>"We are clearly different then. I always log in, but i have a major incentive due to wanting to squash ads with youtube premium

There are other options. I also have no ads.

We've seen what happens when people do it your way

https://www.channelnewsasia.co...

>"I'd say the same for YouTube. It's used to watch videos. The number of people who comment on them is minimal compared to the userbase."

That is exactly what I came to post. I use YouTube all the time. I have *never* logged into it. So for tons of people, it is not "social media".

Facebook, on the other hand, is mostly useless without a login. You can see a bit of it, then it stops.

>"I'd be very curious to the exact definition of "social media" they use is. I don't think it's what most people consider to be social media."

Bingo. Plays right into my comments last week about the stupid Virginia law trying to force "age checking" for "social media" and they don't even define what "social media" is or is not. As if everyone knows exactly what it is. Yet, somehow, stripping adults of their privacy and rights will save children (since parents refuse to restrict or withhold internet-connected devices from their children).

Is Slashdot "social media"? How about my local LUG's forum? What about the comments section on Amazon or Walmart product pages? Or reviews of apps on Google Play? A USENET group? Chat sessions in online games? If just watching videos is "social media" does that make broadcast TV or cable TV or a movie theater "social media"?

Umm...ok. I'll let you in on a little tidbit of information that is news to nobody who actually does read about economics. Notice how you linked a piece of his from 1992? Yeah well, he keeps changing his mind on shit like this, which is fine and all, everybody should change their views in the presence of new evidence. I do this often. But the way he changes his mind seems more to adjust to whatever the current whims of the democratic party are at the moment, rather than being based on any empirical measurement or observation. Just a few examples:

https://www.econlib.org/archiv...
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem...

Guarantee you, he'd even revise the shit out of that piece if he went over it again.

You don't have to tell me this, I'm always the one having to tell you guys this.

By the way, in case you haven't noticed, this is in real terms. In other words, that's in excess of the rate of inflation.

I don't know how we're jumping to inequality all of a sudden, but here's an interesting thing about those upper income brackets: The higher you go, the more you find that they don't have an actual salary. I don't think you'll understand this particularly well, so let me draw an analogy that you may be familiar with:

Suppose you build a house. The land you bought plus the materials cost you $100,000. Fast-forward 20 years later, you make no improvements to it over that time, only maintaining what is already there. Somebody else comes along and says it's worth $1,000,000, even though if we only follow the rate of inflation, that original $100,000 only looks like $200,000 in today's money. So what about it changed to increase its value 5 fold?

Hold that thought, and consider the road you're currently heading down. By having this house, what harm did you do to somebody else? You literally have a lot more "wealth" than somebody two towns over, yet nothing in your possession has changed. Sure, you might argue that somebody who could afford your house two years ago now can't. But is that even relevant if you never had any intention of selling? Certainly not, but you're going to get taxed much harder. But who created that problem? Some unnamed "wealthy" people who are willing to pay you more money for it, or some very specific people who you voted for and decided that you owe a privilege tax because of what somebody else thinks about your house?

There's a lot to digest there.

I'm actually glad you cited Canada. Do you have any idea what is going on with that country right now? Quick video for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Now watch what happens to your...well...let's be honest, really meaningless...wealth figure falls with Canada's real estate bubble.

JPEGXL really does everything webp does and so much more, and it's well thought out.

WebP isn't terrible; they are smaller than I would have guessed given that they have the container overhead, but there's no stunning argument for it. "Better than PNG for what we used PNG for." OK, true, but.

Google should just let AV1 be AV1 and focus on pushing HEVC out of the market with it. The real opponents of progress have left the image space and are mucking around with video and VR now. Google has the capability to do something about this and foster innovation.

Do ... you have even the slightest idea what you mean by that, lol?

That you and rsilvergun are obviously related.

>"but really HSR should be focused on interstates. "

Exactly. That is about all we can expect would be workable/affordable. Otherwise it requires extremely expensive elevated tracks. The problem with many Interstates is that some of them now are nearly "full", having expanded multiple times for more lanes. There isn't an usable center area and sides are pinned in.

A credit union is not socialist. They are, in fact, private, corporate entities. The fact that you don't know the meaning of the word "socialism" proves exactly what I just said.

No, that's not what happened. As usual, you're ignoring history and injecting your own false narrative into it. You like state owned businesses, so listen to what a French state-owned company had to say about it:

https://www.businessinsider.co...

California's politicians are what happened to it. We have a bunch of people who think like you running this state, and it shows.

Geothermal is already workable. Ask the people in Iceland where it accounts for over of the country's power generation. The reason it's not everywhere is that unless you live next to a volcano or other geological features that put out enough heat, there's no way to tap into it other than transmitting the power from those places. Making it even more efficient or increasing the output are certainly things we should do as well, but geothermal is already working now. I like it better than solar or wind because the power generated doesn't fluctuate like those others do and hence there's less reliance on batteries if the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing.

Oddly enough, you just described how it might work perfectly if you had a few sites to extract that energy source that’s more dependent on timing than physics.

Extract the energy from “hot rock” when hot. When it cools to a non-optimum temperature, you switch back to primary power and target the next hot site to pull energy from and wait for the first one to heat back up to become an optimized energy source again. Rinse and repeat.

Switch to geothermal sources in times when the primary is more expensive (such as heating costs in winter). Convert to geothermal when you can mimic nature year round and pull the energy effeciently.

Oh, and much like Japan nuclear wont forget tsunamis anytime soon, let us not forget about natural and wild volcanic activity. One cannot over engineer that safety valve enough.

With friends like that behind the corporate firewall, where’s Pablo Escobar the HR Director when you need him.

Seriously. A sneeze-activated cocaine dispenser on the CEOs desk sounds better for business than that shit. And ironically is what currently works to keep their stock price higher than giraffe pussy.

You have to admit; it's a fun thought experiment.

We don't know we will find such a method. But let's say we do. Just for the sake of the thought experiment. Imagine how different people will react. Some will have their favorite cause just plain ... taken away.

The Product can either take the service selling them as they see fit, or they can kindly fuck off.

There. Hope that clarifies how much influence the “customer” has on that platform. And how much you want, actually matters. They don’t need your input anymore. And they’re not asking for it.

That, is how you treat a Product you’re selling. Not a customer you’re catering to. Fucked up part is this is so brainwashed in consumers now they forgot what it means to be a customer. You used to vote with your wallet. They took that feature away by becoming that dealer giving away the good shit for free. Forever. After that, Product behavior became as predictable as addiction.

I’m well aware of how business used to work. Be more aware you’re talking about ancient history now. Even consumers don’t remember how to customer anymore. They think every service online should be “free” now, without grasping who The Product must become when a wallet never opens to pay a bill.