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Replace agent with 'direct report' and you've just described middle management. For better or worse, companies have always run on non deterministic tasks doled out by persons who barely understand the work.

Honestly human employees feel closer to deterministic than LLMs.

I have a pretty good sense of the quality of work my coworkers output, where they tend to struggle, where they're talented, what level of review is required, what I should double check, etc.

By contrast LLMs are more like picking a contractor out of a hat. Even with good guardrails the quality and types of issues vary wildly prompt to prompt.


>any vulnerability in any software available for inspection is going to be instant public knowledge. Or at least public among anybody who matters.

Shouldn't this naturally lead to a state where all (new) code is vulnerability-free? If AI vulnerability detection friction becomes low enough it'll become common/forced practice to pre-scan code.


Finding a vulnerability by looking at the diff that fixed it is very different than just looking through the code.

They're saying to do that scan to every diff before release, to see if it finds anything.

I believe their point was that:

"How likely is this diff a patch for an existing vulnerability?"

Seems to be an easier question to answer than

"Are there any new vulnerabilities introduced by this diff?"

In other words identifying that a patch is for a vulnerability is typically easier than finding the vulnerability in the first place.


If the diff will just be fed to LLMs regardless then what is easier is probably a moot point.

The point is that even if all code commits are scanned as safe by ai, black hats can still analyse the commits and diffs to find vulnerabilites for people who havent patched yet.

Scanning every commit doesnt automatically make everyone in the world patch immediately, vulns can still be found from commits and diffs and used against those who havent patched yet.


Look at GP to my comment again, the one I was clarifying: they're not talking about black hats or any other kind of hacker, they're talking about the original developers and preventing such vulnerabilities from existing in the first place.

Yes I am aware, however that still does not stop anybody examining your commits and diffs to find vulnerabilities.

Do you assume ai will just stop at a certain level? Or is it possible that it will keep increasing in intelligence? If the latter, then isnt it possible that even if you are auto checking all your commits, next week a more advanced ai model might be released that finds vulns in your old commits, even though they were checked by (an inferior) ai?

Blinding saying that auto checking commits will make you safe from ai based attacks and vulnerability free is just madness.


The diff yields the patched code which is used to produce the exploit.

> it'll become common/forced practice to pre-scan code.

You'd think.

But then you'd think people would do a lot of other things too. I hope, I guess.

The other danger is that "the cloud" may become even more overwhelmingly dominant. Which of course has its own large security costs.


Remeber (to you both) extrapolation is a perilous business.

Obligatory xkcd https://xkcd.com/605/


>Some level of permitting reform is warranted but I would think hard about whether you want to adopt China's policies.

Given the current geopolitical trajectories we are going to be adopting their policies one way or another.


How many tax dollars go into subsidizing a public transit ride? Varies from place to place but it's not insignificant.


https://trimet.org/budget/pdf/2026-adopted-budget.pdf

Tax revenue was $555mm

https://trimet.org/about/pdf/trimetridership.pdf

~122,300,000 rides (originating + boarding)

So about $4.53 per ride.

The Portland metro is ~2.5mm people, so about $222/resident/yr.

Portland metro area residents pay on average about sixty cents per day to subsidize TriMet.

Roughly 1/43rd the average cost of ownership for a new car in Oregon.

https://info.oregon.aaa.com/how-much-does-it-really-cost-to-...


Assuming an average fare of 2.47$ per to make the math even, that's 6.00$/ride total cost.

When a company / government gets the cost per mile to run a fleet of autonomous EV's down to ~60cents/mile or so, which is a plausible enough number, then a lot of those transit rides are going to look real silly from a cost effectiveness POV.


Yes. If the government were able to provide transit more cheaply in the future by using new vehicles then the transit that the government provides would be cheaper than it is today.


And the meaning of the truism you so adoitly picked up on is that at reasonable projections trimet and similar public transit will be uncompetitive in price (and service) relative to self driving EVs. Ergo it is correct to deprioritize their funding.

This of course is in refutation to the various points made up the thread that self driving EVs are not cost competitive and glorified taxis -- not viable public transit for the masses.


To put your point another way, “If you make transit unusable or get rid of it entirely, then the robot cars could get better than the system you eliminated or intentionally broke”

Like you admit that Waymo can’t compete with transit unless you hobble transit.

Waymo raised $16 billon in February. If they really need $500mm to build a transit competitor in Portland, the only reason why they would reach into the taxpayer’s pocket instead of their own would be to undermine a genuinely more useful and capable system that they don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of competing with.


how many tax dollars go to roads and bridges just for cars?


Too many, but at least some are directly on vehicles. Transit (in the USA, on the West coast) is funded >90% by taxes on income, property, vehicle registration, fuel, etc not by the people using it.


I cannot speak for every state ever, but I remember that roads in WA were mostly funded by gas/diesel taxes + vehicle registration fees.

Which is also why WA state has been charging an additional significant car registration fee on EVs (on top of the usual annual registration costs), since EVs don't contribute to this normally through gas/diesel taxes.


