Looks like a truck/pickup body on a regular car platform. What they call a "Ute" Down Under.

The only thing I ever got out of doing homework at Uni was a case of beer. The reward for our team coming first in an assignment to devise a strategy for maximizing throughput through a telecoms switch. A far as grades went, midterms and finals set them, 50/50.

But my high school was the same, come to think of it (though it was a Montessori school, a bit different from others). Teachers assigned homework, some even checked that you completed the work, but the only homework that was actually graded were essays. Teachers usually covered the homework quickly at the start of the class, pausing to clarify things if a student had questions. Seems like a good way to find out what students are struggling with, and provide some reinforced learning.

In other words: homework can be a tool to help struggling students to catch up with the class, not to punish them for falling behind. Grading homework is worse than pointless. And in this age of AI, grading homework only further encourages the use of AI.

Reminds me a little of the short story "Manna" about AI taking over all production, and 2 outcomes for society. As a staunch capitalist, I think that in an AI-driven world, or a "post labour" world or whatever you want to call it, capitalism as a means of distribution of wealth is not going to work. Yes, I think many would argue that it is already failing in that regard, but I would counter that the safeguards we have against people falling through the cracks still mostly work... and more importantly, that we have no better system to replace it. But if work itself pretty much becomes redundant, capitalism will only continue to work if we can find a good answer to the old question: who owns the means of production? And those means ought to include natural resources and land as well.

I am sure there are some good answers, and a way to organize society around that new reality. But I'm not at all convinced either that this is where we are headed. By the time governments would have to take action, they'd be wholly owned by the new aristocracy.

The proposed EU age verification app is a good deal less intrusive than any of the nasty mechanisms that some social media is already employing. Most of those are a privacy nightmare. The EU app, in contrast:
- Site / App operator does not get your identity, only a proof of age.
- Government does not get to see which sites you visit.
- Actual verification takes place once, and whatever ID you use does not need to be stored (and can't be subsequently stolen)
- App is open source, so the workings can be verified.

Has it though? In the West, certainly. It's what the MBAs all parrot: focus on your core strengths, divest everything else. Or at least split it off under different names. But there are still Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean conglomerates that make everything from oil tankers, appliances, musical instruments to motorcycles. All under the same name. Somehow they are not too concerned about brand name dilution or core strengths. Like the MCP guy says in Robocop: "Good business is where you find it".

The stock argument is a good point... I'd love to invest in SpaceX the aerospace company, not so much in SpaceX the AI company with a satcom division and its own rocket department. Certainly not if they add an automotive department that seems to have lost its way. Though I don't know if this is about Musk's wants, it smells a lot more like the acquisition of X and xAI by Spacex: a trick to artificially pad the company's valuation, or something like that.

Capitalism just means that the means of production are privately owned, by investors with a profit motive. That's all. You mention the post WW2 era as an example when life was still good for even the lower incomes, and that was also a capitalist era. Capitalism has brought a standard of living unheard of in most of human history, not to the rich but to the working class.

It took more than capitalism to make that happen, capitalism does not provide equal opportunity to everyone nor does it necessarily distribute wealth fairly. And it seems that capitalism tends to concentrate money and with it power into ever-smaller groups. It takes unions, governments, laws and watchdogs to ensure that businesses keep their proper place, play fair and do right by everyone. And they used to do that fairly well for over a century. It's those entities failing us now, not capitalism. GP is right about that.

Yes and No.
MBAs are taught to look at the wrong things. But that "wrong thing" is not the profit motive. Profit is the purpose of a business, in its essence. A founder or enlightened CEO might give it purpose beyond that, but at its core, profit is the goal.

The real question is: what agencies and regulations exist to ensure that this profit motive - useful as it is - serves society's higher goals?

The mass events (global ones) are not so common, we've had like 4 in the past 80 years or so. But there are some regions (Great Barrier Reef for instance) where it is more or less a yearly affair. It doesn't seem feasible to manually re-seed these areas by hand every year.

It means "you will own nothing", as they no longer offer FSD as a lifetime puchase. It's a subscription.

Defrost mode.

Same day, Albert Heyn and Delhaize got hit (Netherlands and Belgium). The nature of the incident is as yet unknown, but it is now clear that these supermarkets have had to shut down parts of their systems preemptively, following a "cyber incident". The shops are operating (and freezers are cold), but websites are down, self-checkout kinda works, payment systems are slow, and all home deliveries have been cancelled. Logistics to stores have also been affected.

I don't think people looking for entertainment are going to pay to watch a propaganda hit piece.

"There use to be news, with editors that would filter out the wrongthink"
FTFY

Wading through the garbage, one does find a few gems from time to time. Not unfounded rumours, but verified stories with links to sources that the regular newspapers do not print for some reason, or discussions and opinions outside of your own bubble. And it becomes clear how much of a bubble mainstream publications have become. Or maybe they always were...

How about governments using AI to process intelligence and making strategic decisions based on the AI's "insights".

If I call tech support or the bank or whatever, I don't want, need nor expect to see the other person's face. In general, video calling isn't widely used except in multi-person meetings, or when calling a loved one overseas. The avatar is not needed.

Also, give your AI agent a phone number where I can reach it, or give it its dedicated app or whatever, but default to "handset mode" like a regular phone call. Let me put it on speaker if and when I want to. Turning the interaction into a regular phone call will go a long way towards making the conversation feel more natural. Interacting with Siri and Alexa feels unnatural; adding an animated avatar to a disembodied voice won't help, even if the conversation itself flows naturally. I know, a phone call isn't suitable for every interaction, especially when collaborating or co-creating with someone, but it covers most cases.

But I guess a simple audio call is harder to monetize.