From TFA: "The hands-free experience is meant to turn Google Maps into something more like an insightful passenger able to direct a driver to a destination while also providing nearby recommendations on places to eat, shop or sightsee..."

English translation: "We encourage businesses on all major routes to contact us right now for priority placement on our list of 'recommendations'. Bring lots of cash. Maybe one of your children, also."

Sure. First, lower the copyright term to match that of patents. Second, restore the latter (both) to the original 14 years. Once there is a reasonable balance between all of the interested parties again, let's talk. But the conciliatory ship sailed with Lars and Hillary and has never had reason to return to shore. And so long as one side is an abusive cartel with regulatory capture with absolute power to screw over the other everyone else, fuck 'em.

In theory, yes. The district attorney's office is supposed to be completely separate, independent, and skeptical of the police. That's that whole "separate and equally important" soundbite from the Law and Order intro. In practice, here in the US the DAs are so corrupt and in bed with crooked cops that the two departments may as well be one and the same. In the vast overwhelming majority of cases, all a cop has to do is say to a DA: "he done it" and someone will be in a cell and charges will be filed, no actual investigation or confirmation of the cop's story.

And, of course, the abomination of injustice that is qualified immunity makes it all but impossible to see the dirty cops and crooked DAs who arrest and/or charge the innocent properly punished.

No. What should happen is: Accuse, "arrest," approach, or in any other way whatsoever harass or accost, someone who is not, in fact, guilty of the crime; and the "cop" instantaneously and forever loses every privilege or protection of the badge and is considered just another random violent thug to be treated like nothing more than that ever again.

Once enough of them are prosecuted for assault, battery, and kidnapping; and locked away never again to breathe free air or to look upon the sun or sky without bars interposed... the rest will start to get the message.

I'll just go straight-up anecdotal on this: most of the people I know are fine with the switch. In fact, the only time I hear about all the alleged problems is at the bi-annual Clickbait Festival inspired by the DST/EST change.

I'm convinced that's a big part ofthe reason for our curent descent into fascism. I'm part of the younger cohort of Gen-X. My grandparents' generation were the original Antifa. Only they didn't pussyfoot around like the current iteration does. They way THEIR generation delt with poeple like richard spencer, stephen miller, stormtrooper barbie, their brown-shirted henchmen in ICE CBP and DHS, and the rest of their kind, was to drop high explosives on them by the tonne from B-17s and Lancasters; of, if it was for some reason necessary to get up close and personal, to cut out their living goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of their tanks.

But most of them are dead now and cannot tell their stories. My cohort of my generation are the youngest people now who were old enough to grow up with, and have adult conversations with, the World War 2 generation. I grew up with my grandparents and their buddies in the Masonic Lodge telling stories about island hopping in the Pacific as SeaBees, landing their crippled B-17 in the English Channel after not bailing out because he couldn't swim and setpping from the plane onto the rescue boat hever having even gotten a foot wet, hauling ass through the deserts of North Africa in dune buggies while machine-gunning nazi airplanes. And when I got into my late teens and 20s, one past-Master of the lodge told us about what he saw when his unit got to the camps.

I will never forget what those men told me. Because of what those men told me I will never, EVER, support, aid, or have even the smallest or empathy for any fascists in any form, or their enablers or symphasizers. Because of what those men told me I will forever support Antifa in any form. In fact, I wish it really WERE an actual organization that I coule offer more support than moral. I will forever honor their legacy and what they did directly for this country and the world and indirectly for me when they were too goddamned young to be asked to bear the responsibility they were given. I will forever be greatful to the greatest generation.

But they were also people I knew persionaly. I grew up with them. I was even part of a Masonic youth group named after a Templar for which Master Masons were the advisors; so, for a kid, I was at the lodge a lot. I loved some of them as family and others as may-as-well-be-family. To me they are real. Their lives are real. Their stories are real. Their history is real. To the younger generations though? They did not grow up with those people and their lives and stories. To people who did not grow up around WW2 vets, that's just all trivia for the history test before they move on to the latest tweet or tiktok. I really do think that a lot of people have missed out on a LOT... particularly the perspectives that came from fighting... REALLY fighting... to destroy fascists. And I would bet good money that if that generation were still around; we would not be where we are in this country today.

Maybe they can start putting USB sticks on magazines like they used to do with 3.5" floppies back in the day? That would... well... it might at least increase the demand for the brand name.

Here's what happens when you have a policy of "legacy admissions" that gives a free ride to the scions of wealth, power and privilege...DEI for families with the political connections to ruin the life of anyone who might dare to point out that their 20 year old offspring still have trouble dressing and feeding themselves.

That fluttering sound you hear is chickens coming home to roost.

You may be surprised to learn that people who use Hindi as their native language also speak English. So yes, scam callers who speak English also speak Hindi...at least a hell of a lot of them do.

I mean... at the peak of his malignancy the last time around, we were down to only about three dozen countries that would allow us to enter and visit. No one should be surprised that we are a pariah state again.

Oh, yeah... two sides of the same coin. It would have been perfect.

"Hindi accounts for 0.2% of the data despite being spoken by 7.5% of the global population...and 82.7% of scam call centre employees.".

Fixed that for ya! :)

I'm sure I remember... about a decade ago, I think... that at least one of the major browsers already tried implementing a do-not-track request header. I think two of the three did it, actually. But the websites... and the advertising and tracking companies... pretty much all ignored the setting; so the browser developers all just gave up on it. And we all just kept on using plugins to block ads and trackers.

I see no problem with putting a DNT switch or option back in the browsers. But it was never *THEM* doing the tracking in the first place. So what good does this law do, without a requirement that the visited web sites respect the setting? And, in that case, why add a new law versus just adding to the CCPA?

Whenever you put your data under somebody else's control, then pay them to look after it, you're one mistake away from losing it all, and the mistake doesn't even have to be yours. So you forget to update your credit card info with Company X, or a "time to renew" email gets caught in the spam filter, or PayPal decides it doesn't like your politics and suspends your account. Guess what: you just lost your data.

Basically, if you don't have all those family photos and business records and other stuff it would kill you to lose under your own direct control, you're asking for trouble. Sure, back it up elsewhere, but never count on somebody else to care about your stuff as much as you do.

Is the seizure warning skippable? If not, how long does it remain on the screen?

Now, take that number... however many seconds it is that someone decided it takes to read that warning that everyone MUST read EVERY TIME they play that game... and multiply it by the number of people who bought the game times the average number of times they will play the game during the time they own it, and calculate for hours. This is variable a. From there, you can use analytics to determine the typical user's social cohort, find that demographic's average annual income, and divide out to hours. This is variable b.

Multiply a by b, then add in the cost of the time of the copy writer who created the warning, the engineer who implemented it, the QA who tested it, the build & release engineer who made sure it went live, and however many pencil-pushers were involved in the decision. There is your cost.