As it's always been available on Android phones. Right now a company can explain to any Android user how to enable side loading, how to download and install the app, and can build their own financial transaction system into the app. But I can't think of a company I would trust more than Google to vet apps in a store, i.e. has a strong enough financial interest to be vested in keeping apps secure and have sufficient technical knowledge of the platform. In any case, the bitching here is about easy of access, i.e. they don't want to pay to have their app in a store or they want the cost to go way down, which allows a greater ease of use and trust by the users. Though if you're not in a store you don't have to pass that store's accreditation nor give them a cut of the money. You also can't easily burn advertising budget on trying to get eyeball space on the store, so you have to go get your customers a different way. And you'll have to spend to have someone vet your security (app and website).

Lovely. Perhaps they'd like to extend the EOL for Windows 10 by a year while they make sure basic OS functionality is operational in Windows 11.

when there is a multi-trillion dollar opportunity to build a massive bureaucracy.

Like older ebooks where there is no copyright protection, or try out stories on royalroad.com or similar sites, or *gasp* physically go to a library and check out a physical book. Or go to a library sale and pay $1 for two books.

Will no one think of all the bugs and birds this thing will destroy? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I remember Apples were in all the high school computer labs in the 80s, and how cool the Sneakers video game was. But my dad bought a Vic 20, so I learned to program in basic with 3267 Bytes of RAM and a tape drive. Carriage returns took up memory, so you optimized by making each line of basic as long as possible and used very short line numbers. I did manage to map the computer's accessible memory to the screen with looping peeks and pokes, all 2"x2"of it, which was fun (as was randomly poking memory locations to see what would happen). The basic manual that came with the computer was pretty decent to learn how to code in basic with. I was so jealous of the kids whose parents bought them C64s.

Exactly, these sound like low or minimum wage positions that should only be taken to get the work experience needed to qualify for a better job. Or if you need a paycheck right now, and you need some cash coming in while you pursue the next real job.

McDonalds sells the most hamburgers because consumers are most happy with their product, more than anyone else's. So either they are far, far cheaper than anyone else (which isn't true), or the quality of their product at the price point sold is the best out there. I.e. lots of people are saying their hamburgers are good by the fact they buy them, by your example, more than anyone else who makes hamburgers. I'm guessing if we use your criteria for evaluating schools, where ever you graduated from doesn't do a very good job of teaching its students basic economics and logic.

Sure they are alike, expert systems were for making use of practical areas of knowledge, like medical diagnoses. Both are just using analysis tools to generate a useful desired output using some equivalent of a neural net or decision tree tailored with the existing to knowledge to predict a possible outcome. Yup, there's plenty of ways to differentiate, from philosophical, to design, to function and capability. There's definitely a difference between a slide ruler and the architect that uses it to design and build a skyscraper. No one would think to call a slide ruler "artificial intelligence", even though it processes raw data into useful outputs. I'm not defining everything in terms of mathematical equations, just what's being hyped falsely as "AI". No one sees equations as problematic, they see the people using the equations as problematic or not.

None of anything being touted as "AI" is much of anything like what people think of when they hear that term, which is machines that can think and reason like human beings. These chat and paper writing programs are closer to what were called expert systems back in the 80s. They're really just clever applications of neural nets, i.e. mathematical equations. There is no awareness, no rational thought involved. Input stimulus, get response, just like any other machinery. So why all the hype and threat panic and demand for government action? Well, if this isn't true AI, that becomes a really good question. Especially since it's really big tech companies that are demanding heavy regulation. Why? Economics 201, crony capitalism. Use government regulation to protect and create effective monopolies or cartels as small companies can't afford the large overhead that compliance creates. Thus big companies, which rarely can innovate as quickly or as well as small companies, can force smaller competitors out of the market or buy them with their larger market share to take over their new products. But the problem is all the sheep would never panic if they understood this was just clever use of mathematical equations to analyze data in new and interesting ways. They might even think that's understandable and no real threat, and no fires are lit under politicians and reporters might even dare say the emperor has no clothes. No, it's SkyNet and the robots are taking over! Panic, you dumb sheep, panic!

