No, Heller was a baby step back. Nothing more.

Before the NFA was passed in 1934 there were no restrictions on automatic weapons, short barreled shotguns/rifles, or silencers.

Before the 1968 GCA there were no age restrictions, criminal or mental history restrictions. It also set up the FFL system, required serial numbers on all guns imported or manufactured after 1968. Stopped import of surplus handguns. Banned mail order guns shipped to your door. It also added destructive devices to the NFA.

The Hughes Amendment in 1986 banned the import or manufacture of automatic weapons that were made before 1986.

The 1993 Brady Bill requires every licensed dealer to run a background check through the NICS system for anyone purchasing a gun.

While some of this I agree with, I also find much of it to be unconstitutional. For example, poll taxes were deemed unconstitutional. However the NFA created a tax of $200 on ownership of everything covered by the NFA. If it's unconstitutional for a state to tax your right to vote, then the same can be said for the federal government to tax a machine gun. Funnily enough, the tax on short barreled rifles and shotguns as well as silencers was dropped. Because the approval process was only legal due to the governments ability to tax, the NFA no longer applies to those items.

I have mixed thoughts on what age guns can be purchased at. Before 1971 the voting age was 21. On one hand, it was crazy that you could be drafted and go to war at 18 and not allowed to vote. However the 1968 GCA made the age to purchase a handgun 21. No one has been drafted to go to war since 1972. So the reason to lower the age for voting doesn't hold up now. Either you can vote and purchase a handgun at 18 or you can do neither until 21. If you feel someone doesn't have the maturity to own a gun then they sure as hell don't have the maturity to vote.

When was the last time Bill Gates really did anything relevant in computing? According to Google the last time he did any coding that contributed to anything was 1989. He stepped down from running Microsoft in 2008. According to Mr. Gates, his last major coding effort was 1983.

Just because someone did something with computers once doesn't mean they know anything about current events. Bill Gates opinion on AI is about as relevant as the women who programmed the Eniac or Charles Babbage. Actually Babbage probably had a more relevant understanding of AI than Bill Gates.

High stress jobs that require physical confrontation tend to do that. Military, corrections and policing all have this issue. Most police spend 90% of their time being bored. Less than 1% of the time is in physical conflict in most departments. But it can happen randomly at any time. Do you think that's a fun time? Linemen that work for electric companies are also over represented. High stress, unpredictable jobs that a person can get injured or killed doing are not great for mental health. Maybe departments should put more money into mental health programs for police. Weird how everyone wants more mental health for criminals but never discuss it for police.

That's one department. LAPD has been a mess for years. That's one out of 18,000 departments in the US. There are others that have/have had issues as well. But it's not the majority. LA is famously bad for a lot of government decisions. Most departments that have corruption issues are in areas where there is corruption in the government. You see it in small cities with corruption historically as well.

I assume you're referring to NYC in 2024/2015. The number of complaints filed dropped by 5%, give or take, during that time period. That's not the same as how many crimes occurred. If people know it's a waste of time calling the police, then I would guess that the number of calls would drop.

Murders in NYC in 2013:335, 2014: 333, 2015: 352, 2016:335. The murder rate was lower than 2014 until 2020. AN aggregate of murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, grand larceny/of a motor vehicle were at a six year high of 111,335 in 2013. They went on a downward trend starting in 2014 at 106,722, 2015:105,453, 2016:101,716, 2017: 96,658, continuing to drop to 95,593 in 2020. The strike started in late December of 2014 and lasted 3 weeks. Theft and DUI's increase during that time of the year. Violent crimes are generally in hotter times. So the "strike" was irrelevant.

Are you 12 years old? Or stupid? Having worked with law enforcement 30 years ago and dealing with them on occasion since then I can tell you that some are certainly bastards. But they are the exception and not all or even the majority.

There are tens of thousands of law enforcement encounters every day in the US. You never see the good ones. Just the same handful of bad ones over and over. Is there room for improvement? Of course there is. There's always room for improvement in everything. Why don't you ask your LEO about their ride along program? See what they actually do. Or better yet, join you local police force. Make it better instead of posting bullshit on the internet.

Why are the heads of these companies asking for regulation? Are thy claiming they can't regulate themselves from doing something world endingly stupid? Or are they afraid that without regulation one of them could have a breakthrough that would end all of the others over night? Or even worse, some scrappy new start-up could come up with a better solution and end them all. My guess is it's more about trying to make sure no one dominates this space unless it's them.

DeShaney v. Winnebago County 1989 the SCOTUS ruled that police do not have a duty to protect citizens unless they are in their custody.

Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales 2005. Police do not have a duty to protect even a person from their estranged spouse who there was a restraining order against.

The duty of the police is to investigate crime and arrest criminals. Not to protect you, or anyone not already in their custody.

In the case of Gonzales, she had a restraining order against her husband and the police did not respond to her call. He ended up killing their kids. The SCOTUS found that they had no duty to enforce it. Sure, they can have a conversation as you stated, but they are not obligated to do so. Like it or not, the second amendment is your only legal protection before a crime is committed.

