I understand the motivation. People invest time and effort in some FOSS product. A corporation uses it, no problem. But as soon as that corporation is seen to be profiting from the software, the developers feel a little jealous. After all, they didn't get paid, and now someone else is getting paid in their stead.

The thing is: corporations aren't going to sign up for a license like this. Those corporations that have ethics will already contribute to FOSS projects that they find important. Those without ethics will use FOSS as long as its free, and replace it when it looks like they might have to pay any substantial amount.

On a completely different note: I am not a fan of the current fad of restricting AI training. If your software is open source, then it is open source. Why does it matter if a human or an AI looks at it? That's just more of the same: "oh no, someone is profiting from my work". Also note: much of the AI work going on is itself FOSS.

tl;dr: If you don't want to risk other people profiting from your work, don't make it open-source.

Um, no. You don't get to redefine contract terms with an "opt out". They're letting themselves in for a world of hurt (and court cases) if they do this.

At this point, quantum computing will become useful right around the time that we have commercially viable fusion reactors. Just around the corner, only a few years away...forever...

For the websites I used to manage, I blocked all of Asia. Piles of bots and hacking attempts from India, China, Russia. Pakistan, etc. Also a lot from the US, but we also had legitimate traffic from there, so I couldn't block it.

If the government were serious, they would have a board of independent experts. The big players will use this to restrict competition and erect barriers to entry.

Disabling cookies is only part of it. You can still be tracked without them saving data on your computer. Also, there are still supercookies.

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. I also did EE a few decades ago, and the modern tech is astounding. Not too far from individual atoms playing significant roles.

Oh, how awful, the EU has a privacy law and actually enforces it. Terrible, I know.

As for popups, guess what? No site has to have one. All they have to do is not do shady things with user data. Shouldn't be hard at all, but especially American sites can't manage. Open up some of the privacy policies. Some list more than 1000 sites they share your data with.

For most call center inquiries, AI might actually be better than people. And it saves people having a brain-deadening job. However, there needs to be an easy escape to an actual person for those edge cases that the AI cannot help with. Of course, there won't be. Just like today: you can go to the support page of a lot of companies: There's an FAQ, maybe there's a chatbot, but for anything else you are just screwed...

What a stupid way to legislate. Every bill ought to gave a single, specified purpose.

As a factor in migration, global warming doesn't move the needle off of zero. Failed politics in certain countries, leading to warfare, gangs, and poverty - that's what drives the stream of migrants.

The US is big, but even the US is not able to absorb an infinite number of migrants. Also, note the failure of countries all along the routes. The first photo in the NPR article you reference is of a stream of migrants, and is captioned as "border control" in Panama. Only - there is no "control" to be seen on that border. Panama could stop many of the migrants there, instead of just passing them through. The same goes for all of the other national borders that they cross, but most countries are just happy that the migrants aren't staying - that they are going to be someone else's problem.

It's also specious that you blame this, or indeed anything, on one political party in the US. Both have had control of Congress at various times; indeed, in the past 3 decades it has mostly been the democrats. The thing is: the two parties are two sides of the same coin. It's not D vs. R, or blue vs. red. It's the political and economic elite against everyone else. Public differences are for show - it's easier to rule a divided populace. If the populace were to open its eyes to the real source of their problems, the guillotines might come out.

As a semi-serious answer, I think a lot of it is the current mindset both in Western politics and business. Everything has to provide short-term benefits, whether it's the politicians thinking about the next election, or the shareholders looking to next quarter's numbers. Infrastructure projects require a long-term view. Hence, they (a) don't get the attention they need and (b) are tossed around on the stormy waves of ever-changing short-term objectives.

Your math needs some work. Monthly, Texas sees 5000-10000 illegal migrants crossing the border. We don't know how many they don't see and therefore cannot count. So let's take the 10000 as a likely total figure. times 12 months/year, times your 20 years. You want to pay $50k/year, and on average (over 20 years) you would pay that for 10 years. That is a lot more than $6 billion.

Ok, I'm being facetious, because I know you didn't really mean the number seriously. But: what is it about the word "illegal" that people like you don't get? There are legal ways to immigrant into any country. People attempting illegal entry need to be immediately and forcefully deported. It would be far more effective to stop them at the border in the first place.

Texas isn't "showboating" except in the sense that they are showing up the federal government's failures. While, at the same time, trying to stem the flood of illegal immigration.

Living in Switzerland, I use trains a lot. They're great, no question.

Having read story after story about commuter rail and high-speed rail in the USA, and having ridden on trains there a couple of times? I cannot imagine this project succeeding. It is more likely a trough for distributing pork. The schedule will be delayed year after year, more money will be poured into the trough, and ultimately someone will take passengers from LA to Las Vegas on a mule cart.

Am I overly cynical?

I kept up quite well through my mid-40s. I stopped, not because I couldn't keep up, but because I got tired of seeing the wheel be reinvented time and again.

New blippet - does the same thing as the old blippet, only differently. Rewrite and re-test all your code! What fun!

It's a stupid treadmill, because each new crop of developers thinks they know better and are smarter than their predecessors. Hint: they don't and they aren't.