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.

It's a shit situation, but why won't any of the surrounding countries take refugees from Gaza? I'll tell you why. Because every time a country has taken in Palestinian refugees they were thanked with armed revolt. In the Middle-East Palestinians are literally called "rats" by the people in other Arab nations. I found it shocking. But other people I've talked with heard the same thing.

Gaza was captured from Egypt by Israel in 1967. It was handed over to the Palestinians.in 2005. In 2006 Hamas was voted into power and that was the last time there were elections. Both Israel and Egypt have blockaded Gaza since 2007; after Hamas removed the Fatah government at gunpoint. Then they spent $1 billion over the following 15 years building tunnels to use in attacks against Israel. They spent another $200 to $300 million per year on rockets and later drones to attack Israel.

So the "Palestinians" who voted Hamas into power in 2006? Hamas, whose stated goal was the destruction of Israel? Hamas, the folks who brutally killed over 800 civilians on October 7? Hamas, the folks who don't wear uniforms and classify all of their combatants as civilians? Hamas, the wonderful people who hide their combatants and weapons in schools, mosques, hospitals, and any other civilian place they can?

It's a genocide when Israel kills combatants who are not in uniform? Israel should just sit on their ass when missiles and artillery are fired from civilian locations in Gaza at civilians in Israel? During that war Hamas stated they would rebuild their forces and attack Israel again once peace was declared.

Was Israel too heavy handed in some cases? Yes. Did some IDF soldiers commit war crimes? Yes. But those weren't supported or condoned by the Israeli government as far as I can tell. Was there collateral damage? Of course, this was a heavily populated area with non-uniformed combatants hiding among the civilians. If Israel wanted a genocide then they could have cluster bombed the shit out of the entire area. Your Wikipedia link states that 70K people were killed and half, 35K, of those were women and children. Yet the UN revised the numbers to 5K women and 8K children. It also states that the vast majority of deaths were civilians. How do we know? Hamas claims their own fighters are civilians. With no uniforms, we will never know the truth.

What genocide?

I suppose this is "new" for 4K TV's But Sony's 2008 top end XBR models had "Triluminos" backlighting using full array RGB LED's with local dimming. The MSRP for the 55-inch was $7K.

If you're streaming, no. HDR isn't as dynamic due to compression from streaming. It may be noticeable if you're using a 4K BluRay player that is capable of it. But not even all of those do HDR properly.

So you justify Iran's actions because they are just showing strength. But if the US shows strength when Iran "negotiates" in bad faith it's bad? Got it.

So showing the IRGC that they are not in charge and showing the public that the IRGC is not in charge is what exactly? What position does that put them in? The last 47 years of diplomacy have been a shit show.

First of all 9-11 was targeting and mainly killed civilians. These strikes have targeted military and leadership. You know, the same military and leadership that has killed 10K to 30K of their civilian population in the last couple of weeks alone. Not to mention who knows how many others in the last 47 years. If you can't see the difference between this and 9-11, I don't know what to say.

At the time you posted, Iran has already hit civilian targets in UAE, Iraq, Kuwait, Qutar, Syria, and Jordan. As well as Israel and the USN base in Bahrain. I don't think they will be siding with Iran. Doesn't sound very smart to me. But perhaps your idea of stupid is significantly different from mine.

How do you know that? Do you have multiple independent contacts inside of Iran telling you this? Are you clairvoyant? Or just spewing bullshit?

So you're telepathic too? Amazing.

Personally I think the most significant mistake Eisenhower made as president was agreeing to put the Shah back in power at the behest of Britain. Taking out Sadam in Iraq was also really bad for the region and strengthened Iran. Sending Iran almost $2 billion was stupid. lifting sanctions and later ignoring sanctions was also really dumb. But none of that can't be undone. In an ideal world a peaceful resolution would be great. Sometimes that just doesn't work. My only hope is that it is the best decision. We just have to wait and see.

Are you fucking stupid? Chavez destroyed Venezuela. Granted, the pre-Chavez leaders in the 1990's made a mess of things with half the country in poverty. But Chavez completely wrecked their entire economy. He managed to drop the country's GDP to 20% of what it was by the time he died. Venezuela went from 50% of the country being in poverty to 95% being in poverty and 77% in abject poverty. Around 1/4 of the Venezuelan population fled the country in the last 10 years.

Not still, that was agreed to after the war. There were no boots on the ground. I can guarantee you Japan doesn't want the US to abandon their bases in Japan either.

South Korea was not at war with the US. They were allies against the North who were/are backed by China and previously the Soviet Union. They want the US bases there as well.

One base was abandoned in 1991 due to volcanic damage and the lease expired on another in 1992. Ever since Durante left office US Philippine relations have improved greatly. The US military operates out of 9 different Philippine bases currently.

Fun fact, Viagra was originally supposed to be for lowering blood pressure and to alleviate angina. During the human trials it was discovered that one of the side effects was, well, what it's sold for now. Obviously the side effect was vastly more profitable.

I have a family member who retired from a large city fire department. If fire fighters failed their physical for having high blood pressure they would ask their doctor for a Viagra prescription and pass the follow up physical.

You would think. But computer modeling for how long something will last has gotten really good. That's why things fail just outside of warranty more often these days. I'd guess that the starter motor itself could outlast the engine. But I'm sure there's some electronic component that will fail. Kind of like the old small block Chevy starters. It was almost always the relay that was attached to those that failed because they were too close to the exhaust. When I was young we would get a $2 Ford starter relay from the auto parts store and wire it in attached to a fender well or the firewall. That usually saved us $20 for a new starter and I don't think anyone who did this had to worry about it again.