It’s doesn’t get your exact voice. Your speech gets compressed into digital “steps” that closely mimic the continuous “analog” output of your voice.

It doesn’t get encoded in to plaintext. First, the microphone picks up the sounds, and outputs values for frequencies and intensities. Recording software takes those values, and compresses them down into binary data. Then that binary data is saved onto storage. Depending on your storage, it’s then stored magnetically (cassette, floppy, HDD) or as a “lockable” logic gate (USB, SSD) or as laser etched dots and dashes (CD/DVD)

It’s not getting turned in to rocks, it’s getting written on media.

Also, some number for scale…

My computer has 3.5ghz processors. It can run 3.5 billion instructions every second. To put that in perspective, the smallest unit of time humans can perceive is ~13ms. That processor can run ~270,000 instructions in that time frame. Computers perform very simple tasks, extremely quickly, and it gives the impression of intelligence.

Russia can’t even dominate a non-nuclear state on their border.

If they landed in the US, the gun nuts would absolutely fuck them up.

Seemingly innocuous activity. I was changing the band on my watch.

Watches have a little spring-loaded pin that goes through the band and in to the bezel. I had the spring compressed with some needle tweezers and I was removing the band when the tweezers slipped. One side of the pin was still seated in the bezel, but the other side was free, and pointed right at my face as I was leaning over this watch to work on it. The pin shot straight into my eyeball.

Or at least it would have if my vision was better. It hit my glasses instead, with enough force to leave a dimple in the polycarb lense. Lesson learned, wear safety glasses when working on anything that could possibly get launched, sprayed or blown into your eyes.

All Macs

You can shim a surprising number of them with a cut up soda can. If you’ve got the time, lockpicks are pretty easy to buy and a novice can pick most locks in less than an hour with a “raking” technique.

If you can’t defeat the lock, attack the mount. A lot of doors/drawers/cabinets use thin punched steel, or mild steel for the hasp/lock point. You can get through those in a few minutes with files, saws, pliers, etc.

AVD, because broadcom fucked up VMware good.

Yes to the case, no to the screen protector (depending on your phone model).

Most phones have some version of gorilla glass or ultra scratch resistance glass. If you’ve got this, you probably don’t need a screen protector. Your screen is probably harder than any screen protector you can buy, and that protector will scratch, and now you need to replace the screen protector to get rid of the scatch, over and over again until you just live with a scratched up protector, and a perfectly good screen underneath.

While we’re at it… unless you are doing some extreme sports, I recommend a cheap, lightweight case with some key features.

Corner protection: Your phone corners are where it will break when you drop it. Get a case that completely encloses the edges of the corners, and provides good protection there.

Raised bezel: You don’t need to go overboard here, but make sure that your case edges extend past your screen. If you lay your phone screen down on a table, no part of the screen should contact the table.

I used to get OtterBox and ultra duty cases, but lately, I just get a cheap plastic case with a rubber/soft plastic edge for corner protection. No screen protector, and my phone looks brand new. Just avoid getting sand in the same pocket as your phone, or putting two phones in the same pocket.

If your’re at the point where you need a static IP, then 25mb down is probably not going to cut it for you anyway.

Easier method, tilt your head towards the clogged side, and then pull down gently on your earlobe. This will let an air bubble past the water, and it all drains out almost instantly. No weird hokey-pokey dance required.

Cinnamon works wonders against ants. Just put a little down where they are coming in. They won’t walk on it, and it messes up their ability to follow pheromone trails.

If you absolutely want to kill them for some reason, the liquid borax baits seem to work the best in my area. Just make sure they cannot be reached by pets or small children.

You’re absolutely right that AI is going to use electricity, and (for now) a majority of that electricity is generated through combustion.

I don’t think that is the concern when it comes to the power grid. I think most people are worried about power delivery infrastructure, which is a lot harder to upgrade/add than power generation infrastructure. Sorry if my comment wasn’t clear about this.

I feel like #3 shows up for every tech innovation. I remember people bitching about the Internet not being viable because phone lines were too slow. The demand needs to be there before the infrastructure will get built.

That was my thought too.

Born here, stuck here.

Anyway, how well do you think American political awareness compares to political awareness of other countries? I honestly haven’t looked yet.

Passed that one. It was a little harder than the practice test, but I think it’s about a middle-school level difficulty.

Interesting article. I would agree that most Americans are politically unaware per that article, because most Americans aren’t economists or historians. It was definitely an interesting read, but what I really noticed is that the article failed to compare American political unawareness to a global baseline, or at least provide some comparable country’s numbers, like England, France, Russia, China, Australia, Mexico and Canada?

Makes me wonder if I could pass the US citizenship test…

Edit: 95% on a practice test…

https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship-resource-center/naturalization-test-and-study-resources/study-for-the-test/2008-civics-practice-test

Can you explain what you mean by “politically unaware”?

I wouldn’t say “no person” but the F150 should not be the most sold vehicle for the last 10 years straight.

We need to shame Pavement Princesses and Suburban Assault Vehicles out of market dominance.

https://tyreextinguishers.com/

Switched to OP after LG dropped out. I’m basically pro “anything but apple and Samsung” but I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by my Pro 9. Hands down the best phone I’ve ever used. My only real complaint is that after 3 years, the battery doesn’t make it all day every day, but its easy enough to carry a battery bank, or just pop it on the charger for 10 minutes and get 40% of the battery back.