The primary magnets will be super conducting magnets. Unless you have liquid helium (or liquid nitrogen, if your lucky) to cool it, it will just be an interesting rock.

Of course not, that would be immoral. They’ll track trollies and baskets, then tag it to the till and your loyalty card. It would be a lot more consistent, and harder to dodge.

I can see multiple uses for the tech. Unfortunately, many are a but dystopian, but some are legitimately useful.

I don’t know if it’s real or just nostalgia, but reddit is massively worse than I remember. I’ve gone back to nose a few times, and it feels like a ghost town, compared to what it used to be.

Screw thanking aliens, it’s an incredible team of engineers that have the skills and dedication to do what seems impossible. This was 100% humanity at its best.

They rebuilt the most critical core code on a near antique spacecraft that has effectively left the solar system over an equally ancient radio link. They had 1 shot, and nailed it.

My phone autocorrect has been ducking annoying recently.

Thanks for the heads up.

The consensus in the trans community is to let a potential partner know earlier, rather than later. It avoids the situation you’ve encountered. Some men also can react violently, when they find out, so it’s quite a critical dilemma to them.

Unfortunately, not all follow that mindset. They also tend to bust out a lot, and so lead a lot of men on.

It’s a bit like the scumbag dilemma women face. Very few men are scumbags, yet women encounter them regularly when dating. Most men try not to annoy the women they find attractive. They are careful in their approach mentality. This means they only make a few approaches (relatively). They also tend to pair off, and so exit the pool. Scumbags cast a wide net, and don’t hang on to women for long. This means they make a LOT of approaches, and so annoy a vastly disproportionate number of women.

Basically most trans people try to be as polite and careful about it as possible. A few, unfortunately, can destroy the reputation of the rest by being scumbags about it, at least locally.

I believe it’s common to have separate long haul trucks and last leg trucks. If the depot is right next to the motorway/highway, then it provides an obvious place for a handover. It also means drivers can stay in 1 area, and so go home each night.

It will likely be a mix. E.g. you might have 10 trucks on a particular run. You put a driver in the lead truck, as a human-in-the-loop safety. The rest play duckling to the mother duck.

What it will do is lower the skill level needed, and lower the stress. A driver having a nap isn’t a problem anymore. They just need to be able to get involved either if the autopilot has issues and has to stop, or if they need to fill out paperwork at the destination.

Unfortunately, it’s not a useful one. While we know approximately where it is, we don’t know how deep the gravity well is. That gravity well slows the passage of time, just like the earth does. Without an exact mass, and mass density, we can’t calculate the correction factor.

It’s not too bad. Relativity says that no frame of reference is special.

• On earth, a second looks like a second, but a second on the moon looks too quick.

• On the moon, the second looks like a second, but a second on earth looks too slow.

Both are actually correct. The simplest solution is to declare 1 to be the base reference. In this case, the earth second. Any lunar colonies will just have to accept that their second is slightly longer than they think it should be.

If it helps, the difference is tiny. A second is 6.5x10^-10 seconds longer. This works out to 56 microseconds per 24 hours. It won’t affect much for a long time. About the only thing affected would be a lunar GPS.

Depends how it’s done.

Full generative images would definitely start creating a copying error type problem.

However it’s not quite that simple. An AI system can be used to distort an image. The derivatives force the learning AI to notice different things. This can vastly extend the pool of data to learn from, and so improve the end AI.

Adobe obviously decided that the copying errors were worth the extended datasets.

One of the key thing that LLMs lack is a knowledge layer. In many ways, modern LLMs are hyper advanced predictive text. Don’t get me wrong, what they produce is awesome and can be extremely useful, but it’s still fundamentally limited.

Ultimately, a useful AI will need some level of understanding. It will need to be able to switch between casual chatter, and information delivery. It will need to be able to crosscheck its own conclusions before delivering them. There are groups working on this, but they are quite a bit behind LLMs. When they catch up, and the 2 can be linked/combined then things will get VERY interesting!

An encryption scheme is only as strong as its weakest link. In academic terms, only the algorithm really matters. In the real world however, implementation is as important.

The human element is an element that has to be considered. Rubber hose cryptanalysis is a tongue and cheek way of acknowledging that. It also matters since some algorithms are better at assisting here. E.g. 1 time key Vs passwords.

The purpose is to access the data. This is a bypass attack, rather than a mathematical one. It helps to remember that encryption is rarely used in the abstract. It is used as part of real world security.

There are actually methods to defend against it. The most effective is a “duress key”. This is the key you give up under duress. It will decrypt an alternative version of the file/drive, as well as potentially triggering additional safeguards. The key point is the attacker won’t know if they have the real files, and there is nothing of interest, or dummy ones.

The Packers are generally on minimum wage. When something isn’t in stock, the computer automatically offers an alternative. The packer can either follow the suggestion, or use their judgement. If they blindly follow the computer, they can’t be criticized. If they use their judgement, and a customer complains, then they are blamed. They really have no reason to stick their neck out, even if the computer is being idiotic.

