I still like going out to a movie. It seems like more of an occasion. Moviegoers here tend to be respectful and quiet, and they will get kicked out if they use their phones during the movie.

As for snacks, any serious moviegoer will smuggle in their own snacks. Or *GASP* last for 150 minutes without eating something.

OK, I live in Canada, so maybe our systems are more sane than yours.

The amount of time I would have had to spend doing payroll would have cost me far more than $45 in time.

And I would never use ADP; ADP totally sucks (I know this having worked at a company that used ADP.) Ceridian was far better.

If you pay online, the confirmation page has a transaction number you can write down if you're worried about needing to prove that you have paid. And if you pay with a credit card, that's recorded on your credit card statement. I don't think I've paid with a cheque in years and there has never been an issue. And (at least in Canada) banks don't send back cancelled personal cheques anyway. All they do is provide an image and give you 90 days to download it. If you actually want the cancelled cheque back, that costs money.

Why wouldn't they just outsource payroll to someone who can do direct deposits? I ran a small business in Canada for about 19 years and I used a company called Ceridian to handle payroll. It handled tax calculations, government remittances, etc. and it only cost me around $45 per pay for 12 employees... a real bargain.

Now, if only we could train the oligarchs to confess to bad behavior, then we'd be getting somewhere...

I can't wait for the AI bubble to pop. The problem is, it will cause huge economic turmoil. On the other hand, if AGI succeeds, we'll all be out of work and it will cause huge economic turmoil. The entire Generative AI industry is a blight on humanity.

No, BSOD.

And also, vehicles will become more expensive because car manufacturers will be incentivized to produce larger vehicles that have higher profit margins. And those vehicles are also much more dangerous to pedestrians, though I understand that "being a pedestrian" is considered a subversive anti-American action nowadays.

I live in Ottawa, Canada.

Now US manufacturers can go even more all-on on the stupidly-large vehicles they sell domestically (because of higher profit margins.)

Of course, it means they won't be able to sell anything in Europe or Asia.

If you can get your AI-powered robots to commit your war crimes for you, I think you get out of jail free?

I am lucky enough to live a 10-minute walk from my nearest public library branch. I can borrow books, CDs, DVDs, video games, jigsaw puzzles and even musical instruments. They even have a maker space with 3-D printers you can use for just the cost of the filament. They also have a couple of passes to get into various local museums and galleries for free. (Those are popular, so you have to book them way in advance to have any chance of getting them.)

It's a fantastic resource.

Good. Mastodon is a lot less harmful to its users than Facebook is, because it doesn't have algorithms that try to maximize "engagement".

Social media companies that use "engagement algorithms" are pure evil. They know their products are harmful but attempt to hide that fact. Banning them for kids under 16 is a start, but I would like to see this entire business model banned for anyone. It's a scourge on humanity.

Social media platforms like Mastodon that don't use "engagement" algorithms, don't have "sponsored posts", don't show you ads, and have an option so you only see content from accounts you actually follow are fine. The Facebooks, Instagrams and TikToks of the world are evil criminal enterprises that, in a just world, would be shut down and charged with criminal conspiracy.