Unicode is arguably the wrong tool for the job. It was designed to represent all human writing, across every language, living or dead. Even within one language, defining the character set unambiguously is difficult. Across multiple languages it's practically impossible. So Unicode goes for an inclusive approach - if something is plausibly a character of a human language, there's at least one way to represent it in Unicode. Possibly multiple ways, which is preferred over no ways. And uniqueness and identity of characters is poorly defined.

In contrast, computer code, including URLs, requires a robust definition of uniqueness and identity. Two URLs are either identical or not. And they're supposed to be human-readable, so non-identical URLs should not appear identical to a human. Which is impossible if URLs are allowed to consist of an unrestricted string of Unicode characters.

It's not "completely upended". It's currently perfectly legal for a human to read all the copyrighted works they want, learn from them, and produce their own works based on what they've read. It's not immediately obvious that a machine doing the same thing is contrary to the principles of copyright. Of course in either case if the output is too closely based on a small set of works then it's an infringement, but that doesn't mean that the training itself is.
That's not so say that there isn't an issue of course - a machine can read far more than a human could in a reasonable time, and has a much better memory with theoretically unlimited capacity, and at some point a change in quantity becomes a change in quality. The real answer would be for lawmakers to update the law to clarify exactly where the boundaries are, but most of them seem more interested in party politics and grandstanding than trying to actually solve issues.

Hmm, well I used the figure for car sales, but I guess commercial vehicles and motorbikes need to be added on. Then there's cars being re-registered from other states. Do cars get a new number if they're de-registered and re-registered later? And I guess some combinations are probably banned as they spell something offensive. Some numbers seem to have been skipped, and you need a bit of headroom to give you time to bring in a new system. So 45 years is about right.

Only assuming the number is completely unstructured. The current and new formats each allow 10^4 * 24^3 (assuming no o or i) which is 138,240,000. California has about 1.8m new cars a year, so this new format is good for about 76 years.

Yes but my hand is asymmetrical - it has a thumb on one side and not the other. Galaxies aren't - neither side is obviously the "top".

How often does that happen on Android, which has allowed sideloading and alternative app stores from the beginning? Microsoft apps are in the Google Play store, as are apps from all the main banks, government apps, etc. I've never yet come across any remotely mainstream app that requires installing an alternative app store.

There is. A Watt is 1 Joule per second. Or if you take it all the way to base units, one kilogram-square-metre per second per second per second. That enough time units for you?

It's the Free Software Foundation, not the Free Plush Gnu Foundation. None of the things they're auctioning are software.

Though of course it's also free as in free speech not as in free beer, as you note - the FSF has always made some income from selling copies of software, though this must now be minimal in the age of near-universal internet access.

The maths is a bit beyond me, but I would expect accuracy to be best when the satellites are widely spaced. It's basically triangulation, and when triangulating on the ground you want to choose landmarks as far apart as possible to get the best accuracy. In the worst case, if the landmarks are so close you can't separate them, you don't get a position fix.

On Earth, the satellites are widely spread across the sky, covering anything from 100 to 180 degrees depending on terrain. On the Moon, they're all in a very narrow cone - Google tells me the angular diameter of the Earth from the moon is 2 degrees, and LEO won't be noticeably wider. And of course you can't see Earth, or LEO satellites, from about half of the moon, as it will be below the horizon.

The obvious answer is by entering an account number, or some other sort of reference number, in the "value" field. This wouldn't stand out as an obvious error, as that number is supposed to be on screen, it's just in the wrong place. Of course this would require that something is also entered in the place that number should have gone. And it's somewhat surprising that the value field accepts values that large.

"Unlimited" fine doesn't mean that an unreasonable fine can be imposed. Just that it's up to the judge (and potentially the appeal courts) to decide what's reasonable.
 

It sounds like it can only do one scent at once. I really don't see the point - air fresheners are cheap, and there are even ones that rotate through multiple scents. What's the advantage of having it built into a mouse rather than a separate unit?

Surely "knowing what is expected of you at work" is quite important to getting the job done? I mean, if you don't know what's expected of you then you can get "a" job done, but it might not be the job management wanted you to do.

I don't see why not. There was a referendum in Gibraltar about becoming part of Spain, which the EU seemed happy with. Spain wasn't very happy with the result, but that's a different matter.
Now, the idea of paying people to vote a particular way in a referendum, that might be an issue - but not the referendum itself.

Should you also need a prescription at Starbucks? Or your local bar?
There's certainly a debate to be had about whether nicotine should be generally available, but "it's a drug" isn't much of an argument.