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Comment Re:Stop now [and just give up] (Score 1) 20

Actually that's my initial reaction, too, but I do think there might be some kind of solution. On third thought I'm sure this is not it, but...

If (and that's actually a huge IF) we were able to model the atmosphere well enough, then I think we might be able to intervene in a sane way. My own favorite fantasy solution would be large arrays of orbital mirrors rotated as needed to control the solar energy reaching the earth. Take a bit off the sides here, add some extra crops there...

Time for a joke? We could use the mirrors to FINALLY get rid of DST. And if we had that atmospheric model we could do it without the adverse side effects...

Comment Re: Well on this cold November evening... (Score 1) 41

Given most people think "dams, reservoirs, and turbines" when they hear the word "hydro", it's also worth pointing out that the UK has a lot of untapped tidal potential as well; the Severn estruary in particular is one of the largest tidal bores in the world, twice a day, and its energy potential will only increase as sealevels rise. Combine that with some suitable storage system, and you'll have another clean (once set up) and predictable supply capacity to offset some more of the current carbon-based baseload.

Comment Qualified immunity is a bitch (Score 1) 44

One of the things I've been noticing lately is that the kind of people who didn't use to get hassled by the cops are now getting hassled by the cops...

Crime keeps going down but we keep putting more cops on the street. People expect them to arrest people. So they're looking for guys they can hassle like yourself.

Comment Oh there are people worried (Score 3, Informative) 44

Recently a municipality had lost a fight to prevent a freedom of information request for flock camera data.

They instantly canceled the program and shut down the cameras.

Remember that Steve Jobs would buy a brand new Mercedes every couple of months so that he didn't have to have a permanent license plate.

The rich and powerful are very concerned about having their movements tracked.

Comment Re:Congratulations! (Score 1) 38

"As I have always tried to tell women, you don't see tattooed women in the board room."

As far as you know. Most women that get tattoos don't get them in places where business attire leaves them exposed.

Which is why I said they would have to get them on their genitals or a tramp stamp, below the bikini line. I noted that I have seen them sleeveless, in shorts, in backless gowns. in bathing suits, It ends up being a additive process. I'd I've seen the uncovered arms, legs, backs, necks, Not all at once, but over time, most of them.

And the other thing is that most of these ladies are not the mentality of a woman who gets tattoos.

What is fundamentally unfair is that a man with obvious tattoos can have them disregarded through brute competence and presentation. Women are usually not offered the same path to being judged independently.

But make no mistake. There are tramp stamps in the board rooms. Just like how Chappelle once joked, "I'm sure there are a lot of gay men here... with their wives."

Funny, I've lived in the boardroom for around 20 years, and you know how many C-suite women have tramp stamps? Explain how you know this fact.

I've worked with enough highly placed ladies to get close to them as friends, and they are simply not the type. They tend conservative, they tend understated, they tend to have husbands who pretty obviously wouldn't put up with that.

I certainly would not. If my wife came home with a tattoo, we'd be divorced ASAP.

You might not like it, you might believe that a woman covered with tattoos on her whole body is empowering and putting to the patriarchy - but you can't shake the opinion of many men that tattoos on a woman is a sign of making bad choices, and the more tattoos the more bad choices.

The fun part is after the empowerment and showing men that their bodies are their choices, after a while, the tats fuzz out and if you have enough, they look like you have a skin disease.

In the end, it is a great way for men to winnow out who is worth it or not. Many of us look at tattoos on a woman as similar to the rattles on a snake or the colors on a poisonous frog - stay well away. And it is a great way for tatted women to avoid having men who don't like tattoos to stay away from them.

Would you marry a woman with immediately above her vulva a tat that has "Bobby forever" or a tramp stamp that Say's "Only for you Bobby" ? What if she wanted to reconnect with Bobby for a week or so to get "closure" ? A lot of moderns like to do that. Closure is very important.

Comment So that's not the point (Score 2) 19

What they are talking about is specifically abuses of the technology that people are on aware of.

The concern is that people are going to use the tech to get information and it's going to be bad information.

In politics there is a concept called a low information voter. This is someone who pays very little attention to politics and ends up with a lot of poorly informed opinions and makes poor political choices because of it.

This is Been supplemented by a new phenomenon call the bad information voter. Someone who has actively bad information and is making decisions on it. The decisions they make tend to be catastrophic.

Llms are bringing that same energy to every other aspect of people's lives. Basically people are awash in extremely bad information. Things that are just absolutely objectively false in every way shape and form. And they are likely to make decisions based on that information that are going to be very terrible.

A proper civilization would recognize this issue and work towards education but we have become obsessed with personal responsibility to the point where we can't even consider the effects on ourselves of other people having that much bad information.

We have all forgotten that no man is an island. Probably should be teaching that poem in schools...

Comment Re:Congratulations! (Score 1) 38

Show us on the dolly where women hurt you.

Being hurt or not is irrelevant to the facts of the situation. And your vapid comment just shows the womanist influence. Someone can lay out a lot of facts, and somehow, some way, the replay is using the M word, or the I word, or your dumb reply.

You folks have overused the pejorative words too many times, they now have the same effect as the rudder on a motionless ship. I only reply so that others might take note.

