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Is it specifically the camera or the single robotic arm meant for manipulating hazardous objects — which resembles a grocery store claw game — that you likely believe is biting into illegal immigrants' legs like a robotic German shepherd?

You have not done the bare minimum of research before blasting out your hilariously melodramatic comment.


I think it’s more that an agency that defends murderers in their ranks isn’t going to have a problem deploying something that injures innocent Americans as it tries to do whatever it’s meant to.

On the upside, I look forward to everyone at Boston Dynamics being subpoenaed for the next few years. Maybe we’ll get some new entrants from the departures.


These robots are 2 feet tall and don’t come equipped with weapons.

Genuinely curious how you are saying they are dangerous? Are they more or less dangerous than a human with a gun?


> These robots are 2 feet tall and don’t come equipped with weapons

They were barely deployed to regular police when fastening flash-bang grenades to them came up [1].

> Are they more or less dangerous than a human with a gun?

I genuinely don’t see these being used as an “or.” It’s undertrained idiots with guns plus these, or just the former.

[1] https://www.semafor.com/article/05/19/2026/worker-backlash-o...


> deploying something that injures innocent Americans

Except that's not what's happening here. In fact, quite the opposite, it's more like robotic PPE.


> that's not what's happening here

Nobody claimed anyone has been injured by these devices yet. (They haven’t been deployed in public.)

The reasonable concern is that when they are deployed, they are likely to injure someone because the people deploying them have been eagerly hurting—and defending those who hurt—innocent Americans.


You're the one being "hilariously melodramatic" here by first inventing something the other person didn't say and then patting yourself on the back for taking down that imaginary argument.

Any sufficiently large robots with powerful actuators are an inherent threat when used next to untrained people. This one especially so because it'll be used in adversarial encounters. In reality it'll probably be reserved for scouting (unless you genuinely believe that that agency is going to be investigating gas leaks or doing search and rescues), but do you think they'll care about making it snap someone's bone when they kick the robot and their leg gets stuck between its leg and torso? And that's before you imagine what basic modifications they could fashion onto these things.


They could just drive it into someone.

>hazardous gas detection, search and rescue, as well as suspicious package investigations

What the fuck does that have to do with immigration and customs enforcement?


> will be used in operations deemed unsafe for human agents, like hazardous gas detection, search and rescue, as well as suspicious package investigations

Cyberpunk, albeit a nothing-burger.

These are not the metal-toothed cartoon dogs you so badly want them to be.


Mods censoring the post for being trolling "disrespectful to the community" is classic Reddit.

Some guy's in the hospital from handling droplets of instant liquid death and they're worried about feelings being hurt?


Apparently the article was, in fact, trolling with inaccurate speculative 'information.'

The deleted post was a "Dear Colleagues" letter written by an MIT chemistry faculty member. It's the same letter posted here:

https://old.reddit.com/r/labrats/comments/1w1ukrv/mit_studen... ("A message sent out from the chair of the department of chemistry...")


Sadly old.reddit.com has started requiring a login now. It worked for me up until today. Another site off the reading list, unless someone knows a workaround (I tried deleting cookies).

Ahh, that was thoughtless of me!

> "A message sent out from the chair of the department of chemistry at the school identifying the substance in question:"

> "“Dear Chemistry Colleagues,"

> "I am writing to provide an update on efforts to reopen Building 18 safely."

> "A specialized team from Triumvirate Environmental worked overnight on decontamination efforts in the building. This work includes wipe-downs of relevant surfaces in the lab and common areas, as well as the safe disposal of items that may have been contaminated. Decontamination work will continue throughout the day, and the building will remain closed until the work is complete."

> "In addition to our health and safety experts, we have been working continuously with staff and colleagues from departments across the Institute. Our highest priority is community safety, and we continue to make decisions accordingly and gather as much information as we can."

