Hey, I'm still waiting for the year of the LAN and the paperless office to arrive. Linux on the desktop... that's a long way off (says the guy who's been using Linux as his go-to OS for nearly 20 years and has no regrets.

The overwhelming majority of people are happy with the standard phones from Apple and Samsung- it's just the ultra-slim versions that aren't selling well- and they haven't stopped making one for the other.

Because it didn't actually sell very well. You may want a smaller screen size on your phone but the majority of people don't.

The iPhone and iPhone Pro are double the thickness of the iPhone Air and do give you a lot more battery life- so you do have a choice.

The problem is that overweight people are more likely to come from lower socioeconomic levels. (i.e.: obesity rate are high among poorer people).
So you're putting additional financial burden on people who are already struggling financially.

I agree on the "cultural" problem part, though my own impression is that the insane-level of car-centricity also plays a role.

contrast: I also have a high education and a computer desktop job. I do spend 1 hour commuting each day by bicycle. Here around it's much more bike-able than in the US. Lots of parents here around have cargo bikes, kid seats, etc. to bring their kids (and I'll probably invest into something similar once our daughter is old enough for after-school activities). Whenever my wife plays tennis, she travels to the sports terrains on inline skate. Cars do exist here around, but they are absolutely not a necessity.
(and not exactly car, but still same philosophy: my university building is not a skyscraper, it has a mere 10 floors in total from basement to roof-top cafeteria, so climbing stairs up and down when going to other floors is trivial to do).
Whenever I am not at the keyboard I am moving.
Whenever the titular 70% US adult is moving, it's just a couple of steps between their desk and their car.

Sad I used mine to buy pizza :-(

Who said I wasn't vaxxed? I did get vaxxed because I crunched the numbers and weighed up the risks and uncertainties. At 68 years of age I figured I'd be better off being vaccinated, even if there were unforeseen risks associated with the vax that may surface ten years down the road. My point was that others may have different risk factors so for them the results may be different. It's about freedom of choice.

As for "putting others' lives in danger" -- we were all told that vaccination would protect us so why would we be worried about unvaccinated people in the general population eh? Unless we were being lied to?

Yeah, and what about channels such as one of mine that still has a community "warning" on it, simply because I made a video in which I suggested that the decision whether or not to get vaxxed should be an individual one, based on one's own risk profile and other factors. Apparently that was "medical misinformation". I refuse to take the "training" program required to remove that warning because that would be effectively accepting that I was in the wrong -- when I strongly believe I was not in the wrong and my post was *not* medical misinformation. A man without principles is not a man at all.

What the hell are they smoking?

Numerous very experienced people have correlated a great number of the so called "drone" sightings with the ADSB tracks of legitimate aircraft and not one shred of evidence has been presented that these "sightings" are actually drones operated by Russia or other bad actors.

Remember New York and New Jersey last year when the skies were filled with "mystery drones" that turned out to be simply scheduled night flights of passenger jets and helicopters?

Then there was a spate of "drone" sightings over US Military airbases in the UK. These turned out to (once again) be misidentified manned aircraft, including F15s from the base itself!

So now exactly the same hysteria is sweeping across Eastern Europe with unskilled observers claiming to be seeing "drones" when in fact they're simply seeing lights in the sky that are navigation lights from aircraft and even balloons smuggling cigarettes.

If the Germans open fire on these "mystery lights" then there is a huge potential for tragedy here because they really won't listen to people much smarter than them who on two previous occasions (NY/NJ and Lakenheath) provided all the information needed to debunk the allegations of "drones".

Yes, as someone who's used Linux for almost two decades I sit here and smile at how the masochistic Windows users are squirming :-)

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The FAA has not yet finished working on part 108 (flight beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS)) of its regulations for drones. This means that right now all drone operations must be done within visual line of sight of the operator or by a special waiver. One of the conditions of part 108 is that drones must have a "detect and avoid" capability that would prevent this sort of incident from happening -- so how did it happen?

If the drone was being flown by visual line of sight then the operator should have seen something as big as a crane.

If it was being flown under a waiver and the FAA has already mandated "detect and avoid" as a requirement for BVLOS then someone wasn't complying with the terms of the waiver.

And all for what -- so your tube-socks will arrive 15 minutes faster?

I have been a part of the drone community and industry for more than 15 years and I can tell you that B2C drone deliveries, outside of a few specific cases, will never become practical. The likes of Amazon and Google are far more interested in the data they can scoop up by flying drones over urban/residential areas than they are in actually delivering stuff. They also both realize that the *real* money will be made from creating a UTM (unmanned traffic management) system which is like ATC for drones. Both these companies are very much into infrastructure provision and the UTM that will be needed for large-scale drone operations is the perfect target for their expansion.

Don't be fooled, "drone delivery" is just a diversion while they prepare their UTM plans and claim that "we have more experience than anyone in drone traffic management". Despite that experience, Amazon has a record of setting stuff on fire and crashing into cranes while Google's Wing craft have been known to black out wide areas after performing "precautionary landings" on high-voltage power lines.

If a kid can't fly their 250g drone in a park without all sorts of tests and a digital angle-bracelet in the form of "Remote ID" then clearly this tech is way to dangerous to have giant delivery drones laden with god-knows-what falling from the skies across our cityscape.

Even good audiophool speaker cables cost more than this -- but you can't really put a price on silver-plated cryogenically treated 101% pure copper wires that have been braided by the hands of virgins under a blue moon whist facing directly East into a 5 knot wind at 37.5 percent humidity precisely located over a suitable warp in the magnetic field of the earth.

And yes, you can definitely hear the difference, especially when using 128kbps MP3 files!

What I hope is that some large enough entity (and the EU and its Digital Service Act (DSA) seem a good candidate for that) will force OpenAI to always clearly mark ads and promotions (similar to how sponsor segments are required to be marked in online video content made by streamers and youtubers).

Because of course OpenAI will try hard (and sell it so to advertiser) to make the advertisement sneaky and seemingly "organic recommendations" (as a reference point see how Ads on Google search results evolved from clear ad boxes on the side, into trying as hard as possible to mimic search results and have the people accidentally clic on them). And of course OpenAI will try to bullshit their way into publicly saying it's hard to track what though process drove the chatbot into recommendation something, while at the same time the marketing pitches to advertisers will be guaranteed perfect blending of ads into the chat flow.