Always 50/50 because two party system, FPTP and electoral college.

Statistical photography aka computational photography aka supersampling. Statistically bin together number of smaller pixels to cut the amount of noise to create picture of a lower resolution than sensor level, but better quality.

Well even on not being rare, lynxes are stalking predators. Given what noisy clumsy travels us humans are and their keen senses, one is lucky to see a lynx. Since firstly they are always stalking or hiding just naturally and specially so hiding upon most likely spotting human way before human spots them. One could go right by one and not notice it. We aren’t on their menu given our size and not being normally encountered prey species. Also as stalkers unless it is something like a mother lynx protecting its young, it won’t make itself known. Far rather hides and let’s you pass without encounter. Since one less risk of the lynx getting injured in fight, if it can’t just hide away and go unnoticed.

Though on top of that some species of lynx are very endangered.

I would also add that isn’t empty talk like “Well he said it once, non biggie”. That statement by POTUS itself drove the national policy other countries. When POTUS says “other nations you are with us or are our enemies”, that matters.

That is a signal the reverberates around with “do we dare to anger USA on this one”. The Afghan war partisipants list is long and contains some not so obvious participants often doing rather small token participations. Which I think is exactly “Well we have to show we are with USA”.

For example here in Finland in the after action report of Finnish participation in Afghanistan tells the reason wasn’t building peace, it wasn’t even combat experience. It was “coalition and alliance building” aka showing USA “we are with them”.

In the after action study one of the interviewed decision makers literally directly quoted:

Yhdysvallat sanoi 9/11 jälkeen: olette joko meidän kanssa tai meitä vastaan.”

United States said after 9/11: You are either with us or against us.

Right above explaining how it was 20 year long very unpopular operation caused losses and achieved nothing in Afghanistan, but hey the Finnish NATO application will go through with flying colors.

The whole time the media blitz was about “Helping and building peace in Afghanistan”. When in reality we went in because USA publicly extorted pretty all of west to show colors.

This isn’t only in Finland in other European after action reports have shown similar “We went in, because Bush publicly demanded show of loyalty”.

It will at minimum be a fight. It won’t just sail through. Also whole governments being against means one of them might challenge the law in to European Court of Justice. Since as nation-states also often have, EU itself has charter of rights part in the fundamental EU treaties. It also has normal limit and share of powers. EU Council and Parliament aren’t all powerfull. ECJ can rule a directive or regulation to be against the core treaties like Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

Said charter does include in it right to privacy (which explicitly mentions right to privacy in ones communications) and protection of personal data. Obviously none of these are absolute, but it means such wide tampering as making encryption illegal might very well be deemed to wide a breach of right to private communications.

Oh and those who might worry they wouldn’t dare at ECJ… ECJ has twice struck down the data protection agreement negotiated by EU with USA over “USA privacy laws are simply incompatible, no good enough assurances can be given by USA as long as USA has as powerful spying power laws as it has”. Each time against great consternation and frankly humiliating black eye to the Commission at the time.

ECJ doesn’t mess around and doesn’t really care their ruling being mighty politically inconvenient and/or expensive to EU or it’s memberstates. They are also known for their stance that privacy is a corner stone civil right (as stated in the charter and human rights conventions also, their legal basis) and take it very seriously as key part of democracy and protection of democracy. Without free and private communications and expression there can be no free political discussion, without free political discussion there can be no democracy.

As I remember at the moment partly Von Der Leyen, the current Commission president. She is a German Christian democrat and apparently bit with capital C. Meaning she has bit of a moral panic streak on her of the “won’t you think of the children” variety. As I understand this current proposal is very much driven by her.

However her driving it doesn’t mean it sail through to pass as legislation. Some whole memberstate governments are against the encryption busting idea.

Also I would add, not like this is unanimously supported in EU among memberstates. So this isn’t a done deal, this is a legislative proposal. Ofcourse everyone should activate and campaign on this, but its not like this is “Privacy activists vs all of EU and all the member state governments” situation. Some official government positions on this one are “this should not pass like it is, breaking the encryption is bad idea”.

