Be sure to hold a "No Kings" protest targeting Xi when you get there.

Let us know how that goes ...

"...but rather their bifurcated OS..."
Apple created the different OSes for different use cases that, Apple thought, required different user interfaces. They sustain it for this reason.

"...but are prohibited from doing them because Apple wants to sell you both an iPad and a Macintosh."
No. Apple maintains different user interfaces for different use cases, it is the touch vs. mouse UIs, the large vs. small screens, that drive the differentiation. I'm not even convinced Apple cares to sell you a Mac anymore, or an iPad. Apple sees both product lines as non-growth.

There is nothing wrong with hating Apple's approach, but claiming it exists for bogus reasons is something else. Apple thought Microsoft's approach was wrong, that integrating touch with mouse or touchpad was wrong. It appears they are trying to reverse course on that, but that's the reason iPads are worthless for doing work. Android tablets are also unsuccessful, tablet computers are limited to vertical applications and casual use.

People forget that tablet computers existed a decade before the iPad, it's good for certain things but creation is NOT one of them.

And neither is good when your hands are full doing other tasks. I'd love to see you do the dishes with one hand while holding your iPad or iPhone with the other, all the while watching videos on a tiny screen rather than paying attention to what you are doing.

These are the standards of iPad users.

SuperKendall told us all how the iPad was the ideal platform for content creation, and he would know because he was a professional photographer! So what's the problem?

... was how to disable it.

https://dumps.wikimedia.org/

Available as a database, or a collection of individual pages. Mirrored and archived. There are torrents as well.

On the other hand, if your card got refused at that grocery line - would you go back? Likely not.

I doubt many such businesses would risk the customer ire by refusing some cards.

What I DO forsee as happening is some businesses that aren't time sensitive but routinely deal in high $$$ transactions not accepting some such cards. IE, (ironically) - airlines. If you're buying several thousand dollars worth of airline tickets the rewards (and in turn, the merchant fees) can add up quite a bit.

Maybe they're in another country? Here in the US a guy selling tomatoes beside the road is likely to whip out a Square reader attached to a phone and take credit cards.

I live in a small town and I can't think of a single business that DOESN'T accept cards. The last holdout (an old diner thats been there for decades) gave in about 7 or 8 years ago and got a reader.

As a direct result, no, but as a net result, yes, they will. Large companies like Walmart have razor thin profit margins. They just make insane profits because of the volume of product that they move. Those margins will always be just a small amount above whatever their net costs require, and credit card fees are part of those net costs.

You might not like them as companies, but there's a reason why Wal-mart and Amazon are almost always the cheapest place to buy something.

Most airlines aren't even setup to make a profit from ticket sales anymore. They at best break even there, and then make their profit off of agreements with credit card companies for CC miles/points.

Its a very weird system that we've gotten ourselves into.

So ... this will get people to write ... well? Can't complain about that ...

I bet he jacks off writing that.

"He does this, he says, because he wants to boost his influence over the world, because he wants to help teach the AIs about things he cares about"

It takes a real narcissist to think your writing is going to teach AI's anything. Apparently he doesn't realize there's a million SuperKendalls for every one of him and AI can't tell the difference. That or he's one of those SuperKendalls.

It's the data scientists who decide what AI's learn from, and they don't really give a shit.