> "It remains the case that, based on the information available, this was a localized issue with only one student directly exposed, and this student was the individual working with the compound. Their reported use of dimethyl mercury was unauthorized. MIT does not allow the purchase or synthesis of dimethyl mercury."

> "I want to reiterate that, based on the information available to me, our industrial hygienists, MIT Health medical experts, and other resources we've consulted, the risk of secondary or tertiary exposures remains low, given the compound's characteristics and the information available to us."

> "Please feel free to reach out with questions. I will continue to provide regular updates as we learn and have more to share."

> "With care and regards,"

> "Matt Shoulders”"


"Old reddit redirect" extension for firefox. If you use chrome, don't.

>Log in to use old Reddit

>To keep Reddit safe, accounts are required to access old Reddit.

God, I hate that horrible website. How does this keep people "safe"


Legend has it that shareholders are people. None can prove it though.

"Old reddit redirect" extension for firefox.

Doesn't this violate the whole spirit of the GPL? He's shocked that the usual suspects are ripping off GPL code. Tale as old as time.

It's like those SOHO router vendors that release incomprehensible tarballs of their GPL components; lotsa luck building it.

If I'm paying for closed-source ZFS, I'll go with the real thing and buy a Solaris license.


Not just the spirit. GPL requires build scripts along with the code.


Truenas core is BSD, not GPL.


They seem to have stopped publishing the TrueNAS scale build scripts aswell.

I think scale is also BSD licensed (atleast the gui and middleware)


Why does anyone bother with these ephemeral meme distros when you can accomplish the same with vanilla FreeBSD/Illumos/Linux using standard commands and documentation?

If you need your hand held to file share, that's why Windows Server still exists and is the gold standard for SMB.


Because I don't want to spend that much time an all systems i'm running?

you also get a whole community testing the stack, fixing it too.

And don't be that pissi... when I started 20 years ago, stuff like this would have been the gateway to linux world and is for sure still today for plenty of people...


If you have coworkers or other priorities it's sometimes preferable to have the option to have a hand held at some tasks or incidents rather than making sure someone competent read all the documentation pertaining to some irreversible command lines. You can try to treat a LLM as that hand holding but it can be a psychophantic member of group think while a checkbox stays a stable checkbox.


Why use open source when windows exists?


> Defunding the FDA and forcing out 4500 staff via DOGE cuts caused this.

This is great news because it means time travel is possible.


Funny. Two of OP’s events are prior to the DOGE cuts so they could not be causative.

But these panics are so amusing. Pete’s breaking the trains. Hegseth (was it him?) is crashing the planes. RFK’s eating the infected meat. The Haitians are eating the cats and dogs. We need a prediction market for the next panic.


McDonalds was October 2024 too.

Let's not let facts and real data get in the way though. Every post is being massively downvoted.


Firing USDA inspectors etc. is definitely directionally stupid. But yeah, this issue is preexisting. A huge portion of USGov’s rules and regulations were written in response to the social push when stuff like The Jungle was hitting the public perception—which is to say, when public health could be meaningfully improved by a simple non-magnified visual inspection of meat destined for sale. And so that’s what we get: a visual inspection of meat destined for sale.

Say what you will about the overall regulatory environment of Canada and the EU—you can buy meat there and know that you will not get salmonella, because it’s been tested for salmonella, and it won’t be sold for consumption if that test is positive. Stateside we’re just told: well, cook it properly or it’s on you.



Interesting -- I stand at least in part corrected. It _is_ the case that there's regulations intended specifically to address this. It seems they're not 100% effective, though.

What gets me about your linked cases is that, with one exception, they're all to foods that you'd consume without further preparation or cooking. Not sure what to make of that--but it's not what you'd expect for a salmonella source.


