"'We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self-control." These words - expressing the all-too-familiar contemporary condemnation of young people - were actually inscribed on a 6,000-year-old Egyptian tomb.

Later, in the fourth century BC, Plato was heard to remark: "What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"

And then, a few hundred years later, in AD1274, Peter the Hermit joined the chorus. "The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint ... As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behaviour and dress.""
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/mar/17/ephebiphobia-young-people-mosquito

I went public sector. Gold-plated health insurance, $130k a year and a month of paid vacation time. Private sector can kiss my cushy ass.

He didn't even build that empire; he inherited it. The Trump Organization was started in the 1920s by Donald's grandparents. Donald inherited the company in the 70s, after it had become a massive real estate empire; he was gracing magazine covers as the golden child, the next in line to take over the empire that his grandparents built and his father made great, but now that the books have been opened it's clear that Donald himself could have done better for himself and his empire by shutting down operations and putting all his parents' company's money into a generic stock portfolio or even the bond market.

The biggest lie that Donald Trump ever sold to the American people was that he was a successful businessman. The only thing he ever did that turned a real profit was his reality TV show where he spent the entire time pretending that he'd been a success the entire time.

It's in California because California is the one who sued them. If another state wanted money they could have gotten in on the action, but instead they're too busy handing over money to the tech-bros, and their Animal Farm rewrite of the promise of the internet, that "information wants to be free-as-in-freedom", to the almost polar opposite "information wants to be free-as-in-beer", which let the tech-bro companies like Google steal all of the newspapers' previously paid content, put it all online, and pocket the ad revenue.

Now we're living in the world that bait and switch build, where local journalists have all been strangled to death by the tech-bros and their greed, and agreements like this are a paltry attempt to revive local journalism years after their death.

Those are, in fact, separate bills. Ukraine funding, the Tiktok ban, and Israel are separate; ironically, the one that passed on the narrowest margin was the Ukraine funding, because Fox has been spewing pro-Putin propaganda for months now and so a bunch of the Trumpers are voting to let them conquer a New Warsaw Pact by force.

If you instead wanted to complain about enjoining 9 billion of Gaza funding to the 18 billion of military aid to Israel then you'd actually be correct.

Ionic thrusters are not a great idea inside an atmosphere, as they generate an unhealthy amount of ozone very quickly. There's a reason you can't find true "bladeless" fans anymore.

Actually no; it's the other way around. In fact, something like half a million guns are illegally brought from the US into Mexico every year; it's part of the reason the cartels there are out-gunning the police. You're also wrong about guns within the US; in California, roughly 60 percent of guns recovered from crime scenes were purchased from out of state.

Crime requires motive, means, and opportunity. You are correct that gun control laws don't do a thing about motive, but they do restrict means and opportunity; the effective crime prevention strategy would address all three.

...are the big reasons to need people in the office, and why many offices are likely to find a happy medium of 1-2 days in the office as the sweet spot between productivity and continuity of business. It's been my experience that experienced workers who know their job can work from home, with no issue, but, speaking as someone whose office had to double in size during the pandemic, and then double again in the past year now that we've transitioned to hybrid work, it is so, so much easier to help situate new people when they can ask for help in person, or you can just drop in to show them how something works, especially when the thing you are showing them is the productivity tools themselves. Yes, my home days are definitely more productive, personally, but when I compare how quickly this year's batch of recruits were able to get up to speed on their duties compared to the people we hired in 2020 there's just no comparison.

Pretty sure that there are studies that back me up on this, too. Wasn't there a study a few months back showing that newer programmers write more / better code when they have office days, while experienced ones write more / better code when working from home?

Property? In my experience, the main reason you need in-office days is for training new / inexperienced people. Our office has tripled in personnel over the past year; for those new people, being able to walk down the hall or even just holler over a cube wall and get an answer is incredibly valuable. And that value isn't going away any time soon; yes, for experienced workers you can be more productive working from home, but that's a stance that sacrifices the future of the company for benefits in the present, because those experienced people aren't going to stay in their positions forever, and when they promote / retire / quit / die you'd better have cross-trained people ready to take those duties or the company is sunk.

For these purposes, a 1-2 day per week schedule seems to be the ideal happy medium.

...by assessing an even higher tax on all advertising done on / by a social media company that specifically bans journalism (note: real journalism, not propaganda) from their platform.

The new Bolt looks pretty good, actually:

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2...

That and the new Prius Prime; if the automakers could fix the supply chain issues than 2023 looks like it could be a standout year for range-extended EVs.

Why would they, though? Outside of the fevered imaginings of conspiracy theorists, the IRS spends the vast majority of its auditing very wealthy tax cheaters, not going after your local mom-and-pop small business for a few pennies. Middle-class filers aren't worth the IRS's time, especially if you e-file; if your refund is below $10,000 or so you're pretty much guaranteed to be diverted to an automated computer check of your return and that's all.

