I'm an old fart so I may be totally out to lunch on this one, but I get the impression that most of today's schools really don't teach students to think, question, analyze, and synthesize. I think this applies across all subjects, not just in technical ones.

Part of me thinks that the ones who DO know how to think and analyze are tilting the table against subsequent generations by under-funding education, healthcare, and nutrition. If you look at today's parasite class - many of whom are in the tech field - you see that their political attacks on taxpayers getting any of the benefit from the money they've paid are increasing. The broligarchs want it all for themselves, and I think they see AI as a stepping stone toward making the bulk of humans now living on Earth expendable. I think that it's in their plans to expend a whole lot of us.

Measuring AI token usage is far, far easier though. Reminds me of the drunk looking for his lost car keys - "Are you sure you dropped them under the streetlight"? -- "No, but the light's better here".

How about AI to write the AI query you're about to launch? ;-}

Why "ethnic" cohorts specifically? I've seen plenty of white North American-born folks who 'play the game' instead of competently 'producing'.

Shit-eating unethical opportunists know neither racial nor cultural boundaries.

With a little less context your statement would be deliciously ambiguous; my first fleeting thought was that you were referring to the LLMs. Then my eye caught the word "malice", and I understood.

I've been having a LOT of interaction with GoogleAI and ChatGPT lately. At first glance they seem human - as do the aforementioned C-suite occupants. On deeper examination though, it becomes obvious that both groups are - in a very disturbing way - not quite human.

The models have a valid excuse for living in Uncanny Valley. But the parasite class? Not so much.

Thank god for that. It was hard enough to learn 9 (now 8) planets at school. Can you imagine having to learn all the names if the hydrostatic equilibrium definition held?

Since when does science work by a standard of "what is easy for children to memorize lists of"? Do we say "There are 8 rivers in the world, and all others are dwarf rivers, which really aren't rivers" to make it easier on kids? Do we say "There are 8 bones in the human body, and all others are dwarf bones, which don't really count as bones"?

That's not how science works. Science is focused on practical distinctions about how things developed and their physical properties relative to each other. Hydrostatic equilibrium is a very practical definition. The process of undergoing relaxation induces metamorphism and releases heat, altering bodies. You go to non-equilibrium bodies if you want to study the primordial makeup of our solar system. You go to equilibrium bodies if you want to study tectonics, volcanism, non-primordial chemistry, and search for past or present life. The boundary could not be more meaningful. Yes, there is a bit of fuzz between equilibrium and non-equilibrium, but the same applies to pretty much all scientific fields.

And short-lived. More and more workplaces are charging the actual cost of the charge. We should expect this to continue as more people get EVs and the cost of subsidizing the fueling of commuter vehicles gets more public visibility and the value is required to be imputed/taxed as employee income.

First, the Maverick IS a truck. It's a SMALL pickup truck. You probably want a MEDIUM pickup trick, like the lightning. Or maybe one that doesn't have a back seat.

Ford says:

1. It will have a similar footprint to the Maverick
2. It will have the same passenger space of a RAV4

Ford hasn't said:
1. Towing capability
2. Bed size

Supporters of the IAU definition (which I should add was a deeply biased sample, in that it looked like they were headed toward no definition or a hydrostatic equilibrium definition, so most supporters of that left, but the people trying to switch it to an orbit-clearing definition stayed) will argue that it's cleared if the remaining objects are trivial transients or in orbital resonance. But that's not what the IAU definition says. Also they'll point to the Stern-Levison parameter, but (A) that was based on the ability to scatter today's distribution of asteroids, not the primordial distribution, which included outright planetissimals**; and (B) Mars didn't even clear it's own orbit, Jupiter did. Also, in the paper that introduced the Stern-Levison parameter, they argued for a better definition where you combine adjectives and nouns (each with specific implications about the body) as needed to describe its size, composition, etc.

But the OP's point stands, in that it's stupid to say that something is a "dwarf planet", yet not a planet. It's like saying dwarf stars aren't stars or dwarf galaxies aren't galaxies or whatnot. An adjective-noun is almost always a noun, that's how language works. In the cases where an adjective-noun isn't a noun - say, "shooting star" or "slow worm" or whatnot - we treat these as scientifically erroneous colloquialisms, and formalize corrected scientific terminology. We don't do literally the opposite and have science codify misleading language.

Speak for yourself, Pluto is fascinating. Tectonically active. Cryovolcanism so abundant it appears to have formed large mountains by the merger of individual domes. A gigantic scar exposing its mantle, which over time roils in massive convection cells, pockmarked in sublimation pits. Mountains drifting like icebergs and accumulating on the shore. Penetentes (sublimation ice spikes), the size of large hills. A multilayer blue atmosphere, in which organic chemistry occurs, depositing not just organic matter onto its own surface, but that of its moon as well. Active glaciation. A probable subsurface ocean, in contact with rock. Conditions suggesting it was habitable when it formed.

IMHO, it's way more interesting than a number of recognized planets.

(Also, I'm confused by your response. This isn't about the moon, and the moon has no atmosphere for flying)

What does that equate to in terms of real-world usage? My smartphone tells me I average about 35 pickups/day. If every single one of those warranted opening the hinge, that'd be about 2000 days of usage - over 5 years.

Not that I'm buying a Duo (or any other folding phone) at any point. My current smartphone is 5 years old, and I don't plan to replace it until it fatally breaks.

That does not sound right. Just how much capacity does it take to "power at home in the evening"? The average American home uses 30 kWh/day (I'm not sure how - my family averages 1/3 of that). Let's say that half of that is being supplied by the Tesla - 15 kWh. For a 75-kWh pack, that's using just 20% of the capacity. Repeatedly cycling 20% of a Li-Ion battery does not seriously degrade its lifespan, especially if that is the 60-80%, rather than the 0-20% or 80-100%, and especially since all evidence over the years indicate Tesla packs have a useful lifespan well past 200k miles.

I'd reframe it: change the system to penalize those that trash people and the environment. In other words: put a price on negative externalities such that they must be paid for. (It has a similar effect to rewarding the behavior you do want.)

Yep. Back in the early days of Slashdot, when helium usage would come up, I'd grumble about how wasteful the medical industry was with helium.

It still uses a lot, but it's nowhere near as wasteful as it was before.

Yes, like the Nile Delta, water flowed in from wet regions further away to the desert and near-desert lowlands, and humans began using it for agriculture. Around the Tulare Basin, there's dozens of inches per year in the mountains due to orographic uplift, but only half a dozen in the lowlands. The problem is that farmers first consumed the water from the mountain-fed local rivers and are now consuming water shipped in from as far away as the Oregon border and drawing down groundwater much faster than it's being replenished. At the same time, the mountain rivers are becoming less reliable as climate change leads to snowpack melting earlier. As it stands today, it is not sustainable. More water is being used than is long-term available.

Indeed, I have no clue what you think you were trying to prove with this link:

The conversion of this water system to a lake-and-slough wetland to agriculture began in the mid-1800s when European settlers began to build canals and diversion structures to irrigate their crops. This early irrigation infrastructure upstream from Tulare Lake slowly cut off the lake from its source waters, shrinking the lake's footprint. By 1899 - less than 50 years after irrigation was initiated - Tulare Lake went dry for the first time in history.

They were overdrawing the rivers *even before the 20th century*.