It is a bit hypocritical of the West to expect a ceasefire from Israel.
We bombed and shelled the Japanese and Germans relentlessly until they surrendered. We did not ask the Germans if they were Nazis.
Hopefully, Gaza will surrender soon, and unconditionally. Then we can press Israel to be as generous and forgiving as the US was after WW2.
( The Brits and French were in a less forgiving mood, Russians more so for obvious reasons. Fortunately clear heads prevailed. )

Hey, my opinion was just as real as larryjoe's. His opinion was simply informed with a more data than mine, and therefore more accurate. I'd still contend we are both right. :-P

10 Things I Hate About You is especially derivative, considering Petruchio / Patrick, Katherina / Kat, and Bianca's character names were even kept largely the same. But it isn't like Shakespeare's play was even original. Literary critics have found many oral and literary stories which most likely heavily influenced the play, included using the same names as characters from previous works. I'd say today's version of ChatGPT isn't too far from a human's ability to come up with a truly original story.

I took a look at box office returns for the past few years and compared them to 1995-99. In the past 3 years 79% of box office returns from the top 10 grossing movies came from sequels or remakes. In the late 90s, it was 36%. While the studios may be partially to blame based on where they spend their marketing dollars, I feel most of the blame lies on the audience. The studios wouldn't have shifted this dramatically if the audience wasn't rewarding them for it.

One chart shows how little box office returns come from original works. In the past 7 years, 74% of the top 10 grossing movies were sequels. 19% were based on existing IP and 7% were original works (although Oppenheimer was based on real events).

So it looks like this research shows studios are still producing just as many original works, but audience members have migrated to derivative works. Movies based on novels and comic books are less than 10% of all movies in the past two decades, but they account for over 35% of box office revenue.

Like another poster said, I bet if you count a sequel as derivative work then the shift in the industry would be even more dramatic.

That may be a factor in some localities, but the difference between Africa, and Africans in developed countries is mostly down to nutrition and hygiene in early childhood development. Huge improvements have been made over the last 70 years, with infant mortality plummeting, but there is a long way to go.

You can see it in stature too. Black Americans are around 10cm (4") taller than black Africans.

why would AI feel the need for constant growth and colonization of territory?
maybe they got to 42 and shut down.

and now that you are all out of drones. what will you do against the extra ammo.

Isn't this simply explained by the release dates for Apple and Samsung flagship phones? The Apple 15 came out in September, so Q4 2023 was very good for Apple. The Samsung S24 was released in January, so Q1 2024 was better for Samsung.

Apple dropped from 24.7% market share in Q4 23 to 17.3% in Q1. They had a drop of 5.4% in 2022, 7.4% in 2021, and 6.7% in 2020 (from Q4 to Q1). 2023 was an oddity with only a 4.4% drop. This 7.4% drop is on the high end but still within the norm over the past few years.

time to treat them as utilities.

False assumption, but at least you make is consciously :)

You are preaching to the choir there. Freedom requires personal security.

The fact that Tesla buys batteries from BYD (as well as making their own) may offer a clue.

Why not? Ancient China disagrees. We are talking about a great filter here. What matters is whether something is possible on planets generally, not whether it is easy here on Earth.
    Early civilisations developed metallurgy without coal or oil. It is easy to imagine other planets having an industrial revolution without fossil fuels. Coal made it a whole lot easier and faster, but is not essential.

The challenge is getting to low orbit, not escape velocity. And if that was much faster, it might have been done with nuclear rockets, back in the 60s or 70s.