ebruchez

I am not sure if it is worth answering but here it goes anyway:

1. Taiwan is not China, any more than Ukraine is Russia, except if you believe all the propaganda coming from the mainland (or Russia). Ask any Taiwanese, and while many consider and appreciate a solid Chinese cultural heritage, they consider themselves independent and want nothing to do with China (except business). Newer generations of Taiwanese are even more independently-minded and consider themselves even more Taiwanese than the previous generations.

2. Even if for some reason you truly think that it is the same country or should be the same country, it is immoral to wish that a peaceful, independent, democratic, and open society like Taiwan's should be brutally attacked and absorbed by a war-mongering, authoritarian/dictatorial, opaque country. (Things could be different if mainland China was democratic, but it isn't, and won't be for a long time.)

3. Even if for some reason you are ok with the above, odds are that the difficulty and complexity of an attack on Taiwan would end up being extraordinarily costly for China (and Taiwan of course). It could lead to all sorts of escalations in the region, sanctions, the collapse of trade with China from the US and other countries, nuclear proliferation (see Ukraine considering developing nuclear weapons if they don't get security guarantees), and who knows what else.

I am not taking your word for it at all, but if they "laugh" at this, I wouldn't want to have anything to do with them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps

> it has never invaded outside its traditional borders

Your notion of "traditional borders" is where this becomes nonsense. With a little bit of revisionist history you can justify all sorts of invasions, such as the 1959 invasion of Tibet, or the desire to retake Taiwan. In reality, China is an empire, with several of its regions very unhappy to part of it (Tibet, Xinjiang, and probably more if you could only ask its people).

I ported RTEMS on a 68k family microcontroller in 1997 for my computer science thesis, as part of a larger project. It was quite easy to work with, as I remember.

This is an MT/ST Model IV. It's been on eBay for a long time, but the guy doesn't seem eager to sell it. The videos are cool though, because they show the details of the machine, including it's relays bank. The typewriter is missing at least it top cover. It would be great to work on this system, but somehow it should be acquired first ($1,000 < price <= $30,000).

Great experience. I love to hear stories of people who actually used or saw these machines in use.

> The Selectric type ball mechanism made multiple rapid impressions

Not sure if this is what you mean but no, the type element would just hit the paper through the ribbon once. The crispness comes entirely from the formulation of the carbon film ribbon.

The Mag Card was essentially a word processor, and did not compete with the MT/SC. But IBM also introduced a Mag Card Composer, which did. There really were two very different use cases: general-purpose word processing one one hand, and composition on the other hand. The latter implied proportional spacing, justification, good-looking fonts, and accessories such as high-quality paper and specially-formulated ribbons.

Author of the posts here. There most definitely was a market, which ended only with the advent of cheaper computer-based solutions. Think magazines and small publications. The goal here was not to print a lot, but to produce a single instance of proportional, right-margin-justified, high-quality output that was ready for photocomposition. The output also definitely didn't look typewritten, but it looked as neat as what you would see in a magazine.

They are asking about the machine's typeface. Techno Elite is one of the Hermes 3000 available typefaces.

I posted this link as a comment below but it might be worth linking from the top what I have always thought is a very good article, "The Node is Nonsense":

https://read.nxtbook.com/ieee/spectrum/spectrum_na_august_20...

See "The Node is Nonsense", which discusses alternative ways of describing process nodes in the future:

https://read.nxtbook.com/ieee/spectrum/spectrum_na_august_20...

Yes it supports up to 4 serial interfaces given the ports available on the Pi. You can use small USB-to-RS232 converters, and/or use the built-in USB-to-serial plus additional USB-to-serial converters and solder two MAX232 chips on the board.

I have mine connected to a TeleVideo terminal.

> a phone with a 7nm chip, which is technology they weren't expected to have.

They may have it but so far there is no independent confirmation of that. Skepticism is warranted at this point.

My house, from the 1970s, has 100% aluminum wiring. I bought special connectors to connect copper wires to aluminum wires for extra safety when I put new outlets and switches in, as there is a fire concern when the connections are not done properly.

This analogy would have some semblance of meaning if the US had plans to invade Mexico, or had made statements to that effect, or if there was even a latent desire in the US for that kind of action. It would then make sense for Mexico to find alliances with other countries for protection.

The situation in Europe is completely different, with close to half of Europe having been under Russian domination for decades if not centuries. Once those countries got out, they decided that never again would this be possible.

