It's quite possible for a crypto-currency to be stable. But not one built to act as a scam.

IIRC, I read a story earlier today that was essentially about Sweden having a cryptocurrency that was stable, and asking people to step back from it because of worries about hacking and foreign influence.

It's harder to store viable tulip bulbs.

OTOH, if you've got viable tulip bulbs, at least you can grow tulips.

Bitcoin would be a very silly choice, but I can see value in some sort of cryptocoin. It would need to be firmly tied to something dependable, though.

Gold became a bad choice because the number of people expanded until a ounce of gold is currently worth over $3000, and that's an utterly silly coin. (It might be a reasonable investment, but that's gold itself, not gold futures. And then you've got to worry about it being stolen.)

I can see national cryptocurrencies being reasonable. I can imagine some sort of "stablecoin" being reasonable. (But who would you trust to run it? And for this purpose it would need to be tied to something other than a national currency.)

So the basic idea isn't totally bonkers. But using BitCoin is.

Believing that Trump intends to decrease the national debt requires faith I do not have. Traditionally Republicans have increased the national debt more than Democrats...probably because when the Republicans are out of power they campaign seriously to reduce the debt...but when they're in power they forget about that.

More long prioritizing long term goals over short term goals. And in some cases also on ethics.

Actually way more impressed with Gemma 3, which is from the same people and downloadable. They have versions that will run on your home PC. But honestly, all of them spew bullshit.

Don't worry, they are not sitting on any secrets that give Gemini a competitive edge, because it suuuuuuuucks.

I share the assessment contained in your comment, but isn't this in fact a reasonable prediction? They're definitely not going to want to admit fault, as they want to sell these systems. The corporation also has a history of blaming users.

Spending all that money on advertising surely does something, and they track where the applications come from pretty closely so they do know when and where it's working, but they also send just a total shitstorm of ads to the same people which is surely unnnecessary. I applied for a Capital One Visa because there was a referral deal, but I didn't qualify and didn't want their consolation deal. They then sent me an expensive glossy ad packet about every week for two months, and followed that up with another couple monthly ads after that. I've already been turned down for the deal they're "offering" me with their ads, and repeated applications would affect my credit rating, so there's no fucking way I'm going to apply again. That advertising money spent was obviously wasted, and the customers have to pay for it somehow.

I have a CC from my CU, and even there the rate is vaguely starting to approach something reasonable only after my first limit increase.

One answer to this is that the AEB system should be a separate system from the self-driving system, and it should win. And if someone stacks you from behind because they were following too closely, that's why you have rear crumple zones.

We have to get to the point where we no longer expect to drive unsafely because our transportation systems are bullshit and we otherwise won't all fit on the road, because that's what's causing the accidents which aren't caused by serious drug use or medical emergency. (The former problem is hard to solve, the latter could be solved with more sensors.)

Practically never. Also, the exams are pathetic, and so are the driving tests. Only commercial drivers have anything like a reasonable requirement. In fact there are parts of it which are excessive, like having to pass a drug test including cannabis. By all means, test drivers while they are driving, but not permitting them weed practically guarantees they'll be using something that leaves the system quicker and is also more dangerous.

Anyway here in the USA you can drive most vehicles you'll be interested in on your basic license, which is easy to get and easier to keep, and the results aren't great.

Ah, that explains your surprise. At the banks I use the term they use for what you call a debit card is "credit card". (Actually, I suspect that there's no exact translation. It's linked directly to my account, but to prevent withdrawing of more than I have stored in the linked account required explicit request on my part. And that may be the reason that I can't use the card at several small stores, only at large ones.)

I've known several apparently intelligent people who couldn't handle credit cards responsibly. Saying that they *should* handle them responsibly doesn't enable them to do so.

It's traditional. People have been burning things since before they were people. Trying to change something that traditional (and which has that many obvious benefits) is difficult.

The costs don't show up until you scale things WAY up.

It's a plausible wild guess, but wrong. The economic study modeled things like the GDP, and didn't consider individual humans. The climate study did silly things like assuming that countries would keep they pledged change.