Mark Tomczak @mtomczak@qoto.org

@Popehat Among the reasons this is stupid is plain, simple government waste.

If only there were, I don't know, some kind of system for *searching* for posts mentioning an individual or group of individuals. Some kind of *engine* one could use to run searches like that automatically.

N'ah, too hard, let's put a burden on the public, like typical ~~Democrats~~... uh, Republicans apparently.

@ocdtrekkie @aurorapenguin @Are0h

Speaking as someone diving back into C++: the problem with old architectures is nothing is ever really retired.

@lauren It's interesting to me to contrast the modern attitude with the London Plague of 1665, where upon rumor spreading that dogs and cats carried the disease, the Lord Mayor ordered them destroyed.

(... of course, many many things were different then, and I have no doubt a populace that had been caretaking their dying relatives in their own homes might take a more callous attitude regarding the tradeoff in life between cats and dogs and their brothers and sisters).

@cstross As with so many things in the US, over on this side of the pond it's a very "It depends" kind of thing. Some places (especially cities) have pretty strict policies. The county I live in has no cat licensing (but does have dog licensing); the rules are just broadly "You have to keep its rabies vaccine up-to-date and if you allow it to roam it must be collared with your contact information (along with a heavy dose of "Should anything unfortunate befall the poor creature, the county response shall be a long look down a nose and a 'What did you think was going to happen' stare").

... all that to say any kind of federal mass-extermination campaign would probably be an extremely doomed enterprise logistically, with responses ranging from personal and local uprisings to entire counties embracing a "Yeah, we'll get *right on that*" attitude.

@lauren I'm sure it's one of those things that they considered in the general as part of their responsibility to consider all contingencies, not unlike how they have a precise plan of what to do should the ~~queen~~ king die while stepping off an airplane during a holiday in Transylvania.

Just one of those things a responsible government busies itself with. ;)

#SoberingThoughtFriday

It is always valuable, when looking at a novel instance of people discussing "Is this AI sentient / intelligent / worthy of rights," that the bar is much higher than the Turing Test.

We are a species that has historically (and contemporaneously) denied the personhood of our *biological* kin. The bar for a machine becoming a person is going to be much, much higher than its ability to convincingly beg for its life.

@mrcompletely @lauren Yep. If a defendant isn't going for a "by reason of insanity" defense, the defense has two jobs regarding motive:

1. Convince the jury no reasonable person would do that
2. Convince the jury the defendant is a reasonable person.

... Lose them on 2, and you're really rolling some weighted dice on the outcome.

@lauren It is the nature of our justice system, deeply baked into the jury of one's peers, that (with rare exceptions for gross ignorance of the facts) a jury can convict on weak evidence if they do not like the defendant's face.

One of the quirks of the whole deal and among the reasons the right to face one's accuser is so key, because it at least forces the jury to see both faces.

@stavvers I had a weird reaction to the 2009 Trek movie doing a joke about the ship's computer not understanding Chekov's accent.

I know it was supposed to be played for laughs, but my ADHD ass immediately went "Oh no... Russians and Eastern Europeans are super-rare in the future?" :(

@overholt @gruber Or, unpopular opinion time:

Don't waive the refunds. Those companies are sub-50 employee firms and legally protected from personal liability. There is no guarantee that any startup succeeds, and why should the end-user get stuck holding the bag? Let the banks and investors take the bath that it's part of their job description to take, let their software engineers and other employees go on to other opportunities, and go about your day.

If the lesson learned by the industry is "Don't hitch your wagon to either app stores or private social networks," it'd be a valuable lesson.

@makeworld Just don't give it a Daylight Savings and we'll all be cool.

UX team's vision vs. UI team's implementation.

@film_girl *CEO Lachlan Murdoch seeing a wave of Arrested Development piracy after pulling it from all legitimate streaming channels.*

"... I don't know what I expected."

@jaykuo > Imagine if the story were reversed, and it was CNN giving Chelsea Clinton advanced confidential information on Trump ads

I don't think we have to even imagine that far. We could imagine what it would be like if a CNN commentator gave candidate Hillary Clinton advanced notice of a debate question.

@lobrien What did the team use for Python? Did they take advantage of a bridge to WPILIB or use something else other than WPILIB?

@ocdtrekkie > a completely moving goalpost of "whatever I don't want"

Yes. This is why it's so hard to please the public regarding privacy and security: when you try to do what people say they want you get noise, and when you try to do what you think is best you get accused of being authoritarian / patriarchical / whatever the term-du-jour is for "acting like you know more than the average person, when the aggregate of average people keep sending you mixed signals on what they want."

... to my money, I prefer the second approach because it at least demonstrates some intent or underlying philosophy.

Some days, "Trying desperately to do the right thing in an under-documented process in an ecosystem with a bunch of name-aliasing and systems that 'everybody owns' that nobody documented or is trained on" looks a lot like "malicious compliance."

... but I swear, this isn't *intentional* incompetence; it's just *regular* incompetence.