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Comment Re:"safer gambling behaviors"? (Score 1) 28

someone remind this dingus the only way to win is not to go into a fucking casino

I used to go into casinos to eat at the all-you-can-eat buffets. It seems nowadays, many casinos are getting rid of those. Besides, the older I get, the less I can eat.
I live in Kansas City, MO. I don't gamble in organized games. Life is a gamble enough.

Comment Re:Voluntarily turn down the blue lights? (Score 1) 28

Stores placing milk in the rear of the store is hardly comparable to entire businesses designed to trick dumb people into gambling at unfavorable odds.
The next time you go to a casino, as you walk the path inward, look at the faces of the people coming out. Some of them are crying, and if they are happy, they are also drunk.

Comment Re:Since the problem has been identified (Score -1, Offtopic) 78

A solution should be engineered that accounts and corrects for these inadequacies with the zinc connection point, and the equipment should be rebuilt and re-established with better, lighter weight electronics that our modern solutions can facilitate. It would not take that much, in the grand scheme of things to repair / replace it. Probably less than 1% of what we have given to Ukraine thus far this year.

The money and stuff we gave to Ukraine is only partially wasted. Most of it isn't really spent; it's moved around. The US legislature approves the expenditure. The US government distributes the money while incurring a debt. The oligarchs in Europe take a slice. The legislators themselves get some too. Contractors make some money. various people who set things up get a commission. Some of the money actually goes to the over-priced weapon systems and shipping them.
When the government spends money it is not the same as when a private party spends. A PP tries to minimize the expense because its funds are limited. The government "wants" to maximize the expense because the more spent, the more there is to spread around.
In terms of the subject matter of this thread, if we want the government to spend our money on useful endeavors, rather than destroying things and people, we need to somehow replace Ukraine with scientific projects. Using the current system, allocating money this way would still be inefficient, but it wouldn't be as morally horrible.

Comment Re:Oh, yes, please, take your toys, go home and su (Score 2) 71

News organizations will lose the traffic that they value from search engines and social media. They brought this on themselves. Fuck around and find out!

Spoken like another American who thinks they own the internet.

No, in fact, there will be no loss of traffic. Plugins like Foxish Live RSS and browsers that natively support live RSS bookmarks will again proliferate. This was something Firefox had natively, and which Google barred from Chrome (et al) in order to foster their own siphoning of content. Every reputable news outlet has RSS feeds - despite Google's attempt to bury any protocol or tech doesn't force reliance on them.

I have had live bookmark folders on my browser's bookmark toolbar for ten years for BBC World News, CBC World News, CBC Canadian News, CNN, and ABC news :

- BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/106...
- CBC: https://www.cbc.ca/rss/
- ABC: https://blog.feedspot.com/abc_...
- CNN: https://www.cnn.com/services/r...

I've said for years that anyone who relies on Google, Facebook, or Twitter for news deserves the rubbish they get. I'm glad that the law was passed, I'm glad that Google, Facebook, Twitter, and others are having their temper tantrums, because it just means more people will take the time to set up their browsers properly and go the sources.

All your news links are mainstream media. They speak as one when it comes to issues involving the US government. Try some stuff from countries that are in competitive or even in adversarial positions. https://www.rt.com/ may have its own bias, but at least we know what it is.

Comment Re:Sounds like an air conditioner (Score 1) 131

The article describes how an air conditioner works. It takes a lot of electricity to collect gallons of condensate from an air conditioner. I hope the refugee camps have lots of electric power available!

The video https://youtu.be/fBBknrisvHU claims the standard machine uses the same electricity as a washing machine, which is 500 watts. I'm suspicious of that, but even that isn't going to be easy for people of developing nations.

Comment Re:Least Privileged Model (Score 0) 66

It is much easier to do nothing and pay the BITCOIN bills when they come in. But it isn't cheaper.