It depends on the area. If you live in a geologically stable area then burying lines is great. If you have frequent earthquakes, then it's foolish. There are a lot of flood prone areas in the US as well. Above ground is a lot easier to deal with in those areas as well.

NYC has all of it's power infrastructure underground. It was a nightmare after tropical storm Sandy flooded it.

It's funny to think that not long ago just getting a bipedal robot to even walk was difficult. WABOT-1 took it's first steps in 1973 and looked like it was made from and Erector set and needed wires to connect it to it's power and control systems. It walked about as well as an old windup kids toy on a flat surface.

The Honda P2 was the first self contained robot that could walk and was introduced in 1996. It walked about as well as a 1950's sci-fi movie showing walking robots.

Honda ASIMO in 2000 was a bit more natural, but still fairly clunky at walking. I believe it could "run" at around 6mph.

The number of advancements in computing, material sciences, etc to get to the point where a bipedal robot can run faster than a person is astounding. In another ten or twenty years we may be looking at general purpose robots who can not only outrun the fastest human but also cook dinner. Hopefully it will be more Big Hero 6 and not Chopping Mall.

It's an opt-in feature if you want to use it. That doesn't mean it's opt-in if they want to use it. Don't forget that every contract you sign today has a clause that terms and conditions can be changed at any time. All they have to do is state it in the fine print of your bill. If you don't notify them that you don't accept the change, then it will be in force. If you disagree they may turn it off. But if you live in an area where that's your only high-speed internet option they can drop you as a customer and you're fucked.

Even if they tell you it was shut off, it likely won't be. Telecoms are notorious for doing things and saying, "whoops, it was a mistake" Back in the early 1990's I had an AT&T phone plan that allowed for 50 calls per month. I didn't call out much and it was a lot cheaper. I was traveling a lot for work, so I used auto-draft against my checking account. At some point I actually looked at my bill and discovered that I had an unlimited plan with caller ID and every option. When I called they told me their database got corrupted 3 months prior and everyone automatically got switched to this. After a fight with them they agreed to refund the difference. A year later I noticed my bill went up again. Apparently they were charging me for anonymous call rejection. I didn't even have caller-ID. I had to fight with them to refund that as well. I got an $800 phone bill sometime after that because they decided to bill me for an ISDN line. I'm pretty sure there's a satellite with my name on it from back then. ;-)

You must live in a different US than I do.Only three presidents have ever been impeached and not a single one of them resigned and all were acquitted by the senate.

FDR would take up a book of illegal actions. From the Japanese internment, warrentless surveillance, Lend-Lease without congressional approval, etc. No resignation

Eisenhower was probably the last great president we had. However he did overthrow the government of Iran and put the Shah back in power at the behest of England. Operation Wetback violated a lot of folks 4th amendment rights and the CIA went wild while he as in office. No resignation

Truman seized control of the US steel mills via EO during the Korean war. He also didn't go to congress for approval to go into Korea. No resignation

Kennedy used the CIA to monitor journalists in project mockingbird. Then there was the warrantless FBI wiretap he ordered on on MLK. No resignation.

Besides being one of the biggest piece of shit people to be president in modern times, LBJ used the FBI and CIA to surveil and wiretap his political opponents and war protestors.No resignation.

Nixon did actually resign, though what he did would end up in the back of the D section of most newspapers today. While impeachment proceedings had started, he was never actually impeached. He was the only president to ever resign

Carter was incompetent as a president, however I don't know of anything illegal during his administration. I always admired him as a person though.

Reagan had the whole Iran-Contra thing. No resignation.

George H. W. Bush was likely involved in Iran-Contra. I wasn't a fan of his at the time he was president, but in retrospect he was a better president than I felt at the time he was in office. No resignation.

Clinton was actually impeached and, unlike Nixon, didn't resign. While I know of no one who ever met him that didn't say he was an affable person, he committed perjury. The Clinton's walked out of the White House with almost $200k in "gifts" when they left. It violated the law, but no charges were ever filed. They returned $30k of them and paid $86k for the remainder. No resignation.

I don't think I need to say much about things that transpired after 9-11 with regards to GWB. No resignation.

Obama's extrajudicial killing of Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan as well as al-Awlaki's son in a separate drone strike was pretty bad. Going into Libya without congressional approval with the intent to overthrow Gaddafi was a violation of the war powers act. The DOJ surveilling AP journalists violated the 1st amendment. There were no arrests from sending thousands of illegal weapons into Mexico but at least one american killed by those guns. No resignation.

Trump was impeached for withholding $400 million in aid to Ukraine and Jan. 6. No resignation. The SCOTUS and other federal courts slapped down several things he tried to do. No resignation.

As a senator Biden illegally removed classified documents and retained them. As VP he threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid to Ukraine unless the prosecutor investigating his son was fired. Multiple women accused him of assault over his career. His family business dealings are actually as, if not more blatant than Trump. His immigration polices would have gotten any president booted anytime prior to the last 20 years. We'd probably need half a dozen super computers to tally all of the rights violations that occurred in the name of covid during Biden's time as president. No resignation.

