> Is Putin a coward? Putin is not a coward in any traditional sense that I can see, but he should have a healthy case of paranoia. Everyone fears something. Putin hides his fear relatively well. I believe that he has body doubles. I saw a photo (AI? Who knows) of him meeting with his staff but keeping them all at physical distance. I read that his offices in different locations look the same so that it's harder to tell where photos are taken.

It's important to separate Putin from Russia. Russia could not possibly win a land war in the USA. They should have learned from Afghanistan and Ukraine that significant protracted conflicts, especially at distance, will completely drain their economy. So, any war with the US would likely end without a victory (OK, maybe he could take Alaska) or go nuclear quickly. I question whether his own staff would take steps likely to lead to a nuclear option, especially after losing so much in Ukraine.

So, going back to the original question, a traditional war: no. Other types of war are certainly already in play. One could even see parts of the situation in Ukraine as a proxy conflict between the Russia and the USA (with materials and likely eventually forces from NATO).

The Russian strategy seems to involve chaos, conflict, and disrupting other countries – since Russia can't actually rise, it tries to bring others down.

How would that be in their interest?

I meant to say trademark. So fuck off.

Also leading in sci-fi literature, my favourite author is Liu Cixin.

They have Bluesky for that now. But I'm sure that's the goal.

Even if they manage to convince some corrupt patent official to steal the patent, X will sue them to death, and they'll win.

And of course, they will serve no new market and can't possibly make money. The whole story sounds fishy.

In that context, perspective may really depend on whether you expect the current generation of AI to really pay off. Personally, I have serious doubts, as do many. Apple may be concerned about looking worse by early roll-out, the potential for lawsuits, GDPR and similar concerns, and so forth; maybe safer to subcontract that to google with the option to turn it off if things go haywire. I don't know if they're contractually bound to provide AI services to any consumer devices. What we're now calling AI - which is apparently primarily LLM - looks like a risky gamble, not just financially but technically as well. Only time will tell, hopefully sooner than later, because a lot of people have been waiting for a while for this generation to improve and it doesn't seem to be happening very quickly. That doesn't mean that I see AI has having no value or valid uses (especially things like ML and in specific domains), but LLM has issues at best and I don't think we're anywhere near the AGI or ASI that people seem to expect is coming any minute.

> Sounds like a meaningless calculation based on really silly choices of data points.

Maybe their calculations only included average working days and hours in France, not *every* actual minute.

Sorry, that's supposed to be a joke of some sort.

That's probably still less than what they would have to spend to compete in "AI", and more than an order of magnitude less than google pays them for search engine placement. Plus, there's no guarantee that that will persist for a decade, and there's a very good chance that the cost of AI will seriously reduce in that time. Apple is a product company, not an AI company, not even a software company.

I only regret being born 50 years too early. So close!

The party which invented Russiagate and used it to destroy our democracy doesn't get to lecture anyone about conspiratorial thinking.

In general I agree with you here.

It seems to me that what makes it into the news cycle doesn't really matter. My news is absolutely clogged with stories about this administration that could have been scandalous enough to end an administration a few decades ago, like Americans have been gaslit into accepting almost anything. People might express outrage for a few hours, especially on social media, but it doesn't seem to change anything, and then there's just another scandal some hours later. It's like intentional overload – flooding the zone. Partially as a consequence, it feels like this administration can get away with anything, from controversy through clear crime and violations of the constitution and supposed American principles, and there will never be any consequences.

Personally, I feel that we're at a point in world history where individuals that control highly concentrated wealth basically control everything, like a layer spanning multiple nations, above government. It's amazing to me that a huge percentage of the relatively poor population (actually, indebted – personal/family debt as well as the national debt) supports this US administration, as it seems to be against many of their interests and supposed values.

It's hard for me to understand how thinking people can support what's happening in all three branches, the military, the regulatory agencies, and basically anything else involving federal government these days. Much of it just seems anti-American and anti-America.

I am a cosmic ray and I will pierce you and your computers !!1 prepare to get pierced !!1

Unlikely, it happened on Linux, too, only there was no option there to prevent the devices from powering down (or whatever), so I am forced to continue using Windows 10.

I doubt precisely the same bug happens in both drivers, written independently. Seems like a hardware issue to me.

If you have them turned on, Windows will dump a log and full or small memory dump.