Anytime, and incase you missed it: I’m not just talking about AI driven vehicles. AI driven decisions can be just as harmful: https://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-scandal-serves-as-a-warning-for-europe-over-risks-of-using-algorithms/

Sure, the internet is more practical, and the odds of being caught in the time required to execute a decent strike plan, even one as vague as: “we’re going to Amerika and we’re going to hit 50 high profile targets on July 4th, one in every state” (Dear NSA analyst, this is entirely hypothetical) so your agents spread to the field and start assessing from the ground the highest impact targets attainable with their resources, extensive back and forth from the field to central command daily for 90 days of prep, but it’s being carried out on 270 different active social media channels as innocuous looking photo exchanges with 540 pre-arranged algorithms hiding the messages in the noise of the image bits. Chances of security agencies picking this up from the communication itself? About 100x less than them noticing 50 teams of activists deployed to 50 states at roughly the same time, even if they never communicate anything.

HF (more often called shortwave) is well suited for the numbers game. A deep cover agent lying in wait, potentially for years. Only “tell” is their odd habit of listening to the radio most nights. All they’re waiting for is a binary message: if you hear the sequence 3 17 22 you are to make contact for further instructions. That message may come at any time, or may not come for a decade. These days, you would make your contact for further instructions via internet, and sure, it would be more practical to hide the “make contact” signal in the internet too, but shortwave is a longstanding tech with known operating parameters.

Photo made with AI, and that’s not Alligator Intelligence.

The point is: IP addresses that download the content are traceable (and spoofable, but that leaves trails too…) Yeah, you might be one of thousands, but every day you log in you increase your odds of being spotted.

Listening to longwave radio? Yeah, basically anybody anywhere on the planet with a receiver. Even local broadcasts it is nigh impossible to know who is listening where within the broadcast radius and the average person walks around with several radio receivers on them all the time now.

What a way to advertise your impotence.

Noem is no dumbass, but she plays a convincing one on TV.

Oh the legal system is pretty good at deciding intent

I wouldn’t say it’s good at determining actual intent, just good at deciding what intent is going to be assigned by the system.

If you send an encrypted email over Hamlink once, or say something like “Beefy Burrito this is Enchilada, the tamales are in the basket” on 33cm once, probably nobody’s gonna notice.

I’ve always wondered how much steganography is in practice - if it’s being practiced well, nobody knows. Setup a HAM station that snaps a photo at sunset and a couple of other random times per day. Transmit the photo in a standard, open digital mode, but hide your message in the noisy lower bits of the 3 color channels 0-255 R G and B, you can easily modify 6 bits per pixel without visually distorting the image, drop that to 1 bit per pixel and nobody who doesn’t know your scheme could ever find it. To the local hams, it’s three chirps a day, with a reliable pretty picture of the sunset and a couple of more varied times. As a utility channel, that’s three opportunities per day to secretly communicate something to a listener that nobody can identify. If the picture is just 2MP, that’s 250kBytes of bandwidth per image.

If you want to secretly communicate with people, use Reddit, or the Fediverse.

Absolutely, though the “listeners” there are more readily identified, even via Tor.

difference is intent.

And intent is functionally impossible to prove, but endlessly arguable and a judge can make a finding based on their judgement - something very different from proof.

send a PGP signed message over ham radio; if I understand correctly that’s basically a checksum that can guarantee the sender’s possession of a private key.

Correct.

If you intend to practice the hobby, get the license. I let mine lapse after 10 years because I don’t practice anymore, but I generally still remember the basic rules and how to operate the gear, so if I ever had an emergency need I’d use what I had access to - but I haven’t transmitted anything in years and years.

Most actual communication is illegal on the ham bands one way or another

Except in case of emergency, natural disaster, etc. Before we carried cell phones, I had ham handhelds that we would talk directly to each other on 70cm for the usual “Hi honey, I’m on my way home” or… in the days before cell phone lots existed at airports, I’d call her on the handheld to let her know I was approaching the passenger drop-off/pickup area at the airport after a flight so she could start going there from whatever makeshift staging area she was in.

