I lived 14 years overseas (federal agency), in various countries, and my living quarters usually had a safe room, typically just a bedroom steel door with ballistic and forced-entry protection . Additionally, my quarters usually had a guard, or guards - sometimes all day, but certainly at night. In one country, an armored personel carrier with a .50 cal on top was just outside my door.
I never thought much about it, although I did feel rather safe. I dismissed the feeling, just a price of doing business.
Fast forward to retirement in the US. Of course, no guards, no safe room, and glass doors with zero ballistic or forced-entry features. I confess to being so greatly unsettled at the, what seemed to me, the extremely insecure nature of my retirement residence that it drove me to a therapist who described my insecurity as a form of PTSD.
I sleep easy now, no longer panicking at the normal groans of a house, nor need to take anti-depressants - but it was a long haul to get there.
I'm making no point, just relating a personal experience.
<Maybe AI assistants in random places just aren’t that compatible with people on HN but are possibly useful for a lot of people not on HN?>
Coincidentally today, I received an automated text from my heath care entity along the lines of, "Please recognize this number as from us. Our AI will be calling you to discuss your heath."
No. I'm not going to have a personal discussion with an AI.
> Coincidentally today, I received an automated text from my heath care entity along the lines of, "Please recognize this number as from us. Our AI will be calling you to discuss your heath."
That sets off super strong scam vibes to me... Our banking industry here and medical industry pushes phishing information down your throat so much people even worry about legitimate communication that couldn't possibly be a scam being a scam.
I find that to be better for society but definitely clouds my judgement on those kinds of text. Also I have absolutely dropped my previous bank because it became impossible to speak to an actual human and willingly pay more for a bank where my phonecall goes directly to a human.
Do what one of the other commenters mentioned, make the AI an assistant for the human beings that help your customers, let the humans communicate with humans.
Out of curiosity, why cannot hospitals fund residency slots on their own with some riders (the resident should work in the same hospital for x years)?
It seems odd that the medical profession is not willing to invest in the training of the next generation of professionals without government help.
They do sometimes. People don’t realize how much of medicine, generally, is funded through the government. Additionally, society gives medicine a lot of leeway to act selfishly because the core practice of healing is so altruistic.
Broadly, it’s the same issue that all jobs have: it’s cheaper to hire pre-trained professionals than to hire and train.
Because they need to support their executives and capital projects / debt service. That’s the discretionary budget… training doctors doesn’t improve the bottom line.
Hospitals are really quasi-government entities. Their pricing structures have price controls based on Medicare reimbursements. A third of hospital revenue is Medicare and Medicaid.
Both programs have been slowing rate growth, which in turn impacts private insurance as well. The institutions haven’t been successful in reducing cost growth. ACA built out regional cartels^H provider networks, essentially eliminating competition.
In my 3 decades experience of being responsible for handling and storing classified, including comsec material, no one goes to jail for mishandling classified. The only exceptions to this case might be personnel who fall under UCMJ as the military does things differently - and I have seen that. All others? Civilians? Might lose their job, might be censured, might lose a promotion opportunity - but no one goes to jail.
In fact, the only time jail is threatened, is when the incident is IN ADDITION to other charges, often related to espionage.
Frankly, the cases of people accidentally mishandling classified, accidentally taking it home, improper storage etc. are very, very, common and are simply dismissed with minor (or major) implications but never imprisonment.
The violation's charges are so subject to selective (and subjective use) that I would be uncomfortable with selectively employing it in cases so fraught with partisan politics.
Mishandling without intent is quite different. AFAIK the DOJ has evidence of intent in this case. If he had just cooperated with the national archives and the FBI like every other president before him it would have been nothing more than a footnote.
> In Kansas City, a former FBI analyst pleaded guilty in October to taking home more than 300 classified files or documents, including highly sensitive material about al-Qaeda and an associate of Osama bin Laden. She faces up to 10 years in prison. In Massachusetts, a defense contractor pleaded guilty in 2019 to removing classified national defense information from his office and storing it at home. He got 18 months.
> And in Maryland, Harold Martin, a former government contractor, took home a huge number of hard and digital copies of classified materials — the equivalent of 500 million pages — though he never shared it with anyone. He is midway through a nine-year prison sentence.
"Frankly, the cases of people accidentally mishandling classified, accidentally taking it home, improper storage etc. are very, very, common and are simply dismissed with minor (or major) implications but never imprisonment."
> Trump certified that he was returning all the remaining documents on June 3, 2022, but the FBI later obtained evidence that he had intentionally moved documents to hide them from his lawyers and the FBI and thus had not fulfilled the subpoena.
<Watching this film set me off in a Herzog marathon - amazing director.>
While in Alaska for the shoot, Hertzog took the time to address students at the U of Alaska in Anchorage. It was in the evening, in a teeny classroom, with only a few people there.
The only thing I remember (man, that was awhile ago) was how personable Herzog was. He told the story of his start, that when he was just a very young teenager, he stole (stole!) a rather expensive camera to shoot his first story. "You stole it?" someone conversationally asked? "Yes, I REALLY wanted to film," Hertzog gleefully replied.
He recounts this story in his book, Every Man for Himself and God Against All, which is a cracking read. The audiobook is narrated by him, so I imagine that would be worth a listen (not done it myself). I had the privilege to see him talk in London several years ago, and the thing that struck me from both the talk and the book, was how curious he is is about things, and his general attitude of just trying to do the things he was interested in regardless of obstacles, exploring his ideas, no matter how hard, outlandish or crazy they were.
Libraries are excellent gatekeepers for content quality. Generally, library books are scrutinized and determined as "worth paying for".
Previously, publishers would do similar due diligence - someone at the house would actually read the book, if not work with authors.
Due diligence of this nature is not now particularly common. There is no cost risk with a digital book. It could be, and often is, written by those without the talent to match their ambition. If one is looking for new authors to read, it's very difficult to sort through the dreck.
Let the libraries sort through the dreck for you. Pro-tip: gift your local library a mere $100. They'll love you for it and invite you to all sorts of interesting gatherings. You might meet a good book, or even better, a good person.
It’s true that nooks could be written by novice writers but even worse they could be entirely generated with LLMs, never even read end to end by the presumed authors. Sometimes there’s no human in the loop, just some scripts running.
Is the US really "bracing" for this event? Girding their loins to brace in anticipation of this event? Bracing their bodies or their minds? Will the Walmart people make runs on toilet paper? If I want to properly brace, what do the experts say?
For me, I choose a field that I was not particularly well-educated about, and dove in - medieval history. It's a fascinating and deep topic, and I began to collect a library of the significant histories. Went off the deep end and collected more books than I read. But the reading was fascinating, as was trying to determine who the best historians were, finding their books, and reading them for comprehension.
In short, collecting.
I suppose any type of immersion in a collectible thing might do the trick, but for me, it was both collecting the books and reading them that took my mind off burn out (and a troubled personal life).
"It's a livesaver," the traveler gushed, "Never leave home without it."