Since it isn't, we're still just talking expert systems here, not real Artificial Intelligence. If they had to refer to these as ES instead of AI, all the floof-lah would pretty much go poof. Or have they finally completed the full relational database and developed self-modifying code and that's what's being deployed instead of just finely tuned neural networks (math equations processing data)? Just looking at two definitions for neural networks, you can tell which is hyping and which is not. From Amazon AWS - "A neural network is a method in artificial intelligence that teaches computers to process data in a way that is inspired by the human brain. It is a type of machine learning process, called deep learning, that uses interconnected nodes or neurons in a layered structure that resembles the human brain." From IBM - "Neural networks, also known as artificial neural networks (ANNs) or simulated neural networks (SNNs), are a subset of machine learning and are at the heart of deep learning algorithms. Their name and structure are inspired by the human brain, mimicking the way that biological neurons signal to one another."

You need to keep following through on the progression of your first paragraph. Inflation leads to the cost of living being more than businesses or their employees can afford, businesses leave with their jobs, reducing the demand for housing, reducing the cost of living, allowing rent and then wages to reduce. If you want to control that flux, you need to figure out how to make low wage workers available in the city while providing housing they can afford in places they'd want to live in. The solution is not regulations to try and control market forces, it is to help enable market forces to do what you want. Which should make the free market solution very easy to enable so the city can continue to grow (versus ending up in contracting and expanding cycles tweaked by technology) - affordable, reliable and rapid mass transit from further and further out. This allows affordable housing to be in range of needed jobs. Of course, this requires a city, which at some point has fixed boundaries, to have to work closely with surrounding neighborhoods. I saw an excellent video recently on how a major Texas metropolis is struggling with that issue as well, as ring cities work to grow their feature set rich enough to compete with the central city and not just become bed and breakfast communities entirely dependent on the economic success of the central city. I don't think anyone here is saying this is easy overall, I think what's being stated is that the underlying principles are simple and easy to understand, and the systemic failure we're seeing is due to ignoring the reality by believing the ahistorical notion that central planners can somehow make a utopia or even be competitive with the free market.

As of December 2020, a war could have broken out in the Middle East and it would have had no impact on oil prices in the US. Because we were a net exporter of oil. What changed since then to suddenly make us dependent on oil from other nations?

It does, as it is dependent on the supply of money, which is necessary for the original poster's B and C points to have an inflationary impact. The free market has the ability to adapt to shortages, but a government dumping huge amounts of currency into distribution scrambles the system but good.

The surge is due to ending lockdowns, which combined with liberal policies (dumping huge amounts of printed money into the economy) leading directly to the labor shortage (why work when the gov't handout is higher than a job would pay?). Definitely China is responsible for this whole mess, and I suspect they are laughing all the way to the bank. You do realize the truckers were protesting government policies related to COVID that were causing the constriction of the movement of goods and services? The bottom line is that democrats and progressives continue to support policies related to COVID that are in denial of reality and that are causing the problems we are experiencing, whether it be printing money, shutting down major portions of the economy, or so many other really stupid policy decisions they've made over the last two years.

"... so many people ... dramatic plummet ... a horrible loss ... actually drove the life expectancy even lower ... very disturbing ... extensive loss of life ... Many of the deaths occurred in people in the prime of their lives ... the horrible drop in life expectancy ... continued decline. Unfortunately, we did not find good news." The use of this kind of language just screams "I have an agenda", whether that agenda is for more money through eyeballs or generating FUD to drive political support to some end. And clearly that agenda can't be supported by a rational argument using the data presented in a correct context.

Taking a whack at the abuse of executive orders, rolling back the uncontested illegal power of federal regulatory agencies, forcing this all back on Congress to do its job properly, laying a foundation for trashing the general welfare clause abuse that ignores the 10th amendment... Yup, a lot of good could be started here, not the least enforcing that politicians must work within the system and through compromise and moderation instead of gaming the system to ensure the righteous cause gets enforced no matter what.