Isn't a maxim that there are really only about 7 or 8 plots that every writer keeps reusing? For example, every Stephen King novel is basically a "Careful what you pray for, you just might get it" story.

Only the male nudists. The female nudists have pockets...

No way that screen could possibly get damaged! (I bump my smart watch crystal on things pretty much every day.)

I do an 8 hour commute every week, enough to make it painfully obvious that NPR repeats all the same news every hour...

The only thing I respect Sean Hannity for: he does radio ads advocating making AM radio mandatory for all cars, because it is still useful for emergencies. I literallly never listen to AM, but yeah, it would be nice to have during an emergency.

Google Navigate runs the phone dead pretty quick if you don't connect to USB for charging. Connecting USB also makes Android Auto and other apps show up on my car touchscreen, so I can technically lock the phone inside the center console while I'm driving. New car stereos now have WiFi built in, and new cars have wireless charging, so there shouldn't be any technical reason to use USB in the car... but I still do. Android Auto _should_ be able to do screen updates wirelessly!

They are required to do station identification hourly. They cannot play pure music, IT'S THE LAW!

1) FM radio doesn't take voice input like YouTube Music does in Android Auto. Doesn't have the "New Releases" feature either. 2) My weekly commute involves driving out highway 38 between I-5 and the coast, where I lose FM radio signal, Sirius sattelite reception, and cellular data. (The highway follows the Umpua river valley, so it has huge mountains on both sides -- enough to block the southern exposure to sattelites in equatorial orbit.)

The fun part scientsts haven't really proven yet: viruses can modify DNA. I am pretty sure viruses are driving evolution. I don't think that's intentional, but that add's propagating traits that are best for the virus, not the host, to the selection process.

I agree with your point about "survival of the individual". For organisms that build packs or tribes, evolution is based on the survival of the tribe, not on individuals. Having non-breeding members of the tribe (e.g. homosexuals) can actually enhance survival, so non-breeding genes survive. Human evolution makes a lot more sense when viewed from that perspective. Humans are altruistic; they will sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the tribe. That trait doesn't help survival of individuals!

No, they are saying that a selection process maximizes information. That doesn't require the objects being selected to have agency, and in fact evolution is more random than intentional.

Back in college, I had the thought that any system that disobeyed the Second Law of Thermodyamics could be defined as being alive... is that the same thing as saying systems can maximize information?

If it's perceptually identical, who cares if it is genuinely lossless? Isn't any image made up of pixels inherently lossy?

You mean having grad students spend hundreds of hours hand-tuning fractal comprression is no longer the most effective compression technique? Now what will the grad students do to fill their time?

Should we be teaching Generative AI how to do fractal compression? It seems to have a lot of spare time... unlike me.

Police... actually doing their job?!? I am SHOCKED!!!