Varies from place to place but it's not insignificant


Everyone uses the roads. You have to reach for very obscure examples to find commerce that doesn't utilize roads. Every bit of concrete and steel to build transit was at some point transported over roads.


Or rail and ships.


Because the regulations, set by those with vested interest in real estate, make it difficult to build more housing. Otherwise anyone with any sense would undercut the existing housing stock and turn a 100k investment in concrete and timber into a million dollar home in Boulder, CO.

Not exactly rocket science - if there's money to be made and people aren't making it then something is stopping them.


Ianal, usual disclaimers, etc.

The design files don't qualify for copyright protections, they describe the design which (maybe) qualifies for copyright protections.[0]

The artistic design of a specific keyboard can certainly be copyrighted, but not the functional nature of it.

[0]The exact wording might be protected, but not the factual information contained. Sports scores, or say measurements of a keyboard, are not copyrightable items as they are just facts, though their presentation might be.


Humans. Humans repeatedly violate traffic laws. Humans behind the wheel are killing 10's of thousands every year. Yet we keep giving these drugged up meatbags licenses.


In what world is sinking a warship in international waters a war crime? Because it isn't in this one.


From my original post:

"AND REFUSED TO PICK UP ANY SURVIVORS"

In the absence of any threat (the ship was alone, and unarmed), then refusing to pick up survivors is ABSOLUTELY a TEXTBOOK war crime.

Under the Geneva Convention, and under the US's own legal code.

Thats not an opinion, thats a statement of fact.

Exactly this was one of the charges against Admiral Doenitz at Nuremberg.


> Exactly this was one of the charges against Admiral Doenitz at Nuremberg.

Indeed, however despite being convicted of that and other charges, this particular charge was not factored into his sentence, precisely because British and U.S. submarines also engaged in the same practice during the conflict.

And that was with WW2-era submarines which were designed to operate mostly on the surface and could make provision for doing things like picking up downed aviators and engaging in "crash dives" to rapidly submerge.

Modern submarines are designed to operate mostly submerged and have very poor station-keeping while surfaced, and even lack the ability to crash dive (because you're supposed to be submerged long before you get into the danger zone and then stay submerged throughout).

It's not entirely uncommon for submariners on the submarine deck to die from fairly basic operations while on the surface (e.g. USS Minneapolis-St. Paul in 2006 lost 2 sailors this way: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/sir-men-went-overboar...)


Thats not why he wasn't convicted of THAT charge.

It was proven in court that even the Nazi German submarines made good faith efforts to rescue drowning sailors, and they only stopped when one u-boat was sunk (or damaged?) by a US plane while it was rescuing US sailors (after which, the German navy gave out orders forbiding the practice).

Everything I said in my previous 2 posts stands.


> Everything I said in my previous 2 posts stands.

It was wrong before and still wrong though.

For example, you haven't explained why you feel that a torpedo for an Iranian warship in international waters is a war crime, but sinking Iranian warships at the pier in Iranian waters is not.

The U.S. did even less for shipwrecked survivors in the latter case than in the former. Why are bombs and cruise missiles to sink ships from destroyers 800 nm away not also war crimes in your mind?

Is it also a war crime when Ukraine sinks Russian navy ships at their piers with USVs or cruise missiles with no ability to recover survivors? (Hint: no, it's not)


I have explained why, multiple times. You just don't want to accept it (fine, this will be determined at Nuremberg 2,0, not by you or me, here)

The sub knew it was clear of any Iranian guns, for over 100 miles in every direction, once it had sunk the only (unarmed) Iranian asset within 100 miles of it. Thats not the same as being within (or close to) Iranian territory.

Hence, the lack of threat, as per the established laws of naval warfare, neccesitate some attempt at helping survivors. The sub was in the immediate vicinity of the ship. Not 800 miles away firing a cruise missile.

To still maintain that, even in that situation, there's still some theoretical threat means that you're effectively trying to say that in NO conceivable situation do the established laws of naval warfare apply, in practical terms. For anyone, anywhere, ever.

In any case, this is all an academic exercise. In this world order, no laws - international, military, or common decency - apply to the US or its chosen allies.

Justice will have to be served the old fashioned way.


This is a rare case of an HN discussion on international law where there is something approximating an RFC that we can just go consult on these issues --- it's the San Remo Manual, which is trivially Googlable, and consists of a series of numbered paragraphs. Cite the paragraphs that support the argument you're making about the unacceptability of sinking a flagged enemy warship simply because the attacker knows it to be unarmed.


Are you deliberately trying to misrepresent what I have said across multiple posts? The war crime was not the sinking of the ship.

That was a cowardly act (unarmed vessel), but not strictly a war crime.

The ACTUAL war crime was the immediate refusal to render any aid to the sunken sailors. How many times do I have to repeat that line? Shall I bold it for you? And the fact that the ship was ALONE and UNARMED removed any pretence that the US sub would have been in danger by doing so.

I repeatedly mention the Geneva Convention & the fact that the same principle is written into the official US naval doctrines (so its US law as well), and yet you're still barking up the wrong branch.

