Roboticide

No, it’s not a terrible argument. Anyone can have a pitch or idea. That does not mean it’s automatically a viable product/service or a viable business.

It’s a valid question, how do we define “founder”? To play devil’s advocate, I’m curious if the people who think Musk didn’t co-found Tesla also agree Aaron Schwartz didn’t co-found Reddit. He joined later, after reddit was already incorporated by Hoffman and Ohanian.

In business, “founder” is already an honorary title. It has no inherent power. Co-founders often ensure they get C-suite positions as a company grows, have stock/shares, or other legal powers, but none of those are guaranteed just by being a “founder”. So practically, there’s no difference between calling Musk a “co-founder” versus “honorary co-founder.” Let’s just focus on calling him a piece of shit for the very definitive and obvious things we can point to.

Oh shit, have not heard about this book and need one for my upcoming vacation. Gonna look into this!

Well, kind of.

They showed the interior of the earth with other megafauna, but how exactly Godzilla or Kong are getting their caloric intake satisfied on a regular basis is somewhat of a question regardless.

Godzilla especially… feeds on radiation? But not just like, consuming uranium ore. He can take a full thermonuclear blast to the face and seemingly heals bodily injury. Maybe makes him feel really full too?

It’s handwaved at best, which is fine. Trying to figure out how Kaiju work is like trying to explain The Force with physics. It’s just magic, don’t worry about it.

Presumably people who bought NFTs. If you’re going to trick yourself into thinking your dumb, AI-generated piece of shitty “art” was a worthwhile investment, you might as well enjoy the perks of being in such an exclusive, stupid club.

In my experience, ad personalization is still so bad it has no impact, like in your last example. But at least now I’m not seeing random shit. I don’t really bother to try and counter targeted ads, and the vast majority of the ads I get are for products I actually already bought or never intended to buy but was researching for other purposes. Yes, Google knows I spent a lot of time researching drills, but guess what, Home Depot isn’t telling them I bought a drill, so I’ll get drill ads for a month. And yeah, I looked at a bunch of luxury sail yachts, private jets, and cars, but it’s not because I suddenly make more money. It’s because I’m interested in design and engineering. But Google just stupidly assumes I became a billionaire overnight and gives me 100’ yacht ads.

I’d honestly be more worried about a random ad getting lucky and pre-emptively catching my interest. Targeted ads are so reactive it’s not a problem.

Read the article. The UAW has just signed a ~5 year contract, expiring in 2028. He’s calling for other unions, between now and then, to align their contract expirations with the UAW’s. This is not something that’s possible to do in a short period of time, because it relies upon various other union contracts ending, and realistically by the time we get to 2026/2027 no union is going to sign a sub-2 year contract.

It’s kind of dumb, I kind of think they’re doing it for PR, but it also is a reasonable strategy.

Detroit was the setting of RoboCop. Crime was pretty bad there in the 70s/80s. It’s much better now and the city is turning around.

However, worth noting that Detroit is in the lower peninsula of Michigan, and the blue “cars & crime” part here is the upper peninsula, which is basically super rural and low crime. I suspect this was done intentionally, lol.

Michigan has more automotive manufacturing facilities than any other state, nearly 1,000 if you count all the suppliers and distribution hubs. And despite Stellantis now being French-owned and abandoning their headquarters, Ford and GM are still present with many dozens of facilities as well as their respective HQs.

Next closest is Ohio with only 600.

Why should they not? They posted an inquiry, looking for advice. That is their reason for posting.

They do not owe personal information beyond what is required to answer the question. And typically, with regards to anything resembling a legal matter, the less information posted publicly, the better.

I mean, good journalism costs money and journalists deserve a living wage. Everyone hates ads, so what does that leave reputable sites that don’t want to just be shills?

Maybe for that specific article it’s ironic, but it’s not like the Wired web page is bothering to check what the headline it’s serving is before asking readers to sign up.

“Free and open internet” still costs a ton of money. Not everyone is able, nor should be expected to volunteer their time to provide content or services to others for free.

Exactly! And it’s not like crossover content doesn’t happen between publishers already without blockchain. Look at Fortnite. All it takes is a promo code.

The belief amongst some is that reddit basically did a rug pull. People could and would buy these crypto points with real money, so reddit likely made money. Odds are it just was not successful outside of niche subreddits, hence:

Its newer Contributor Program, which rewards users with actual money from the Reddit gold and karma they accrue, is one such example. “Part of why we’re moving past this product is that we’ve already launched, or are actively investing in, several products that accomplish what the Community Points program was trying to accomplish, while being easier to adopt and understand,” Reddit’s director of consumer and product communications, Tim Rathschmidt, told TechCrunch.

Crypto also hopefully seems to be on the decline, and it’s possible Reddit did not want to appear to be behind the times.

I mean, kinda? They’re also heavily descended from 7th Century AD Arabic conquerors, but yes, many other natives may have adopted Arabic culture, language and religion at that time.

