I own a beach house with my sibling. My sibling and her spouse decided we needed a Sonos system. I can't figure what it's good for mostly because they run the TV all the time. I also have a Tesla Model 3 LR. Last week the navigation and the cameras went out. It still runs fine otherwise. THREE f...ing weeks before they can get around to trying to fix it. Yes, everything is flaky software. The problem is that they figured out how to make hardware that last forever and people quit buying. So they put flaky software in front of it. I've got a Whirlpool washer and dryer from 1989. A repairman recently told us to never ,ever think of replacing them with something modern. Scientific equipment is the worse. We've got hardware at work that still requires Win2000 and nothing else. It's still running, though IT won't let it on the network. There's millions of dollars of fine scientific equipment at work that get's thrown to the curb because of software. We've got stuff that requires a dongle in the parallel port. WTF! Arrrrgh!

Just my 2 cents on this topic!

I've been a research scientist for 50 years so I've got a little insight into this. There are way too many journals and way too many articles published. Even most legitimate and honest publications aren't really worth publishing or reading. Back in the day, the good stuff got published and the second rate stuff didn't. Nowadays, you can't even find the good stuff for all the second and third rate stuff, not to mention the fraud. It's the downside of electronic publishing. And who wants to review when it's mostly just garbage? The publish or perish paradigm has run its course. We're drowning in it. Let's get rid of some more journals. Let's promote people based on the quality of their work and not the weight of their publication list.

This shouldn't be very hard. Every time I get a spam call, it starts with a little bloop sound. That shouldn't be hard to detect. It's also invariably followed by a dude with an Indian accent who gives his name as something you're pretty sure isn't his name. "Kevin" seems like the most popular and least likely. How many mothers in India name their sons "Kevin"? Actually, I'm pretty sure the phone companies could get rid of this garbage if they really wanted to.

Actually, it should have been "nice" things.

This is why we can't have good things.

If you think this is bad, you should see that ad where they crush all that stuff to make an iPad. Man, that makes me angry!

Where are my points when I need them? Mod up, big time.

I think my total pay package for my first year in grad school (Phd, Cornell, Chemistry) was $3,200. This was made up of TA pay for the school year and a "NY Sea Grant" for the summer. I TA'd the next year then got an NIH predoc fellowship for the following years. This was actually a loan that you had to pay back if you didn't go on to teach or work in a healthcare related industry. I worked in the pharma industry so it was forgiven.

Maybe they figured out that Life Insurance is a scam. I get it. If you're young and are the sole breadwinner and you have numerous dependents, then maybe you should have life insurance. But as soon as you have a little nest egg, you're better off sending those premiums and a bit more to a Fortune500 Index fund. The insurance business is a leach on American society. Advertising and insurance are the most useless businesses in America today. They make nothing. And insurance company advertising is like a double whammy.

Is "trialing" really a verb? Isn't there some other way to say this? One thing good about our coming AI overlords, they won't be using stupid words like "trialing" for a while. Until they start using /. to train on.

But, but, but, ......What about TikTok?

I don't know a lot about the value of Bitcoin, but if anything good comes of it, I think we'll know pi to a lot more places. Is that right?

I'm an organic chemist. I've been doing medicinal chemistry for 40+ years. You don't grow ritonavir. This is BS of the highest order. I'm pretty sure there is no advantage to making ritonavir in space. In fact, I'm pretty sure there are tons of reasons not to bother. This is just a publicity stunt at best.

More like humans every day.

Well, I think it's funny, even if nobody else does.