I was active online in this era. starting with 300 baud on a C=64, then moving up to C=128, Amiga and finally PC with a 57.6k modem before moving to dual-ISDN and DSL during the shell account / early WWW era. In Silicon Valley we of course had a healthy BBS scene. The one I called the most maxed out at 32 lines and ran the MajorBBS software by GlactiComm. GalactiComm made a 'GalactiBox' ISA serial expansion unit that would allow you to stack 16 internal modems into it. (max 64 modems over four units) So the place I called had two of them. The phone company had a great time getting those lines into a residence in Monte Sereno...

The popular multiplayer games on that system were Quest for Magic (it came stock with the BBS) Legend of Kyrandia (both are multiplayer MUD/Zork-likes, the latter was made into a successful point and click game in the 90s by Westwood) and Infinity Complex, which had a mutable environment you could dig out and expand.

I also occasionally called Spies in the Wire, which was run by Andy Rubin, later the creator of the Android operating system. Andy was a student and hobbyist at the time.

This is all receding so far into the past now it feels very quaint. But it was cool to dial up and see some of this great ANSI art from time to time. I was always impressed with people who could look at that character set and make art of out it.

Illegal doesnâ(TM)t mean I donâ(TM)t have the right to record, tho. Government doesnâ(TM)t give rights.

Also, is there a point, when any app uploaded to one of these app stores would have to basically comply with the same terms and conditions as apps on the Google Play Store, from the looks of it?

Google is trying to claw back some of their precious per-sale revenue loss by charging that $10K, and increasing the barrier to entry to the point where only serious businesses will attempt it. It's obvious that having third party app stores provides no benefit for Google, so they are doing everything they legally can to stem their losses. With monopoly app stores, Google and Apple basically have a license to print money. The incentives are not great for consumer freedom.

Fauci has a lamentable record for being "science" personified. He did the science. He got the data. He lied about the conclusions and financing it all. Fauci-ized science is travesty science if you prefer a different wording.
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Fauci is on record of falsifying data and making statements contrary to what he knew as fact. It VERY strongly appears he was involved in financing the development of the virus in Wuhan China, whether Xi "Poohbear" Jinping likes that or not. (All societies and people screw up from time to time. The real people can admit it, fix the problem, and move on. He seems to not get it.) So, yes, I state and believe it can (and has) been proven that he was up to his neck in creating the mess and only his blanked pardon is saving his neck.

Um, define what you mean by children. At 80 years old 30 was still relatively a child to me. I leave it at the legal definition of 18 in most places in the US. And, yes, there are some former children who went through sex change surgery as children and lamentably regretted it. Are you unaware of this? Or do you have a spurious definition of "children". Let's get terms straight. For the record, I strongly feel getting a sex change as a child is especially risky. The reward is great. The downside, the regret, the disjointed rest of the life is exceptionally great. Now, if doctors can 100% get it right on who should and should not get it, go for it. Sadly, they cannot even get it right for adults of the 30+ variety. They simply shift the blame to the "adult". Don't let them shift the blame to the children they fix/mutilate. Let them crow about their successes. Let the losses sue their asses off. Make it cost real money and even professional careers if they get it wrong. (And maybe we SHOULD give free required sex change surgeries for men who insist on living in women's prisons. Move them in 5 years after their surgeries.)

For the record I am one of the adult successes. I know and knew too many failures. Oh God they hurt! Sex change surgery is not very safe and effective.
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Ah, well, I have an intuition that you have no idea of what science really is. So should I operate on that intuition or should I investigate, test, produce DATA, and analyze the results thus producing tentative testable conclusions. I am not complaining about the scientific method. I am noting, however, that the scientific method involves honest data (something lamentably lacking in recent decades) and honest analysis before the conclusions are reached. I see that jump all over the place, here as well. An intuition is not and cannot lead to a conclusion without the intervening steps. WHERE IS THE DATA, for example? (I'm imagining a little old lady bellowing "Where's the beef?" It sorta fits.)

You seem to be stopping at intuition. Have you gotten to the real data stage? Have you even begun analysis? Current evidence suggests microplastics continue degrading down to nothing to the point that some bacteria are already using the energy stored in the microplastics. Nobody knows if this is a good thing or not, yet. (That continued breakdown is something asbestos and tobacco byproducts apparently don't do.) It hurts my autism when I see steps skipped.

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This helium crisis is nothing new. It's now 20 years since I wrote a column titled The looming helium crisis and little has changed.

How about some solid data. Data breaking down the birth rate issue suggests that the primary anti-fertility drug is prosperity. Then we have government dictats such as in China during 1 child and the subsequent mess. On the obverse side we see religions, one a total failure for its adherents and another whose adherents while unpopular when they come to the door are on the whole rather prosperous. Both demand many children of their adherents. Both seem to deliver. With that background does your falling population observation prove anything about plastics?
{^_^} I guess I am somewhat of a pariah around here for demanding real data rather than feelings. Goes with the territory, I suppose.

Where's your proof? You're simply trying to defame me rather than produce data. I'm willing to investigate proof. Such as I have seen suggests they are not producing any harm. I rather resent your comment.

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You are exactly on point. We're being scared by innuendo, "It stands to reason", and "of course" with NO actual studies showing real harm. By now we should be seeing them popping up under every liter soda bottle floating in the ocean. "Ooooo, that's icky!" is not science. I want to see the, non-Fauci-ized, science.
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I fly 200ish flights a year so figure 70-80 nights away.

2025 was 100% hotels but 2019 was about 80% Airbnbs.

Airbnb will never get my business back. Ever. The professional scammer hosts are so good at finding a way to nail me for a fee. Iâ(TM)ve taken perfect check out video and still had to spend hours fighting fees.

Airbnb allowed making guests do it.

They lost so much money to hotels theyâ(TM)re banning hosts from requiring it.

The bigger problem will be manhole covers on suburban streets. These will get sucked out of the road not only wrecking your Tesla but likely also endangering the traffic behind you. You can bet that this feature will be geofenced and only available on approved racetracks --which, for 99% of buyers, simply makes it useless and expensive payload.

The launch was a circus that PT Barnum would have been proud of.

A handful of specially built show-pony-cars that are ultra-light, only "flew" once (because they probably didn't have a big enough battery onboard to recharge those gas cylinders) and were the ultimate in Musk-level deceptions.

I'm going to do a full technical breakdown of all the reasons why what we saw was 100 percent marketing and why we will *never* see a Roadster 2 with the claimed specifications ever hit the market -- the laws of physics may be inconvenient but ignoring them is not an option.

What we saw in that demo was Musk, once again, coming up with a clever way to get hundreds of millions (perhaps more) of interest-free funding from people who slept through science classes in highschool. What's even more amazing is that this is the *second* time he's promised unrealistic deliveries, taken hundreds of millions in "reservations" and failed to deliver.

PT Barnum was so right.

And Musk also said "Manned colonies on Mars by 2024" and "Hyperloop" and "Fast transit tunnels beneath cities" and "Solar roof tiles" and a whole lot of other stuff to which the laws of physics and his engineers said "nope".