But Jewish culture is also derived from the Canaanite culture, with arguably more overlap. Jewish culture in the region can be traced back to at least the 9th Century BC, with the literal Kingdom of Israel. So the argument of “Well who was there first?” does not necessarily favor the Palestinians over the Israelis.

This has always been happening though. It’s not like the Ottomans took over the region peacefully. It’s been conquered and re-conquered by Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans…

That’s been happening for the last 5,000 years in that region though, since the Canaanites.

It’s not like the Palestinians were the first there.

And where these are most popular, the police would choose not to do anything anyway.

They are faked, at least partially.

I was friends with a guy who was on an episode of a one season HGTV show called “Container Homes.” He and his wife at the time actually wanted to buy or build a container home.

They had talked to a developer and were going to have one built. Got on the show somehow. After the show started filming, some off-screen drama happened with the developer, and an HOA or zoning board or something, and long story short they were denied the permits to build one. But the show wanted to keep going, so they used the construction of developer’s office, which was also a container building, for footage, and when it was completed did a super quick, rather pathetic job of making it look like it was decorated as a house. Then filmed the “reveal,” which at that point was just kind of rubbing salt in the wound. He looked so dead inside, it’s hilarious.

A lot of the house hunter-type shows are allegedly shot with couples who are already closing on a house, and then HGTV just takes them out and films them just looking at other houses literally for show.

I just bought a big ass TV, and I’ve just started buying discs for movies I truly want to own for a few reasons.

1. You own it, period.

2. Even if you trust Amazon, do you trust your ISP to stream 4K reliably on demand? I don’t. Fuck Comcast.

3. A physical collection just kind of looks nice, especially if you fork out for Steelbooks and only buy your favorites. Steelbooks on eBay are like ~$30.

Few reasons:

1. The system is far from perfect. It’s not as good as say, the NHS or Canada’s health system. And while it’s “free” healthcare that is better than the non-existent free healthcare that doesn’t exist for other Americans, it’s underfunded and understaffed, especially following 20 years of war which obviously saw a huge strain put on the VA system.

2. It’s only healthcare. Veterans with untreated psychiatric problems also often struggle with homelessness and stable employment. If they’re transient, it can be difficult to insure they, say, make a key appointment to get a diagnosis or prescription.

3. Many people who are largely on their own with psychological issues, including but not limited to veterans, simply do not stick with a treatment regimen. There aren’t a lot of mechanisms in place to force someone to take a prescribed drug, even if it helps, and don’t like how it makes them feel. This obviously can feed back into #2.

4. Selection bias. It seems like “so many” because our military is huge. 1.9 million US troops were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 20 years. Of those let’s say 5% saw actual combat (hard to say how many, but all estimates I have seen say certainly not more than 10%), which is 95,000. If most of those end up with PTSD, that’s more soldiers than most of the coalition forces sent over, combined. If around half do (and around 35,000 US troops were injured, so this tracks), that’s more than France’s entire contribution to the invasion and occupation. The vast majority of the remaining 1.8 million who went over and weren’t in combat are typically fine. Sure, some will also have psychological issues, but these are people who might have anyway even if they weren’t in the military.

Not to shill for the US military, but, uh… source on NJ paying anything comparable?

I don’t know if you’ve looked for a job in the US lately, but the prospects for a 19 year old with just a diploma, and not pursuing a college degree or a skilled trade, are pretty dismal.

You’re looking at something ~$30k for a Starbucks barista or a McDonald’s burger flipper, or maybe ~$36k if there’s an automotive plant nearby. Both are hourly, so gotta hope they actually give you decent hours if you go the fast food route. If you go the autoworker route, hope you enjoy 8+ hours of repetitive, non-stop, physical labor. You’re then spending at least a third of your ~$20k - $25k take home on rent and another third on food.

Compare that to $36k, with no significant costs for room and board. You’re paying federal taxes but the deductions for active military are huge and most states waive income tax for soldiers. Your take home is better, your expenses are less, your fit, healthy, and your healthcare is covered for life, and if you leave after your contract is up you get to enjoy the government paying for college.

Like 99% percent of military personnel never see combat, and especially now that we’re done with Afghanistan and Iraq it’s even safer.

The military’s problem is that anyone smart enough to do that math and weigh those choices is probably smart enough to do something else, but for millions of people it’s a better choice than slaving away at McDick’s as cost of living and college tuition continues to rise.

Many, if not most “regular military” jobs in Western armed forces don’t involve front line combat and getting shot at or shooting at people. Less than 10%.

Now obviously, you look at Ukraine and think “Well that’s a lot bigger than 10%,” and it probably is. But any country with a large air force, navy, and sizeable ground forces are gonna have thousands of people trained to load weapons onto planes, manage ship engines, cook, drive supply trucks, load cargo planes, cook, manage payroll, manage procurement of equipment, fly drones, cook, run propaganda and recruitment, operate medical facilities… the list goes on.

I had an ex whose brother was going to med school to be a surgeon for the Navy. Her father, who was an Army pilot, thought it was great because he knew his son was just gonna be (relatively) safe on a carrier or hospital ship somewhere, not getting shot at, and just saving lives.