2003 was over two decades ago. Most people didn’t have mobile phones let alone smart phones. I’ve been in Lisbon today and it’s surreal being 100% cut off from friends and family back home and a big relief power is back on, we’ve become very used to and reliant on seamless instant connection. Our mindsets and how we live our lives with that instant communication is totally different to 22 years ago.

> 2003 was over two decades ago. Most people didn’t have mobile phones let alone smart phones.

Maybe it depends on the country, but my memory of 2003 is almost every non-elderly adult I knew (in my own upper-middle class milieu) already had a mobile phone. Not a smart phone as we understand the term today, but a lot of phones back then had primitive smarts that are now largely forgotten, such as WAP/WML browsers (which maybe not many people used, but I certainly remember using one), JavaME applets (vaguely remember using them too-maybe post-2003, but higher end 2003 phones definitely could run them), vendor-specific mobile app formats such as Symbian

It must be. Most people I know got their first cell phone in 1997. That year over a few months it went from almost noone has a cell phone, to almost everyone having one.

Bad time to do it during what turned out to be very emotionally charged election where traditional news turns in to social media style instantaneous reporting and is inescapable. I’d also suggest 6 weeks is not long enough to fully recover. In fact in that time frame you may still be experiencing FOMO type symptoms. Would have been interesting to see how the participants faired after a year/two years.

Also fb and instagram are just two of many social media platforms, so this study doesn’t sound like a full cold turkey test.

How is traditional news "inescapable"? You can just not go to the websites and not watch it on TV. It is very easy not to consume breathless mainstream media rubbish.

Can someone with the knowledge explain, is the close elliptical galaxy actually just the small dot of light in the centre and the spiral galaxy is behind it but dramatically magnified by the lens effect?

Yes the elliptical galaxy is the fuzzy blob in the middle; blended with the galaxy behind, it's difficult to see the diffuse outer parts of it. I'm not sure how much the apparent size of the spiral is affected by magnification, vs how much is just relative size difference. I guess it would be useful to know the distance between them.

Wow I get the distances aren’t shown, but still, the magnification is impressive.

Yep, although the elliptical galaxy also includes the diffuse glow around the small dot of light.

The galaxy behind it is magnified, and also distorted.

Individual UIs have been built for every product that has a UI with specific shortcuts and specific techniques you learn to use that tool. I don’t see why the same couldn’t apply for speech interfaces. The article does mention we haven’t figured out shortcuts like the thumbs up equivalent in speech yet but doesn’t explore that further. I can imagine specific words or combinations of words being used to control certain software that you have to learn. Eventually there would be some unification for common tasks.

Speaking is fundamentally slower than typing or using a mouse, and it is a catastrophically bad choice if you are not alone in a room.

“Quite ironic” being the understatement of the year. I’d opt for insanely ironic, unambiguously hypocritical or risible.

Dw, more guns than people, it will be fine.

Your understanding is quite limited in that case. There are strikingly few people in the uk who can provide a shred of legitimacy to the governments AI plans. It’s precisely because of his “interests” that he knows what he’s talking about.

With the level of disdain for Europe in the leak, it’s hard not to think b.

There are other ways to "fake leak" information than having to look like an incompetent idiot at the end. Plus, what they said on Europe is not breaking news, they say pretty much the same on open channels - even when they face directly Europeans (e.g. last Munich conference)

Yeh, not quite the same level of frankness though. The trouble is this vaporises the veil of pretence that stern words on the surface were really backed by an unshakable relationship at it's foundation, and that leaves European leaders with nothing to hide behind to convince their electorate it's worth placating the US as they'll look pathetic. So, they're now left with no choice but to fight fire with fire.

Deep down the elites know this is the best thing that could possibly happen for Europe long term. Shed the dependency on the US, build your own defence economy and the myriad of parallel non military economic benefits that come from defence investment. Yes a painful transition in the short term so you have to whine about it a bit to try and limit the damage, but this US adminstration is the single best thing that has happened to Europe and the UK. This is where Europe gets reborn. In 20-30 years Europe will be a proper superpower again.

The “tax” is enabling total American dominance economically and politically, not to mention huge leverage over all of Europe's military with vendor lock in.

Yeah, I don't understand how those people use reason (or maybe they don't). If you look at the biggest/richest companies, it's all about US tech industry and associated, even though we have fronted a lot of the research and education.

And we ask them to pay taxes fairly they complain, and they don't want to open their stuff, they even work hard on malicious compliance. It's a pretty bad deal.