- Molitor5901I think the US is giving up control willingly and turning more isolationist. It has been building for some time but I do not thing it is forced. It is a deliberate policy shift turning away from trying to control and police the world. America is pushed in and on to other countries and societies that a retraction might be the best thing
- This is so interesting. I remember as a child my family would go to S&S Cafeterias, and Piccadilly. It was like the lunch line at school. Regrettably the closest I've gotten to an automat was when I taught in a prison, the classroom had vending machines of sandwiches, desserts, etc.
I think we still have automats. Ikea cafe for example, the cafeteria in the basement of the Natural History and Science Museum in Washington, D.C., any number of places where you get food, checkout, sit, eat, leave without interacting with anyone.
- This is deeply worrisome and brings to mind when Russia attacked Chernobyl, and then their soldiers got radiation poison digging latrine trenches etc. Let us dangerously hypothesize that if Confinement begins to fail catastrophically, who will step in to fix it? Russia? Is it.. possible Russia will allow the leak as a form of weapon?
- I found the recent Banksy work to be very .. illuminating.
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/new-banksy-mural-londons-hi...
- Agreed, and I am reminded that Putin once called Russia a "managed democracy." I may not always agree, but I am very glad America has the first, fifth, sixth, and seventh amendments, among others. This tactic by the British government is absurd and offensive to freedom. What I find more baffling, but perhaps I am narrowly thinking about it, is how much the British people are letting it happen. I am not political, but if anyone tried to take our rights under the Bill of Rights, or declared an emergency to cancel elections, I will be in the streets with, I hope, literally every one else.
Some things are just too critical to a free and fair nation, and jury trials are right up there.
- I loathe copilot and have reverted to using an old version of Outlook desktop, which I then had to regedit to remove copilot buttons etc. It's a horrible product being shoved down our throats.
- But what if Target security cooperates with the government, and they share capabilities, so that a facial recognition inside of a Target location would notify law enforcement who also has an interest in that person? In such a scenario.. Target would freely give its data but not necessarily acting an agent of the government.
- I wonder if this is a portend to an American social credit score, like where China uses facial recognition to identify criminals at concerts[1], and jaywalkers, etc. which severely impacts a person's ability to get a job, housing, etc.
I can't help but assume this is already being used at retail establishments, but now it could be tied into law enforcement databases, and .. communicate..
- I sat through a briefing last week about quantum encryption and the threat that quantum computing poses to encryption in use today. It was stressed that nation states are hoovering up encrypted data now in order to decrypt later with quantum computing. Much the same way America decrypted old soviet encrypted data. I wonder if it will take as long and if anyone will still be alive to make use of that data.
- Possibly related, but not definite, this apparently has happened before with Ryan Air.
https://avherald.com/h?article=454af355
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/exclusi...
These were not definitive but it did raise concerns due to the budget nature of the airline.
- I feel like they've always been doing this. For a long time, until I had to just through hoops to break it, Word consistently defaulted to OneDrive saving of documents.
- Are you referring to the criminal cases launched against Macrons opponents, or attempts to ban political parties?
- What are thoughts about broader issues of a fixed-term legislature, versus one that requires the confidence of the legislature and could be created.. and collapsed very quickly? The constant teetering on the edge of deadlock and collapse seems to create a lot of instability.
A more specific question: Is the design of the French legislative system to blame for this?
- Dark and edge movies. That's a good point. It felt like in television land, we had moved beyond the dark and foreboding Nordic Noir style programs and into something less dark. I liked Casino Royal, I thought that was as exciting of an action-Bond that I've seen.
For those of us who have invested in a chain or series for a long time, it may feel comfortable, predictable, and so when something changes it can burst the magical bubble of cinema. Perhaps that's the danger of film series that are basically the same, just a different story, whereas short periods before change conditions the audience to let go of a nostalgia, and keep plowing ahead because it's just enough of a change not to disrupt that comfort - yet modernizes etc.
too modern. As with a lot of series modernized, it may have the effect of taking something familiar, changing something that disrupts the.. nostalgia?
- Perhaps I just feel old.. but I really, really wish they'd go back to making Bond films like Moonraker, Diamonds are Forever, and the Man with the Golden Gun. No big explosions, just nice cars, suave hero, good stories, and all the spy gadgets and things many of us love.
Albert Broccoli had the formula right and IMHO we should go back.
- The last thing he typed has always sat deeply with me:
"Football Season Is Over
No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt”
- This is only my opinion, but in my experience with marijuana it doesn't seem to relieve pain so much as it makes you forget, or ignore for a bit, that the pain is there.
- I think platforms like that will survive on essentially rage and bitterness. People will always flock to platforms like X, Bluesky, iFunny, and others to vent and rage. There's so much anger in nearly every post that I don't see any of it as particularly useful, or a good use of one's time.
- I agree, but the money laundering would be a de facto criminal act. It would be a mistake, however, to give payment processors a version of Sec. 230. For any financial institution that could be calamitous. Maybe there should be a very minimal line of protection, much like we do with a lot of cybersecurity for banks - they self certify they are doing their best. It still goes back to the original concern: If a payment processor can block someone for a political view, or a business for a social view, what's not stopping them from blocking someone merely over a disagreement about speech - for anyone.