For technical minded US folks who read about this and are outraged and/or interested in how they can do more politically, I highly recommend checking out fellowship programs like TechCongress and Horizon which place technical experts in Congress for a year (disclosure, I'm an alum) and have become critical sources of expertise in a world dominated by nontechnical folks. TechCongress applications for next year closed, but I believe Horizon's are still open.
I've always wondered: is this actually wanted? I ask because I live in a low population state where it's fairly easy to make contact with politicians' offices and there have been various cases over the years where I've noticed things occurring that seem off from a technical perspective, and have offered to help. Nobody ever seemed interested, which led me to believe their incentives lie somewhere other than "getting things right" or "learning the truth". (both parties, fwiw).
I did this in Oregon earlier this year for legislation that sat at the intersection of tech and surveillance. I am currently a registered lobbyist as a consequence of those efforts (for which I have been paid $0).
In my experience, yes, it is actually wanted. But, it's not enough to just offer to help. Legislative processes are very very human -- i.e., you have to spend time in person, meeting people, getting to know people, remembering their names and faces and trivia about them, building relationships. When you're not doing that, you have to be making informational materials. And when you're not doing that, you have to be building influence in whatever community or subject area you're trying to represent the interests of.
It would be really wonderful to see more people with the means to do so getting involved in this way. One of the reasons everything seems to be getting worse in so many areas is that most of the people doing this work aren't doing it on behalf of the interests of the average person.
Yes, I would echo that -- it's not something that I think is helpful to just drop into and offer specific technical expertise, but it is very much wanted if you're willing to build longer term relationships to understand the politics, office, and interests that all come wrapped up in a bill and the legislative process
Do you have any recommendations on which screenwriting contests are worth submitting to for a first-time historical fiction screenwriter? I've previously published a nonfiction book and am familiar with that side of things but am brand new to the screenwriting world and there are far more film festivals and competitions than I expected (and almost all seem to charge a submission fee)
It's been a while, but Austin, Nicholl, Slamdance and Page are the main ones that I'd recommend. Smaller ones that include coverage might be worth it sometimes just to get the feedback. Get involved with some screenwriting communities and see which ones people are talking about the most.
>Non golf-cart LSVs are not a new concept. GEM has been making them for years. Moke has taken a crack at it with retro-inspired open-air buggies. But none of those offer Chip’s standout promise: a remote-driving feature called Chip Go!
The pitch is that owners will be able to tap a remote driver to take over for the boring parts of driving, namely parking. It means you can drive to to the beach, unload, then dispatch the car to go park in some far-away lot. The feature will start with remote human drivers based in the U.S., Detweiler said, and at first it will only be available when people aren’t in the car. He makes it a point to note that Chip is liable for anything that happens in the vehicle when the teleoperator is in control.
Right? Just straight up documentation with no shame: From an Axios article on this
> Liu celebrated the exploit, according to the filing. "LOL, I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny," he said in a message to a former colleague who was still employed by Apple.
These companies are big enough (especially financially) that I'm really surprised that they do not have their own FBI/CIA/NSA departments in the world of corporate espionage.
Meh. It's one megacorp stealing stuff from another megacorp, hardly "appalling", who cares. I'd probably react the same way; I just wouldn't leak it to my next employer, that's dumb.
I have to admit I assumed this was going to be about Jony Ive but sounds like he's not part of the suit. Axios article talks about some specific claims:
> The lawsuit alleges that Chang Liu, a former senior electrical engineer at Apple kept a work-issued Apple laptop and discovered a bug that allowed him to access Apple's cloud file storage after leaving and while employed by OpenAI. Liu celebrated the exploit, according to the filing. "LOL, I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny," he said in a message to a former colleague who was still employed by Apple.
Having lived in Estonia some years ago when the debate over whether Russian should be taught in schools was raging (only changing after Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine) it seems to me that the grey passport holders who refused to acknowledge and assimilate into the independent country that returned to its rightful state after fifty years of brutal occupation are the ones holding most of the blame here. Estonia is an exemplar in upholding human rights since regaining independence.
>who refused to assimilate into the independent country
"Cultural genocide may also involve forced assimilation, as well as the suppression of a language or cultural activities that do not conform to the destroyer's notion of what is appropriate" [0]
>are the ones holding most of the blame here
Blaming the victim. Classic.
>Estonia is an exemplar in upholding human rights since regaining independence.
You must be kidding. Or you just don't count Russians as human.
My hot tale on the ground in 1990 was that Russia treated Estonia like an imperial colony. Forced mass relocation of Russian citizens into the country after World War II, all children taught a Russian curriculum in the (public, free, Soviet) schools.
The doctrine of cultural assimilation was at that time understood to be incorporation into a larger Russian society.
"The Singing Revolution" tells an Estonian side of this dynamic.
When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the citizens of the USSR had to choose their future. If they were in countries that declared independence from the USSR as it was falling apart, they could become citizens of those countries. They could also apply for the citizenship of Russian Federation, because RF had declared itself a successor state to the USSR. By default, those who did nothing, became aliens, which is a funny legal term for people without citizenship.
A shitload of Russians outside of Russia did nothing out of misplaced belief that the Soviet Union would return any day now, and they remain without any citizenship.
The irony is that all sorts of human rights organizations see stateless people as horrible tragedy, but the stateless Russians prefer it, because being an alien grants certain privileges on both sides (like visa-free travel in both Europe and Russia) while simultaneously exempting from certain duties like mandatory conscription (again, on both sides). In some regards, both countries treat you as a citizen; in others, both treat you as a foreigner. If you have regular business on both sides of the border, then the alien passport is the best travel document to have.
And if you don't want it anymore, all you have to do is demonstrate B1 level language proficiency and knowledge of the constitution to get a citizenship.
https://techcongress.io/ https://horizonpublicservice.org/
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