Stage 3 smog alerts were year-round when I was a kid in the 1980s. They were more common in the summer, but they could happen any time the temperatures rose, and they were a fact of life at school in the spring and fall. I spent a lot of recess and PE time indoors for Stage 2 and 3 alerts. This page shows the number of days at different air qualities for Los Angeles going back to 1980. The highest number of good air quality days was 11 in 1983. For all but two of the remaining years, it was in single digits. The combined number of unhealthy, very unhealthy, and dangerous days usually covered a cumulative six months or so out of the year.

You can see the numbers shifting to the left starting in 1989. Both Republicans and Democrats in the state government (which was run by Republicans at the time) had authorized various government agencies to make changes that would affect smog levels. Since 2002, the number of moderate or good air days has covered at least half of the year, a huge reversal from the 1980s. The number of very unhealthy or dangerous air days has been in the single digits every year (bar one) since 2007, even reaching zero in 2010 and 2013 and only one in six of the other years.

You are right, I didn't know or didn't remember those.

Back then most emulators were just an executable and a couple smaller files. Throw a full library of games on a ZIP disk, head to your friend's house to play games.

Right. You are applying legalese word precision assumptions to throwaway online comments. I don't think that's going to work well.

No, the one that answered:

"You know what he means, ahole. If this were truly a problem the jet fuel would be rationed and private aircraft would be at the bottom of the priority list"

The entire point of rationing would be to REMOVE the pure market forces that would deal out the limited commodity to those with the largest wallets and replace it with a scheme that benefits the most people, instead of the most money.

If you actually knew better, you'd have posted it, not just made a vague assertion.

Yes, and the only ships running on nuclear reactors are military ships. As I said: No civilian use-case.

This is one AC that deserves to be modded up. I already commented, so I can't.

You are aware of what happened Oct 7, 2023, right?

Actually, islamic fundamentalists qualify for that statement in absolutely every way. So at the absolute minimum you'll have to concede that there are two fascist sides.

For sufficiently gracious definitions of "working". Iran was quite busy building up conventional weapons including delivery systems that could be re-purposed for nukes as well as moving towards nuclear weapons. There is no civilian use for 60% enriched uranium. Moreover, the number "60%" is misleading. The work to enrich isn't linear. When you have 60%, you're not 60% of the way from raw to weapons-grade, you're 95% of the way.

To put into context just how insane any claim that they had 60% for any peaceful purposes is: Most nuclear reactors use uranium enriched to 3% to 5%. 60% isn't "a bit more than usual". It's a fuckton more than any non-weapons use can reasonably explain.

Iran didn't need a reason. We all know the reason they already had: Wiping out Israel.

And no strike or other interruption has ever made them learn that JIT isn't all flowers and happiness and moving your warehouse to the road has more consequences than cost savings.

...the country where you can buy firearms at Walmart wants to restrict 3D printing because they worry about gun parts?

What drugs are these people on?

Well yes, if you put it that way. There is money in ignoring the AI hype if what you are doing works better without.

There's no money in being an AI sceptic in the way that as an AI hyper you can write articles, give presentations or brag about your startup.

There is, however, another market that moves faster than that one: The CEO market.

Any CEO who said "we don't do AI here, that's all bullshit" will find himself on the job market pretty fast in the current mood. So, everyone does AI. Not because it works as a business decision, but because it works as a job security decision.

see also: "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"

So called "AI insiders" are almost exclusively people for whom AI is either an active research subject or a business opportunity. There is almost no money to be made from being sceptical about AI. Of course these people feel positive about AI.

The common sense opinion here is more reliable, even if it is less informed.