PVC need to be BANNED!
It's the worst plastic! Vinyl included. The plasticizer for PVC is also a huge problem.

The USA stopped the EU from banning it long ago.

I've read some theorize the fall of the roman empire might have been connected to pollution...

I'd not be surprised in in the future we find Trump voters had the most brain damage from modern pollution.

Well, yes and no. Candidates can opt-out of that public funding. Obama did exactly that (he was the first to do so), as did Trump.

Don't be absurd. I didn't assume you were arguing in absolutist terms and it's ridiculous for you to assume I was. I was talking about averages, and the fact that a meaningful gap exists between the average pedestrian friendliness of US streets and of European streets. Do you agree or disagree that such a gap exists?

The plastic in your sperm and your brain and your fetuses (of which less than 20% become babies) DOES NOT PRODUCE AIR POLLUTION.

Store that carbon in your balls and save the climate! ;-)
Plus it may reduce sperm counts and births which will do far far more good for the climate.

YES! We need to promote LAND FILLS of plastic. it's the cheapest carbon storage scheme. other trash can make bigger problems but plastic trash only takes up SPACE it doesn't release CO2!

We cared more about property value (short term) than climate change and that is why we must obsess with plastic pollution and put land above air. It doesn't sound right to put land above air does it?

If you go that broad, then nothing is a circle. Any energy use will leak and not be a closed circle.

Aluminum is a circle if you are reasonable. It takes energy input; it isn't 100% pure so refining it will produce byproducts. Having children is not a circle. if you replace yourself, only on simple terms is it a cycle. since you don't instantly die when the child is born; you have 50+ years overlap. The both of you create a lot of waste output to keep you living... as long as there are maybe 500 million humans on earth the impact is within equilibrium... and you are spread out over the earth...

REDUCE is the biggest factor. We refuse to reduce. But everything else contributes to a lesser degree.

I have solar; but the biggest savings is in reducing my electrical demand - which helped regardless of my power source.

We look for cheap CO2 storage... but why are we not questioning recycling? It's better to bury that plastic for the 1000s of years; it'll hold that CO2. Sure we shouldn't put it into every living cell on earth but collect and store it; like nuclear waste ...except competently.

Plastics are not seriously recyclable. Most have very limited cycles! Those that can in theory recycle forever like ABS still become degraded at almost every cycle. It's not aluminum, where you can burn off all impurities because it's atomic. We are greener just burying all that plastic.

The WORST thing is burning up all the plastic for fuel... think of all the chemical scrubbing steps that need to go on... not just the 1 these people found... probably funded by grants from misguided people (if not corrupt.) Sure you might think it's worse to break down plastic into more microplastic (which some have been working on -- and now we are aware that is already a growing problem) but that microplastic is a lesser problem: it's not changing climate, just polluting everything. Yes, making plastics isn't the best process-- depends on the plastic; but you don't seriously think we will stop using plastic do you? we can't curb even the most simple problems! Plastic is extremely useful stuff without any problems on the scale of oil, coal, tobacco, drugs, even sugar.. hell, disposable plastic bags and straws are dead simple and we can't ban them. (and recycling them is incredibly stupid; burning is the only practical way for them outside the obvious answer: banning them.)

Idiotocracy is civilized but much lower on the spectrum; the USA is already back stepping.

There are no uninteresting numbers. Like the least interesting story on Slashdot? Smallest = least?

Citations available, but why bother?

One line of APL would have more graphic appeal.

Mod parent Funny. Or please explain the insight rather than the obvious sarcasm.

My attempted joke is in the modified Subject. Many of the AI books I have read for "fun" have been recipe books about creating LLM dishes as the main course. But currently reading one that is more like a book of serving suggestions. "Teaching" how to write "killer" prompts for various effects. The funniest examples are telling the AI to "read" various things and produce short summaries. The AI understands nothing, but it can help the humans understand even less!

Then there's a recursive joke when the AIs start "reading" content written by other AIs. Nothing to the n-th power is still nothing.

(Solution thoughts? Contagious provenance dimensions added to the training data...)

Thanks, I needed a good laugh.

Russia is way past "partisan gap". They tried that. Didn't work. The left wing didn't bite.

You [TWX] are so cute when you feed the AC troll or sock puppet. Maybe its hairdresser knows for sure, but why should anyone care?

As for the story, the obligatory joke I was looking for is the fresh Subject. Also lots of joke turf around not getting any value from their investments. At least if that "Democratic" is referring to the large-D political "party" in America, they sure ain't bought much influence that I can detect anywhere.

But there is a related joke floating around here, if only I could execute humor in a non-fatal way. Remember the old song "Anything you can do, I can do better!" We need a version that is updated for AI over I, something along the lines of "Anything I can do, AI can do better". There was a followup line in the song that could become "AI can do anything better than I" or "AI can do anything better than you". By pronouncing "AI" as a diphthong (or triphthong?) it may even be possible to preserve the rhythm of the original.

You may (but probably don't) remember some of the tasks the song used for competitive examples. For this story, the AI would be boasting about finding and buying the "best" influencers. (And why hasn't my spell checker yet been updated for that extremely popular "job" title?)

Returning to the Subject joke, I would never be signed up because I'm too politically unreliable. I mostly think the Democrats are full of shite, but it's merely less poisonous shite than the fake Republican shite. "Mostly harmless" is the kindest thing you can say about any American politician these years?

NAK

"It says EU laws -- which have sought to make it easier for smaller firms to compete with big tech -- have resulted in some Apple features and enhancements being delayed for European users"

Restrictions are not features for users, despite many hostages' Stockholm syndromes to the contrary.