Wouldn’t be first time EU commission proposal falls. Plus as you said ECJ would most likely rule it as being against the Charter of Rights of European Union as too wide breach of right to privacy.

Like the one recent CEO saying the quiet part aloud by saying government should promote higher unemployment, since in the high employment environment employees aren’t desperate and have more demands costing him money. That employees arent feeling enough pain and despair in economy.

Well PESCO did get created. Denmark dropped their opt out from CSDP. Stuff like this moves slowly, specially upon there not being single hegemonic leader saying “We do this” and everyone else answering “Yes boss”. EU is herding catch and it makes everything move slowly.

However I would note… France has rule about no crosses or cross wearing in schools. So it isn’t like Islam is being singled out. Well this specific rule is about them, but France has very wide rule of “no religious clothing, items or symbols” in school and they don’t much pick sides. Jewish kids… No kippas, Protestants and Catholics, no crosses, Muslims, no head scrafs, no face veils, no religious robes. Sikhs, no turbans.

So it isn’t xenophobic, since the local majority religion is also under rules of “no religious symbols wearing”.

What one can say is, that it is highly anti-religious. However that isn’t same thing as xenophobic or say specifically antisemitic or islamophobic. Islamophobic would be “Muslim girls aren’t allowed to wear scarfs, but it’s okay for catholic girls to wear crosses”.

French government “doesn’t like” the local traditional majority religion either.

One absolutely can argue about “is it too much restriction of religious liberty in general”, however one can’t argue “well but this is about jews or muslims”. It isn’t. This specific rule about abayas is mostly a technocratic decision based on wider political decision of “we have principle of no religious displays in school”. It was decided “oh yeah, we missed this one religious clothing wearing/display. Add it to the long list of specified banned religious displays of all kinds”.

I’m sure, if member of the church of the flying spaghetti monster tried to walk to French school with colander on their head, the courts would rule "no colander hats either, that is religious display also. You can go join the Jewish and Sikhs on the club house of “France banned our religious hat” club.

Seems like a huge headache with stolen/lost phones, wonder how they handle revokation…

Right maybe should have clarified that. The authentication is facilitated by the trusted middle party aka phone company.

When you log in using this service, you tell using service your phone number. Well their contacted authentication handler (usually one of the phone operators), they forward the request to your operator, who knows to forward it to the phone (as I understand as a network service SMS, like how operators settings updates also get send to the SIM and phone), this service message is handed by the phone cellular interface to the SIM. SIM applet notices “oh this is authentication request”. It displays the session ID of authentication (generated at the original authentication session and displayed there also) and then asks to enter security code to approve (or decline the request)

As such revocation is two fold. First your operator will list the certificate/key invalid. Secondly, since operator is handling the message passing anyway, they know to refuse to send the authentication requests in the first place to the compromised SIM. since as the SIM, that also defines where to send the requests. It is both the independent crypto validation, but also the cell network subscriber identity. Compromised sim stops getting any requests, since it is shutout from cellular connection. Can’t make calls, can’t send and receive texts, since the sim isn’t anymore tied to valid subscriber contact.

Plus with crypto system there is always the option of official public revocation server. Which kind of system is what the national ID smart card system uses. Anyone accepting identifying by those signatures gets told “the official key/certificate/revocation server is this one. Regularly check it for listed revocations by the root trust authority”

Depends how deep the lines are. They have breached the first line at some points. However as per ukrainians, after the first line is the second line and so on. Russia knows how to make deep defences and anywhere, where they lose one line, they will adjust and start added more lines to the rear to compensate for the lost line. First line lost, second line is now first line, third line is second and so on and add the new Nth line, since the old Nth is now Nth-1 line.

It will be a slow slug and battering ram fest, unless Russian army morale breaks/ supplies exhaust and they run.

i don’t agree that it keeps users locked in. convenience wise it should be alot easier with e-SIM, technically you should just be able to open up an app and install a new e-SIM and voila your on a new provider.

