I'm actually responding to the AC above you. He is arguing that the attack wouldn't make any sense for either country to make, based on *national* interest. I'm pointing out that's not the only framework in which *regimes* make decisions.

If you're that stupid/lacking willpower/whatever that you immediately go off and buy something because you saw it online, you deserve what you get.

You're an adult, supposedly with something approaching intelligence and self-control. If you're $50K in debt because you're continually buying junk, the problem is not with the influencers.*

* They're called shills. Call them what they are.

either you need something random you know your dollar store has,

Years ago I was with my parents in a Dollar Store. We weren't looking for anything in particular, just seeing what's there. We went through the condiment aisle and they had these tiny bottles of ketchup and mustard from name brand companies.

My dad wondered about why they would do this and I told him to think of it this way. You're on vacation or a business trip or whatever. You need ketchup or mustard, but you don't want to buy an entire bottle. This fits the bill. You could probably get three or four servings out of the jar, enough for one or two hamburgers or maybe four hotdogs. Where else could you get something like this?

Just put it in context: Today Russia struck the Pechenihy Reservoir dam in Kharkiv.
Russia launched the war because they thought it would be a quick and easy win, a step towards reestablishing a Russian empire and sphere of influence, because Putin thinks in 19th century terms. Russia is continuing the war, not because it's good for Russia. I'd argue that winning and then having to rebuild and pacify Ukraine would be a catastrophe. Russia is continuing the war because *losing* the war would be catastrophic for the *regime*. It's not that they want to win a smoldering ruin, it's that winning a smoldering ruin is more favorable to them and losing an intact country.

If you can use your phone to control everything, then the only device you need with you is your phone.

And when you lose your phone or it's stolen? Or if it somehow gets bricked after an upate? Or gets compromised?

There's this thing called single point of failuare.

Agreed. If someone wants a movie or music or software, they can request it from the owners and can only use the item they were specifically given permission to use. Otherwise, they have to pay for it.

The only reason they deleted the databases was because they were let go by Trump. Most likely because they were Biden hires.

How many other hackers who have served time are subsequently hired by the government? Should we complain about that as well? We know of at least one who ran a site which offered services to hackers, and he was given the keys to the kingdom. How much private data do you think he exfiltrated?

The real issue is, once again, a private company didn't follow basic security procedures and let these two have access while they were being fired. Standard practice is to disable all access and escort from building when being fired. Neither was done in this case.

You have an AUX-IN? Must be a luxury model.

2010 Elantra Blue has an AUX-IN. Never used it, but I know it exists. Also has a USB-A connection. And a CD player which I regularly use.

That wasn't *all* I said, but it is apparently as far as you read. But let's stay there for now. You apparently disagree with this, whnich means that you think that LLMs are the only kind of AI that there is, and that language models can be trained to do things like design rocket engines.

That's what I just said.

Here's where the summary goes wrong:

Artificial Intelligence is in fact many kinds of technologies. People conflate LLMs with the whole thing because its the first kind of AI that an average person with no technical knowledge could use after a fashion.

But nobody is going to design a new rocket engine in ChatGPT. They're going to use some other kind of AI that work on problems on processes that the average person can't even conceive of -- like design optimization where there are potentially hundreds of parameters to tweak. Some of the underlying technology may have similarities -- like "neural nets" , which are just collections of mathematical matrices that encoded likelihoods underneath, not realistic models of biological neural systems. It shouldn't be surprising that a collection of matrices containing parameters describing weighted relations between features should have a wide variety of applications. That's just math; it's just sexier to call it "AI".

I had to read the blurb several times, but if these companies don't want to play by the same rules and regulations that real markets do, let them. Let them sell whatever they want in whatever fashion they want, without protections.

Then, when the daily occurrence of crypto theft occurs, they can be on the hook for making the "investors" whole again. Or not. Depending on what "exemptions" are given it's possible they may not owe anything, in which case the "investor" will have learned a valuable lesson:

Trade on a real market with real securities which has regulations designed to protect everyone involved.

The illusion of intelligence evaporates if you use these systems for more than a few minutes.

Using AI effectively requires, ironically, advanced thinking skills and abilities. It's not going to make stupid people as smart as smart people, it's going to make smart people smarter and stupid people stupider. If you can't outthink the AI, there's no place for you.

You mean every 33 minutes.

All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.

each additional year companies delay upgrading equipment results in a productivity decline of about one-third of a percent

How is that even measured? Someone needs to tell us how not having the latest and greatest phone reduces productivity. The four basic uses are making/receiving calls, texting, checking email, internet. How can a 2024 model phone possibly be that less "productive" than a 2025 model?

As for PCs, the vast majority of people use Word, Outlook, and a browser (usually the memory hog Chrome followed by Edge). Again, explain how a PC which is three years old reduces productivity in this day and age.

This article almost sounds like an ad to get people to buy things to keep the economy rolling rather than a serious discussion.