Nahvi

Don't forget the claws.

Don't know if it is the same for all black cats by my boy's claws are very light colored and stand out noticeably.

Is anyone here in a client facing job allowed to dress like this? This guy is on TVs and websites around the world dressed like he rolled out of bed and grabbed yesterday's shirt out of the laundry. Not on the weekend where he got called in for an emergency, but for a regular workday; one where he was scheduled to lead the all-day meeting he was in.

The vast majority of Americans have a dress code for work. It really isn't an issue when the boss shows up to work looking like a hobo to fix something on their day off, but if they dress like this every day its a slap in the face to all their employees with a dress code.

If this guys showed up rocking a turtleneck and jeans or a polo and khaki shorts and people lost their minds that would be one thing, but look at that picture again and tell fill me in on the latest version of whataboutism.

Nothing wrong with relaxing the dress code some, but this guy is a walking example of why most companies have them.

Everyday is picture day now.

Glad you enjoyed the edit. I am doubly glad someone actually read all that, even though it was mostly irrelevant. 🙃

Edit: Wrote this whole wall of text about Mexico being conquered. Posted. Then came back to check if I had answered your question correctly. Realized you weren't even talking about Mexico being conquered. Meh... I am leaving it.

It doesn't matter if Mexico is ripe for conquering. There is no appetite for conquering Mexico by any major portion of the US. The reasons are many and complex, but I can think of six major ones off the top of my head.

First, the general perception of most Americans is that there isn't much of interest in Mexico except pretty beaches, cheap drinks, and Aztec/Mayan architecture. All of which are already currently accessible to Americans.

Second, it would be expensive, there are a lot of aspects of Mexico that would need complete overhaul to begin to match US regulations and expectations. Many existing states would demand the Federal government pay to bring them up to code, the expense of which would end up being footed by the American people.

2.1: The expense couldn't even be passed on to the Mexican states through taxes since they would almost certainly be brought in as territories. US territories and their populations have no voting power in the federal government but also have no Federal taxes because of our history with Britain. "Taxation without representation" and all that. More on Territories in the third segment.

2.2: Cleaning up the cartels would be a huge expensive mess under the American legal system and would like cause even more oppressive laws to be implemented to the detriment of current US citizens.

Third, voting and politics, Mexico's 31 states would have to be added into the US in some fashion. Even if they started as territories, the population of many of them are too great to leave them in that status quo for long. Bringing in new states would be a huge issue and quite possible would help push us to civil war, like last time we added a bunch of states. Pre-Civil War new states were added in pairs; one slave state, one free state. Something like that would need to happen again. Neither Democrats nor Republicans would allow a new state to be brought in that gained the other side a majority.

Fourth, the people of Mexico are pretty different demographically from most of the US, not just in culture, language, and skin color, but also in the variety of religion or non-religion practiced. (This was the largest paragraph but it was getting way into the weeds so I pared it down.)

Fifth, would have to be an open travel, outsider, racism, etc issue. Whatever you want to call it, the Supreme Court has upheld the right of any American to move to any other part of America freely and many of the newly joined citizens would want to utilize it. There is a clear majority (currently) of Americans that think we have an issues with too many immigrants. Even people who are vehemently against Trump's wall may support decreasing immigration. Absorbing Mexico would be throwing open the flood-gates in the eyes of those who want to slow immigration down.

Sixth, American relations with the International community. Any way you spin it, an offensive war to conquer more territory would be viewed poorly by our allies, and used as justification to increase expansionism by our adversaries. Most Americans have no stomach for continuing to be viewed as colonial, or the consequences of such an action, even if we wouldn't mind some of the benefits.

It is important to be keep watch for government excess, even if we happen to agree with that specific example.

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. ― H.L. Mencken

Fair enough. That is definitely different in my eyes. If he's knowingly sending illegal goods into the US, he is definitely breaking US law. It is far more reasonable to ask an extradition partner to scoop him up.

The dictation software we have is pretty shitty though.

As someone who used dictation software when said software needed to be trained first and also trained its users how to speak more clearly, it always amazes me when I hear people say things like this.

The problem is human speech is lazy and inaccurate. Half of the time I have to listen to a voice clip there are two or three words in the clip that are barely intelligible. If I don't catch it by the third pass I stop and just guess by context. It is the same thing the AWESOME dictation software we have today does, but saves me the time and effort and gives the sender a chance to fix their own mumbles.

Of course, I'm one of those people whose voicemail message used to be, "Don't leave me a message unless your call went straight to voicemail. I will see your missed call and call you back."

Thank you for the response. I am not sure I agree with your exact stance, but you make several compelling points along the way.

Using the Fair Use doctrine is definitely a good way to narrow down where the dividing line is. I think we can easily agree that making a GRRM specific AI to make derivative, non-parody, commercial works would definitely be on the wrong side of the line.

When I was picturing the bots, I was picturing something more along the lines of AI bots that had consumed all human literary works, or at the very least all modern English literary works.

ChatGPT write me a short story where the Main Character is a Magical Golem that follows the Three Laws of Isaac Asimov. It should be written in the style of a Greek Tragedy but set in Feudal Japan. The Main Character should be able to gain in magical power until he eventually attempts to break into the Heavens. There should be gods trying to interfere in his ascension but not in ways the MC cannot resolve. Base the gods off of archetypes from Norse Mythology, but name them after characters from GRRM's game of thrones based on similar personality types.

Such a work would both be wholly derivative and yet wholly unique. Despite swiping GRRM's unique names this work should be perfectly fine in my mind. Edit: Even if it was commercialized.

Like the other commenter, I would be genuinely curious to hear your thoughts on that fundamental difference.

I am by no means an AI expert, but my impressions is that AI sill needs to process each book and incorporate the new knowledge into its existing knowledge. Which at least from a surface level sounds a lot like what I do when I read a new book.

The fact that each AI is effectively a non-sapient slave of a person or corporation really doesn't change my opinion.

Have you ever had a reason to read much in a new or developing sub-genre? As a fan of LitRPG, a genre that virtually didn't exist 10 years ago, I can tell you with some certainty that everything is a derivative work of something. It is amazing how as soon as one author pulls in and idea from another genre, the next 30 novels that come out will have some variation of the same idea, and the 300 that follow it will each have variations of those.

Poaching endangered species is abhorrent and I have little sympathy for whatever happens to those who drive those species towards extinction for personal gain.

That said, nothing in this article (or another one I read) makes it sound like this guy is a US citizen, ever visited the US, or even shipped illegal products into the US. Shouldn't Thailand or some world court be prosecuting him? This makes us sound like we think the US has jurisdiction over anyone in the world who would break our laws.