One thing holds true around the world.

Regardless of how terrible a government may be, the people are generally nice and welcoming when given an opportunity.

Here in the US, foreign visitors don't often visit areas where anti-immigration hostility is high.

his AI data center thing is the latest moral panic. Few really cares much about the water use or incremental increase to electricity costs... certainly not enough to become activists and start recall campaigns.

This tells me you live in an area that is not attracting data centers.

Most of my family live in such areas. A significant portion of the population already live paycheck to paycheck. People have been hit hard by the higher inflation over the past 4 years since wages are not keeping up. Small increases to utilities is actually a very big deal when it's something that is not necessary to day-to-day life.

People do what they can when food goes up because it's a necessity. AI is a luxury item, so when people who are less likely to benefit from AI data farms are the ones getting hit with "incremental" cost increases, they abso-fucking-lutely care.

It's not about job replacement, it's about squeezing more money out to the "1%" at the expense of the working class.

Easy to say now. Not such an easy decision as a 17 year old.

If only I could go back in time and give that advice to my high school self...

I was still 17 years old when I started university and emotionally immature. It would have been nice to have a bit of a "get out of jail free" card for those first few months as I acclimated to independence.

I'm sure at least 80% used it without knowing.

I don't watch much tv but have OTA. The commercials are of 4 sorts. 1) prescription drugs. 2) investing in gold. 3) shriner's hospital or abused animal foundation requests for money. 4) lawyers for mesothelioma.

Here in georgia, which is a battle ground state, they've made it more difficult to vote, especially in urban areas. Even though it's a purple state, state government heavily controlled by Republicans. State government controls the voting and they've done plenty to dissuade turnout from traditional Democrat voting regions.

Start placing bets of undesirable things happening to the execs of these companies. Maybe that will urge some guard rails to be implemented.

Freedom fries. Liberty cabbage.

Don't have to fail them, just a zero on the midterm. Add in some extra optional assignments the entire class can do toto help those students bring up their grades.

I'm the real world, short cuts can have negative consequences and require additional work to correct errors then complete the original assignment. Hopefully the students learn a valuable life lesson and at the same time earn a passing grade with legitimate hard work.

That is disturbing to watch, especially when they stand back up.

One of the things that impressed my wife after our first date was that I had a manual transmission car. She had only driven manual transmission vehicles up until about 2 years ago when it was time to say farewell to her Honda Fit and there really wasn't a viable M/T option for her.

Every female I know who's significant other has a M/T can drive that car when needed.

I have empathy for those who lost their job.... but then I remember they worked for Meta and should have been aware how sleezy the company is.

Can't be surprised when a shitty thing happens at a shit company.

You can look stay ticket resellers in the same light as insurance companies. They claim to be a service to consumers but simply exist to jack up the prices and take a significant cut.

Carrying a gun while committing a crime will increase the punishment even in states like Texas.