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Comment Reset the social contract that is copyright (Score 5, Insightful) 26

Reset copyright to 14 years, one time renewable for another 14 for a hefty fee, worth it for blockbusters and bestsellers, not for anything else. And no more "moral rights"; derivative works should always be allowed if they are not blatant copies. If some Star Wars or Harry Potter fanfic book or movie is shitty, then the market will take care of that. And if is not shitty but good, then the public will be well served with new content they will enjoy. That was the purpose of copyright, once. Let's make it so again.

While major media companies are wiping their arse with the social contract that is copyright, I do not feel one tiny bit of obligation to uphold my end of it, and I will turn to piracy when and where I can. Screw them.

Comment Re:Don't quit just yet. (Score 1) 111

No oil? What are you talking about? Norway's economy has been powered by oil exports for years. They have so much they put the oil money in a big fund called Oljefondet (oil fund) which is now valued at $2 trillion! They wisely use all this money to invest in hydro and other renewables, and to push the EV transition. Very wise on their part. But make no mistake, their wealth came from oil!

Comment Re: Don't quit just yet. (Score 1) 111

I have CFLs that are 20 years old and going pretty strong. I've had better luck with CFLs than I do with LED for longevity. CFLs do have to warm up, but they are plenty bright and reasonably efficient. The increased efficiency of LEDs is quickly offset by the cost of replacing them when they burn out so frequently. LEDs can last nearly forever too, but not the way they are manufactured today with cheap components in the power supply and overdriving the LED crystals, sometimes by a factor of two. Big Clive does lots of videos about how to modify LED bulbs to emit less light but last way longer and run cooler.

Comment Re:Wait what? (Score 1) 54

The only thing that's getting pegged are the people who buy them. This incident, and the crash or loss-of-peg of other stablecoins (Luna, Terra, USDe, Tether, Titan) shows that these things are only weakly attached to the underlying currency they are supposed to be pegged to.

Though some central banks have plans to issue stablecoins of their own, which will probably be actually stable.

Comment Re: Reading TFA (Score 1) 78

They could include things like special lines at immigration, rather than just visa requirements. Arriving in Amsterdam with an EU passport is much less of a hassle than arriving with a US passport, but they both count the same on this report. Then there's the question of whether you need a permit to stay indefinitely, or just the passport.

Comment Re:...arrival of a "fairground ride" (Score 1) 20

Actually, this is also why I stopped using Waze. Coming back from Heathrow once, I could have just taken the M4 and South Circular, but Waze claimed it would save me more than seven minutes on 25-35 minute journey, so I thought I'd give it a go. It took me through Hounslow and the back streets of Isleworth before crossing the A316 bridge in to Richmond. It ended up taking at least 15 minutes longer than the easy route and a vast amount more effort, in the dark. Much of that extra time was either reversing in to a gap between parked cars to let somebody by, or waiting for an oncoming car to do the same for me.

This has been one of my biggest frustrations with Waze for years - it has no understanding of how difficult a road is to drive. It'll happily send you off an easy, fast, well-lit motorway onto a difficult, narrow, unlit B road if it thinks it can save two minutes on a two-hour trip.

The stupid thing is that in the UK, road types already hint at how easy or hard they are to drive. Motorways (M roads) are the easiest, then A roads, then B roads. You could even go further by looking at the number of digits - single-digit routes tend to be simpler than three-digit ones. Sure, there would be exceptions (like the M25 compared to the M6), but overall it would make routing far more sensible than what Waze does now.

Comment Re:No way! (Score 3, Interesting) 111

Most of the very populated parts of Norway don't get too cold, but other parts definitely do! In Alberta Canada, EV range drops to about 2/3 when it's very cold, and you really need to keep it plugged in overnight (or in a garage) to keep the battery warm. But 2/3 range is quite amazing actually, given cabin heating on top of batteries running colder.

Comment Ford CEO has been driving chinese EV for months (Score 4, Informative) 216

It's not just this trip. The Ford CEO bought an EV from a chinese company months back which he used as a daily driver for a while. He was very impressed and quite humbled.

Look the North American market abandoned economy cars a long long time ago now and focuses exclusively on luxury vehicles now. That brought in the money but it didn't really help Americans (or Canadians) who need economy cars still. China produces mostly economy cars and they are very good at it (unlike the soviets). Maybe we need a reasonable tariff on them (say 50%) and start allowing them in since there's nothing here to fill that part of the market anyway. Or even a 100% tariff.

Comment Re:Interesting change (Score 1) 78

According to Statista 53.76 million Americans traveled internationally in 2024. That's 15 percent of the population. Besides the pure numbers, business travel matters to our economic prosperity. Isolation is bad for business.

https://www.statista.com/stati...

Real 'Muricans don't leave the ol' US of A. Anyone who regularly travels beyond driving range of their home town is suspicious, frankly.

(Meanwhile, I got the extra-thick passport booklet and have made a good try at filling it with stamps.)

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