The US gives no shits about 'bad people'. There are plenty of bad people in other parts of the world - the oil is all that matters to us in the Middle-East.
It seems likely they retain the whole video for a bit, but that is a huge amount of data, so then it's better to finger print and timestamp and toss the video after x days.
I think probably what I'm getting at with my curiosity is, who and what defines the metadata that is kept?
They describe it as a "motion activated camera" but I think it's pretty clear they're just recording 24x7 (but probably not uploading! most of the time!)
I'm guessing some on-device logic does the "motion capture" logic. What software then decides an "object of interest" and decides how to hash it? Are the still frame(s)/video sent to a server for analysis, or is that done on-device?
We know they store and catalog vehicles based on license plates and other bits of metadata. But what is uploaded, where does the processing happen, what is actually stored, etc?
Obviously it's a camera so it's trivial to turn it into a facial recognition camera, but does the on-camera software need to be updated for this to happen, or can it just be done server-side? Are they already retaining stills and videos of people on purpose (rather than just incidentally), but not _yet_ cataloging it (officially?)
Anyway. I'm curious what the public answer to all of these questions is, and then, obviously, I'm curious what's _actually_ happening behind the scenes. We know what can happen, but there are a lot of things we don't know for sure.
Xbox is in complete disarray and is imploding. I haven’t owned a PlayStation in decades. If my son’s Xbox Series X (the worst naming ever) suddenly dies, we’ll either switch to PlayStation or build a PC.
I don't think it's played; it's that idiots brought low-margin businesses into a high-margin enterprise b2b saas company (that exploits a monopoly too) and are shocked that gaming is not going to give you 30% or higher margins. Nintendo is super disciplined and a bad year for Microsoft margin-wise is one of Nintendo's best. If Nintendo can't regularly hit 30% margins, nobody can, and certainly (as you say) people who don't game and don't know a single thing about gaming except speedrunning a tutorial aren't going to do that.
Yeah. Xbox is profitable despite how terrible it is in terms of game exclusives, just not 30% profit margins profitable. Instead of focusing on that they buy studios to close them and then wonder why they don’t have better margins.
Firstly, yes PC is mostly digital only, but there is at least competition between PC gaming marketplaces, which helps to restrict anti-consumer practices like deleting content that gamers have paid for.
Secondly, some of the competitors in the PC gaming space allow for physical backups of installation media, which helps with game preservation. For example, if a game is bought on GOG, the installer is mostly/always one that can be backed up onto physical media.
Thirdly, while it's true most gamers have moved away from physical media, it still has value. For example, second hand games allow for more people to take part in gaming than could otherwise (legally) do so. Taking away physical games won't stop people on low incomes from wanting to game, and is likely to lead to a resurgence in game piracy. Not exactly the outcome game industry leaders are likely to welcome.
I agree with all of those points. The market unfortunately doesn't. Physical sales constitute only a quarter on the PlayStation platform (even less according to Sony). Most if not all of the top 10 games by player count are online only anyway.
If Sony does go all digital with the PS6 they'll only lose a small fraction of loyal gamers and they just don't give a fuck.
Piracy on the PlayStation? Also not gonna happen. At least not for online games and that's where the money is.
> Piracy on the PlayStation? Also not gonna happen.
Piracy has a long history on the PlayStation, going all the way back to the PS1. Every PlayStation (home console and handheld) has had a mod/homebrew scene, including plenty of access to pirated games. I don't see why the PS6 would be any different, regardless of whether the games are distributed digitally or not. The only difference is that more people will be drawn to it if the prices of games are kept high through no second hand market.
I think that’s the really important implied question right now. Mostly everyone already has some form of device to play games on. What happens when they start to die off?
Yeah, as an android user myself I switch brands all the time, but the iPhone users in my life all bought iPhones 15ish years ago and have kept doing it ever since.
The good thing of the iPhone is that your next phone is just like the previous one, but faster. Some features are added, some change places and some are even removed or replaced, but it doesn't compare to, say, move from a Motorola to a Samsung - they might as well be different OSs. Last time I had to relearn how to use the camera (and I AM AN EXPERIENCED PHOTOGRAPHER!).
I’ve had a few iPhones. Own 2 right now and I completely agree with your sentiment but while the hardware gets faster the software gets slower and worse. ;)
(edit: sorry, re-reading your comment you were more directly referring to the AI companies and this context, I interpreted this more generally on my first glance)
Maybe they cared, but that's always been irrelevant. "Show me the incentive and i'll show you the outcome": the only incentive for a company in our economic system is to make as much money as possible, anything in the way of that will get eroded by incentives (principled people get fired, or quit, or their principles weaken, or they get forced into doing things against their principles, or they get outcompeted, or...).
Thinking that an actor in a system will go against the incentives of the system (at least at scale and over time) is naive.
100% this. OpenAI created a for-profit subsidy (that is now an SBC and only controlled 26% by the original non-profit). Guess when they did that? After GPT-2 (Feb 2019) and before GPT-3 (June 2020). Not remotely surprising they started the move to for-profit as soon as they had something they thought could be profitable. Then in 2025 they switched to an SBC, dropped the non-profit control well below 50% and completely got rid of the profit cap. Just in time for the IPO talk. It was a mask the whole time.
