WhatsApp wants to do this as a means of providing you with a contacts list.

I rarely use the app, but I've had to use it a few times to get in touch with folks in other countries. But grant WhatsApp access to my contacts? Not a chance! So unfortunately I've lived with half a dozen unlabeled chats in the app that I just know who they are.

So in my particular situation, I think I welcome the change the Apple has made - I am fine with selectively granting a few contacts to WhatsApp (since those other folks already added me and chatted to me), so now I can put a name on those chats.

I thought I was reading a headline that was along the lines of "Linux providers hate when you do this one simple trick to boost your startup time!"

A good friend of mine has been in the paper industry for many years now. I've asked him this question specifically about pizza boxes:

When wood fibers get saturated with oil it's not really a big deal because oil is hydrophobic and fiber is recycled and purified through aqueous means i.e. flotation tanks that remove dyes, inks and oils etc. So fear not... that greasy pizza box is 100% loblolly pine with a little smattering of vegetable oil. It would happily be recycled.

Well, there is a bit more to it than that it seems. For completely unknown reasons, macOS switched from sending an uncatchable SIGKILL instead of SIGBUS. Bug thread here. Fault lies completely on Apple for this one, and it seems like it affects more than just Java. I think this release is going to the history books as one of the worst releases from Apple; hopefully their QA team gets a serious wake up call from this.

The only problem with making it a college campus is that colleges don't pay much in the way of taxes to the municipality, apparently. I think it might be different if it is a public VS private operation, but the town would probably much prefer if it was kept as a corporation.

Now the question is, what corporation out there would have use for such a facility?

In the mid-1990s I sometimes went to a supermarket in Hamilton Ohio called Jungle Jim's. While they still exist today and were (at the time at least) an excellent place to get obscure food products, one of the things they are somewhat known for is their use of animatronics.

I remember that they had a whole bunch of ex-Chuck E. Cheese animatronics in the various sections, e.g. Pasquale was singing Toreador March in the Italian section amongst other similar pieces. While it was really cool to see those repurposed animatronics (since by 1995 CEC was well into obscurity and re-definition as the modern version we have no nostalgia for), it was a perfect example of what happened to those devices after years of neglect - pieces falling or hanging off, broken joints, rattling loose parts, etc.

Looking at the page I linked, it looks like they might still have one or two - but always wondered what happened to those things since I haven't lived around those parts in a very long time.

This is basically what I've seen come out of the tools. To be honest, I've only found it useful for simple boilerplate things like "open a CSV $f and create a list of the 2nd column entries", but in those cases a seasoned programmer would probably spit that out faster than the time that they write the comment to trigger the GenAI. However, you do have the bonus of that you are now producing commented code?

But anyone who thinks that the GenAI tools will generate good code architecture or even respond to the "create a clone of Microsoft Word in Python" directive, we are DEFINITELY not there yet.

At least from a personal observation of mine, I've known of one person who quickly went down the Alzheimer's path due to increased stress (loss of her husband and thus having to deal with all the paperwork he used to handle), but another due to getting a cochlear implant.

The cochlear implant is a hearing aid that is one part surgical procedure since they have to put something that attaches to the hearing nerve, and a second external hearing aid that has a magnetic disc that gets stuck on the wearer's head just behind their ear. They're expensive, but they work, but look a little odd to people who have no idea what they are (since you think it's drilled into their head or going through skin or something; no, it is just a magnet!)

So anyway, for another person I know, they got an implant to help fight Alzheimers to some degree since if you can't hear half of what is around you, it accelerates the decline. However, the surgery and having to manage the implant device could also increase stress which could lead to accelerated effects of the condition.

....at least, that is my personal observation. YMMV.

Yes, well, that's capitalism for you.

Most Americans have no choice in insurer. And their choices are controlled by a powerful cartel that colludes to keep prices high. There is no competition in the health insurance field.

No American gives a rats ass about the "choice" of insurer. They want a choice of doctors and services, but really, and I can not stress this enough, REALLY hate all insurance companies. More than they hate the government even!

And yet, taxes have been cut again and again and again. How do you reconcile that fact with your statement that "Because the people raising taxes will never reach a point when they say "the government has enough money now, let's cut taxes"."

Seems that it's very, very easy for the government to cut taxes, at least for the rich. Why are you afraid of "the people who want to raise taxes" when those people have never actually done so? Seems you are imagining a scenario that is not just unlikely, but counter factual.

No, people want to pay for things with their taxes. The are not, in fact, idiots. They don't want predatory capitalists taking a cut, and figure, correctly, that government is more trustworthy than a man with a profit motive and no morals.

People recognize that certain endeavors are just not well served by a capitalist free market. Health care is a primary one that simply doesn't work unless heavily regulated or run by the government. You do not know what is wrong with you. You do not know how to fix it. You can not shop around for a new liver.

As it is, we are basically running health care like a for profit government, and we are getting the worst of both the public and private worlds. Health insurance amounts to a system of taxation that forces the healthy to pay for the sick, and lets a third party take a huge cut. Replace health insurance with actual government taxation and what have you lost, except for the greedy bastard trying to mark up your heart medications? Nothing.

You showed no proof of anything.

You assholes have no problem with kids reading those same types of sex scenes if it's straight. Just ask Beverly Cleary. Most YA novels have sex scenes. Doesn't make them pornographic or unsuitable for kids.

You aren't American so stop talking as if you know us or our culture, asshole.

You don't know shit then. Stop talking like you know America if you aren't from here, asshole.