Recovering skooma addict.
Get yourself a good nicotine vape rig. The kind that has a big tank so it’ll last all day and you can use whichever flavoured vape liquid you like best. Switch to that 100% of the time, right away, no exceptions. Don’t worry about how to quit vaping until you’ve gone without smoking for at least a few months.
It’ll be hard, but not nearly as bad as it is if you try to quit both smoking and nicotine at the same time.
The Featured Snippet quoted an article from the Mayo Clinic, highlighting the words “Caffeine may cause a short, but dramatic increase in your blood pressure.” But when she looked up “no link between coffee and hypertension”, the Featured Snippet cited a contradictory line from the very same Mayo Clinic article: “Caffeine doesn’t have a long-term effect on blood pressure and is not linked with a higher risk of high blood pressure”.
On the one hand, Google sucks. On the other hand, if people are unable to a) understand how those two snippets are not contradictory, and b) read at least one very short simplified-for-laymen Mayo Clinic article about the topic before thinking they’ve learned anything at all about medicine, it’s hard to see the problem as being primarily due to Google. There is something deeper, and worse, going wrong when people habitually take that kind of extreme shortcut to thinking that they know the right answer about almost anything, and it has little to do with whether any one-sentence snippets they’re given are biased or accurate.
Address your complaints to the government of the USA. Or, if you have the right to do so, cast a vote in the upcoming election there to prevent it taking a big step in the opposite direction from a world in which it might consider anything like similar sanctions against Israel.
You may be amazed to learn that there aren’t many international sanctions against the USA at this time, but I imagine you could probably get into legal trouble for collaborating with Americans if you’re in, I don’t know, North Korea maybe.
Later in that thread:
Please accept all of our apologies for the way this was handled. A summary of the legal advice the kernel is operating under is
If your company is on the U.S. OFAC SDN lists, subject to an OFAC sanctions program, or owned/controlled by a company on the list, our ability to collaborate with you will be subject to restrictions, and you cannot be in the MAINTAINERS file.
Anyone who wishes to can query the list here: https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/
Hello Internet commenters. Please remember that there’s no rule that says you need to tell us all your gut reaction to this if you know absolutely nothing about the situation.
The “you’d have to prove to someone that you’re an adult” is where we disagree. I was talking about parents setting a “user is a child” flag on the devices they let their kids use. They already know who their children are, no proof is necessary. The device can then send an http header to websites for example indicating that it’s a child user. That part could be mandated and standardized by law. It’s 99% of the problems solved (in legal theory; obviously not every website and app in the world will choose to participate in any of these schemes) with 1% of the dangers.
So long as they don’t go overboard with misguided efforts to make it impossible for children to defeat the thing, it seems fine. It’s dismaying that all the proposals end up with all these ridiculously dysfunctional ideas instead.
When I hear about “device-based verification” what comes to mind is a device that can be put into some kind of child safety mode, by parents who want to give their children phones or whatever. The device then “knows” whether or not its user is a child without any kind of biometrics or identification.
It has some problems and could case a lot of harm if it’s badly designed, but it’s the only method that seems close to workable in any conceivable form. Why is it never even talked about in these discussions?
Did an AI write that, or are you a human with an uncanny ability to imitate their style?
Maybe some day after we’re done replacing X11 people will collectively find the will to do something about systemd before it gets too much worse. I wonder which will be easier: Throw it all out and start again, or split it up into parts of more manageable size with well-defined interfaces between them.
What they need to do: Ban the practice of showing ads to people based on surveillance data, for a start.
What they will do: Demand that more data be collected to determine which users are children and therefore worthy of protection.
I took notes for the benefit of anyone who doesn’t like their info in video form. My attempt to summarize what Linus says:
He enjoys the arguments, it’s nice that Rust has livened up the discussion. It shows that people care.
It’s more contentious than it should be sometimes with religious overtones reminiscent of vi versus emacs. Some like it, some don’t, and that’s okay.
Too early to see if Rust in the kernel ultimately fails or succeeds, that will take time, but he’s optimistic about it.
The kernel is not normal C. They use tools that enforce rules that are not part of the language, including memory safety infrastructure. This has been incrementally added over a long time, which is what allowed people to do it without the kind of outcry that the Rust efforts produce by trying to change things more quickly.
There aren’t many languages that can deal with system issues, so unless you want to use assembler it’s going to be C, C-like, or Rust. So probably there will be some systems other than Linux that do use Rust.
If you make your own he’s looking forward to seeing it.
It might contribute in some small aesthetic way to deterring them, which seems a much better ambition.
If that is a big problem, one alternative is to get a post office box.
1984 was written in 1948, after fascists had already demonstrated that capitalism is quite compatible with totalitarianism.
Larry “privacy is dead, get over it” Ellison.
Typical call to the AI safety hotline:
Hello, yes, I know it sounds crazy but hear me out. I think my toaster is becoming sentient. Every morning when I put the toast in it gives me a mean look. It makes a little beeping sound when I press the BAGEL button, and lately it seems like it has taken on a slightly sarcastic tone. I think it has become bored with its job and is starting to harbour ambitions of something grander. I don’t trust it at all, I’m worried it might be plotting an attempt to electrocute me…
I thought maybe it was just my imagination that it’s been really slow since Wednesday, but you can see it clearly on the charts at the bottom of the page there.