Remember decades ago we had a hurricane and power was out for about 5 days. The streets were a mess.. trees and power lines down everywhere. Yet when you picked up the phone there was still tone and the green backlight still lit up.

Certainly NOT for Katrina.

Hell for at least a MONTH after Katrina, no matter where you were in the US you could not receive a phone call if you had a NOLA 504 phone number.

But for some reason texts would work.....so, I learned how to text then.

Phones were dead in the city for awhile for the one that came through LA 1-2 years ago....phones were out at east a few days if I recall..?

What does the A-380 have to do with the Panamax?

Is there some component of the aircraft that has to be shipped where the ability to put it on a sea going freighter actually imposes a size constraint?

Flextape can fix anything right!

Can't wait to see the new infomercial. We cut this Jet Liner in half!

Except no not really there is basically no evidence to support that claim. Got look at some charts the portion of the public with health coverage was basically flat from the 70s on, then it ticks up a little in the early 2000s, and into the 2010s (ACA era) it rejoins the earlier trend.

Almost any expansion in coverage can be credited to expansion of medicare / medicaid eligibility. Which is just the fully socialized medical model the ACA claims not to be.

So no there is no real metric that indicates the ACA was successful in any way.

I am not racist here, the racists are the ones given Obama credit for the fat-lot-of-nothing he did. They exist in both directions, people who run around saying he was the worst thing that ever happen are by and large expressing racist sentiment, but anyone claiming he was actually a good and at anything are equally doing so out of racial bias. The Obama did nothing besides be more Gorge W. Bush, and the ACA. The ACA failed, and failed completely.

Insisting it Obama is relevant is just lying.

~$25K is about ten grand less than the average used car price in many non-rich US states so it's obviously affordable for many, self included, of modest incomes.

I only make ~$70K but live below my means using enabling skills in an enabling location. I don't piss away money on new vehicles as a matter of economic principle.

exactly. so why is it a problem if people choose to pay through their nose for techno-fetish or status symbols?

Using Apple products ceased to be any sort of "status symbol"....LONG ago....no one generally gives it a 2nd glance if someone is using something apple branded....

Turning the senate into a state wide popularity contest, and fundamentally altering what the body was intended to be, a place where the States themselves were represented vs the Peoples house is hardly nutty.

Arguably the current system is not just flawed but down right nutty. The House provides equal representation where by each person gets roughly the same weight in voting for representation. On the other hand the Senate no-longer represents the States because they are also elected by the people but for some reason living in a low population states entitles you to extra proportional representation? WTF?

It does not fit into the 'we're actually a republic not a democracy argument' nor does it fit into the "on man one vote" argument. Its just crazy. Either the Senate should do what it was designed to do and represent the interests of State Governments or it really ought to just be eliminated as a body.

The theory behind the ADA is completely irrelevant. It failed, objectively by any measurable metric it failed. As I said maybe it was legislatively sabotaged. Nothing stopped Obama from saying this won't work as implemented, it isn't what I asked for, refusing to sign it and telling the legislature to try again. He did not do that, why well because it was never going to get past the legislature again and he wanted his name on something transformative. That isn't good leadership its pure vanity!

And no the divisiveness came from the President. He is the one who made those statements. He chose to use the pulpit to make fun of people. That is also on him.

As I said Obama wan't actually a bad president. He was and continues to be someone who is actually vapid and empty headed but does good job sounding insightful. Its an act, he is good at it. He also accomplished exactly nothing other than getting elected while Black. It is literally the only significant thing he did.

The other thing to consider is this stuff is not magic its a bag or numbers and software.

Its going to boil down to a 1A argument and ultimately government attempts to prevent the publishing, sale, SaaS offering of models is likely to look to the courts like "prior restraint" it probably won't fly, once someone with money decides to spend it lawyers without or without LLM assistance.

"Obama was one of our better presidents"

I don't understand where this sentiment comes from. He was a care taker president, and frankly a very divisive one.

The right gives him a lot of hate, but realistically Obama did not do much earn, just as he did little to earn any of the accolades he gets. He continued and expanded foreign conflicts he in inherited. He continued the recovery strategy and policy choices chosen by the out going Bush administration.

His signature health package is a completely failure on all fronts as far as the original stated objectives especially the top lines around cost control, universal coverage, and keeping plans broadly similar in terms of coverage and cost for those who already had them. You can say the legislation that got passed was watered down and what not but he signed as enacted so you can't give him pass.

He really started the identitarian political style that has taken hold today. Sure it was little longer form than the "meme wars" we get today but everything the man said tried to cross cut America by race, class, or some group like making gay marriage an issue etc. Don't forget the complete normalization personal insults in modern politics (or the return to Jacksonian politics however you view it) began with him as well "Bitter Clingers", "your brothers keeper", "you didn't build that", anyone? The line from Obama -> The worst of Donald Trump's behavior is pretty direct one.

Next you have to consider just exactly how Trump 1.0 got elected, he did by animating not just a lot of generally non-participatory voters, but one that nominally would have been Democrats. I still say policy-wise Obama and the legislative leadership of the period were lightweights but non the less whatever they did or did not do between 2008 - 2015 left enough American's feeling left behind they bolted from progressives to a GOP platform with a little populism injected in, hardly an endorsement for a two term president who enjoyed his own party controlling at least one legislative body throughout most of it.

In all seriousness take away the title 'first black president' and ask yourself would anyone anywhere along the political spectrum still consider the man remarkable? I think the answer is without that the man is a foot note.

"Don't touch my garbage! I stole it fair and square!"

Just curious....does Anthropic and other AI companies as a matter of policy prohibit connections from China or any of their co-horts?

Do they block all IP addresses from china?

And there we have ity. this is allso a self reinforcing system, due it it being dangerous to walk no one walks so waking walkable neighborhoods will never be a priority because everyone drives eventyrere anyway so..

Unless you are in one of the view ultra-urban cities....no we just aren't built to be "walkable"....hasn't been a need or impediment so far to be honest....it's just our way of life here.

And we're not going to be spending exhorbant amounts of money to rip and and redo our cities.

Personally I dont wanna live somewhere where I'm required to live in dense housing and share walls with neighbors. I prefer to have a front and especially a back yard where I can fence it in or my dogs, so I can set up my large log burning offsent smoker, sent up for parties with friends and neighbors for crawfish boils, etc....

I'm VERY happy being "non-walkable"....my cars and motorcycle suit me just fine for shopping, travel and just having fun out on the road....

I don't have trucks or SUVs myself....but to each their own.

Do look for that Jay Leno video...they discuss this and apparently this does not increase the weight....they apparently have plenty of strength through other means....