As long as the phone maker and the phone service company play nice. The whole point of physical sims is. “you break your phone screen and phone? You can literally in the minute borrow your buddy’s phone, slap your sim in it”.

Why would it matter? For example here in Finland we have this thing called The Mobile ID. Which is commercial high security identification method, that works on the SIM. It’s user interface is the phone, but the actually crypto and logging works on the SIM. Just as with PIN number, the phone is just keypad to tell the SIM the security code to unlock it and operate. Not only does it work on SIM, due to security it is tied to the SIM. Each ID is a cryptographic key living physically in the SIM. never to leave it. public-private key exchange between the authentication server and SIM. on first boot/activation, SIM generates in-situ the private key, sends the public key to phone company, normal registrations hand shakes. Only thing anyone else has is the publickey. they private key lives it’s live in the SIM and just on getting signatory request and then correct unlock PIN signs the request and sends it back.

Which again means in the “oh my phone broke” situation means I haven’t lost my mobile ID. Just yank the SIM out of the husk of the broken flagship expensive smart phone and slap it into the cheapest 30 euro “I make calls and send text” budget phone. Still works just as well. Any phone you find (that isn’t SIM locked) will work, since as said the ID is the SIM, the phone is just keypad interface.

Also physical external sim allows physical update of the crypto processor. with eSim, if there is hardware fault or vulnerability found with the eSim, you are toast. With physical sim? So sorry customer, there has been vulnerability wound with the Sim crypto. Do you come to visit nearest operator store to get your new sim for your phone or do you want it sent by mail. Specially on say long lasting equipment… It is a very good thing there is a physically exchangeable cryptographic component. Rest of the equipment isn’t toast, just because someone cracked the SIM crypto.

I get the “but different states sales taxes thing”, for national advert. However even then, just make them present example price

Get the new Moborola Bazer, only 549 dollars*
* price example for Buffalo new York, including taxes and fees

Since if one is going with “well the final price you pay might not be what was advertised”, make it be more representative and real. Yeah the final price might be different sometimes even lower depending on your local taxes compared to the example prices calculation locations taxes.

Local advertising or on the shelf prices? There is no excuse, you are selling in that location. You know what the taxes and fees are just add them in. Any rare special discount and discrepancy cases, well the people eligible for those know to expect the difference.

You know a stale mate is a possible state of war. One side doesn’t always have to be winning and the other losing.

SO if Russia starts lobbing around chemical and biological weapons, then Ukraine should do that too? Like not gonna work like that, for example biological weapons are one of those were you can’t just go “tit-for-tat”. Since every biological weapon used is new risk of launching a pandemic on the world and so on.

To certain level, yes if other side breakes the rules, we get to break them also. However there is a line. Line which you never cross. Under no circumstances should Ukraine be allowed to target medical facilities, even on Russia having done it multitude of times. Indiscriminate intentional bombardment of still habited cities with no allowing of civilians to evacuate should always be off the table. You just don’t do that. All it leads is to needless human suffering.

It’s one thing to aim for military or strategic target and miss and hit civilians. That is recognized as reality of war. Terror bombardment? Never to be allowed. Not to mention it doesn’t work. Every example in history has shown all it does is make the receiving end angry, instead of demoralizing them. It sets a “So it’s to the last breath then? That is the name of the game, fine that is the name of the game” and they fight to bitter end.

CAT, Cat Anti Tank. Disables armored fighting vehicles by missiling up to the vehicle, climbing on top and driving through the hatches to scratchs the hell out of the on board crew. Dont ask how the CAT, gets through closed hatches, practical experience just shows they do.

When asked about the hatches matter, the CAT complained about:

• questioners lack of understanding importance of operational security around classified war technology.
• where is their food, they don’t disable couple enemy tanks per day for free.

Benefit of CAT over other AT weaponry is they leave the vehicle in good technical condition to be captured. Minus gory remains of the previous crew inside.

