Yup. You just made me think of an excellent BBC doc about the topic, would highly recommend if you haven’t seen it:

Power of Nightmares

Hell no to Harris, she has negative charm every interview I’ve seen, like she has utter contempt for anyone else.

There were 4 opeds in the NYT over the weekend talking about Biden’s age, which felt remarkably candid for the elite rag it is. One of them in particular was an “interesting” idea where Biden is swapped out before the convention, but after the primaries / delegates are assigned. Democracy FTW (/s)

Now that I think about it though, why would the aides actually running the white house want a real leader? Seems like they have it pretty good as it is.

Yup, the same dynamic as the right and immigration. More to gain using as a political football instead. The tactics are from the same, cynical playbook, and partisans are happy to play along when it’s their team.

Subnautica! That’s the first (and better) one IMHO. The sequel is Below Zero.

Might be a little scary for a 4 yo - at least it can be that way for this thirty something.

Some companies end their fiscal year at the end of January, i.e. FY23 ends January 31, 2024.

Why would China announce their zero day exploit to the Internet? FUDD.

“You can’t trust those iPhones, only trust Chinese company phones”. – CCP, probably

Great power competition / military industrial complex . AI is a pretty vague term, but practically it could be used to describe drone swarming technology, cyber warfare, etc.

Ahh, that makes sense. I was wondering, “Why the hell are they announcing their zero day to the Internet?”

Ha, I always knew this concept as PEBKAC - problem exists between keyboard and chair.

I see a number of things on your list I also enjoy (and some I haven’t seen so thanks for the recs!).

I’ve got a pretty long list, but I think only the first three are scifi in the space faring long run series sense. Including some others in the genre more broadly, in case any look interesting too:

• The Final Architecture, Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Altered Carbon, Richard K Morgan
• A deepness in the sky, Vernor Vinge
• The Acts of Caine, Matthew Stover
• Roadside Picnic, Arkady Strugatsky
• Broken Earth Trilogy, NK Jemison
• Nexus Trilogy, Ramez Naam
• Old man’s War, John Scalzi

Ditto on the Becky Chambers series. I actually liked the second book the most narratively, and if the OP likes Murderbot, they may really enjoy similar themes around artificial intelligence. I also really liked the final installment. It’s a familiar setup with strangers locked in a room together, but I found it very meditative. Also, it wraps up one series character’s journey to a decision that I found very profound.

Oof

Following his dismissal, Brody allegedly refused to return his work laptop and instead used his still-valid account to access the bank’s computer network and cause damages estimated to be above $220,000

Also

Impersonated another cloud engineer at FRB to access the firm’s network and make configuration changes

I can see this at a mid size startup or enterprise, but a bank?

Finally. The concept of war crimes being fairly applied, rather than used as a political tool, is easily dismissed when looking at a career like that of Kissinger.

I really enjoyed Behind the Bastard’s six part series on the man, would highly recommend for anyone interested in learning more.

Love this - just made it my phone wallpaper!

I’m pretty sure that Amazon tried to do this with Kindle a few years ago and got sued by book publishers.

Ahh, it was audible.

It’s only a matter of time though before this sort of thing is ruled on and deals are inked. Open source is already getting pretty far too.

Yeah, modern CPU production is incredible and a pet interest of mine lately. I’d highly recommend the Asianometry YT channel if anyone wants to go deep.

https://youtube.com/@Asianometry

Just came to the Iain Banks reference, damn these robots are my people!

Dude, thanks so much for posting this! The first one and the VR version are some of my favorite games ever. I had some bare awareness they were working on this, but forgot and prob would haven’t noticed for a bit. I’ve been kinda burned out gaming-wise lately, TBH.

10 or so hours in and it’s such a perfect sequel. Art design is incredible, and everything from voices to character writing is really good. Great blend of puzzle concepts old and new. I’m enjoying the philosophical nature, like the first one, but find the ideas a little more accessible, at least on their face.

Certainly a monumental piece of art, all said.

Agreed on all of this. There was a time that I was more worried about “the government” but the reality is that if a state level actor wants to fuck with me I’m probably screwed. I’ve also gotten older and realized there isn’t anything about me that would be interesting for people like that, so that’s not who I worry about with privacy.

These days I’m more concerned about scammers and more garden variety cyber criminals. Having a broader online presence presents more of an attack surface, a place to build out an initial profile for a planned social engineering or spear phishing campaign.

Thanks for sharing. I appreciate the coverage of actual diplomatic motions and communications. We are certainly moving out of the pax Americana and into a new multi-polar global order. At this point, I’ll be happy as long as it doesn’t end in nuclear confrontation / apocalypse.