave of you, such courage bombing civilians, what do you call it collateral damage?

What the bloody hell are you talking about you blithering idiot? Shore bombardment has nothing to do with dropping bombs on civilians, it's ships using their guns against enemy troops and equipment. Before you come back and sneer at me again, take a moment to find out what I'm talking about instead of showing the world how much of an ignoramus you are. Oh, and about being well away from the front lines, we were close enough to be targeted by counter-battery twice, and the second time I got to watch 6" shells landing about 30 yards off the fantail.

Maybe you are traumatised. Or just evil.

And maybe you're an ignorant, narrow-minded schmuck. At the time I wrote about, the U:SN was helping ARVAN repel the Easter Offensive, an invasion of the south where the NVA got its ass kicked because it forgot that its eastern flank was totally controlled by a bunch of ships with big guns. And while you're at it, you might want to ask yourself why we went Over There not once but twice to rescue your sorry asses and what would have happened if we hadn't.