Well mostly the flaw is people assigning the test abilities it was never intended. Like testing intelligence. Turing outright as first thing in the paper presenting “imitation game” noted moving away from testing intelligence, since he didn’t know to do that. Even on the realm of “testing intelligent kind of behavior” well more like human like behavior and human being here proxy for intelligent, it was mostly an academic research idea. Not a concrete test meant to be some milestone.

If the meaning of the words ‘machine’ and ‘think’ are to be found by examining how they are commonly useit is difficult to escape the conclusion that the meaning and the answer to the question, ‘Can machines think?’ is to be sought in a statistical survey such as a Gallup poll. But this is absurd. Instead of attempting such a definition I shall replace the question by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words.

Turing wanted a way to step away from stuff like “thinking” and “intelligence” directly and then proposed “imitation game” mostly to the rest of the academia as way to develop computer systemics more towards “intelligent behavior”. It was mostly like “hey we need some goal to have as a goal to have something to move towards with these intelligence things. This isn’t intelligence, but it might be usefull goal or tool for development work”. Since without some goal/project/aim to have project don’t advance. So it was “how about we try to develop a thing, that can beat this imitation game. Wouldn’t that be good stepping stone. Then we can move to the actual serious stuff. Just an idea”.

However since this academic “thinking out aloud spitballing ideas” was uttered by the Alan Turing, it became the Turing Test and everyone started taking it way too seriously. Specially outside academia. Who yes did play the imitation game with their programs as it was intended as research and development tool.

exemplified by for example this little exerpt of “not trying to do anything too complete and ground breaking here”:

In any case there is no intention to investigate here the theory of the game, and it will be assumed that the best strategy is to try to provide answers that would naturally be given by a man

It is pretty literally “I had a thought”. Turin makes no claims of machine beating the game having any significance other than “machine beat this game I came up with, neat”. There is no argument of if machine beats imitation game, then X or then it means Y is reached.

Rest of the paper is actually about objections to the core idea of “it could ever be possible for machine to think” and even as such said imitation game is kinda lead in or introduction to Turing’s treatise various objections of various “it would be impossible for machine to think” arguments. Starting with theological argument of “only human soul can think. Hence no animal or machine can think.” … since it was 1950’s.

Yeah. Unless he has evidence… Yeah, don’t go around spewing that kind of stuff. How about going with “looks like middle-aged man having midlife crisis and currently in the “gym rat” phase of it”… little dig in there, but you know more realistic. Yeah he is little funny with the shirtless sports posing, so throw some shade over it. However it in no way implies cheating on his wife. Don’t know if he is, don’t know if he isn’t, but getting the middle life crisis hobby of “jiu-jitsu” doesn’t tell anything about that.

As said I think him getting in shape, sports and posing is way more about just bulk standard mid-life crisis. “Oh I’m getting little old. When did that midsection and belly got so wide. I should start a sports hobby to get in shape and avoid cardiovascular disease”. Some people get a motorbike to catch the lost youth. Others become gym rats/sports nuts to try to catch back their lost youth body.

Again which really wouldn’t be that interesting except billionaire and also him apparently getting so hooked on it, that he started competing in tournaments.

Doesn’t also remove anything from his horrible record of business ethics. He has absolutely horrible business ethics as most of these silicon valley billionaires in the advertising/social media sphere. Comes with the territory. One doesn’t start a targeted advertising social media business, if one values the ethics of peoples right to privacy.

Well that is a good way for a diplomat to lose their job. Publicly criticizing the head diplomat of the country. Whether or not the criticism is valid is beside the point. One doesn’t go around publicly criticizing the head of state. Now absolutely behind closed doors tell him You should be little more careful, that last public statement might not have been in the best possible tone.

Like it is kinda funny how he got sacked criticizing head of state for what might be interpreted as alliance disunity. While showing national disunity by publicly criticizing his own head of state. Yeah. That gets you fired.