Then unfortunately you've never worked for a decent company, because I have worked for several such small IT support providers. I have myself worked with Microsoft engineers on issues that were beyond my skill level and resistant to Googling.

>That's way too costly. Even many mid sized businesses and lower end large businesses won't pay the vast sums that kind of support costs. Instead they'll hire someone to do IT for them.

Yes. Small IT support companies that in turn have relationships with the major product vendors and can, when required, use them to get higher level support.

Please - show me where in Toronto there is a company that can do that - even if they only employ people who can remove & reinstall & do basic configuration, but can call upon top level, very capable dev-level support. I'd love to be recommending a path off of MS Office to my employer.

> Otherwise, there's a myriad of support options available which are completely free. Think of irc, forums, bug trackers, documentation, the various project sites, etc.

Insufficient. From home user through the 'mom & pop', all the way to the upper end of the small business... the users have to be able to pick up a phone and get support - including on site - or it's too much risk for them.

It's worse than that. They can carry the official force-issued cell phone and keep their own as well. And presumably if they're bad enough, there's no record of the personal phone because they bought it with and top it up with cash 'just in case'.

But police radio's been getting quiet and less interesting for years now anyway as they switch to mobile apps for the majority of dispatch uses.

And do reasonability checks with inertial guidance systems. I was doing that a decade ago, so I'm pretty sure it's just another GitHub download by now.

You can also have your drone accept an encrypted abort code. Presumably you're watching from a safe distance.

Everyone's heard of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", but Microsoft screwed it up and left out the "don't". Hilarity ensued.

They rarely fix the broken stuff and spend a lot of time breaking the working stuff.

Handguns were once 'the great equalizer', giving the power of a soldier to the common man, and not really requiring a great deal of skill or strength to use. You still need the nerve, and you're still going to be in a dangerous situation.

With a drone, I could have it fly to wait on somebody's roof for them to come home, use license plate and facial recognition for target confirmation, and then shoot them in the face as they walk to their front door.

It's horrifying. It's also equality in a way that handguns could never supply. Anybody with access to an electronics store and the Internet can do it with some effort.

Everything you need has been out there for a long time. The reason we're not drowning in a sea of drone-based terror attacks is that most people just want to live and aren't actually interested in killing anyone until they get motivated to do so.

Ukraine's motivated. As impressed as I am by what they've achieved, I'm surprised we haven't seen more autonomous weaponry. The tools already exist to geofence a drone so you can be confident that as it goes on its killing spree, it's doing so in an area you have declared free of invalid targets. A drone dropping silently from altitude to 360 no-scope Russian soldiers as it randomly dances around to make it hard to hit is something I'd expected to happen by now.

If you're already on it, and don't have the resources to get off it... and have the funds to pay the ridiculous licensing fees so you don't have to figure out how to escape... then VMWare is your solution!

Try posting anti-Trump stuff on your social media and having the DHS/SS goons find it at an immigration checkpoint.

Actually, definitely don't. Especially if you're not white. Just avoid the US as it continues to slide into fascism.

The trained AI will be free, right?

Look at the US and the EU. Or the US and the ASEAN countries. Or the US and Canada. Or the US and Mexico.

Sure, the US was always mercenary, but did you ever expect to see it go full evil? Threatening invasion or economic destruction to any nation that isn't rendering tribute? Just a little over a decade or so I'd have said it would never happen, but here we are.

That's why every nation should be able to support its own population. Even with a really great mutually beneficial partnership, you're one generation away from a political swing that puts a knife to your throat.

When you have eternal growth in a finite location, and that location is a body... you call it cancer.

Our economic system is carcinogenic.

The interesting bit is that the only real tool a union has is the strike. When AI can outright replace you, all a strike does is speed up the replacement process.

It is only a matter of time before AI tools replace 99% of the production process. Maybe 99.9%.

Sony doing something I approve of is very disturbing...