It isn't cheaper in the long run. But in this quarter, where we haven't been ransomwared, it's way cheaper. That quarter over there 9 months down the road may very well be someone else's problem so why should I waste company money on preventing that quarter from having that issue when I may not even be here anymore.

Yay MBA mentality!

backup, Problem Solved

Comment Re:Paying ransom doesn't work? (Score 1) 160

And AFAIK paying ransom for this kind of situation doesn't ensure that there aren't little Easter Eggs sprinkled all over the place, dormant for now. If the cybersecurity team didn't catch the first attack, how do they even know what their system has?

The group or person who did it is reading this thread, I'm sure. So, sending a message to them is easy.

Comment Re:Charging at stores (Score 1) 713

In a small town:

Public transport infrastructure is less likely to be available and usable than a big city.
Less facilities will be available, increasing the likelihood that you will need to drive to a different town.

Chargers are chicken and egg. Without widely available chargers, noone will buy electric cars. Without users, noone would bother installing chargers. Something needs to kickstart the process.
If chargers were installed and became too congested, more would be installed.

Texas has also been hit by power outages recently. Storing gas is easy and cheap, storing power for an electric car is expensive. Burning gas to charge an electric car defeats the whole point of having an electric car in the first place.

Most of these "chargers" are just electrical outlets. The charging circuitry is in the vehicle. It is not difficult to install an outlet somewhere.

Comment Re:Foreign influence? Buy off money for favors? (Score 1) 67

Nobody's buying Jack Dorsey's "first tweet." That's ridiculous. This is really about buying favors. Want someone booted off Twitter? Need something erased? Buy my NFT.

Correct. You can't "buy" a tweet. I suppose you could buy the copyright, but that doesn't make sense either. This is just a transfer of money for whatever reason we don't know.

Comment Regular syringes don't waste much (Score 1) 139

As a heroin addict, I use syringes daily, and I've received the first Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine shot.
The most common syringe is a so-called "insulin" syringe. This is not considered a Low Dead Space (LDS) syringe. The 1-milliliter (or 1 cc) kind is the most popular. The amount of liquid wasted is tiny - less than a hundredth of a milliter.
I didn't notice how big the vaccination was, but I imagine it was around half a milliliter. I don't see how you could squeeze another full dose from the wasted liquid of 5 doses. At least I don't see how an LDS syringe could make much of a difference.

Comment All lawn mowing needs to go (Score 0) 347

Five % of pollution from mobile sources, including cars, comes from mowing lawns (EPA source). The amount of petroleum products spilled accidentally while mowing laws in the US per year more than equals the spill from the Exxon Valdez. Every ER in the country prepares for injuries from lawn mowing when the weather looks good on a weekend. Local animals lose their habitat. (I have more.)
Mowing lawns is often totally unnecessary. The city I'm in mows areas that can't be seen by the public unless they hike a distance. But the contractor gets paid for doing it, and it gets mowed every couple of weeks.
Sometimes neighbors get violent on a resident who neglects to mow. There is some kind of instinct that likes smooth, flat grass. I think it's from when humans split from the apes about 10,000,000 years ago. They took the trees, and we took the savana.
Anyway, you can see which side I'm on.

Comment China v. US as Repressive Systems (Score 2) 168

Both China and the US have repressive governments, and residents of each claim the other is worse (believe it or not). China has more restrictive laws and seems to suppress individual dissent more widely. However, when the true measure of freedom, the incarceration rate, is considered, the US is a miserable failure.
Of course, the US's high crime rate is part of the equation, but even if that is factored out, the US still has the higher rate of interaction. Some loyal Americans will argue US prisoners are more-justifiably incinerated. But a quick look at the number of death-row convicts who have been exonerated by new DNA evidence shows that even careful trials are weighted against the defendant. This is particularly true for a poor defendant.
And "poor" does not refer to a small element of the population. The cost of a good attorney is about as much as the cost of a new car. Most people can't afford one, and are stuck accepting a court-appointed attorney, who is almost useless.

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