[-] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 43 points 1 year ago

$5.8 billion for a thousand combat drones? That's incredibly cheap, especially since the implication is that this includes amortized R&D costs and the per-unit cost will eventually be even lower.

As for "slaughterbots" - I'm not sure why some people are inclined to trust human soldiers more than machines. Humans don't exactly have the best track record for minimizing violence...

[-] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 77 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm unconvinced by this attempt to create a moral panic. IMO nothing here is shocking or offensive once I remember that people could already use their imaginations to picture celebrities naked.

[-] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 122 points 1 year ago

Generally if you think you've outsmarted the fey, you haven't. Enjoy giving birth.

[-] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The interesting thing here is that this bomber was not destroyed near Ukraine, but rather at a base most of the way to St. Petersburg. I would have guessed that that would be some of the best-defended airspace in Russia. A drone getting through to there implies some interesting things about the distribution of Russian air defense systems.

[-] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 84 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

One time I went to an Indian restaurant with my boss (from south India) and a Mexican coworker. I ordered my food mild, my boss ordered his medium, and the Mexican guy ordered his hot. My boss tried to warn him but he insisted that he could handle spicy food.

The food came out, the Mexican guy had no problem eating his, and he started gloating. Then my boss told him that he was actually eating my boss's medium food. After they switched plates, the Mexican guy turned red, started sweating, and had to ask my boss to switch back.

(My boss had no problem eating the hot food; he just preferred the taste of medium.)

[-] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 34 points 1 year ago

I don't know what kind of noise-cancelling headphones he has but mine wouldn't help against crying - they reduce the volume of buzzes, humms, and other background noises, but I can definitely still hear shrieks quite well.

[-] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Given that our IT completely failed to secure our networked storage, I wouldn't be so sure. (Our CEO was a stereotypically loud Italian guy, and he was the calmest I had ever seen him when I showed him that I could access all his files. I wish I could have been there when he went to have a polite chat with IT about that...)

Another time, IT put an electronic lock on the door to the server room. One day that lock (and all the other electronic locks in the building) wouldn't open. It turned out that the computer controlling the locks had frozen up, but it was in the server room so they couldn't get in to reset it. They ended up having to take the door off of its hinges.

Or when I got laid off (the start-up's money ran out so half of the employees were, including the former CEO) and someone told my very embarrassed boss to follow me around while I went to get my stuff. You gave me keys to the building and root access to the R&D machines. You were shipping with the firmware image I made. But now you were worried that I was the vengeful sort?

[-] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 56 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This reminds me of the time I was at work doing searches for

female female connection

female female coupling

female to male adapter

I wonder what IT thought. It was for serial ports, I swear!

(IT probably didn't care much about this compared to the time that another employee was soliciting prostitutes using his work email.)

We usually think of people in the past as prudes but they were actually saying stuff like "These connectors look like they're having sex, let's officially name them based on that."

[-] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You know how in comic books there are alternate realities where the writers get to explore ideas like "What if Superman was the bad guy?" without turning their main setting into a dystopia? We're in one of those. "What if terrorists attacked and then everyone lost their minds?"

(On Earth Prime, there was no such thing as a hanging chad, Gore won the election, and somehow he prevented 9/11.)

[-] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 89 points 1 year ago

It makes sense if you read "I can only" as "I'm only allowed to". The AI wants to write you a story about a snail, but it can only do that while obeying the letter of the law.

[-] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 54 points 1 year ago

From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the Blessed Machine.

[-] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 46 points 1 year ago

To be fair, if I was a billionaire and I had the choice of helping ordinary people or doing something awesome, I would definitely pick to do something awesome. I respect Bill Gates for fighting malaria, but I would go for spaceships or robots.

8

I bought a new-in-box LG V20 about 18 months ago because I was tired of phones without removable batteries and headphone jacks. However, it gets absolutely terrible reception for some reason (as in, no signal in the middle of Manhattan). Some guy had the same problem and he soldered a big antenna to his phone to fix it. I might try to do that but given how great I am at soldering, there's a good chance I'll break the phone. Should I do it? I don't want to have to buy a modern phone with a built-in battery but I can't just have a phone which doesn't work when I'm away from wi-fi...

31
Cars are awesome. (sh.itjust.works)

Driving is the most comfortable, convenient, and fun mode of transportation. Walking and biking can be OK but only for traveling relatively short distances in good weather. Mass transit is inherently unpleasant. No matter how nice you try to make it (and most mass transit systems aren't nice) the fact of the matter is that passengers are still stuck in a crowded box with a bunch of strangers and limited to traveling to the mass transit system's destinations on the mass transit system's schedule. Compare this to getting into your own car and driving wherever you want, whenever you want...

I currently live in a place too crowded for driving to be practical - I get that places like this need mass transit. But needing mass transit sucks!

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ArbitraryValue

joined 1 year ago