ridgeguy

This is a high power microwave emitter whose very high frequency (33GHz, IIRC - home µwave ovens are 2.45GHz) limits its energy deposition to a thin tissue layer. It's very effective, but big and cumbersome because of the high power requirements. At these frequencies, components are tiny. If one needed less than ten Watts, this could be a box the size of a desktop PC, maybe a shoebox.

I'm fairly sure this could be (is being?) scaled down to something resembling the pain box used on Paul Atreides in Dune. An efficient "enhanced interrogation" technology is just too tempting for too many in power.

(edit: omitted word)

In a few decades, we may look back on widespread use of GLP-1 meds as being as important as Fleming's finding that mold in the 20th century or John Snow's vandalizing the Broad Street pump in the prior century.

A ground target is one 50cal or smaller round, or one RPG or antitank round, from oblivion. Airborne things are harder to destroy.

It isn't hyperbole. America is crashing and burning because of Trump and his companions and enablers. They've damaged the entire human enterprise.

This invites the question, "Qui custodiet ipsos custodes?".

So what? Does that mean it's wrong or noncontributive? Don't judge a book by its cover, etc.

An audio "recording" is data (digital, analog, grooves on vinyl, whatever) that allows later listening to the original audio.

What Apple is doing in Rewind is as legal as if you were to take a contemporary transcript of a conversation. That's not illegal.

It's legal even if you're a skilled shorthand transcriber and get every word. That's Rewind, if I've understood it correctly.

My need for this new iPhone is driven by my declining vision. Twenty years ago, I had no problem with my first iPhone. Five years ago, I started to get acquainted with some of the visual accommodation measures in iOS. I do still use my (physically larger than I would like) iPhone 16 Pro Max, which I bought for the biggest screen. I'd love to do my stuff on my laptop or desktop, but smartphones are de facto The Computer these days. So I'll probably buy an iPhone Duo after I sell a kidney for financing. All that said, today's Apple presentation left me gobsmacked at the technology they've developed. I was born before civilian jet transports were in service, with all that implies for a long personal view of tech dev. The tech feels to me like a cut&paste from 2076.

Tungsten is 1.0015 times denser than gold. A gold-coated tungsten ingot could be adjusted (tiny internal cavity) to have exactly the same mass as a solid gold ingot of the same volume.

I've no idea what checks are done to exclude such artifacts from gold storage. If somebody accepted them and stacked them in a reserve vault, they might go decades without discovery.

I guess it's not something to worry about. It's improbable, and even so, if everybody agrees on the value of undetected bogus W/Au ingots, makes no difference from the real thing.

Californian here. I live in hope.

Yes, and the one thing I'd add is practice. And more practice.Take an occasional macro video so you can remember how that perfect joint felt when you did it.

Source: decades-old Lockheed certification for rework on Trident C4 & D5 SLBM G&C boards.

This is correct.

Any system that executes variation, selection, and inheritance will show evolution. We're seeing evolution, this time in agents, not biology.

Not saying the agents have their own consciousness, intent, or whatever anthropomorphic descriptor gets used for deflection. Just saying that people will (and no doubt are) crafting agents with defective instructions that will lead to regrettable unforeseen real world consequences. Also saying that other people will (and no doubt are) crafting malicious agents that will lead to predictable and unexpected real world catastrophic consequences.

To the extent we're dependent on reliable, aligned computation to maintain our civilization, to that extent we're in for real trouble.

This is why I use the human-run checkout lines. I want to keep the humans employed.

Sometime in the mid-90s, after I'd read M&C and the two following books, I heard Patrick O’Brian interviewed on the radio as I was driving to work in Sunnyvale. The interview included about 20 minutes of his reading from M&C.

After listening to him read for about 30 seconds, I pulled onto the shoulder of 101 around Ames lab, shut down my car and just listened to him. I'd never before heard someone give voice to the English language in what sounded to me as such a profoundly perfect form. I remember thinking that I'd love to have heard him read Shakespeare.

I appreciate the post. I had no idea he was such a flawed person, and it's illuminating to learn that. But it doesn't affect my happy memory of hearing my native tongue (if I may claim that, even though I'm American) employed with such superlative skill.

Maybe I should look into training an AI in the audio style of Patrick O’Brian and have it read Shakespeare for me.