My vintage MacBook Pro is now running Linux, so the illuminated apple logo seems to be some kind of false advertising. After all these years it's still my sexiest box. Too bad I don't buy computers for sex? (I would have been willing to go for a dual boot, but Apple made that too difficult, so...)

Funny part is that I regard it as my most secure box and I only use it about once a month for a bit of Internet banking. Rather too bad my banks don't seem to understand much about computer security. Lots of top news stories about online breaches of major companies, including FinTech operations. Am I delusional or naive to hope my physical SIM is still protecting me?

Will I ever buy another Apple? Feels unlikely, but I confess that I am still hoping for Microsoft to go away, so maybe I'll have to?

I hadn't heard the YOB had offered to rename the moon, but one third is only by volume. For mass it's about one sixth and diameter would be around two thirds... (At least that's what the genAI told me, and I can't imagine why it would hallucinate again.)

But I think the seventh dwarf joke was funnier, even though I can't remember the song he must be referencing. I'm guessing it's a Disney thing?

Me? I suppose I prefer my politicians feckless and "mostly harmless" rather than dictatorial profiteering wolves in sheeps' (shills'?) clothing.

Okay joke, but these days we have to take any CDC news with a huge grain of salt. Or dose of penicillin?

Is this coming from an actual scientist or a political appointee who has been parachuted into the CDC?

The actual problem is quite complicated. We want a certain amount of exposure to pathogens to "exercise" our immune systems, but not so much exposure as to start breaking things permanently. It's a different flavor of the youth thing. Young people who recover may even wind up better than ever, mature people may recover fully, while old people are more likely to recover only partway, and quite slowly even for that.

Part of my general age definition joke of the week:

1. Young: Balance of change works out positive.
2. Mature: Changes come out around zero overall.
3. Old age: None of the above, sorry.
4. When the changes stop you're dead, so have a nice day changing.

The other reply had the XKCD about gravity wells, but it's one of ones that's really hard to look at because of size issues...

Well, when you put it that way, it does sound better than the local source, but mostly thanks for the XKCD link. Always appreciated and usually funny, too.

Only comment along the lines of my earlier comment, but I forgot to mention that the Chinese government is also too good at keeping secrets. Seems quite possible to me that the Chinese AI we should be worrying about is not public. Especially not in the stock market sense.

Fusion? Where?

Whoops, I meant great-grandparent, but when this gets posted it will be great-great-grandparent. I mean the joke by Junta. That's where I'm suggesting the Funny should go.

That should have been obvious, but it went off my scale in relation to stock prices. A thousandfold drop? Impressive crash.

Mod grandparent very funny.

Why does it need to be quoted against censor mods? What was offensive about your attempted joke? Or who have you offended who has mod points to waste?

In solution terms, I have a stupid idea. How about if they only change things when enough people agree to donate actual money to make the change in question? That means any new feature should be considered rather carefully including the real costs of testing it. They could also collect donations to keep things the same, as in keeping crucial servers running for the next year. Actually, the key stuff should be funded several years in advance. Actually strikes me as a nice thing knowing something will keep working for a certain period of time...

Whole branch needs a bunch of Funny mods, but I think the peak funny was probably the suggestion about the gas giants. We want Helium, not Hydrogen.

But there are still no Funny comments on the story. So sadness?

A comment about your sig, but I better quote it because some folks change theirs frequently:

I prefer to thing of them as the cowardly orange-nosing Rumplicans mostly focused on grabbing the money and running away versus the delusional and feckless Dumbocrats dreaming of flying elephants. Advantage who? Certainly not the citizens.

Pretty sure you're going for funny but I'm missing the joke. Dropping the "k" means something special in this context? Will it kill the joke if you explain it? [Almost certainly.]

My concern is different. I think stock markets have become a kind of dark joke as far as "capital allocation efficiency" or even "maximizing shareholder value" are concerned, but the Chinese situation is different. I'm worried that the Chinese government insists on a high level of control over the stock market, especially when it comes to the timing of major fluctuations. In particular, I think they may not care much about burning some FinTech speculators, but they might be thinking in terms of burning America's AI industry by exploiting the political situation as it exists right now.

These are speculations above my pay grade and outside of any official certified qualification, but my uncommon sense says that sometimes it's rational to want things that went up vigorously to come down gently. I actually think that's a big chunk of what happened to the Chinese real estate "industry" a few years back, and now the Chinese leadership may be thinking about killing two birds with one stone by controlling the timing of this... Call it a mini-crash? Anyway, controlling the timing in favor of collateral damage to their main competitors in the AI field. I'm strongly expecting this contagion to spread to the American stock market which is much more focused on AI speculations, and the timing is beyond suspicious. I think Xi may dislike the YOB underneath a veneer of diplomatic and enigmatic smiles, while the YOB has only been concerned about driving stock prices up as high as possible as quickly as possible. YUGE vulnerability there, and crashing the American stock market just before the election might be a good thing in Xi's perspective... We'll soon see if they've got a better grasp of the timing of the stock market game than the YOB's sycophants. Maybe I should visit a prediction market to see what's going on inside that insane failure of FinTech?

In general I'm deeply suspicious of economics, but this seems to be a scenario where economics may be coinciding with ekronomic thinking. Remember that time >> money and then this could be a timing game that is going to make a lot of virtual money disappear... And then pop up elsewhere? Perhaps somewhere in China?

Young

Changes average out for net positive result.

Mature

Sum of changes comes out around zero overall.

Old age

None of the above.

And then you die, when you stop the changes and stop having nice days.

But this is SUCH a hilariously funny story. The P in IPO must stand for Panic. "We gotta grab the money NOW because our AI told us the bubble is gonna burst RSN!"

No idea where they think they can run to once they've grabbed the money. Even funnier since the money has become a virtual fantasy. Maybe the P could stand for phantasy as in phantasy money? (I love how broken English spelling is.)