I don't know what era you grew up in, but when I was a child, Sears and Pennys were direct competitors. Sears just had a better catalog and automotive section. People going to malls would go to both to see who had the better deal on competing items. Especially for clothing. Montgomery Ward was a competitor, but they were the Chrysler to Sears/Penney's GM and Ford, the third wheel that no one went to first.

Sears fate was sealed the moment Amazon was created. The "vulture capitalist" just squeezed what value he could from the dying remains. With their catalogue business, and being "America's general store", they were in the perfect position to move from paper catalog to Internet based ordering. They adapted too late. Malls and physical department stores are never coming back at a level necessary for a Sears to thrive. It's Amazon and everyone else now.

ï¼OENo, it's fascism, actually. But it's not a problem because Obama took over the healthcare industry with Obamacare and saved so much money it funds itself. But that's not fascism! Real fascism had never been tried.

It was the megacorps that backed the woke trans agenda. Amazon, Microsoft, Google (remember James Damore's memo saying that men and women were different?)

And then a transformer shot zir way through a school of white Christian children solely for their identity and shortly thereafter Biden declared a trans holiday? ON EASTER!

Don't think this wasn't deliberate because it was. How many of you got the day off at work for this holiday?

How exactly what I describe here is a Troll, when I am actually sharing my experience as a user of a technology? I luterally feel nauseous (wanting to vomit) when riding as a passenger in a Tesla. Rarely happens in an ICE vehicle, happens in electric vehicles, especially Teslas. No matter how much I get moderated as a Troll, doesn't change what I end up feeling as an EV passenger. There is something about the way these things ride, it makes me want to vomit.

I already hate getting Teslas for my Uber drives and I do quite a bit of Ubering, so to speak. If the number of these Tesla vehicles goes up significantly and I feel like throwing up during *EVERY* Uber drive, I will no longer use this method of transportation. Teslas make me absolutely nauseous, especially when going up or down the hill.

I completely get arguments about such things as Apple refusing to accept app submissions based on the apps "competing" against their bundled offerings. (So for example? Apple blocking acceptance of a wallet app for crypto-currency - which I recall them doing during the frenzy of people mining LTC and BTC with off the shelf PCs using GPUs.)

I don't at all follow the logic that Android and iOS are "so entrenched" that owners of either type of device will rarely switch to the other platform? I know so many people, personally, who went back and forth between an Apple iPhone and an Android of some type. If nothing else, people start to get a little bored of the phone they've had for years and get curious about trying the competition's device out.

I also disagree that in most cases, developers take issue with Apple and Google taking a cut from purchases made via apps. I think most people completely get the value in someone else distributing your app for you and incurring the bandwidth usage/hosting expenses involved. Most of the bickering comes about when they want to sell extra content or subscriptions related to the app by directing customers away from the App Store. That's really a separate issue, IMO.

Do bridge builders have multiple layers of bosses and clients with conflicting agendas insisting that the bridge design get changed every few days? But those changes have to get integrated into the part of the bridge already built? And they can't start over when the design requirements become incompatible with the original build objectives around which part of the bridge has already been constructed? Are bridge builders mandated to finish building after their budget has been cut part way through construction? Are bridge builders forbidden from saying no when asked to do things that make the final product dangerous or unreliable?

All too many people compare software design to physical engineering as if they are somehow even remotely similar.

I find Java MUCH easier to debug than either Rust or C#. Java has outstanding development tools, while C# has Visual Studio, which is decidedly NOT an outstanding development tool (it's barely a development tool at all, in my opinion). But I'm also highly proficient with Java, while I'm barely literate with either C# or Rust.

That aside, most languages are far easier to debug than COBOL. But again, I'm barely literate in COBOL. I see a pattern.

Ban the dumb, lying, hallucinating, sycophantic, power-hungry insanity we have now and bring AI online only after it's proven to be reliable.

I agree. We don't have to worry about the development of super computer-intelligence, as nature already prevents that. We don't have it now, and we will never have it. It's just not possible.

What we have to worry about is the same thing we've always had to worry about: advances in tools being abused for private enrichment and public harm. Considering the shitty record of global governments to prevent those things up to this point, we have good reason to worry about how any new technically will be wielded against us.

All about trying to beat China?

I don't think that's true. Basically all missions are "low earth orbit", unless you create a GIANT rocket... like the Saturn V. The US did this for the Apollo mission; however, even though they have the blueprints, the rockets literally cannot be made any more because it was designed for a different workforce with different skills.

There's also many advances in computing and engine technology to incorporate. And getting all correct is hard.

The Soviets were never able to create a rocket comparable to the Saturn V. They tried, it blew up spectacularly, and ended their space program. It was "cowboy engineering"... not the cautious incremental stuff that NASA did with Saturn V.

China is building the Long March 9 and Long March 10 rocket systems, and that's awesome. However, NASA is building the capability because they do not have it at all, and they want it for Mars/Asteroid/Moonbase missions. There's genuine interest in the USA to do this.

I assume the Chinese will do a much better job than the soviets, and actually get their rockets working. They're way behind NASA though. The first SLS mission is targeted for Feb/2026. The first Long March mission is expected to be 5-10 years later (!). So hardly a competition for who gets there first.

How dare amazon NOT employ people.

James Damore won a rongful termination lawsuit in California, the state that protects its workers from abuse by megabillion dollar corporations.

But good do see you're on the side of the CEOs and against the little guy.

Speak truth to the powerless!

Inevitable. LOL.

The EU will break up before it truly bans ICE engines. It's not going to happen in our lifetime. Brussels may impose a penalty of some kind on member states that don't comply, but it'll be fairly cheap. Some tax or another will be imposed, everyone will claim victory, and ICE vehicles will continue to roll off production lines on the Continent.