Trump 2.0, I'm not going to try to sort through what Trump has done at this point. The Judiciary branch of the government has ended much of it. Probably not enough for some . While folks complain about Trump attacking Iran, I didn't hear the same regarding Libya in 2011. The same law applies. Congress can't selectively apply laws. Regardless, there will be no resignation methinks.

I can go back to George Washington and up to modern presidents (obviously) and list illegal things they've all done. There was little fear of impeachment, ever. Hell, Andrew Jackson killed a man in a duel on the White House lawn a few years before becoming president.

I stream a lot of what I watch and listen to, but I never got rid of my physical media or the players. I'm old and a lot of what I like to watch isn't on streaming. I have three full 400 disk DVD players in my living room and a Blu Ray player. I still buy movies on blu ray. My media room has a blu ray player and a couple 400 disk changers as well. There are 12 DVD or Blu ray drives or recorders in the computers in the room I'm sitting in currently. I haven't used them much in some time, but they work and I don't see any good reason to remove them. Plus I don't feel like looking for the block off plates for the cases. The computers in my living room as well as media room also still have Blu ray drives.

Streaming is convenient and works well on a phone. But to my old my eyes and ears streaming looks and sounds a lot worse than just a standard Blu Ray. As the old adage goes, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"

It depends on a lot of factors. pressed CD's put physical pits in the metal layer of the disk. Burned CD's use a laser to alter the dye in the data layer.

Cheaply made or defective pressed disks can allow air into the metal layer and cause oxidization of the aluminum. Apparently there's also an issue with some cardboard packaging as it can contain sulfur. Pressed disks should last you a lifetime if stored properly.

Burned CD's have a huge range. I've seen cheap generic ones go bad in less than 2 years. There are archive grade disks that are rated for 100 to 300 years. They use a reflective layer that is less prone to oxidation as well as more stable dyes that don't discolor as easily as cheaper disks.

The labor participation rate has been trending down since the middle of 2000 when it peaked at 67.3. It dropped to 65.8 at the beginning of 2005, worked it's way back up to 66.4 after 2 years then started trending down until dropping to 66.1 by August of 2008. After which it fell off a cliff and continued dropping to 62.4 by 2015. It worked it's way back up from there to 63.6 until February 2020. Then Covid tanked the economy and we hit an all time low of 60.1 in April of 2020. It rebounded to 62.8 by November of 2023 and has continued the downward trend since.

The same labor participation nonsense was used after the 2008 crash as well. December 2023 it was at 62.5. It was at a post Covid high of 62.8 in November 2023. So I don't know why TFA chose December 2023. The last time it was this low was March of 2021. Outside of Trump's first term the participation rate hasn't been above 63 since 2014 and was on a 14 year downward trend by that point. The fact that it hasn't changed by more than 1.5% in the last 14 years isn't as concerning as the trend for the last 26 years.I don't recall anyone going crazy when the labor participation rate went from 65.7 in January 2009 to 62.5 by October 2015.

The reality is is that there hasn't been a roaring economy since before the dotcom bubble burst.

Parkay.

You base this off of part of a twenty minute Youtube video. I have no interest in self driving cars personally, so I can't say I follow where the US is in this regard.

Aren't there self driving taxis in cities in the US? If they're killing pedestrians and people on scooters, I would assume that it would make the news. If they're killing people in China, it's less likely that we'd hear about it.

Not gonna lie, that is really cool. But that doesn't require self driving nor EV. I'd love to see that implemented in the US.

This is a trade show. I've worked in several industries and attended trade shows. Over half of what is shown at a trade show never happens. Much of what does make it to the public is not as cheap or as good as what was promised. Many things are just complete fantasy. I bought a Cadillac in the early 1980's that I finally got rid of after 360K miles. I could have kept driving it, but the AC stopped working at the same time it developed a leak in the sunroof and some other minor issues. There are Toyota's that have hit one million miles. Those aren't the norm though. I suspect those batteries aren't either, if they are real at all.

I find it amusing that people who doubt everything and anything that is said by the US government or US companies will believe anything said by their Chinese counterparts. I've worked in China and find there are a lot of parallels between the US in the 1950's and modern day China. Perception in China is a lot more important than reality in many cases.

I have friends in Russia, Australia, and other places that import Chinese cars. I've heard the same thing from most of them. Getting parts when something breaks is nigh impossible. Chinese car manufacturers refresh car models every 2ish years. Getting parts becomes impossible because they make a limited number of replacement parts even when a model is still in production, Once it's run comes to an end any parts that don't get carried over to the new model are no longer produced. That 800km battery is pointless if a steering wheel position sensor goes bad and the car won't move and there are no replacement parts available.

The reality is that China was really smart to jump on EV manufacturing. They saw that US, EU, Japanese, and Korean car manufacturers were too far ahead when it came to ICE engines. It made little sense to try to catch up on those as they had a 100 year heard start. Obviously environmental concerns also made EV's a smarter bet as well. Unfortunately having a car that has a better than zero percent chance of becoming disposable once it hits the 3 year mark isn't so good. Suddenly buying a $60k car that will last for ten years becomes a safer bet than a car that's half the price but may need to be replaced 2 or 3 times in that same period.