I think this extension is a very cool idea.

That said... I own several shirts, a set of pajamas, and a sport coat from COOFANDY. They are cheap. They look good. They fit well. They are durable enough to have lasted several years of use so far.

Cheap chineseum is not necessarily bad... but it is not necessarily good either. It is cheap. The quality is a crapshoot.

You do not.* The copyright belongs to the artist who took the picture. When they uploaded it to Instagram, they agreed to the terms of service, granting Instagram an unrestricted license to use their work.

*You may be able to sue for payment if they use a recognizable image of you for certain commercial purposes. This varies by jurisdiction.

They will be on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory, with a sign on the door saying "Beware of Leopard."

I own a retail business. I have a sign between the cash register and the credit card terminal warning customers that it costs them 4% more to pay by card than cash. It also shows on their receipt that they paid the 4% additional for using a card.

Nobody cares.

Customers would rather pay a few % more for the convenience of card over cash. Admittedly, transactions at my store are usually small, so it is just cents per transaction -not $$ per. I can go entire days without a single cash payment. It is the way of the world now. My store is in a touristy area, so many customers are travelers, which may influence their carrying of cash and their willingness to pay fees -i.e. enjoy the vacation and don't sweat the small costs.

It is legal to charge card fees separately... but it may be a violation of the merchant services agreement, so most merchants do not. If I could not charge this fee, I would have to raise all prices to compensate. Everyone would just pay a bit more and never know why.

Most customers are content with the prices we charge. Some complain it is too much, some say it is worth more. There is a balance to maintain between profit/item and sales volume. Raising prices would increase the profit margin, but likely lower the volume. We see it when we run a sale -people buy more stuff at the lower prices temporarily increasing operating revenue, but lowering profit margins.. Neither good nor bad, but a different balance point. Card fees shift this balance point.

No. That is kind of the point. It does replace all other entitlement programs.

I get your (logical) objections to doing so, but the proposal as it was made is to replace all other entitlement programs with UBI.

Parenting is hard. It is much easier to legally mandate it as someone else's problem. But holding tech companies legally liable in a competition vs the ingenuity of the global population of motivated teenagers is not going to work. Teens still access drugs, alcohol, and pornography despite attempts to restrict access.

I am old: I started accessing social media online via dial-up BBS. I had to go to a physical meet-up and be introduced to a trusted sys-admin to get my account validated before I could access more than a static lobby page. Identity was verified, and trust came via personal recommendation. This worked for small communities, but is unworkable for a large site -and it can still be abused by corrupt actors.

Maybe the answer is going to have to be positively proving your identity every time you access any social media -whether posting or just reading. That MIGHT work. If we are all willing to give up any possibility of privacy.

I bet the teens still find a workaround.

Clean-room design on a reverse-engineered spec is a red herring here. The issue is certification of the resultant firmware/hardware is required.

If you operate the device with uncertified code (and get caught) you will face charges for unlicensed operation. If you make uncertified code available to others for the purpose of illegal operation you will face charges.

I guarantee that whatever nation you are in has similar laws. This is not a USA vs EU thing.

The issues are legal, not technical. Knowing is not the problem. Baseband communications access is restricted by FCC regulations.

If you have your own product, telling your staff to use it instead of the competitors product is common sense.

Survivorship bias. The ones that were easier to kill died off. The hardier stock survived.

Recently, we had COVID. Those who were fragile (or nearing their expiration date) did not make it. Those who survived are likely to live on for a bit longer.

The longer you live, the more likely that you will die of cancer. If nothing else gets you first, cancer will get you eventually. That is just biology. Over time, our cells don't reproduce quite the same. Cancer.

A more active lifestyle is healthier overall, but it won't prevent cancer.

Keep in mind that you (or your employer) are already paying Social Security tax, Unemployment Insurance tax, State Disability Insurance tax, etc. Those tax withholdings would become part of the UBI tax that you would be paying.

How much do we spend now? Social Security + Unemployment Insurance + Disability + Food Stamps + etc. is $2 Trillion a year. By replacing/combining these into UBI, plus any savings from reduced administrative overhead covers most of it. (since there is no means testing, everyone gets a payment, resulting in a lot less administrative overhead.)

The rest is covered by a progressive UBI tax. People earning only UBI pay no UBI tax. People earning an average income pay as much UBI tax as they are getting in UBI. People earning above average income pay more in UBI tax than they are receiving in UBI.

I'm not convinced that it is a good idea... the devil is in the details, and no detailed plan has been put forth to be evaluated, but the basic concept is sound.

It is global. We saw these trends reported in China as the "Lie Flat" and "Let it Rot" movements. In Japan as "Satori Generation" or even "Hikikomori".

Hell in a handbasket... all of us.

You joke, but Vance has been doing the rounds pushing the line that "If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy." -as if that makes everything that is happening now OK.