I design build and operate broadcast equipment. A good chunk goes onto UAVs. I’ve built small quads, and I’ve played around with equipment fully capable of some of the more complex tasks. E.g. live 3D mapping from an airborne capable computer.

I’m also friends with several people who used to design and build military equipment, including radar systems. Military tech is a weird mix of amazingly high tech, stupidly simple hacks and long lifespan versions of off the shelf technology. I’ve a fairly good feel for how hard or easy a good chunk of the bits are to build. Most of what I suggested I could personally design and build, or easily commission, given some time, a reasonable budget, and access to restricted resources as required.

In its simplest form, chaff is just tuned lengths of mylar foil. As it flutters, it glitters in a radar beam. This creates a large noise floor. While modern military chaff is more advanced, the old stuff will still cause problems for modern systems. It’s not trying to hide a tank, or pull off a missile’s lock. It’s trying to swamp the signal from a tiny, mostly plastic, drone.

I’m also not saying to reinvent the wheel. Chaff is now a fairly niche defence tool. It’s hard to use while advancing, and gives away your position. It also needs to be integrated with other countermeasures to be useful. It is still a fairly solved problem however. It’s cheap to make, quick to deploy, and available in bulk, if required.

Most modern military equipment isn’t expensive due to its inherent nature. It’s expensive because it’s a niche product, and the buyers have deep wallets. The same game plays out in broadcasting. A £100k camera isn’t that much better than a £5k one. It is better however, and buyers are willing to pay for that difference.

The reverse is also true, as Ukraine is proving. 100 $1k drones are more useful than 1 $100k, ultra capable, drone or missile. The point of a swarm is to allow multiple cheap systems to do the job of a far more expensive weapon.

Easy for a remotely advanced military force.

An explosive drone is easy. Just a small amount of high explosives and an electronic detonator.

Strobe lights could just be an overdriven LED. It just needs to dazzle optical sensors for a few seconds.

Chaff is just lightweight foil. It’s effectively an oversized party popper. It’s job is to help overwhelm radar based tracking.

Software is the hardest bit. At the same time, many computer game ‘AIs’ are good enough at this they need to be dumbed down significantly. It would be more specialised, but only needs to be written once, then rolled out to a fleet.

Batteries would be a swarms limiting factor. Single shot lithium would likely be the bulk. 5-20 minutes of flight, then it’s dead. Disposables would likely need to be moved into position by other means, either a dedicated transport drone, ground transport, or air drop. Your transport doesn’t need to stay in the combat zone however, it can bug out and be reused. Larger more specialist systems would land and loiter to save batteries, and/or be fuel cell powered.

Reliability is handled by numbers, losing 10% is fine, when you have 20% extra.

Computing requires would be met by something like Nvidia’s Jetson range. They are designed for low power, low weight AI processing. Putting a tflop of computing power in the close Comms loop would be simple. The controller would be the most expensive part of the swarm. Not only would it need enough power, both computing and electrical, but also significant Comms capabilities. Radio links, with optical backup would be the workhorse. With a mesh setup, including dummies to help hide it’s location. This is similar to how the display drones work. An expensive hub, serving a cheap swarm.

While none of this is “easy” for a random guy in a shed, or a terrorist in a cave, it’s child’s play compared to a lot of the tech the US can deploy.

Potentially to skirt driving time limits?

Many lorry drivers are paid by the trip. If they get stuck in traffic, they are losing money. They are also required to take regular breaks, to avoid fatigue. If they jammed the GPS, then the company can’t prove they didn’t take their break, and worked through, to make up time.

It also allows for disallowed detours. “Sorry boss, I was stuck in traffic for over an hour”. In fact they went for a pub lunch, on the clock.

Please show me a built up area where you have clear line of sight for 3 miles. 3-500m would be optimistic. You would have 10s to 100s of 15cm drones. They would flit around bins, cars, buildings and through windows. A racing drone can pull 4.5G of acceleration. It can spin that in a fraction of a second.

3G is enough to cover 300m in around 5 seconds. That’s also assuming it is going from a dead start. If it can build up speed before entering line of sight, it would be even quicker.

Even worse, they could easily spend 30 seconds to manoeuvre around you. The sensor package drones (cameras, lidar etc) playing peekaboo, to snatch data. By the time they move, they’ve built a complete 3D map. They know every blind spot, every area the gun can’t target. Your gun will go from nothing to shoot, to too many targets in a second or so. Most will just have extra batteries. They exist to draw fire. A few will have payloads designed to target your defences. Others will have payloads aimed at breaking up your situational awareness.

If you engage the micro drones, then your firing arcs will give windows for heavier elements to engage you. If you don’t, then the armed micro drones will damage your defences or block your sensors, to create the same effect.