Anyway, when we would be out in the woods, we could reach each other roughly 1/2 mile like that from handheld to handheld, but if we ever had a serious problem we could switch to 2m and hit the local repeater which would get us more like 12 miles of range and coverage all the way into town where there was usually somebody who could make a 911 call if we needed it.

So, yeah, we have cell phones today, and they work when they work, but I find that when the cell phones don’t work (like during / after a hurricane) the ham bands generally are working - or at least are restored quicker, and nobody is going to press charges for emergency communications on the ham bands.

If you want to use the ham band for instacart dispatch coordination, yeah, you’re gonna get more than static about that.

For what it’s worth, I think Cruz’s proposal (all of it) was defeated 99-1.

Personally, a lot of tattooed people I know get them in places where they “won’t be seen.” If they were nudists, they’d probably not get them at all.

There’s that… though even when you’re bored, you still sleep sometimes.

The rental cars I have driven with lane keeper functions have all been too aggressive / easily fooled by visual anomalies on the road for me to feel like I’m getting any help. My wife comments on how jerky the car is driving when we have those systems. I don’t feel like it’s dangerous, and if I were falling asleep or something it could be helpful, but in 40+ years of driving I’ve had “falling asleep at the wheel” problems maybe 3 times - not something I need constant help for.

The one “driving aid” that I find actually useful is the following distance maintenance cruise control. I set that to the maximum distance it can reliably handle and it removes that “dimension” of driving problem from needing my constant attention - giving me back that attention to focus on other things (also driving / safety related.) “Dumb” cruise control works similarly when there’s no traffic around at all, but having the following distance control makes it useful in traffic. Both kinds of cruise control have certain situations that you need to be aware of and ready to take control back at a moment’s notice - preferably anticipating the situation and disengaging cruise control before it has a problem - but those exceptions are pretty rare / easily handled in practice.

Things like lane keeping seem to be more trouble than they’re worth, to me in the situations I drive in.

Not “AI” but a driving tech that does help a lot is parking cameras. Having those additional perspectives from the camera(s) at different points on the vehicle is a big benefit during close-space maneuvers. Not too surprising that “AI” with access to those tools does better than normal drivers without.

the US the 50 states basically act like they are different countries instead of different states.

There’s a lot of back and forth on that - through the last 50+ years the US federal government has done a lot to unify and centralize control. Visible things like the highway and air traffic systems, civil rights, federal funding of education and other programs which means the states either comply with federal “guidance” or they lose that (significant) money while still paying the same taxes…

making more informed decisions and realise that often the mom and pop store option is cheaper in the long run.

Informed, long run decisions don’t seem to be a common practice in the US, especially in rural areas.

we had a store (the Jumbo) which used to not have discounts, but saw less people buying from them that they changed it so now they are offering discounts again.

In order for that to happen the Jumbo needs competition. In rural US areas that doesn’t usually exist. There are examples of rural Florida WalMarts charging over double for products in their rural stores as compared to their stores in the cities 50 miles away - where they have competition. So, rural people have a choice: drive 100 miles for 50% off their purchases, or save the travel expense and get it at the local store. Transparently showing their strategy: the bigger ticket items that would be worth the trip into the city to save the margin are much closer in pricing.

retro gaming community

GameStop died here not long ago. I never saw the appeal in the first place: high prices to buy, insultingly low prices to sell, and they didn’t really support older consoles/platforms - focusing always on the newer ones.

But, will you do it 24-7-365?

people are people and not tools

But this comparison is weighing people as tools vs alternative tools.

The human brain is consuming much less energy

Yes, but when you fully load the human brain’s energy costs with 20 years of schooling, 20 years of “retirement” and old-age care, vacation, sleep, personal time, housing, transportation, etc. etc. - it adds up.

Our minds work on a fundamentally different principle then Turing machines.

Is that an advantage, or a disadvantage? I’m sure the answer depends on the setting.