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.

Inflation isn't a deterrent to savings, it just means you have to put your savings somewhere that it also does work, i.e. invested in something. Having a non-zero inflation rate encourages investment, which encourages economic growth. This is good. But it's not the main reason we need constant inflation.

The reason we need constant inflation is because deflation is extremely harmful; it causes debts to grow which can make people and businesses insolvent. The Fed has a 2% inflation target because low inflation rates are manageable and because 2% is high enough that a decrease still won't go negative.

In general, documents are considered hearsay and are inadmissible. There are exceptions to the hearsay rule that allow them to be introduced, for example public records that are made in the normal course of business, but police reports are explicitly and specifically excluded from those exceptions. It might be possible to introduce a police report as evidence if the officer who wrote it is present to testify to its authenticity and accuracy, and to be cross-examined about its contents, but if the officer is there it's easier to avoid the hearsay question entirely by just having the officer testify.

Note that this applies not just to written police reports but also to bodycam footage. You still need someone to testify that the footage is authentic and accurate, and available to be cross-examined about it. With bodycam footage I suppose that could be either the officer or a technician responsible for collecting and archiving the footage.

In the case of an AI-generated summary of the footage, if the officer checked and edited the output I think it would be exactly the same as the officer's self-written report. If the officer didn't check and edit the output, then it would be a mechanical transformation of the bodycam footage and you'd need someone to testify to the accuracy of that transformation, as well as the authenticity of the footage. I don't think anyone could honestly testify that the transformation is guaranteed to be correct and accurate. In any case, though, the defense could always just review the footage to point out any inaccuracies in the summary. Most likely the summary would be ignored completely and the bodycam footage would be used directly, after appropriate testimony about its authenticity.

Well, when we have headlines from last week like this, I'm ready to give coal a hard deadline and fuck 'em if they can't meet it:

https://www.msn.com/en-sg/news/other/west-virginia-says-no-to-biden-s-solar-panel-push-state-s-billionaire-coal-magnate-governor-vetoes-renewable-energy-bill-claiming-it-would-ve-put-miners-out-of-work/ar-BB1kE1oo

There is currenlty enough solar and wind projects queued up to more than double the entire US grid capacity, they're just waiting on interconnections. The processes used in the US for grid upkeep and upgrading are antiquated, laborious, and not geared for growth.

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.

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.

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.

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

I have no confidence in their estimate, either. I think they overestimated it by $20 billion.

Think about it. In the Bay Area, people travel just 10 miles per day on average. I think the state average is somewhere closer to 20 or 30. Even if you assume 30 miles, that's only ~7.5 kWh of charging per day. Spread over 12 hours of being plugged in, that comes to just 2.6 amperes per vehicle on average.

My air conditioner can end up running very nearly continuously during the day in the hottest part of the summer, drawing O(30) amps. And you're telling me that the local grid can handle that, but somehow can't handle a measly 2.6 amps of car charging power overnight (when air temperatures are cool and the air conditioner mostly isn't running)? Is this a joke?

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that somewhere in Southern California, there might be some craptastic circuits that can't handle it, and maybe a few mobile home parks here and there, but... I suspect the number is a heck of a lot closer to zero than to 20 billion, much less 40.