Mod parent funny. But so far the joke seems to have sailed right over the heads of the moderators.

My new "tech joke" attempt involves a different kind of computerization. It's a conspiracy joke about the bruised hand. The YOB can't sign his own name now, but he can't admit that he's using Joe's autopen, so they made a robot arm that clamps over his arm and fingers and guides them in signing documents. It clamps on a bit too firmly, but they had to focus on loyalty and secrecy over competence (as usual) as they were building the device in a secret closet somewhere.

The signing ceremonies? Faked. The documents are signed before he even opens them. If they want to pretend they are showing a camera angle with the pen in action, then that's being handled with AI video (AKA AI slop) now.

*sigh*

s/along/a long/

Pretty sure I tried that but failed. I actually suspect it is some kind of manual problem related to minimizing FP abuse?

In my list of dimensions of evaluating generating AIs, I forgot three of the most negative ones. Criminal profitability is pretty obvious, though the crooks don't show their profits so you'd have to steer backwards by assessing their efforts, presumably correlated with the most profitable scams. Another negative dimension is related to "best for generating AI slop". The third that comes to mind is "best support for self harm". And I'll probably think of a couple more as soon as I click the Submit button...

I think you mean "effective opposition", but that's along story.

In solution terms, perhaps each YOB supporter should be obliged to talk to a couple of "nice" foreigners long enough to learn how much disgust the YOB is producing everywhere in the world. I think three minutes should suffice.

And in the process of feeding a troll and propagating a vacuous Subject, too.

Funny story time. I knew one of the seminal trolls many years ago. Perhaps he thought he was a flame warrior? When I first encountered him he was actually a master's student in the same department where I got my CS degree. He just loved being a nasty offensive and trollish person, apparently for the sake of being nasty.

Later on I heard that he was working in a fast food place, perhaps flipping burgers. Hard to imagine a person with his personality at the counter. Later I heard he had died. At that time I actually wanted to discuss his history in terms of "lessons to be learned", but the reaction was "We mustn't speak ill of the dead." (Which may remind you of one of the YOB's latest gaffes.)

Yeah, I'm going for Funny again. And failing. As usual.

But if I had been asked which feature I WANTED to pay for, then disabling the AI is much more likely the feature I would donate for than the feature to add "AI" to Firefox in the first place. If I WANT AI, then I know where to go looking for it. I've "played" with lots of the so-called generative AIs--and so far I hate them all and I am currently unable to imagine the "project pitch" that would persuade me to donate for that feature.

But maybe they could ask the AI to write such a persuasive proposal that I would donate to pay for adding AI. However my counterproposal is that you don't hold your breath while waiting for my donation.

I'm still looking for a useful comparison of the AIs. For example, on the dimension of best apologies, I think Copilot is first with Google's Gemini running second. On the dimension of most sycophantic, I think DeepSeek is the leader but it's a close race for second among several candidates. Then there's the dimension of programming support, where I actually like ChapGPT. Has anyone tried to assess the various AIs on their hallucinations? I'm inclined to give that prize to Gemini, but perhaps only because it's always in my face when I visit the formerly nice Google search. But on the dimension of utility so far it seems to be an aggressive race for last place.

[And what's with the graying out on Slashdot? When I first saw the story it had only three comments but was unclickable. I'd think I should know after so many years, but...]

What do you want? "Punch the bully in the teeth" means what exactly? All out war? Would this really be good for people in the EU? For Denmark?

Assuming Denmark has put sanctions on oil ships, they can seize those ships in the Baltic and North Seas. They can use their own hackers, assuming they have any, and disable Russian systems.

There are multiple ways to fight back without sending in the troops. What's Russia going to do, whine more?

What I'm waitig for is when a Democratic president is in office and starts making wholesale changes. The howls from Republicans will be glorious. Sending their whines to the Supreme Court will be even funnier because if the Court says the president can't do that after they've let Trump do whatever he wants, they just outed themselves as partisan hacks and can be ignored.

As Jackson remarked, let them try and enforce it.

I don't see how this is sustainable, and I was a dues-paying member of the IEEE Computer Society for about 20 years and of the ACM for about 10 years. I even attended meetings and donated quite a bit of time to the CS. Minor writing and enough refereeing to become a "senior referee" at the end. I think they are doing some important stuff, but there are costs... And eventually I stopped paying dues. (But now I'm also remembering a database conference that may have been paid for by my employer.)

By the way, I used to read the magazines I received cover to cover. That time actually became a significant negative factor. Lots of good stuff, but too much time required. On that front I think the main effect of paperless publishing will be to significantly reduce the incentive to read all of an entire issue... Why not just ask an AI to summarize the parts that are most relevant to my work?

So if you're going to push me for an overall assessment, I think it's a net negative and will make the ACM less relevant. Perhaps even imperil it's survival.

But I also have a solution approach to ignore: What if the ACM supported books with special webpages to address the time problem? Each computer-related book would have some QR codes pointing to the errata, a bibliography, a searchable and dynamic index, and even forward links to later work on related topics. Kind of a post-publishing future bibliography? In this fantasy, at least the publishers would be providing some funding to sustain the relevance of the books they are selling.

I think you have lost track of the current priorities of the DoJ. But perhaps time for the old joke? Unfortunately I can't remember the exact form of the quote that underlies the joke. A Russian guy? Something about "Behind every great fortune there is a crime"?

I actually think there are two ways to become excessively rich, and crime is only one of them. The second way is to be lucky, though the luck can take various forms. Most common form is inheriting the profits from a parent's crimes.

So the joke is that the old saying is obsolete because these days you use some of the loot to bribe the cheapest politicians to fix the law so that it's no longer a crime. Investing in politicians has had an obscene RoI for a long time now.

Denmark would have to do it through NATO.

No they don't. They are free to defend themselves without NATO. Which, like the rest of Europe, won't do.

Not sure where this fear of defending oneself came from, but Europe needs to get its head out of its ass and start taking action. Ukraine's shoulders are getting tired carrying the load for them.

What will you do about it? Nothing, as usual. You whine and complain Russia is doing this to you, yet you do nothing in return.

Either punch the bully in the teeth with brass knuckles or stop complaining you've been attacked.

As Ukraine has shown, taking the fight to the bully is the only way to get results.

Either run your website as a hobby or do not run it at all. Expecting to be paid for supplying information when most of the world has long agreed information should be free, is peak stupidity.

Either play in your band as a hobby or do not play at all. Expecting to be paid for your performance when most of the world has long agreed information should be free, is peak stupidity.

Everything for free doesn't sound like capitalism - it sounds like communism.

So that's why people on here keep talking about getting their software, music, and movies for free. They're communists.

Let's expand the fun: Did Israel commit genocide in Gaza?

Yes they have. Next question.