I see that you've never been to that part of the world. Grab is ubiquitous in Indonesia, to the point that if you're on the street you can't go more than a minute without seeing their brand.

This is mainly due to inflation and to some extent a move to bigger luxury cars. Apples to apples it's not so bad.

The typical well-equipped Civic from the early '90s (EX or Si in the $11kâ"$12k range) would be around $26,000â"$28,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars today.

The 2025 Honda Civic starts around $24,250 for the LX trim, with better-equipped versions reaching $30,000 or more. Not only is this roughly the same price, but you're also getting a bigger and drastically safer car for the money today, even before considering the extra features standard on cars now.

I've just read the SeaWorld article and the proportion of the article related to controversies seems appropriate to me. I wouldn't expect the article on VW or Mercedes to include lengthy sections on Nazi collaboration either. These are important historical controversies but there is a lot more to say about these companies and main articles like these should have a reasonable word count. Extended topics on the details, including the controversies, generally get their own article.

Pressure on China recently has, in my opinion, been about the Ukraine war. We see the same playbook as India- tarrifs and screwing with visas and just today India says they will stop buying Russian oil. It's a costly move for India in the short term but they understand it's the right thing to do and prefer to play well with other countries. China is the last large-volume buyer of Russian oil left but they are too proud to be seen as folding to external pressure and their propaganda ministry has been following the Russian line on the topic. I doubt China will play ball with the West on this one, and some Chinese markets are already or will be closed to American farmers forever. It's also true that China aggressively steals every digital file they can find, friends or otherwise. They should be called out every time it happens, because it keeps happening.

I doubt AI is going to do much for divorce law. Divorces generally go relatively smoothly or are a battle. People in easy divorces are already using template forms from the internet. Difficult cases are the definition of a "people business", a chatbot is not going to be satisfying to people who want someone to fight for what they want.

Agreed, the claim that it couldn't be backed up because the size was too large is totally bogus. We're talking about a single rack of equipment for a cheap option capable enough to do weekly snapshots. Less than a shipping container for a higher end system.

I completely agree but businesspeople should study and respect a skilful salesperson's methods, if only to be aware of sales tactics they shouldn't be flimflammed by. I'm not convinced that Jobs was a skilful salesperson but he definitely was the boss of a very successful company and that's pretty much the same thing to the people interested in such things.

Plus all the handhelds either out now or on the way. Competition on hardware is getting fierce. A nice steady revenue stream from subscriptions is a lot less hassle and risk.

"I know this dude who is good with computers..."

That can be true in some instances, but often it just means that there are steps which require significant time or needs the involvement of more people and obtaining their cooperation. "It's difficult" often just means that significant resources and time are needed, and is especially relevant for unbillable work. This often results in things not proceeding (an eventual "no") but that is not a foregone conclusion. Alternative phrases such as "this plan is unrealistic", "this sounds expensive and nobody will pay for it", "this needs approval from a high level and will take time and effort to convince 3 levels of managers", or "we have no capacity" are often the actual position, but politeness and succinctness distill this to "it is difficult". This is almost never the end of a conversation, just the initial indication of if something can or can not happen.

It depends on how it was designed, and the operating conditions. Steam catapults have their issues too- making freshwater from saltwater occasionally has hiccups and contaminants can enter the steam system, causing corrosion and erosion. The advantage of steam is that the catapults themselves are mechanically fairly simple, the steam source is external so the hardware embedded in the deck isn't too complex. Electric catapults have lots of electrical hardware at the point of use, including many coils of wire, any of which can suffer an insulation failure and presumably put the whole catapult out of action, or at least degraded in output. The expense is also an issue as linear motors are more expensive and each full-size US carrier has 4 of them.

That's not unusual for military aircraft.

Several countries have been experimenting with selective breeding, actively going to find the corals which are doing well and then propagating those specific examples by hand. The programs have generally been very successful, and can be used to rebuild existing coral formations or create entirely new ones using a framework of rebar. Like any other plant or animal humans have meddled with, changes in the span of decades is possible.

The headline oversimplifies, it is more accurate to say the ice generates a voltage. It's an interesting phenomenon but not revolutionary enough to solve the world's energy problems.

Generative AI can be a huge timesaver but the people doing the task need to actually know how to do the task, if only so they can provide reasonable instruction to the computer. All these get-rich-quick clowns falling on their faces are trying to shortcut years of knowledge and experience. Knowing excel really well does not make one an accountant. And this is compounded by the fact that excel gives predictable output, which is not the case with generative AI.