I mean naivety is the default until wisdom born of experience prevails. I bought into the “do no evil” mantra of Google, and boy howdy did I learn the hard lessons from that.
It’s partly not arbitrarily punishing the naive unless they refuse to learn the lesson. Invite them in, acknowledging the error in judgement, and help them to be better going forward.
So we Americans love our kickass flag…so what? It wasn’t until relatively recent times that it became intertwined with whatever the fuck our current president stands for (for the next 12 seconds).
I’ve had a US flag up on my house for the past 15 years. This country has been good to the son of European immigrants. It’s far from perfect but I love my country. Meanwhile my European cousins, aunts and uncles are scraping by.
Exactly. The issue is them being automatically in favor, that’s a really extreme measure I as an eu citizen did not know about, even though I’d say I’m probably more informed then the average and was made to study eu history, structure and laws in school. That kind of stuff is really weird, even weirder is that such an emergency measure can be activated without countries being in active war or the like.
This is beyond retarded. It's not a loophole, it's too f stupid to count as a loophole. This interpretation is a violation of the law. They should jail every EU parliamentarian who claims that this is a valid interpretation.
Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
It completely perverts the entire system. With this approach, any law can be passed by a minority; just phrase as a negative.
I propose a new law: "The EU is hereby not not not abolished" ohh look, it failed to gain majority vote! EU is over! Everyone go home! Look at how clever I am finding loopholes!
>That kind of stuff is really weird, even weirder is that such an emergency measure can be activated without countries being in active war or the like.
What's also just as weird is how the EU can just straight up sanction, debank and make European citizens virtually homeless overnight, without even a trial day in court. Absolutely insane.
This is some NAZI/USSR shit, except you don't get executed, you just get deranked and made homeless and maybe die from that on the whims of some bureaucrat in another country.
We gave the EU superpowers to "protect us" but never asked ourselves what happens when they use those powers against us when people vocally don't agree with their agenda.
Jacques Baud (Swiss) and Xavier Moreau (French) citizens, got sanctioned by the EU[1] on the basis of "acting as mouthpieces for pro-Russian propaganda and spreading conspiracy theories". Sanctioning means asset freezes, debanking and travel bans, virtually a slow and painful sentence to homelessness and death since you won't be able to travel, have a bank account, a job, own or rent anything under sanctions.
I don't have a problem with them sanctioning people, I have a problem when it's not done by a judge but a snap decision done by bureaucrats without a public trial/hearing where the individuals get a chance to defend themselves for what they're accused of, especially when it's just for the act of speaking, even if we disagree with what they speak.
Because otherwise the EU is no different than a monarchic or totalitarian dictatorship who has people executed for speaking bad things against it, and there's nothing stopping them from doing the same to you, me and everyone else here for wrong speak against the crown's interests.
Nobody can be guilty of anything without a fair trial. Some bureaucrats power tripping acting as judge jury and executioners without trial is the definition of totalitarian tyranny.
Nobody, even law abiding citizens, wants to be under such an unaccountable legal system. Justifying it because it was used "only" against pro-Russians is insane. Today it's against them, tomorrow it will be against anyone who criticizes the EU leaders. That's how boiling the frog works. That's how fascists always did it.
>virtually a slow and painful sentence to homelessness and death
OK, do you have information as to how close to homelessness and death these two are? Based on my reading I'm unsure regarding Baud, but my impression is Moreau is probably not significantly affected.
sure, but people shouldn't lie about what the current consequence of things are either. I'm pretty sure I'm closer to death and homelessness than Xavier Moreau is.
on edit: also I think the whole death and homelessness worry expressed seems sort of weird, because I think the normal order would be homelessness and death. I may die soon, but in that context I will not actually be worrying about homelessness. Maybe that's just me though.
Xavier Moreau is not in the EU so a travel ban that prevents him from leaving the EU obviously does not affect him. The sanctions only affect the seized assets.
Meanwhile Jacques Baud is a Swiss Citizen in the EU and the sanctions ban him from leaving the EU, which makes the EU a de facto open air prison for him.
de facto a person can take a train into Switzerland from the EU (France, for example) with no border control. Or arrive by car. Once in Switzerland flights out are possible for a Swiss citizen. So I believe your statement is untrue.
Very reductionist comment- if you're an elected representative and you leave early to take a vacation knowing you'll be missing votes, you're not doing your job..
This. When I need to take my summer vacation, I need to request it to my manager in due time so the team can plan customer deliveries accordingly, and in my last day before leaving I need to do a handover of my open tasks to whoever will do the work in my absence. I can't just spontaneously decide one day that tomorrow I'm leaving for 2-4 weeks on vacation with no notice and no handover to my team.
What's stopping MEPs from having to do that? Do they have literally zero responsibilities and accountabilities? Because their job is pretty critical for our society an security, even if a trained monkey could do it in theory.
Oh, so it's also your fault when you plan, and get approved a vacation, and then in the middle of it (lets's say on week 2 out of 4) you're notified that in two days you must be in the office, or, according to you, you should get canned?