Twitter wasn't originally on the market, though. Musk busted in like the Kool Aid Man and started shoveling money at them, like those real estate agents that call at all hours of the day and night saying they'll buy your house, sight unseen, for 20% over market value. Twitter wasn't really interested, but Ego McBucks was so eager to buy that he was willing to get into a drawn-out proxy war, so they figured what the hell, we'll sell, but only if McBucks waived due diligence, so the merger talks don't go on forever. McBucks agreed, and signed on the dotted line, April 25th: :

"Section 4.25 No Other Representations or Warranties. Except for the representations and warranties expressly set forth in this Article IV, neither the Company nor any other Person makes or has made any representation or warranty of any kind whatsoever, express or implied, at Law or in equity, with respect to the Company or any of its Subsidiaries or their respective business, operations, assets, liabilities, conditions (financial or otherwise), notwithstanding the delivery or disclosure to Parent and the Acquisition Sub or any of their Affiliates or Representatives of any documentation, forecasts or other information with respect to any one or more of the foregoing. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, neither the Company nor any other Person makes or has made any express or implied representation or warranty to Parent, Acquisition Sub or any of their respective Representatives with respect to (a) any financial projection, forecast, estimate or budget relating to the Company, any of its Subsidiaries or their respective businesses or, (b) except for the representations and warranties made by the Company in this Article IV, any oral or written information presented to Parent, Acquisition Sub or any of their respective Representatives in the course of their due diligence investigation of the Company, the negotiation of this Agreement or the course of the Merger, or the accuracy or completeness thereof. "

Now that the market is falling out from under him, Musk is complaining that he didn't get to inspect the house, after specifically waiving inspection, and is trying to back out of the deal by insisting on a thorough inspection. And now the Texas AG is jumping in on his side to distract from all the legal trouble he's in.

This is not anything like fraud on Twitter's side; they've been using the same, SEC-accepted, methodology for measuring monetizable users for years. This is Texas trying to carry water for Musk after he signed a deal, now has buyer's remorse, and is trying to weasel out of paying a $1 billion breakup fee.

Musk agreed to buy Twitter and specifically waived due diligence :

"Section 4.25 No Other Representations or Warranties. Except for the representations and warranties expressly set forth in this Article IV, neither the Company nor any other Person makes or has made any representation or warranty of any kind whatsoever, express or implied, at Law or in equity, with respect to the Company or any of its Subsidiaries or their respective business, operations, assets, liabilities, conditions (financial or otherwise), notwithstanding the delivery or disclosure to Parent and the Acquisition Sub or any of their Affiliates or Representatives of any documentation, forecasts or other information with respect to any one or more of the foregoing. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, neither the Company nor any other Person makes or has made any express or implied representation or warranty to Parent, Acquisition Sub or any of their respective Representatives with respect to (a) any financial projection, forecast, estimate or budget relating to the Company, any of its Subsidiaries or their respective businesses or, (b) except for the representations and warranties made by the Company in this Article IV, any oral or written information presented to Parent, Acquisition Sub or any of their respective Representatives in the course of their due diligence investigation of the Company, the negotiation of this Agreement or the course of the Merger, or the accuracy or completeness thereof. "

In other words, Musk bought a house for $46 billion dollars, sight unseen, from people who weren't looking to sell in the first place but agreed because he busted in like the Kool Aid Man and started shoveling money at them. Now that the market is falling out from under him he's complaining that he didn't get to inspect the house and is trying to back out of the deal by insisting on a thorough inspection

No, this is Texas trying to carry water for Musk after he signed a deal, now has buyer's remorse, and is trying to weasel out of paying a $1 billion breakup fee.

Musk agreed to buy Twitter and specifically waived due diligence :

"Section 4.25 No Other Representations or Warranties. Except for the representations and warranties expressly set forth in this Article IV, neither the Company nor any other Person makes or has made any representation or warranty of any kind whatsoever, express or implied, at Law or in equity, with respect to the Company or any of its Subsidiaries or their respective business, operations, assets, liabilities, conditions (financial or otherwise), notwithstanding the delivery or disclosure to Parent and the Acquisition Sub or any of their Affiliates or Representatives of any documentation, forecasts or other information with respect to any one or more of the foregoing. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, neither the Company nor any other Person makes or has made any express or implied representation or warranty to Parent, Acquisition Sub or any of their respective Representatives with respect to (a) any financial projection, forecast, estimate or budget relating to the Company, any of its Subsidiaries or their respective businesses or, (b) except for the representations and warranties made by the Company in this Article IV, any oral or written information presented to Parent, Acquisition Sub or any of their respective Representatives in the course of their due diligence investigation of the Company, the negotiation of this Agreement or the course of the Merger, or the accuracy or completeness thereof. "

In other words, Musk bought a house for $46 billion dollars, sight unseen, from people who weren't looking to sell in the first place but agreed because he busted in like the Kool Aid Man and started shoveling money at them. Now that the market is falling out from under him he's complaining that he didn't get to inspect the house and is trying to back out of the deal by insisting on a thorough inspection