Yep, "Gulf of 'Murica" is a flashing neon troll sign.

How often do you do cross-country drives? Just because your country is big doesn't mean most Americans drive across it very often. In fact, 93% of all US car trips are under 50km (30 miles) and more than 50% are under 10km (6 miles).

Nah. The Dutch are extremely chill and friendly. They're also smart and pragmatic and really, really good at engineering. They do call out bullshit and complain when warranted, though, because they're also very direct and don't have time for nonsense. I think it's this directness that takes some people by surprise.

Putting your whole life on your phone just makes it an ever more tempting target.

In Canada, thankfully, all of our major banks still support account access through a normal web browser. I can't see that changing any time soon; I think there would be an uproar if they tried to mandate the use of mobile devices only.

Actually, you do need to use the mobile app to deposit cheques without going into the bank. But cheques are pretty much extinct in Canada nowadays.

You have a chance to start the process of internal and external repair.

What, the way Trump did?

Nah, sorry. There's only one way to deal with fascists. 100% throttle and don't take your foot off the gas until they're vanquished.

Also Canadian. I wouldn't say they mean nothing. I think they are a very encouraging sign. But I do agree that we must not for one minute let up on travel and purchase boycotts against the USA. Last night was D-Day... the beginning. We can't let up pressure until it ends the way V-E day did, with the MAGA movement decisively and permanently consigned to the scrap heap of history.

Turns out that incompetence, corruption and cruelty are unpopular. Who knew??

I use Startpage. I re-search using Google maybe one time out of twenty.

I didn't even click the link, but yes, 'twas my inspiration. Singing that song is one of the most cathartic things one can do.

Fuck Google with an anchor.

This is out-and-out blackmail and I hope it results in a generation of kids growing up using alternatives to Google.

We might see much lighter web pages, better-compressed images, etc.

But I suspect most of the traffic from companies like Meta, Google, etc. would be video and I don't really see a way to compress that much without losing quality.

All in all, though, I can't see this actually making it into law.

A dedicated button turns off the microphones and any camera

Yes. For sure it does. Absolutely. Scout's honor.

Nah. Over 50 by quite a bit and still happily emacsing.

I remember in the early days, people said emacs stood for "Eight Megs And Constantly Swapping". Eight megs... how quaint!

Freshwater is cheap for a reason: it's abundant.

Uh, no. Fresh water is abundant in some places and scarce in others. The reason it's cheap in the US in places where it's scarce like Arizona and Southern California is that the government subsidizes it, as well as drawing more water from aquifers than can be replenished in time. In a lot of places in the USA, water consumption is not sustainable. And yes, agriculture is the main culprit. Exporting oranges from California is just insane; you're sending out crates of 90% water from a desert.

I didn't call you unethical. I called the Generative AI industry unethical. And I never called you greedy. It's the AI oligarchs who are greedy.

There are (as you point out) many unethical industries and sometimes it's impractical not to use some of them, or perhaps we don't think they're all that unethical. I appreciate that your line is different from mine.

My links are admittedly a little old, but just today there was another story published on Slashdot saying that AI doesn't really make organizations any more productive. So I think the jury's still out on the productivity question.