We also have 2022 and 2023 settlements of similar merchants vs. credit card companies lawsuits that haven't resulted in mass chaos.

I suppose they could take my "rejected" card for an additional fee. A great way to ensure I never go there again, but up to them I suppose.

Funny. American restaurants almost univesally expect an additional fee of 15-30% called a bri.. er, "tip" but you'll boycott one over the 2% they might pass on to you to use a reward card?

They just make insane profits because of the volume of product that they move.

Walmart's return on assets is ~7% which is not bad, but is certainly not insane. They'd do a lot better liquidating all their stock and stores and sticking the money in a NASDAQ index fund.

Microsoft's ROA is ~18% and Nvidia ~77%.

Walmart's net profit of $15 billion is a BIG NUMBER but only compared to something like an individual's net income. The median American household's ROA seems to be about 42%, although you could argue that should be a little lower if you properly accounted education as an asset.

But Star Wars says clones are way better than robots!

But they can't stay mega wealthy without billions of rubes to steal money from! Oh, and suppress them from just pressing delete on all those stolen numbers.

Prove that. IQ is so complex we've not even begun to find a genetic link. It's been tried forever; still no progress. How about we just make heads and brains larger? nope. Elephants have about twice the brain we do. Brain development is by far the biggest factor once you rule out major defects which do impact IQ - but a normal brain is capable of anything... including relearning to function with huge portions blown away... just imagine what an undamaged brain can learn... if we can figure out how to teach it.

They just need normal penises... then we will eliminate insecure mental cases like Musk (botched surgery) or Trump (tiny freak.)

Get the plastic surgery industry involved, they will kill it off in no time.

The real nightmare is "a human" who can't get a mental illness. For starters, anybody actually smart has to cope with depression.

Cars occasionally run onto the sidewalk and hurt someone. More often than planes cause injury around airports I expect. Putting sidewalks right beside roads seems like a terrible idea. Why not have at least a buffer zone? Say, a football field (choose your type) of buffer?

Same for airports. Airports do have buffers around them, especially at the ends of runways. Very, very occasionally it isn't enough.

I'm not really sure what your point is. You are correct that racers frequently sail through all sorts of weather without damage. They do sometimes take damage though, the vast majority of which is due to trying to sail through weather as fast as possible.

A cargo ship would presumably sail through storms as fast as it could without risking damage.

My, we are an aggressively stupid dipshit today.

You do seem to be yes. Maybe time to take a break?

Ships scale up pretty predictably. No, they didn't build THE BIGGEST CARGO SHIP EVAH for their prototype. That would be pretty dumb.

This thread is talking about the ship speed. And the speed of a displacement hull is intimately linked to the length. As is the capacity, incidentally.

But half the time, in particular in regattas where you race against time, you end up in 11s and 12s and you go through.

And that's when you're racing. Remove the incentive to go fast and you're even safer.

Length, which is the relevant metric when you're considering the speed of a pure displacement hull.

It already is much cheaper and slower than flying; so what if they go slower if it ends up cheaper... If it costs the same and is slower then we really should do something to make polluting boats pay more for the harm they cause.

FYI: The top 12 mega cargo ships pollute more than ALL the cars combined; I forget the exact number but it's around a dozen! If I was presi-dictator, I'd sink every mega ship and offer non-profit nuclear powered ships managed by the navy (since they are the only ones who competently and securely handle nuclear power.) Given the scope of the global problem is a bigger threat than any war and this cost would be trivial. Furthermore, if it's ok to blow up fishing boats in the name of drugs it's certainly more justified to sink a dozen mega cargo ships.

What I'd like to see is an electric boat with solar and wind; obviously with generators picking up the slack. Yes, solar wouldn't generate hardly anything close to what is needed; however, it's the cheapest electricity and would quickly pay for itself. Generators can easily be swapped out at anytime while giant ICE engines can not... I know there are electric boats running from generators already; I don't know how widespread that has become. I'd also have solar covers over the shipping containers; wouldn't take much time to attach/detach those given how automation is taking over loading/unloading... I bet the extra human labor time is still worth it. Not that we should be shipping things cheaply around the world like we do. It's absolutely insane that something like US organic chicken gets shipped to china to be processed then shipped around... or how dozens of cows of beef from all over get ground into burgers etc. Those are some really cheap shipping costs...

not ideal. batteries are ideal. hydro is ideal. Simply using distance grid transport is great too. They are still not great to flip on and off constantly. For short spikes, flywheels are probably better.

Still, base load power for the grid is a myth; it's not going to be cost effective, it probably isn't already - not too many run those turbines very long.

It has to open in a fire. I can't imagine otherwise; however, I can imagine a slim chance it stops working when the power goes out... but unlikely. Cut the power or light a fire and you are out. Or simply ask an employee. If they won't let you out, call the police which likely they would be doing since you probably are stealing if they won't let you out... or you're robbing them and they don't want you to beat/shoot them to get out... I bet a gun gets you out pretty fast.

What I'd like to know is if they set off an alarm, does that make it impossible to get out? So now out of panic the perp has to be convinced the employee can't do anything after the alarm was triggered and also not get angry and shoot... not like they are all sane enough to consider the consequences of murder and a certain capture; one would like to think they'd be mindful enough to try breaking out before getting revenge on the employee.

Not that we don't have bigger problems with a lack of public restrooms and businesses denying access to theirs!