“it would have been quicker too had the victim not resisted so much.”

I agree that’s it’s a “hate the game, not the player”. The issue is how much influence he could have to steer the market to favor his product vs. the competition. It’s happened so many times in history where the better product fails because they can’t play the game like the inferior company.

To quote “Pirates of Silicon Valley”:

Steve Jobs: We’re better than you are! We have better stuff.

Bill Gates: You don’t get it, Steve. That doesn’t matter!

So is it fair for the consumer for big companies to be able to influence the game itself and not just play within the same rules? I’d say no.

Cabin in the Woods

Irony, since Scarlet had dubbed over the original voice actor Samantha Morton because in post Spike Jonze realized the voice needed something “different”. So in the movie they needed to turn the dial up a bit, while in reality they started at 11 and had to dial it back.

Oil change, had to drop the round metal filter with I think 6 nuts. Don’t forget to get a new gasket. Valve clearance adjustment, a constant regular thing with these. Not hard, just tedious and sometimes the spring holding each valve cover on could be a pain to pop loose. Transmission level check (that was fun). I loved my Beetles, learned a lot about car maintenance (by necessity lol) but I wouldn’t have another at my age now.

Hang on. I misplaced my surprised face…oh, here it is.

Huh, who would have guessed?

I did comment that enforcement seemed to be part of the problem here, yes. Do the laws need to be more strict? I doubt that will fix any enforcement, since that’s the failure.

Guns are regulated. How much regulation, who gets allowed, what types of guns, and if the regulations are being enforced, those are the real questions. This warrant and shooting is a result of a law that wasn’t enforced well, as they had already broken the law once and yet someone sold/gave them guns again.

Languages change over time. As long as the intent is clear, don’t get hung up on what is and isn’t “correct”. “You’re welcome” probably was seen as extreme at some point itself.

The variety of actual polls on each President is very odd. Apples, oranges, and fish?

That feels like a privacy issue, maybe related to the topic of whether or not they can force you to unlock your phone? I don’t know where the current law is on that.

Solar panels (PV) degrade over time and use and have to be replaced and disposed of. A better case would be for things like solar furnaces that are simpler, but most of the time solar implies PV panels.

In the spirit of the comic - how is the solar panel made?

A very good “normal” example of body modification, just not as permanent. And there are degrees to that as well…I’ve seen lipstick colors that just enhance the lip color and give a sheen that I don’t think twice about, but even my favorite celebrities look off putting to me when made up “heavily”. I’m a bit on OP’s side as far as preferring the natural look, although minor studs or a small tattoo somewhere don’t catch my attention in a negative way, if I even notice.

Absolutely, although isn’t a major job for the VP to handle international affairs, which this definitely is one?

I just wish we had other choices out there. I’ll vote blue and persuade others also because the choice given the voters is bad politics as usual, or insanity. I can vote for Biden/Harris and still hope (with much doubt) for more progressive actions from underneath.

Except for one thing. Unless that society is also a lot different than ours, it would still require the product these companies produce to survive. So maybe a much stronger slap of the hand, but it wouldn’t eliminate them.

When they name a new policy rule after you…

Polls are polls, but just the fact that there is still any conversation at this point says a lot about the state of the country.

It’s partially because of cost, new plastic is cheaper than trying to recover old. But very few plastics can be truly recycled chemically, much being reformed for other purposes. Glass and metals were always a better environmental choice (with their own limitations too), but plastic is so cheap and versatile it’s hard to compete. Not just plastics - just a look around the household imagining the lack of petroleum products, it’s amazing how it’s everywhere. Yet another dead end we’ve gotten ourselves into.

There are two dangers in the current race to get to AGI and in developing the inevitable ANI products along the way. One is that advancement and profit are the goals while the concern for AI safety and alignment in case of success has taken a back seat (if it’s even considered anymore). Then there is number two - we don’t even have to succeed in AGI for there to be disastrous consequences. Look at the damage early LLM usage has already done, and it’s still not good enough to fool anyone who looks closely. Imagine a non-reasoning LLM able to manipulate any media well enough to be believable even with other AI testing tools. We’re just getting to that point - the latest AI Explained video discussed Gemini and Sora and one of them (I think Sora) fooled some text generation testers into thinking its stories were 100% human created. In short, we don’t need full general AI to end up with catastrophe, we’ll easily use the “lesser” ones ourselves. Which will really fuel things if AGI comes along and sees what we’ve done.