A shutdown would cause a political stir in the US because it's a popular app.

But this shut-down threat may be a ploy to scare USA regulators etc. If the algorithms were really that unique, they'd patent them to protect them, and then agree to license them to the split-off as part of the settlement as long as the split-off doesn't use or sell them for other apps.

If they are relying on trade-secrecy instead of patents to protect their ideas, they are probably already swiped via mole employees, and/or deemed obvious by others.

My cat is related to Chairman Meow.

I've heard that also. Plants don't have to outrun predators and thus can waste more DNA weight on marginal genes.

A species known as "the cops". We warned you about your tentacle porn.

Why does anyone have to "ask" or "push" for custody of their own child? Both parents brought that kid into this world and by default both should be expected to have an equal part in raising that child. No one should have to spend lots of time and money fighting for custody of their own child - the laws should assume 50/50 custody unless one or both parents feel extenuating circumstances warrant modification of that situation.

Looks like somebody beat us to it.

They'd be better typists. And while at it, put arms on top of heads and eyes on the back. You'd be the best basket-baller out there. And give them 3 wankers to compensative for all the jokes classmates will make about them.

Big co's spend a lot of lobbying and bribe money to rid competition. It's more cost effective than doing a better job.

> Ford made the Ford Ranger EV 1998 to 2002

It seemed designed as mostly a company fleet vehicle, not a consumer vehicle. If there is a lot of wait time between deliveries, then you don't need big/efficient batteries. For example, for repairs, the average onsite repair may take two hours. The EV doesn't have to use batteries during that two hours.

Many believe it's a reinforcement mechanism between flowering plants and insects. Once both plants and insects got into the symbiosis pattern, it flowered (pun half intended) as both sides gained a big advantage: one was able to disperse its DNA further, and the other got an easy meal.

Why nature didn't invent it earlier is hard to say. Maybe because most insects have crappy eyesight. One then happened to have good-enough eyesight that they could spot flowers at a distance, and evolution improved both bug eyes and flowers after that.

You probably don't know any trans people personally. I grew up with the same beliefs about transgender people you have, until I actually got to know some of them. As impossible as it is for us to understand and as nonsensical as it appears to us, it's clearly not something most trans people choose.

It's OK for people to be different in ways we don't understand. Nobody has a duty to make sense to *us*. In any case, only about 0.6% of the population identify as transgender. Even if you completely outlawed gender reassignment surgery an gender-affirming care, it wouldn't budge the fertility needle even assuming trangender people decided to have children -- which they won't.

Of course, there's a counter example for any theory about people in general, so there's probably someone out there who chose it as a lifestyle. But that's just not the norm.

Also, employment is a lot less stable than it used to be. When I entered the workforce in the early 80s it was still common for people who were retiring to have worked for the same company all their lives. Young people now live in a gig economy; if they *do* work for a company, often they don't know how many hours they'll get from week to week.

And while things like TVs are cheaper than ever, essentials are often far more expensive. Median rents for a studio apartment in the US were about $250 when I got out of school; today they're $1200. If you have income twice the poverty rate and you follow the advice we were given back then to spend no more than 20% of your income on housing, you'd be looking to pay $483/month in rent. In most of the US even if you have roommates you'll be spending over $1000 per month.

Today it's more economically important to have a degree than ever. While wages for new college graduates have increased only modestly, wages for non-college graduates have dropped since the 1980s. Let's say you're thrifty and decide to commute to a state college. Your four year costs have risen from $3,200 to over $44,000. So families in their prime reproductive years are burdened with debt; it takes years to overcome that and to raise.

We often take poor families to task for being irresponsible and having children they can't afford, but the fertility rate in families below the poverty line isn't that high and it's remained steady for decades. What's happened is that the fertility rate at 200% of the poverty line has crashed.

Most women, with access to contraception and abortion, are doing what we told them is the responsible responsible thing. But if they *all* did it, it would be a demographic catastrophe.

Indeed! AI can certainly replace lousy human service because it's hard to suck more than the existing batch. Many service desks are just outsourced India call centers who service hundreds of companies, pretending to be dedicated, and know very little about each co's products; they just follow scripts. They are already de-facto bots.

AI is not near ready to replace competent experienced human service desks, but those are too rare anyhow, unfortunately.

The lack of clear English isnâ(TM)t the frustrating thing with modern day customer "service". I have lived in non-English speaking locales and can roll with a language barrier. The problem is outsourced customer "service" ain't empowered to do a damn thing except read from a script and by the time I'm frustrated enough to make a call it's invariably for a problem too complicated to solve with a script. AI will not fix this problem. It will just leave you yelling at a disempowered computer rather than a disempowered human being. The solution to this problem would require the C-Suite thinking of customer service as SERVICE rather than a pointless expense to be minimized.

They are new at it. You don't get great overnight.