I suspect it has far more to do with price than anything. iPhones are just too damned expensive, even on the low end. You can get a decently built, solidly performing Android phone for $200 or less. If you're not an iTunes user, or iMessage devotee, there just isn't any real reason to pick an Apple phone over an Android phone.

"And nothing of value was lost"?

They also ruled that student loan forgiveness was (mostly) unconstitutional as well, and yet the President does it anyway.

We are entering "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it" territory again.

"Economic Hardship" has jack-shit to do with most of the declining birthrate. Women have more money than ever. If being poor hurt the birthrate, the Third World would have ceased to exist centuries ago. Women choosing careers over marriage has far more to do with it. Those that are getting married are doing so much later in life, when their fertility is already declining, and having few children is a consequence of that. Why do you think IVF and egg-freezing are in such demand? Because women that waited until 30 to get married discover, often to their surprise, that their best chances of pregnancy are in the rear window.

Women were told that they could have it all, the best of both worlds: that they could live like men in their twenties, living the single sexual life and moving up their corporate ladder, and after they had their fun, then they could marry the man of their dreams and have their family. All in a neat package. Except nature doesn't work that way. The Biological Clock is a thing, women have a set number of eggs, and by thirty, they start heading downwards in terms of fertility. Late pregnancies have a greater chance of complications and birth defects. The peak year for fertility and healthy birth is, IIRC, age 24 on average for females.

Life is a series of choices. And choices have consequences. Declining birthrates are inescapable considering the choices made.

No, and because of passenger density and volume issues that affects costs. For high speed rail to pay for itself, you need fairly dense-packed areas with high traffic between each other. For HSR to successfully operate on a large scale in the US, it's going to have to be a political decision to subsidize it and eat the costs (see: the Acela).

Even liberal-ish groups that Rah-Rah things like public rail admit that it simply isn't self-supporting in the US. A decade ago, Brookings did a study on American rail, and concluded that if AmTrak was to be "saved", it was going to require a mix of killing off some routes, and subsidizing the remainder:

HSR tickets are also naturally going to be more expensive than snail-rail fares, too, further hurting traffic numbers, especially over the longer distance routes.

The US can do infrastructure just fine. What it can't do is ape a European rail model that is unworkable in the US. The United States, geographically and culturally, is as different from Europe as it is from Japan. It's a huge, wide-open area with large spaces between major metro areas outside of a small cluster in the Northeast US. Very unlike Japan and Europe in that regard. The train romanticists simply refuse to accept reality on that.

It's just a remote controlled robot dog. Like a video game with a flame thrower attached. It has autonomous navigation, meaning it can walk on its own, but it cannot spew fire on its own.

ANY dairy product made for sale to the public requires licensing, and yearly inspection of the production facilities for safety compliance. Which makes sense, given the number of foodborne illnesses and poisoning concerns that can come from improper processing and sanitation when dairy is involved. This isn't "excessive licensing requirements" in any way, shape or form, no matter how much dishonest lying-ass conservatives try to misframe it.

The yearly license cost is absurdly low, too. Licensure if you're making yogurt and selling it to the public, year round, is a miniscule $106.

Milk products plant licenses and permits are issued by CDFA for various types of businesses that handle or manufacture milk and milk products. As required by Food and Agricultural Code (FAC) section 35011, a person shall not engage in the business of dealing in, receiving, manufacturing, freezing, or processing milk, or any product of milk unless a license or permit has been obtained from CDFA for each separate milk products plant or place of business. All milk products plants must be inspected and approved by CDFA prior to a license or permit being issued.

A milk products plant license is required for the processing and packaging of products including but not limited to fluid milk, yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese, butter and dried milk. Such plants must score a minimum of 80 percent on the official scorecard for milk products plants (FAC 33701) and comply with the requirements for new construction, repairs and sanitation of milk products plants (FAC 33731 - 33782). A separate room dedicated to the manufacturing and packaging of milk products is required, as well as other rooms dedicated to specific operational activities at the facility. The facility may manufacture any quantity of product packaged for sale on or off the premises.

https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/ahfss/Milk_and_Dairy_Food_Safety/Milk_Product_Licenses.html

Yes the FTC passed the rule. Chamber of commerce has already said they're going to sue to get it tossed. It technically abrogates existing contracts and the 'law' was made by unelected officials. I foresee that this will be tossed. It's too bad, because I agree that non-competes are a real reason why we don't have as much innovation and they are indeed one of the major barriers to new startups. However, I just don't think it's gonna make it.

I'm running it locally on 2 different platforms, without an internet connection. It doesn't contain any code. it's just the model weights so there is literally no way it can be calling home (feeling the overwhelming urge to insert 'you idiot' here but I'm resisting.) Care to restate your alarmist rhetoric?

When the solar companies are complaining that they're going to go out of business without more subsidies for their services, that is a good clue that they are not providing the value that they are taking. If they are going to go out of business because their customers cannot afford them, then they should.

Precisely. The whole story is a "greenwashing" fraud.

You only have to brute force build them once. Then everyone will pay tens of thousands of times over to run inference.

Americans have the right to protest till their hearts are content; however, that does not mean there will not be consequences. For example, losing ones job for protesting on company time, obstructing company operations, and being an overall general idiot. Google pays these people to do work not because they need a job, but because they presumably do one. If they're not doing it, see ya! This is exactly like the free speech misunderstandings: people rightly realize we have the right to free speech, but that doesn't mean it's without consequences. And it certainly doesn't excuse you from any other responsibilities, like the contract you sign for employment at google.

Yeah this is one place that the 1A WOULD actually apply in the USA. Normally people cite it as a red herring because they don't understand how it works, but in this case, spot on.