If you're going to refute my argument, then please refute my ACTUAL argument, and not the strawman version you've concocted.


> ACTUAL war crime was the immediate refusal to render any aid to the sunken sailors. How many times do I have to repeat that line?

Where possible. That restriction doesn't seem to have applied to submarines since WWII.

Repetition doesn't make right.

> ALONE and UNARMED

Doesn't change that it's a warship. Like, should warships from now on just say they aren't armed, then go off an engage in military operations and complain about war crimes afterwards?

I'll add this: the way you've argued this has taken me from being sceptical about this being a war crime to feeling confident it is not.


Not "strictly" a war crime. Got it.

It's fine to just have a rooting interest!


The guys on the Iranian warship also knew they were on a warship. I mean come on. What’s the expectation here. This isn’t tag on a kindergarten playground. People are gonna die.


What I said to tptacek just above applies here ...


Dönitz's blanket order that no submarine should ever pick up survivors is absolutely not equivilant to any individidual submarine deciding not to pick up survivors because {reasons}.

The first is a blanket order to ignore all survivors all the time,

the second is a specific case of not picking up survivors under a general umbrella of picking up survivors save for when there are other factors.

In this specific instance they can argue, should it ever go before an international tribunal, that they lacked room and that more applicable search and rescue was already en route.

I'm not arguing in defence of Hegseth et al. but I am pointing out that things are not nearly as clear cut and straighforward as you claim.


Declaring "my position is a fact" doesn't make it so. Wanting something to be doesn't make it so either.

Channel your indignation and anger into a more productive avenue, there's hardly a shortage of actual war crimes occuring these days to be pissed about.


The Geneva Convention II hedges a lot wrt submarine warfare - few submarines have the capacity to take on many survivors .. they're already pressed for space.

You could ague they had an obligation to notify search and rescue ... at a time when the nearest search and rescue was already alerted and en route.

See: https://www.justsecurity.org/133397/sinking-iran-frigate-den...

and scroll down to Failure to Rescue IRIS Dena’s Shipwrecked Crew

> Exactly this was one of the charges against Admiral Doenitz at Nuremberg.

A charge that didn't stick, a practice engaged in by both the British and U.S. submarines

  In the aftermath of World War II, the issue of rescuing survivors following submarine attacks took center stage during the trial of Admiral Karl Dönitz before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.

  After Allied attacks on a U-boat attempting to rescue survivors of an ocean liner, the RMS Laconia, Dönitz issued the Laconia Order, which instructed: “All attempts at rescuing members of ships that have been sunk, including attempts to pick up persons swimming, or to place them in lifeboats, or attempts to upright capsized boats, or to supply provisions or water are to cease.”

  The court held that the order violated the 1936 London Protocol on submarine warfare,  which required that the passengers and crew of merchant vessels be placed in safety before a warship could sink them.

  Yet, because British and U.S. submarines engaged in the same practice during the conflict, it did not factor the breaches of the law of submarine warfare into Dönitz’s sentence.
Legally, there's much here that's hard to pin down, massive grey areas and a lot of jelly to nail to the wall.

Ethically - the US forces under Hegeseth are behaving like arseholes and absolutely skating a line, the same objective (taking out the ship) could have been achieved in a number of less odious ways.

Trump loves rolling in this kind of mud.


They didn't have to pick them up. They could have surfaced (remember, it was KNOWN that there was no threat) and tossed out a few inflatable life rafts.


> They could have surfaced (remember, it was KNOWN that there was no threat)

It was by no means "KNOWN" that there was no threat. A modern submarine is inherently in a much more unsafe posture when surfaced, which is precisely why they never do that, especially when it's possible to encounter an enemy.

> tossed out a few inflatable life rafts.

Why do you think submarines randomly carry inflatable life rafts? If they had enough space for those they'd toss them overboard and load additional food stores instead.

Moreover, a surfaced submarine close enough to a floating group of survivors is actually dangerous to those survivors. It has a rotating screw at the back which can seriously injure or kill people and it's not like there's a deck trebuchet equipped to lob life rafts at a distance, even if it carried them.


At the point where you're implying that a submarine is compelled to surface, you've departed any recognizable modern law of naval warfare.


Per the GP:

> Legally, there's much here that's hard to pin down, massive grey areas and a lot of jelly to nail to the wall.

Similar to an earlier comment you made to me, what references do you have that say that GCII Article 18 is 100% not applicable to submarines? Or more broadly that support your assertion that "you've departed any recognizable modern law of naval warfare."


Future? I'm thinking a Borat style mockumentary in the present.


I think it's the future of entertainment. Ruthlessly mocking idiots in power (and others). To be honest it's the present of some entertainment.


What's the use of mockery after they bombed a girls' school and killed at least 175 innocent people? I'd like to see the IRGC erased off the face of the Earth, but not like this. This is exponentially worse than Bush jr. reading a children's book on 9/11.


Someone should dig up the corpse of project Loon to deploy networking balloons over warzonez. Would be perfect for psyops/intel gathering.


i believe they range too tar and too high


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