/. isn't what it used to be, but more importantly, the world in which /. was great also isn't what it used to be.

Well, that and no CmdrTaco.

I, for one, have a lot of two-digit numbers to factor, so I'm waiting impatiently for quantum supremacy.

The gap between "home" and "pro" users is the reason. "Home" must - by definition - include the lowest of the "low information users", and - man, do they get low these days. I'm serious. IT is now at a point, where it's everywhere and for everyone, and the level of competency between people varies WILDLY. Orders of magnitude between people. People that are centuries and milennia apart in self-domestication, IQ, cultural norms and cognitive development are now living together on the same block. And all of them have to use IT, which of course cannot be the same IT for all of them.

That said, you MUST have seen the reboot and restart notifications of Windows, Teams, Edge etc. in a business environment on screens of other people. High-information IT users, even. They just don't restart their program for the security update - ever. Literally all of them will tell you they've "got this big project due tomorrow for Mr. Kawasaki" and they're afraid of their Japanese management techniques and so they can't update "right now" and "right now" means "forever" and "I will update later" means "I will update never before the sun burns out".

So yeah, you HAVE to force updates on the average person. Unless the new update gives them a few new emojis for their favorite rainbow religion or other treats drip fed to them, they're not going to install them.

If you never encountered users that are this resistant to upgrades, good for you and say hello to the guys at the lab. But everyone not a guy AND in a lab will not update their stuff and they get the forced update. Sorry. It's how it is.

Or a /. editor who didn't bother to read it...

Americans don't WALK across their cities because

You know why.

You know exactly why.

The entire urban landscape of the USA can be explained by a very very very simple thing. It started on Dec. 18th, 1865 or much earlier, when they all were brought to the US in the first place.

Everything and everyone wants to get away from them, paying any price they can or driving as far as they need to.

Wow. I thought they'd only factored 15. I need to keep up with the latest news.

This is hitting the level where it's competing with yafu.

Every day, some "immediate family member" sexually abuses their children. So that point is quite moot.

Children are not the property of their parents and the parents shall not be allowed to reanimate the dead, either.

Would you be ok with the parents reanimating their dead adult children, nudify them and earn money via OnlyFans? No? WHY THE HELL NOT?

Same thing.

Our society is predicated upon the notion that we honor and respect the dead. No one has the right to change that.

You remember that one group that has been using one of their kid's diaries for political pressuring the world for 80 years now.

What group do you think did the ridiculous stunt today?

Things like this will lead to very hard legal limits placed on what AI will be allowed to do or asked to do.

Do we allow digging up corpses to use as halloween decoration? No? Why not?

Then why would we allow digging up corpses to dress up and use as talking heads for whatever agenda or product?

Reanimating dead people with AI will be a highly punishable offense very soon.

If it becomes permissible to use deepfakes of dead children to parrot whatever you want them to say in order to further a political agenda, then anything is possible.

And while they're at it, they can use the same deepfake AI to have the same dead child recommend a beer brand that the AI thinks this child would have chosen if he grew up to be old enough to drink beer.

It is the most disgusting form of actual necromancy. Digging and dressing up corpses and using them as talking puppets.

I always knew that America is morally corrupt, but holy moly is this a new low even your them.

Reviving dead children as puppets to make them parrot your own chosen political message is a disgusting piece of brainwashing.

It's a far cry from using photos and placing them next to political messages.

But making it look like the dead themselves are back to life to tell everyone about a political message chosen for them is impossible to endure.

If you disagree, please tell us: Why not have a lifelike AI-based replication of famous murder cases appear in advertisements for car insurance or medical products? Have them laugh and joke about their own death a little, recommending the viewer to take medication X instead, so they don't end up dead like them. Why not? Let's have some AI-generated advertising where George Floyd and Geoffrey Epstein recommend vacation resorts on private islands in the Carribean? WHY THE HELL NOT?

Why have any amount of decency when you can instead further your own agenda with anything that works?

Just wait a few months, it WILL be the entire Western internet like this.

They are currently trying to ban and censor and block the entire internet for the entire West, by any means necessary.

Too many users on too many platforms have been noticing about who actually controls the West and banning individual accounts or entire platforms is not going to curb that anymore. So they ban the entire internet for the West.

Corporate culture x boomer mindset.

Boomers usually buy the cheapest thing if it is generic, but boomers recoil in existential horror from dropping a trusted brand name.

Corporate culture amplifies that risk aversion 100x so that even other gen people fear making a switch like this somewhere.

Try getting a person over 60-65 to change their phone or ISP contract, drop cable or landline, buy a car from a different brand or whatever. They will protest loudly and probably refuse to do that.

And that generation currently owns the most money.

Vendors have recognized that and are now bleeding them dry before they finally leave the corporate offices for their retirement.

Tire particulate
Microplastics small enough to breathe them (broken and rubbed off from all the plastic products all around us)
Microscopic particles (printer toner, very fine dust)
Inorganic materials with very sharp points (of which asbestos, glass and rock wool are the main sources)
Pet and animal dander
Fine organic particles and soot (of which cigarette smoke is the main source, also coal dust, coal and wood smoke)
Radioactive particles (of which radon gas is the main source outside of catastrophes and war)

People are hugely, insanely UNDERestimating the effects of radon gas on their lungs. 80% of people you tell this never even heard of radon gas and 15% of them might only know it's a colorless, odorless, radioactive noble gas, but only about 5% know or think about how this gas simply seeps out of the ground, collects in basements and ground floor sleeping areas and is almost as dangerous as smoking for lung cancer.

Because lung cancer awareness campaigns always focused on smoking, people did more or less disregard other highly dangerous lung carcinogens over decades. Radon is the main carcinogen beyond smoking and asbestos - and after that comes the group of all organic dust, soot and very fine particle sources. That is: coal and wood fires, barbecues, coal dust, grain dust, printer toner, plastic particles, particles from normal tire wear on public roads, dander from animals.

Breathing in anything except air is more or less carcinogenic, and normal air can contain radon gas or ozone from natural sources.

Get a radon detector and estimate your exposure to radon gas in your sleeping area over a few months. If the results are low risk for your area, you can sell it second hand. If the results are medium risk or higher, you know that it's necessary to take precautions and renovations for your home to avoid that. Sealing the ground in your home or against radon is possible or at least ventilating the basement and sleeping areas to prevent build-up of radon.

Avoiding tobacco and radon means avoiding two thirds of all lung cancer cases.