But, I write most of my Startpage searches in the form of asking someone a question. Even as a person doesn't lose intelligence by being mute, I reckon the search algorithm isn't less of an intelligence for only communicating via links. Not saying it comes across as sentient, but figuring out what I want to know and providing me resources for that doesn't seem less intelligent than the fancy autocompletes.

I'm a legacy customer and get a better price, but my email has been hosted by SkyNet Broadband for many years. They use SurgeMail, and I'm very happy about that. You might also want to check out Neo who are less expensive. I have no idea about the location of their servers, but they will provide a Linux server and let you set up SurgeMail.

Now I'm imagining shopping where I have to haggle with an AI for the price of each shelf item before deciding to add it to my basket. Then there'd be second AI I hire to help me haggle with the store AI, and consumer magazine comparing price savings to subscription fees for haggle helper AIs, and scandals where the haggle helping AI and the store AI are actually the same entity.

I believe the new rule for USA is: no fact checking. It becomes harder to crack down on fake postings when you're not allowed to find out what's real.

Communicates with all the towers. My particular interest is Band 71.

Strong encryption algorithms are already freely available. "Big Tech" is unable to decrypt stuff encrypted by them in a timely fashion. The only thing a backdoor into someone's encrypted messaging does is drive secret message traffic to systems that aren't crippled.

Even if no other criminality was profitable, the USA's war on drugs has made certain that there's plenty of money to hire talent to turn encryption algorithms into a brand new customized secure messaging platform belonging to no corporate entity. And, it doesn't take much more talent than it takes to make a memecoin.

So, if big tech installs backdoors in messaging services, only stupid criminals will use those services, and catching the stupid criminals isn't that hard for cops who make the effort. Big Tech could probably use AI to make behavior analysis customized phishing that would have the stupid criminals catching themselves.

Nothing like "that fancy school is faking it," to make your more modest classes look better. OTOH, it is business school. Maybe students will think "Getting paid for making up fake bullshit is an essential skill for me! I've got to learn how to do that better."

Sounds like people with solar surplus need to have their own batteries so that they can use their own surplus power later on. Participating in a public utility that makes payments to hedge funds sounds self destructive for rate payers. It also sounds like the solar plants should be adjacent to base load generation, since the transmission lines there are probably legacies from when the base load plant was producing a lot more than base load.

Maybe the government should run a gambling concern of their own. When my mom ran a bar, there was one employee who would lose all her wages to the gambling machines. What we tried that worked was to set up one machine where the odds were even. On average, the winnings matched the losses. Then my mom told the one employee - only play this one, it's your machine. It worked! The gambling instinct was sufficiently engaged, and the net loss was primarily one of time. Maybe the government could have a public online gambling house set up like that. People who play the public house on average only loose enough to pay for running the website.

Britain has a fairly high population density. Maybe a fibre network back end with ISPs using wifi to connect to devices would help.

Just because TJI joists look ugly doesn't mean they won't last until after the building contractor sells the home. Thousands of homes without incident use them successfully. The manufacturer swears the glue will last ok if they get wet. If looking at them makes you vomit, please do not vomit in the direction of the joist. The glue has not necessarily been rated for contact with acidic stomach fluids.

How does the shredded copper float?

Just start up BuSab, Frank Herbert's bureau of sabotage, only have it attack domestic businesses. Of course, it would provide the victims (and after a delay everyone else) with details on how it successfully attacked with what should have been done to prevent that, and it wouldn't exploit customer data, just prevent the company from having access to it. And, it would attack relentlessly, so that no company could afford to continue operating with shitty security. Additionally, continue with fining companies who lose data that can harm customers, regardless of the origin of the attacks.

You're right. If someone is transmitting a jamming signal from international waters, what you want is a nice deniable EMP torpedo that surfaces, fries anything connected to a transmit antenna and then drops back out of sight.

PayPal's current fee is for converting between PYUSD and other cryptocurrencies. But, once enough people have given up their USD in exchange for PYUSD, I expect that a new fee will come in for converting PYUSD back to regular USD. I imagine when the new fees start, they'll provide you 3 free conversions to USD a month, so long as the total monthly amount doesn't exceed $2k, and if you want more than 5 free conversions to PYUSD a month, you'll need to maintain a PYUSD balance of over $2k. They can skip transaction fees for transactions that are conducted entirely in PYUSD, causing vendors to encourage its use. And of course, if they are at all successful at competing with banks and the USD, then there will be a federal suit against PayPal for being a bank without signing up to be one or for being a signed up bank that issues its own currency, and all the PYUSD will disappear.