... on how many weeks will pass before a filmmaker / YouTuber / animator shows up with a video made years ago that's almost identical to something Sora "created." The man behind the curtain in this case is the petabytes of video this model was trained on, and sooner or later we'll see him back there.

Yep, it's been debunked quite thoroughly, e.g. in this classic Snopes article.

The whole "To Ensure Promptness" story as the origin of "TIP" has been debunked many times before, so it's a shame this author chose to repeat it: a quick ask of Google will lead you to Snopes every time.

With that said, totally agree that tipping has long since been out of control. I tip 15 percent and call it a day, but only when there's actual service being rendered. (Scooping ice cream into a cone, for instance - i.e., the job an ice-cream parlor worker is paid to do - doesn't warrant a tip, whereas bartender making my Martini to order earns his or her tip.)

Two words: Public. Library.
Still not "free" because your property and/or other taxes support it, but between what your local library system has in inventory and what's available through interlibrary loan, I'm betting you can cut your reading-related spending significantly - especially if you don't love something enough to want to read it again within a few months.

That's your choice, but I'd still recommend your local library: depending on your metro area, you may have access to audiobooks as well.

Personally, I think Amazon is a rotten company ... bad for publishers and worse for free speech, but regardless of how you feel on those issues you might save some cash by looking into other options.

My point is that self-interested opponents of this, or any, public-broadband plan can (and probably will) use their superior funds and marketing skills to sway debate in their favor - even on even proposals that would be financially sound and good for the market.

The fact that you choose to intentionally misstate my argument and dismiss it as a "rant" doesn't change the truth of that statement.

I used to work in Salisbury, N.C. which in 2011 announced a rollout of a citywide, local-government-backed fiber internet service called Fibrant. Any time the local newspaper wrote a story that even mentioned Fibrant - even if it was a passing mention, not about the service itself - a bunch of sock-puppet commenters who never commented on *any* other stories would appear to begin decrying it as a waste of taxpayer dollars, a boondoggle, a government overreach, etc. (This was before the local paper tied its article comments into Facebook, which is another story altogether.)

It was an open secret that the company then known as Time Warner Cable, now Spectrum (may its executives suffer piles and its shareholders have genital warts for eternity) was behind the campaign. At the time, there were IP logs and suchlike that proved it, but nothing was ever done to shed light on it publicly.

Fibrant did lose money, and the city's fiber network is now leased by Hotwire and was rebranded. Cleveland, a much larger metro, has a better chance of turning a profit. But the lesson here is, be prepared for the incumbents to use every shady marketing and lobbying tactic possible to weaponize public sentiment against something that could help provide another option - financed, of course, by your current cable and internet fees.

... since I haven't had mod points in $deity knows how long, and may never again. But I, also, won't buy an iPhone without a 3.5mm headphone jack.

On a related topic: Has anyone done a study of the rates of crashes caused by distracted driving in cars that have adopted infotainment systems with touchscreen controls vs. tactile buttons, switches, etc.?

They treat their workers miserably. They're churning out low-quality products by design, so you keep buying more low-quality junk and feeding the landfills. Meanwhile, their pricing model drives better-quality manufacturers and local retailers out of business.

My family hasn't ordered anything from Amazon in over a year and we haven't looked back. I don't see any good reason for the rest of the world not to do the same thing.

I started this thread generally agreeing with rudy_wayne, but your points were good ones, and I was paying attention - until you pulled an ad hominem attack out of nowhere and started accusing OP of being a former Dasher, without any evidence or common sense to support it. It wasn't enough for you to be correct; you just had to be an asshat into the bargain to show everyone how clever you are, too.

People like you are a major reason why society is in the shape it's in today. You poison reasonable arguments. You tear down people instead of trying to build them up. You could have convinced me, but now I know your opinions aren't worth listening to, because you don't see the person you're arguing with as a person worth respecting.

You won't listen to me when I say this, but you should really do better next time.

You certainly seem *really* invested in this issue. I'm wondering why?

On three occasions I can remember, I've purchased used books online only to find they were stolen from local libraries - as in, checked out and never returned, then sold online. In one case, I was able to return the book, but that left me out the money I'd paid (less than $20, so not a big deal in the long run, but still.) The other two libraries had already paid to replace the book, which effectively means that taxpayers are spending money to give book thieves a side hustle. The marketplaces (Amazon and eBay) show little interest in policing themselves. And, if library fines are abolished, there's little to nothing holding book thieves accountable for their actions.

This is Slashdot. Despite the lapse in quality since the halcyon days of CmdrTaco, we're still a resourceful bunch of insensitive clods when we want to be. So who's helming the GeoCities-scale project to mirror the IA's various parts in case the worst should happen? I'll help if I can.