Venice was one of the first modern democracies. The Doge was an elected representative, far from being a king. I hope Musk realizes that calling it doge is more to do with its original Venetian meaning, rather than its more modern and unfortunate (to say the least) interpretation (the "Duce").

And this is completely incorrect. I don't have VS code installed and my sources NEVER had the MS link. Yet, on my 5 RPIs it was added in the last update. I gave consent to nobody, it just showed up. Nothing to die for, of course. One can just quickly delete the source and be done with.

To be clear: a GOP candidate with scientific credentials, could happen. In practice, s/he'll have to face an electorate devoted to antiscience conspiracies.

Well, with the antiscience culture pervading the GOP, it has to be a Democrat, really, if you want a nerd with scientific credentials.

OK, so it's OK if someone will not operational for, say, a year? You will lose your job, your capacity to function, etc. Long terms doesn't mean forever, it just means what it means, you don't know when it ends, and while we don't know it will be permanent, in some case we know it might. Think of the mental aspects that come from it. Those can be akin of PTSD, very long term.

If someone of the these brave folks will get sick because of their behavior, it's their problem not mine. If they think jumping off the cliff is their idea of freedom, be my guest, I frankly don't care. What I hope for is for them to take responsibility if that happens. That's how adults behave.

I can see from your nickname, that you are happy to be a clone of the propaganda cult. Be safe out there.

I can't start to list how many people that used to disregard covid as flu-like disease, that now are just fully disregarding social norms (masks, distancing), because: "I am strong and young and never had anything in my life, in fact I may even got it and went through it". A rough awakening seems lurking for the next few years.

Probably not. It will grow just like hangouts did before, to the point where they will start introducing several new apps doing the same, but "better". This bloat will grow again, and another reckoning will come along after that to something similar to Hangouts and Meet.

Funny this is. At some point in Messaging history, hangouts was supposed to be the one stop shop for Google, to include every possible service in the area for Google (SMS, Voice, etc), The bloat and Google love for internal competition started taking down hangouts internal dominance with the emergence of competing products, and from one we ended up at some point with several) (Hangouts Meet, Hangouts Chat, Hangouts, Duo, Allo, Messages, Voice). Now apparently, we are all in for a remerge back into one: Gmail with integrated Meet and Chat. Great. If rather than going through this stupid exercise and they re-engineerd hangouts from scratch to accomplish the same that would have been great. I still heavily use Hangouts classic. Why? It simply works on anything I run it, very low barrier of entry for communication, and it is what people know. I never transition to anything else, and people appreciate such stability.

What happens if, because of a software bug, misconfiguration, etc. essential features stop working? Let alone the all payment ponzi scheme at play, why should I trust a car company with no history of software development that involves these kinds of transactions? Should I pay also for software updates (not an obscene question, as BMW charges big money for their current updates, where allowed if allowed at all)?

Special offer of the day. Discount provided if you bundle it with ABS as well. Limited time offer.

Apple is innovating where it matters. All new features in iOS 14 are pretty much exact copies of Android can do (and it could have done since its inception). Copying is the best form of flattery. So a lot was done, but to catch up rather than innovate. Apple didn't need to innovate here, just catch up. Frankly they stopped leading mobile innovation a long time ago in iOS. The move to ARM is more interesting, but expected. Intel has been lagging, so Apple focused its innovation effort in going alone. I think it's a good move. Disclaimer: I am an Android user and I despise iOS. I use a MacBook Pro as my main computing machine.

irrelevant? you mean that they didn't serve any purpose other than frustrating people? You have not being paying attention, I suppose. But they helped managing hospitals during a crisis. The Gods only know what would have happened by letting society run normal. And sorry, no. While it may affect predominantly old people, they don't seem to enjoy exclusive rights to get sick. Nobody knows, a priori, how badly one would have gone through it, which is kind of the point.

it might. But you are not free to drive without a license. You are not free to drive against traffic. I mean you are free but you are not really, in that your freedom needs to reconcile with laws. So you are free to do what you like, but there are consequence of doing that. This isn't anarchy, at least not yet. That said, not all "freedoms" have equal weight. Freedom of speech is arguably something that laws have to be reconciled with. Your right to go the the hairdresser is certainly not. As for when to enact societal restrictions: Given the risk, you are saying that the risk and the consequences as uncertain as they are, they are meant to preserve the common good and public health. Calling this a bogeyman story so than people can just go about their life and endangering themselves and others is not just bad policy, but a failed society.