"only 60% of Americans know how to drive a manual transmission (according to a survey from auto parts retailer AmericanMuscle)"

1) that seems like 60% of the readers of American Muscle
2) 'know how to' is covering a lot of ground here. "Knows how to start a stick, and how to probably get it moving from level ground with 25% of killing it" maybe. Can confidently and reliably drive with a stick, knowing basic techniques? 25% or less, certainly.

Having a stick shift is 100% the simplest security system you can have on a car in the US in 2026. Your car might still get broken into, but they'll abandon it quickly.

I wouldn't say pragmatic, no. He's tried it, found it works, and now won't listen to the people pointing out the numerous problems with it.

He has pointed out AI's flaws and limitations. He has also said the beneft is it gets him to the starting point more quickly to either figure out a bug or how to do something, or even how to rewrite something he's already done. He is not blindly accepting what it says.

Trust, but verify would be closer to his thinking.

Why is it all these earth like worlds exist, but no signs of life ?

We don't know that. There could be organisms living on one or more of these planets, but we can't detect them. Maybe it's a type of moss or simply bacteria.

Until we visit these planets, we cannot say with any certainty life doesn't exist on these worlds.

Unfortunately, afaik red dwarf stars are so cool that any planet in their liquid water zone are also almost certainly tidally locked.
Not saying that doesn't make it habitable (as ample science fiction authors have imagined alternatives) just that that might make the challenge harder.

Then again, life finds a way.

Why more people are buying DVDs/blu-ray. They have the movie. They own it. It can't be taken from them. It won't change.

The same with books. No worrying that your digital copy will mysteriously disappear one night. You have the book. You bought it. It's yours. The words won't change.

Errr, hearing aids are significantly larger with standard hearing aid batteries being larger than airpods themselves,

No, they're not. My dad has hearing aids and they are about the same size as an airpod.

For reference, this is close to, but not the same as, what he has. This shows the size of the various airpod models. They are not "significantly larger" than a hearing aid, and in fact are nearly identical in size.

Like seriously that is an insanely ignorant example. Cheese also contains calcium so what excuse does chalk have for not being used as a sandwich topping?

Yes, your example is insanely ignorant. Cheese is a food. Chalk is not.

You keep going on about "its own people". Why is that so important to you? Israel has killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza, including children. Are you saying that doesn't matter because it's okay for Israel to kill anybody they choose, except Israelis? People are people, and dead is dead.

You seem to be trapped in an extreme tribalist paradigm in which it's terribly evil for a tribe to kill its own members but entirely okay to kill members of other tribes, because they aren't really human. That attitude is itself extremely evil. It's exactly Nazi Holocaust thinking: they believed it was okay to kill Jews because they weren't really Germans. Stop it.

First, let's note the referenced article IS A SALES PITCH.
Second, electrical outages are a normal thing in a storm prone country. The "outages" aren't news, it's only meaningful if they're growing more frequent.
The article asks plaintively "is this the new normal" without ever establishing what the old normal was.

When taking into account the higher population and higher electrical demand per person, are large blackouts becoming more common in the US?
Per ai: no.

"The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) tracks Bulk Power System (BPS) performance annually in its State of Reliability (SOR) reports. Key takeaways from the 2025 SOR (covering 2024 data):

The BPS "remains highly reliable and resilient." Core metrics like frequency response, misoperations, and many transmission outage categories are stable or improving.
Severe weather (hurricanes, winter storms) caused the most impactful outages, as in prior years. In 2024, events like Hurricanes Helene and Milton led to millions of (mostly distribution-level) customer outages, but BES restoration was often faster than historical averages for similar storms due to hardening efforts. No major operator-initiated load shed during key winter events.
There were notable events, but the Severity Risk Index (SRI) and other indicators do not show a clear upward trend in frequency or severity of large-scale BPS disruptions when viewed over multiple years. Distribution outages (local, below 100 kV) are more visible to customers and can be widespread, but they are outside NERC's primary jurisdiction."

I fully agree our policies toward the increasingly critical electrical grid infrastructure are incoherent. That's said: quit buying into advertisers insisting the world is ending and here's some snake oil that will fix it.

Oh, it gets worse ....

* Papa Johns Transforms Digital Ordering with AI Ordering Assistant with Google: "Papa Johns announced a major transformation of its digital ordering experience, designed to deliver speed, accuracy, and real-time personalization .... the first partner for Google Cloud’s newly expanded AI solution, Food Ordering agent, which is helping the pizza brand deploy a fully unified voice and text AI ordering system to remove friction across customer touchpoints." [Don't you just love marketing language?] "Food Ordering agent is a comprehensive omnichannel platform that enables brands to deploy high-quality voice AI agents across mobile apps, websites, telephones, kiosks, and in-car systems." [qsrmagazine: quick-service restaurant]

* Papa Johns Looks to Reclaim Tech Leadership Through AI Innovation: "Using Google Cloud’s tech, Papa Johns will begin proactively suggesting orders through push notifications or email based on learned customer preferences and anticipated needs for upcoming occasions like birthdays or sporting events. ... AI-powered marketing campaigns filled with personalized offers and content."

* "Little Caesars has taken digital ordering to a new level .... its customers can now order pizza using ChatGPT ... letting customers use conversational AI to plan meals, receive personalized recommendations, and customize orders -- all in ChatGPT. Customers can look for special deals and get personalized suggestions based on their preferences, which ChatGPT will learn over time.

* I also seem to remember an article about targeting pizza advertisements to households based on an estimate that they were low on food. Just pair that with one of the smart refrigerators, like Samsung, which knows how much food you have on hand.

A piezoelectric mike wouldn't need to draw any power when inactive (i.e., not hearing sound). A dynamic mike actually generates electricity. (So does piezo, but it's a tiny amount.) Other components would still draw some current.

Depends on how it's implemented. For both privacy and battery life, the best option would be a physical switch that completely disconnects the microphone.

Just be sure to set the switch to "Good" not "Evil": Meet the Robinsons. And keep moving forward.

Maybe in your home .... there also exists paint which can be used to turn entire walls into erasable white-boards, with the additional advantage that the wall is easy to clean. Especially nice if you have children (or whoever) who like to draw on walls. (Not a good habit to get into, though.) The paint is rather expensive and requires a primer ... "fully cured in four days" ... OOO! Magnetic whiteboard paint! I didn't know about that! "Holds four pages of printer paper."

Coincidentally, NHTSA report (2005) on the (negative) effects of driving while conversing using a hands-free device: "Phone conversation was associated with increased delay in responding to lead-vehicle speed changes, which indicates significant cognitive impairment due to phone conversation."

I expect arguing with an AI which will not stop gassing on about nonsense would be even more distracting.

Seems like it would be useful to have kind of a touch-screen tablet device which could integrate timers with recipes. So if the recipe says, "Bake for 30 minutes", touching the "30 minutes" would start the timer. Or saying "start timer" in case your hands might be dirty. Scrolling in response to voice commands would also be good.

And it sounds like you don't cook. Or use timers anyway.

So they're offering a device that is connected to the Internet, has AI, a speaker, and a voice interface and can be moved from room to room. Which sounds a lot like a smartphone without a screen, so what exactly is the point of this? How does it add any value for anybody? I assume it also requires yet another subscription. I guess if it's cheaper than a phone it might appeal to the visually impaired.