or gleeful at the murder of Charlie Kirk.

Kirk lived and died on a principle he strongly held, knowing it increased his risk of death.

As Justice Douglas wrote in 1949: "...[A] function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea."

That's an interesting take especially in 1949. A scant 4 years after the end of speech causing a "condition of unrest with "profoundly unsettling effects".

Or is this like the Charlie Kirk thing where it's only a problem if the people advocating for consequences don't have to face them?

Maybe he hates lefties because he fundamentally thinks they are like him?

Yeah well it's not your fucking local supermarket.

Unfortunately it is mine. There are local smaller shops I also go to but it's proven pretty handy you know?

Hello from South East London. This is actually my local big supermarket.

Fuck those guys. Yeah this is one of the ways in which the UK is indeed a bit shit. This is not something I mind discussing as long as I'm not being lectured/hectored by someone divorced from reality. That's surprisingly common on the internet but I digress.

Without reference to other countries, yes the UK is a bit shit in a number of regards. This facial recognition obsession combined with a jobsworthy passing of blame and a Lovell system which only works for the wealthy and powerful is one of them

I have a book that is one of 1000 ever printed. It has both ISBN 10 and ISBN 13 numbers.

It was a vanity project (a coffee table book) by the CEO of a public company - it was published under the banner of the company he ran, despite having absolutely no connection to the business of that company. Nevertheless, it's a historic record.

I doubt there are many of these books left.

Maybe the only behavior that is considered authentic by X comes from AI?

Elon doesn't want dissenting voices. Did you disagree with (or fail to support) the preferred Oligarch-first narrative?

This isn't a lot of data. I know someone with half this in their personal Plex library.

So: why no local copy in addition to the cloud copy?

Fires or other natural disasters destroying the building and the data with it?

How is it not AI? It's replacing a task that formerly required human intelligence with some artifice. Such tasks have been called AI for years, on and off. In fact the very first attempt at AI (the perceptron Mark 1) was an image recognition device.

Yeah, it was like that when I went, and it was a waste of money.

Ah whatever happened to human curiosity.

The debt you're talking about shouldn't be the result of four years of self-indulgence, but of preparation for a career.

I don't think I've ever heard of a degree in engineering called a "self indulgence" before.

But frankly put I'd rather not live in a society where everyone is hyperfocussed on where the next dollar is coming from. Work to live, no the reverse.

Wikipedia is not a trusted source

for someone who started stating facts with zero sources at all, you're awfully pedantic about what other people do. Back in the real world, wilkipedia has references.

why quoting it in any journalistic, scientific, or educational setting will result in an instant fail.

Firstly we ain't in one of those. This is more like a conversation down the pub. And second, what do you think stating "well known facts" which aren't without any citation will get you in those rarefied institutions?

More generally there is more pressure on kids these days. They didn't used to have to take on 5 or 6 figures of debt to get an education that is basically mandatory to do even entry level clerical jobs these days.

When I was an undergrad most people I knew at my uni were there to learn stuff about a subject they cared about. You know for it own sake. There were a few proto finance bros doing engineering because it could lead to a good finance job, but other than them no one was thinking about jobs specifically. I mean sure some engineers had a passion for motorsports and chose the more mechanical options and probably went on to work with cars, but it was all interest driven not job driven. Learning for its own sake because the expectation was there would be job, you'd get a job, your own place to live and go out into the world.

Because jobs existed and housing wasn't a pipe dream.

Now undergrads are all laser focused on immediate future employment and there's less learning for is own sake. Obviously this isn't an unwise choice given what 2026 is like, but it's sad their prospects are so narrowed and that does affect them.

If it needs done , what is your thesis that they should stop after the first semester. Would you fly on a rocket designed and built by people who could not fail?

This is nonsense basically, given the topic.

My undergrad university graded prelims (first year exams) but did not use the results beyond that. Everything graded was in a huge blob known as finals at the end of year 3 (then also year 4 by the time I arrived).

There were a variety of reasons this was the case. Degrees were traditionally determined by finals, and the people in charge didn't exactly have what may be known now as a "change mindset". Modules were just starting to come into vogue, but they didn't like the idea that undergrads could go into the last exam having forgotten and discarded lots of what they'd learned already. Also modules were new fangled.

And finally, because prelims were kind of irrelevant given the finals results. Anything learned in year 1 you will have gone far beyond by year 3. The later stuff matters more and is dependent on the earlier stuff anyway, so anything from year 1 is implicitly tested in year 3.

The people behind Cambridge Analytica didn't go away. They just let one company fold and moved on. How many other entities are involved in the same manipulation via social media?

I suspect that the same people who are bankrolling Nigel Farage and others created the social media storm that caused the mass storming of Ceuta.

I was pointing out what I believe to be a well-known fact

This does not stop you being a hypocrite. First, it ain't a "well known fact". We're not in some sort of weird formalised debate so it's fine to state supposed facts without sources. It's just pure wankery to then complain when someone does the same but in disagreement with you.

FWIW wikipedia disagrees with your "well known fact".