Reform copyright, allow derivative works, abolish moral rights. What's the worst that could happen? Solves the problem of AI being "inspired" by existing works. Well, perhaps someone will write a crappy HP-inspired story about Tanya Grotter, a machine-gun wielding lady wizard who goes after bad Chechens (that is a real book, BTW). So what? The goal of copyright is cultural abundance, and that will (eventually) include AI generated works.

Look at Nosferatu, considered to be one of the great vampire movies. The movie was called that because they did not secure the copyright to the Dracula story, and after a lost lawsuit they had to destroy all copies and negatives. Luckily a few survived, and we can still enjoy it.

Exactly what background and/or career does prepare one well for the presidency? A law degree? Founding a successful business? A career in politics? An MBA? Perhaps being a comedian. Or perhaps the job (like many high level managerial jobs) is such a complex multi-faceted one that no career is going to prepare you for it, and no background is a great predictor for success. Perhaps it is more about personality than experience, but even that is not a great predictor. I've seen plenty of politicians who looked great for the job, only to turn out complete rubbish, or the other way around. Or a brilliant mayor who turned out to be a shit minister. And it depends on circumstances as well... one of our MPs is remembered as lackluster and ineffectual, but I think he would have been great if times had been different. Likewise I think that Zelensky would have been a so-so president in peacetime conditions... but he stepped up brilliantly after his country got invaded. Kind of how people look back on Churchill... before the war, people didn't think he was all that either.

Third options never go anywhere in a de facto two party system. You need 2 stage voting: "I want to vote for [independent candidate] but if he doesn't make the cut, I want my vote to go to [rep / dem]"

The real sad case is that there's nothing in the vast collection of film and TV that suits your taste. There seems to be plenty for everyone else.

That's why it's a mutual fund investing in multiple ventures, not individual investors putting their money into individual start-ups.

Yes and no. It's true that "we" are burning all of the oil and gas, and are responsible for the demand. But oil companies themselves emit around 15% of all greenhouse gases in the process of producing, transporting and refining oil, before they sell it to us. That's not an insignificant amount, and perhaps there's a lot of room for further improvement. They already stopped practices like flaring off that pesky natural gas that is produced along with oil.

The same goes for the manufacturers of concrete: they emit a lot of CO2 in the process... but only do so to satisfy our need for the stuff.

I've dealt with call center agents from the USA, China, India, down to local ones. And all of the agents that take the call pretty much only run a script to cover the most common cases. But all of them can and will kick the call up to people who can actually help. The one thing I hate (and call centers from all parts of the world still do this) is when they make you walk through all the pointless troubleshooting steps in the script before they escalate your call.

Be careful what you wish for. This is something that Canada and the EU might want to return in kind, because the massive untaxed trade imbalance between us and the US regarding digital goods and services has been a thorn in our governments' side for a good while now.

They buy other companies, then jack up fees and mercilessly cut costs and corners, for a nice short term increase in profit. Then they sell it. If that fails, they strip it, load it with debt, and let it go bust.

They used to innovate. Not always being first with a particular feature, but being first to execute it well. And every year there'd be at least one enticing reason to upgrade, even if it was just a better screen or whatever. But lately, the incremental improvements are small, and mostly restricted to the processor (which was already plenty good) or the camera (which for many people does not have to be best in class). I'm still on an iPhone 12 and not planning on replacing it any time soon. Especially since they start at around €1000 now.

The one feature that would have me upgrade is Touch ID. Face ID eats in certain situations, and there were rumours that the iPhone 17 would have a fingerprint scanner in the power button but I guess they dropped that feature or were never planning to include it.

I always hopes that streaming would be perfect to serve the "long tail": content that is not much in demand but not expensive to serve either. Having a massive library of classics and hard-to-find lesser known works would make me reconsider re-subscribing. But I guess the demand simply isn't there.

Roomba and his friends won't make your bed, put the trash out, open the windows to air the place out, cook your steak, get the mail, put the groceries away, repaint your room, repair your deck, or load the dishwasher. But Rosie will. Eventually. I hope.

A dumb question perhaps but... is the river temperature rising because of all the heat being dumped into it? This certainly is an issue around many of France's nuclear power plants, who rely on rivers for cooling, and adding significantly to the water temperature.

Let's also work out the number of years added to everyone's life by oil & gas, giving us access to cheap energy and a range of products that improve the quality of our lives. Sure, we have better alternatives now and we should move on, but if we "just stop oil" as some people are suggesting, we'll see premature deaths on a biblical scale.

Also FTFY: "with disproportionately high impacts on low income communities". The original phrase sounds like a dog whistle.

IIRC our postal service in the Netherlands had something like this: you could digitally compose a letter or even a postcard, and have it sent to someone in physical form. The service was wildly unpopular... I think a service that has the receiver pay for such mail would be even less popular.