There is also a misunderstanding of how NATO works. Countries in Europe have not been forced to join the alliance, but they have been quasi begging to join NATO to get protection from the Russian aggressor. The process of joining NATO requires a formal application and the unanimous agreement of all existing members, not just the US's (see Turkey's move to block Sweden's entry for a concrete example of how that works).

There is also the notion that NATO applicants must follow requirements, including [1]:

- a functioning democratic political system based on a market economy;

- the fair treatment of minority populations;

- a commitment to the peaceful resolution of conflicts;

- the ability and willingness to make a military contribution to NATO operations; and

- a commitment to democratic civil-military relations and institutional structures.

In other words, the values defended by NATO are values which I consider positive. An alliance of autocratic nations (say Russia and China) would be a very different one.

Finally, if you haven't followed the discourse in Russia, there really is a discussion there of taking back not only Ukraine, but the Baltic states, Kazakhstan, and other former soviet republics (and yes, even parts of Poland). That is taking, as in invading under false pretense, not the peaceful recreation of a union with the consent of said countries. Luckily Russia will be unable to do so, but the need for protection remains real.

[1]: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49212.htm#:~:text=...

The best part was that, no matter the size of internal or external buses, the programming model was 32-bit and extremely consistent. It was (and still is I suppose) so nice to write assembly code for it.

I doubt it was for appearance only. Your other reasons make sense.

It is based on what IBM called the "I/O typewriter", which was a Selectric variant with switches and solenoids. Pretty cool stuff.

That is correct. The Selectric (and Selectric II and III) are entirely electric. Later Selectric variations, like the Mag Card II, introduced electronics in a separate console or in a board fitting at the back of the machine, but the typewriter proper remained electromechanical, where the only electric part is the electric motor.

The compensation tube is a cool design.

That is correct. IBM type elements are made of plastic, but plated with a very thin layer of metal. From a 1981 article: "the type element was functionally plated using an electroplating process that enabled the metal skin to adhere to the plastic with tremendous tenacity. Even when the plastic contracted at a temperature of -75C, the metal skin did not break off. Selection of the plastic involved extensive tests on no fewer than twenty-five types of plastics for impact strength, resistance to acids, shrinkage, and molding adaptability."

> What's an example conversation you've had with it where it fails?

Almost all of them? It's mixing up and making up everything, not showing a proper understanding of context or relation between objects.

> Only because the goalposts have been moved

I don't know about what goalposts you are referring to, but I think that you are confusing two notions:

- the fact that GPT is impressive

- the question of whether GPT is "intelligent"

For a counterpoint, I recommend listening to Yann LeCun's interview, "Is ChatGPT A Step Toward Human-Level AI?":

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULbpPHjiSBg

> and pass the Turing test

It's news to me that AI has passed the Turing test. At this point, it can only be the case if you are doing it in bad faith. Ray Kurzweil details a very reasonable procedure in his books about how the Turing test should be organized in one of his books. He has been betting all along for 2029 for that test to pass. We'll see if that happens, but we are not there yet.

> ChatGPT is passing with flying colors all the traditional tests we used to test for intelligence.

I am not sure where you are getting that from. ChatGPT is failing at extremely basic understanding tests, as even the simplest conversations with it show.

Absolutely.

I don't know about the serialization issue but I don't doubt you had it.

> def ++[B >: A, That](that: GenTraversableOnce[B])(implicit bf: CanBuildFrom[IndexedSeq[A], B, That]): That

I should point out that this is the Scala 2.12 and and earlier signature. `CanBuildFrom` is gone from the Scala collections since Scala 2.13. In fact, the collections were redesigned for Scala 2.13 primarily to simplify method signatures, following community feedback.

The "super complex" and "introduces breaking changes all the time" comments are unsubstantiated FUD. Scala has evolved a lot in the last few years, particularly in the area of binary compatibility. It's a wonderful language and I can only recommend others try it. This from a programmer very happy with Scala.

> Scala choices were directly dictated by JVM

Initially, yes. But Scala has evolved beyond the JVM, with Scala.js [1] being rock-solid, and Scala Native [2] under development. Neither are truly hampered by the initial JVM roots of Scala.

> Scala gives you a better horse

Weird analogy ;)

[1] https://www.scala-js.org/ [2] https://scala-native.org/en/stable/

As a workaround, you could distribute the modified Foo.java as Foo2.java, and have your build system rename Foo2.java to Foo.java at build time. It might be all it takes (but IANAL).

I recommend reading this article on this topic: "The node is nonsense". [1] It suggests several alternatives and is quite in depth.

[1] https://read.nxtbook.com/ieee/spectrum/spectrum_na_august_20...