The last time I had salmonella like food poisoning in Canada was likely a plate of vegetarian linguini in a small town restaurant. Could be someone grabbed my plate while processing meat or who knows... Meanwhile our food regulation folks are busy culling herds a year+ after a reported bird flu infection, or herds of cattle/raindeer at great emotional and financial cost only to have tests come back clean. Maybe we need to acknowledge when actions are more destructive then protective and course correct, issue apologies and make financial repairs to those affected. It sure makes for a lot of negative publicity for agencies tasked with protecting the public.


Salmonella is destroyed by heat.

That's why you should thoroughly cook your food, especially if you have a weakened immune system.

Eggs get recalled for Salmonella because we like them sunny side-up.

Salmonella in ready-to-eat foods, introduced by cross-contamination, is a different story.


Sounds to me like the USDA is working as intended: they caught a company doing shady stuff and forced a recall.

Are you really trying to spin your own narrative here, using cherry-picked data and your own link as "evidence"?

The Boar's Head *and* McDonalds outbreaks were in 2024 under the previous admin, way before DOGE, completely undermining this sneed.


I don't really know if this is the cause. But the whole DOGE thing sounded highly irresponsible. Did they understand what they were cutting. Furthermore, there may be even worst consequences in the more distant future.


> Did they understand what they were cutting.

No, they were using llm prompts to make decisions.


They absolutely understood exactly what they were doing. They're stupid, but they're not STUPID. Don't let them excuse malice by faking incompetence


DOGE carefully cut:

- NLRB which was investigating employees fired as retaliation for criticizing Musk's actions

- OFCCP which was auditing Tesla for workplace discrimination

- EEOC which had sued Tesla for racial harassment and discrimination

- Five separate Inspectors General who were investigating Musk's companies

- NHTSA which has forced Tesla to perform recalls

- CFPB which had proposed rules that would cover Musk's planned payment product

- USDA (specifically the person investigating Neuralink)

- FDA - also the people investigating Neuralink

- SEC, FTC, and NOAA - again, those with Musk related business were cut

I am not saying that Musk bribed his way into killing nearly all of the regulatory actions he was facing ... but I am not NOT saying that either.

It's pretty clear that DOGE had a lot to do with consolidation of power, and very little to do with cost cutting.


> using cherry-picked data and your own link as "evidence"?

“Your own link”? Do you think the poster you’re replying to is The New York Times?


> closed for training

So like the DMV then?


The Chinese tech industry is built upon a foundation of GPL violations.

There is no way to stop it beyond getting CBP to block imports, which effectively amounts to shunning.


They built on a foundation of not respecting US intellectual property; copyright licenses were also ignored.


Any intellectual property (though they only get away with internal transgressions if their government approves).

Unfortunately that seems to increasingly be the status quo these days, look at US companies and their attitude to IP when it suits them to ignore licenses for LLM training purposes.


IP will only be respected if there is a mutually beneficial reason to do it. The US would need to offer China something they need in exchange for enforcing IP.

The US does not respect the EU's Protected Designation of Origin laws because they have more to gain by ignoring them. China has more to gain by ignoring US IP laws.


Shhh, don't point out the massive isomorphic plagiarism of GPL, markup user, and BSD licensed code.

People want to pretend LLM vector search compaction output isn't copyright and trademark violation. We are in the Napster phase of the market exploitation.

On a positive note there is nothing left of value to steal/scrape, so the problem will likely eventually be self-correcting. =3


Intellectual property is nothing more than a means of government-backed protectionism, alongside tariffs and embargoes. Any two countries that respect one anothers' claims of intellectual property do so by mutual agreement. No sovereign is entitled to unilaterally dictate the terms of trade with another, and that includes the exchange of ideas.


> Any two countries that respect .... by mutual agreement.

Guess how China got their membership in WTO ?


They literally raided and hijacked the whole Chinese Arm division and continued using all IP. Chinese don't care about theft really, "it's more like a suggestion" (c) Barbossa


So? The AI industry is built upon a foundation of copyright violations and nobody seems to care anymore.


Not really. What copyright violations is the AI industry "built upon"?

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