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Comment Re: You keep using that word. I don't think it mea (Score 5, Informative) 84

"Penultimate" isn't a synonym for "ultimate"—it means the thing before the ultimate. Likewise we have penumbra for the blurry edge of a shadow (umbra). This results in some truly special words like "antepenult," meaning "the thing before the thing before the final thing," commonly used when discussing where the stress/accent falls in a Greek or Latin word.

"Invaluable" does indeed mean "not able to be valued" when analyzed morphologically, but the standard usage of it is indicating something is beyond value, i.e. infinitely or inestimably valuable. A value of zero is still a value, after all.

"Inflammable" however actually means "able to be inflamed," as in "put in flame" or "set on fire." The confusion comes from assimilation of the Latin preposition "in" (which we have as "in" or "on") instead of the more typical prefix "in-" (which demarcates negation.) You don't have to look very far for other words where "in" doesn't mean "not": indicate, inherit, imply, investigate, indict, involve...

Comment Monetization of your privacy violations (Score 1) 97

This should surprise nobody that a decade spent collecting data would result in attempts to increase direct costs to consumers. This called Personalized Pricing and sooner and later it will be applied to you. Now, before it is too late, start pretending that you are poor or you will end up paying more for everything, from food and clothing to flights and phone plans.

Comment Re:None of these people are so stupid (Score 1) 65

It will however allow them to track what their entire population does on the internet.

Exactly! And like in Canada with debanking protesters against 2 years of COVID lockdowns, because it is tied to government ID they will be able to prevent individuals from age verifying themselves, likely effectively blocking them from using any social media.

Comment Re:I mean no shit Sherlock (Score 2, Insightful) 54

that make up our civilization and society that we all just kind of shrug our shoulders at and allow.

I am surprised you have yet to understand that personal freedom and small government is about countering exactly this. The more you expand the government and regulation, the more room you create for someone connected to run these scams.

Comment Re:Fully autonomous (Score 1) 253

Those have already been deployed. They are flown to the front by the operator, who will in most cases also designate the target, after which the drone will engage it autonomously.

Costs of such drones, at least for now, is substantially more expensive. In a war of economic attrition, which is what is happening in Ukraine, that matters a lot.

Comment Re:Tier 2 time. (Score 1) 241

That may actually be the underlying cause. If the switches were in the "run" position but the latching had not fully engaged, the vibrations of takeoff combined with the spring may have caused them to toggle. In general, the springs are centered on switches, so that would also explain them returning to the "run" position and the tension causes oscillations.

Comment Wishcycling (Score 1) 125

Where I live, most recycling gets diverted into garbage or incinerated. This is because soiled paper (e.g., pizza boxes with oil residue) or laminated paper (e.g., juice container) are not recyclable. This is because plastic is theoretically, but not in practice recyclable as there are many more types of plastic than can be readily recycled AND sorting is a problem that hard to solve without human labor.

Comment Re:Wow combining two useless things I hate (Score 1) 125

Just because the benefits of recycling have been greatly exaggerated doesn't mean that it's not a much better alternative than sending everything straight to the landfill.

I think most push back to recycling is about paper and plastic and not metal or glass. If Green people actually cared about recycling, they would have pushed for universal ban on plastic packaging and not some half-measures as banning drinking straws or plastic bags. Then our recycling programs could become self-funding by doing glass and metal.

Comment Re:TFA says they phasing it out (Score 1) 52

Touch screens have their place,

Absolutely. I am not against touch screens in general, I am against them for any function that I need to do while driving.

Also touch buttons on steering wheels are incredibly stupid, which is probably why Tesla did them.

I would never buy Tesla because of controls (and the fact that it cannot be easily disconnected).

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