Comment Re:Good for them (Score 1) 51

Even if all 1 million downloads turn into real OS installs, it's a drop in the bucket compared to Windows installs. However, after Microsoft's recent announcement their own updates have broken their own system combined with no longer supporting W10, this can only lead to good things.

Yeah, my students are having a hellava time with their shiny new Windows 11 computers shitting the bed. I even switched over to the MacOS build of the software in order to know it works.

I've never been all that worried about market share or installed user base. More the opposite. I call it the VHS effect. VHS ruled the early camcorder and home recording market. It was also the worst technology among it's peers.

I guess the main difference is that Linux and MacOS aren't going away.

Comment Re:Look and feel (Score 2) 51

>"I need an OS that I can plug a sound card into, start up my machine and it installs the driver and starts working"

Generally, that is Linux. I have installed various Linuxes over decades on hundreds of various machines. For the most part, modern Linux detects all the typical hardware and just configures and uses it. There is no need to "install drivers".

By the way I don't know if you've seen the post I made about my Emergency Digital RF communications or not, and how W11 is making a trainwreck out of the sound drivers. of which the whole thing falls apart. During Windows 7 days you set it, and it worked. No more.

Windows 10 had enough issues with Sound drivers already, then W11 came along and said "Hold my beer!"

Comment Re:Look and feel (Score 2) 51

I don't care about the look and feel. I need an OS that I can plug a sound card into, start up my machine and it installs the driver and starts working. I need my system administration routine down around 30 minutes per month. I want GUIs for all common tasks and I want it intuitive enough the I'm not spending hours looking up which command line options to use or installing package managers to install drivers to install features to install programs. I'll try Linux, but it has failed me in this respect several times in the past, despite the insistence among lovers of Linux that it's actually just as low-maintenance as Windows.

Windows 1 sucked too. I haven't had one driver problem with Linux for over a decade and a half. In fact, I've had many many more with Windows. They will kill drivers, while Linux allows the old drivers to work. My group has had so many problems with W11 drivers bin wrecked with updates.

Never install Linux without an internet connection. It runs out to the net and downloads and installs them.

And do not try to impose Windows mores on Linux. I've seen so many people try to do that.

You will have to learn a little for some things, but there are repos that make the install process for programs a lot easier than Windows.

Anyhow, I just moved my windows 10 laptop to Mint, works great, and is stable.

Comment This might be what proves Free Will exists (Score 1) 14

There's a concept of determinism because of some of the consequences of how physics work. Basically the idea that every decision is already made because if we're made of molecules you can predict what those molecules have to do moment to moment.

Like how your body has already decided to move by the time you do it.

But quantum mechanics kind of throws all that right out the fucking door. My favorite fact is if we try to create a complete vacuum we still have little particles popping into existence out of nowhere and we can't explain it.

Comment Re:Congratulations! (Score 1) 38

It's almost as if making long-term commitments while under the influence of short-term feelings is fundamentally unwise.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the high divorce rate in the developed world....

Cassandra moment follows. I've done a bit of research on the issues, because of personal interest. I'd spent several years in the attempts to increase the number of women in STEM careers, and wondered why they fail.So I do personal research - and no, not just the internet.

A whole lot has to do with the increased divorce rate or even increasing it. As we went into the middle of the first decade of the 2000's, some very strange things happened. Womanism gained a lot of traction, and taught women that they have no boundaries, that whatever they decided was correct. The whole open marriage concept became an anthem. Note - just for her though. Or covert affairs were also her birthright. Her body, her choices.

Back to the sub topic here, While it does happen that men will make impulsive decisions under the effects of drugs, women are. now encouraged to do this sort of thing by their peers. I've even seen attempts at normalizing facial tats.

As I have always tried to tell women, you don't see tattooed women in the board room. And yes, at social events, I've seen enough at various times. Backless, off the shoulder, sleeveless, in shorts - the claim holds (unless of course they get the naughty bits tatted)

There has been a trend of most divorces being initiated by women - usually because they get bored, and want new men to sample - with a sudden recent spike at perimenopause, when women almost universally hate their husbands in addition of being bored with them. So a lot of single women apparently looking for a last hurrah in the sexual marketplace.

A new phenomenon is emerging however, men are starting to catch up and divorce for personal peace.

An interesting and non-sustainable trend.

Comment Re:Doesn't matter (Score 0, Offtopic) 106

Russia can't really force it if they could then the war would be over and Europe wants to keep it all going so they can wear Russia down some more.

So nothing is really going to change in the war will just continue unless and until we get a democrat in the white house again with a clear majority in Congress.

It is incredibly fucked up that the world is just kind of standing by letting Russia do this so that they can wear Russia down and reduce their ability to function as a global superpower. Then again this shit we are letting happen in Yemen and Sudan is even worse. And Jesus fucking Christ if you read the history of what America did in South America during Ronald Reagan...

Comment Re:Wasted resources and money (Score 1) 44

Yeah you're not really supposed to think about how expensive the drug war is versus just giving people support and addiction treatment.

America especially is really into punitive and revenge-based Justice. I wonder if it will start to fade if religious extremism continues to fade. It's not hard to draw a line between puritanical bullshit and wanting to do as much harm as possible to people who commit crimes or do drugs.

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