And Clinton should know, she is an expert on campaigns that are terrible mistakes…

Exactly. My terminology might not be correct, but my point is that their books can be perfectly balanced, and they can also be losing a shit-ton of money, as long as investors keep shoveling money in.

I’m not an accountant, but you can certainly balance books while showing a loss. Double-entry bookkeeping simply means that every transaction has two parts, and “balancing” simply means that all the transactions cancel out properly.

I joke with my accountant friends that their entire job is counting to zero.

Sigh. Donald Trump did not become President (Twice!) by listening to experts…

That’s quite easy, the books are balanced, there are just more debits than credits. “Balancing the books” doesn’t mean that the net result is zero, it means that all the money going in and going out is accounted for.

OpenAI can keep bleeding money as long as there are fools willing to fund it in exchange for the illusion of future profits.

Make Algae Grow Again!

He wasn’t asking, he was confirming it.

But as long as it can be converted to legal tender, it still counts. Some folks get paid partially in stock, after all, and it works for them.

I wouldn’t go that far. All the websites, apps, and electronic services we use every day are hosted in some datacenter somewhere. I’d say we get value out of that.

They didn’t become a political football until the AI companies drastically increased how much power and cooling each rack used. I don’t think we’re getting enough extra value out of stuffing AI in everything to justify the added environmental cost over more standard, non-AI web services.

No, he’d probably settle for Princess Charlotte. (But those attackers better be quick about it; in a few years she will be too old…)

I do believe (maybe naively) if Europe was attacked, that the US would help, probably wouldn’t need them, but it would be more to their advantage to help, than if they didn’t.

But the bozo we have in charge here is entirely transactional. So if Europe were attacked, the US might send help, but might send all out troops back via Greenland, then decide that it’s only fair for “Europe” to hand it over in exchange.

In German, wouldn’t that all be one word?

Baron Von Shitzenpantz

Why does the DoD get to decide who are the Christians and who aren’t in the first place?

They didn’t reject adding SpaceX, they simply said they would not change the rules to add it early, like the other indexes are. Those rules include a minimum time listed as a public company, a certain percentage of shares being floated to the public, and some profitability. I doubt SpaceX ever gets there.

Some of those other AI companies might make it through the gauntlet, though, and be listed eventually.

Data centers use evaporative cooling because it’s cheap. Not recovering the water is what makes it cheap.

This is where regulations need to step in. The extra cost of non-evaporarive cooling is not going to make or break the datacenter, but it might cut into the CEO’s bonus. Make them pay for it! They’ve got the money.

You’re right that cameras are everywhere now. And I think we are past the point as a society where people think that someone who takes your picture steals your soul or anything.

But facial recognition implies identification, for some purpose. Like entering a country as a non-citizen. Countries have a responsibility to make sure that people who visit are who they say they are, and are not using stolen credentials. Modern biometrics make this much easier (and faster). The last time I entered the UK from the US, I checked in at a kiosk. They scanned my passport, took my picture, made sure I had the proper paperwork, and sent me along without talking to a human.

But other countries that do this all acknowledge that the facial recognition may fail. That stand of 20 or so kiosks did have humans watching them, and if someone’s biometrics failed to identify them they would still get talked to by a human, just like in the past.

But that is not what ICE is doing. They are using the facial recognition in order to grab people more efficiently, and give them an excuse to ignore people’s valid identification. That’s why the fact that these recognition technologies have a higher failure rate for PoC is not a bug for them, it’s a feature. They ignore lawful documentation, and confiscate it. Then, when that person finally gets released, they keep the documentation, ensuring that at the next encounter they will not have any way to escape.

This is not supposed to happen in America. I had an uncle who fought in WWII, shit like this is what he was fighting, back when we were the good guys.

When an officer scans someone’s face, the app will run their face against a database of more than 250 million DHS and State Department records, and then provide instructions to the officer. Either “not detain or arrest under ICE jurisdiction,” or the app will provide a reference code the officer can use to get additional information from ICE.

Oh hey, I think I know the algorithm they use

All kidding aside, the worst part of all this is that we all know there are false positives, but we also know how these ICE goons (and their LEO friends) operate. They will take the word of the app as gospel, and if someone falsely tagged by the app says they are wrong and produces their valid ID, the goons will confiscate it, saying the app can’t be wrong and the ID must be fake.

No, if you call it “austerity” you are at least trying to hide it behind a veneer of self sacrifice. These folks aren’t even doing that anymore.

No, it’s not. “Austerity” implies that everyone does without. It’s not that at all, it’s simply vindictive. They want to subject people they hate to “austerity”, while carving out exceptions for their friends (who they think deserve it more, anyway).