I don't know... I'm not European so I don't really care, but I feel like there are some jobs that have an existing overlap of _duty_. I was in the military, and PTO was viewed as a privilege, and sometimes leave was cancelled, but that makes sense because of the position. Other civilian jobs, like firefighters, police, maybe some medical practitioners, might have this same thing. Politicians I would say is definitely one of those positions, where you should actually be in "public service". Officials in a democracy are supposed to be elected not because we need people to fill vacant jobs, but because we need people to be on duty to make the hard decisions.
Basically, I don't think politicians should be held to the same standard as some SWE making note-taking apps.
This is a deeply American (and Puritan) view of work, and I can say that as an American who works in public service.
PTO is not a “privilege.” In fact, it is a documented right as part of the employment agreement your
company makes you, when you sign that document about the handbook. It should be a legal agreement, but somehow we’ve convinced people their purpose in life is to work for 50-60 years for 40+ hours a week and then have maybe 20 years to enjoy life before they die, happy to be of service to the people.
Public servants deserve MORE time off and MORE money because they literally are ON CALL most of the time. Taking a vacation should be MORE Normal and votes shouldn’t require people to be in person.
You build your government the way you build your country - you should show the utmost respect for those in public service by treating them right and respecting their time.
I didn't say it was a privilege. I said it was viewed as such when I was in the military.
I wasn't talking about work agreements with civil companies. You brought that in. My comment was in regards to public service only.
I don't disagree about public servants having more time off or more money. But I believe they should be on call. If that means cancelling vacation to vote, so be it. You don't want to have that life style? Don't run for public office.
FWIW, I've had skin in that game. I was stop lossed when I had 4 months left on my enlistment for a 15 month combat deployment. That's public service. Elected officials should be present and ready to serve.
Strange response... Since when is the idea of ‘duty’ supposed to be ‘deeply American’?
I’m not American but happy to agree with the OP - being an elected MP is not just a job and if they want to take leave whenever they want to and miss critical votes then I’m sure they would have no trouble getting a normal job instead!
Surely the parliamentary sitting schedule gives them plenty of time off already where they would not miss votes (I know it does in my country)
It is my limited understanding this is other way around - you plan your vacation, you get it approved, then on your vacation an emergency vote to reduce your salary is called and you automatically voted yes.
Sure you can. What unstoppable force is going to prevent you?
You might find out there are undesirable consequences if you make that choice, but that is only if the employer decides to bring undesirable consequences. MEP employers in particular are generally apathetic about having an employee on staff. Extremely so — to the point that they won't even take a minute out of multiple years to say "hi" to the person they hired, never mind give any direction to the employee.
It doesn't have to be that way, but when the employer doesn't care, that is the way it will be.
Ever worked with Europeans? This is how they treat work. In their culture taking vacation and actually switching off is part of the job. I'm not making a value judgement but their approach to work is very different to what some of us are used to.
So they should prorogue the entire Parliament and they all take a month off together. Why the fuck should some particular province or riding or whatever miss out on representation on an important issue just because their rep is out for a week on an island somewhere? Could they not have a proxy / surrogate??
taking vacation and switching off is actually the sane thing for a person to do. the problem is that there is no provision for your post being covered while on vacation, and it's a problem in the enterprise/organization.
imo that a representative of the people misses a vote should just not be acceptable under any circumstances.
that's of course if we had to take "democracy" as an actually meaningful representation of the people. this was a cheap political maneuver to get a bill passed. happens everywhere. they would have gotten the bill through by any other means anyway.
that would be in an ideal democracy, though, in reality european parlamentarians don't even draft laws, they are only able to sign off on laws drafted by shady appointees of an equally shady and largely unelected (by the people) comission, take it or leave it. that, photo ops and declarations is their whole job, it shouldn't be too complicated to have a fucking substitute when on vacation.
The idea behind _representative_ democracy is that _we_ take holidays and our representatives do the work of upholding _our_ democratic values. These MEPs took their holidays before the parliamentary session was complete.
If we're talking about _direct_ democracy then we have to do the work ourselves but because we don't want to do that (because we want to go on holydays), we give up our rights to those who _want_ to represent us.
That, of course, falls apart once those representing us start to only represent themselves.
> Plenary sessions of Parliament take place 12 times per year in Strasbourg and last four days
There are 48 days in sessions over a year. You're saying that it's too much to ask MEPs not to take holidays during those 48 days? Am I missing something here?
Do you those 48 days are the total number of working hours these MEPs have? Of course not. Something always needs to give when going on vacation. And usually missing a a plenary session is not weird or the end of the world. The problem here is that in this case the rules were abused.
Most of the work of an MP is not sitting in plenary sessions looking bored. The normally important bits are in-between - committee and office work. This specific event here is an example of a plenary session suddenly being made extremely important by a procedural trick.
For doing actual work? Getting in touch with constituents, listening to them, faction internal coordination, working on committee specific stuff, understanding proposals and motions of others, maybe filing their own... when taken seriously, this can be an intense job.
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