Maybe itâ(TM)s time we demand an actual online public square for discourse, one thatâ(TM)s free at the point of service and that ideally has the same overhead to value our public roads provide.

And what do you think /. is? Anybody can come here, create an account and post whatever they want, either using their account name or as Anonymous Coward if they want an extra level of obscurity to hide behind. Not only that, the only equivalent of censorship available if you don't like what somebody says is downmodding them, which is the equivalent of booing.

We can always go into marketing, and if that fails, we can learn telephone sanitizing.

Hebrew (at least historically, no idea about right now) and Thai for instance have no spaces between words.

I don't know about Thai, but I can assure you from personal experience that even in a Sefer Torah, there are spaces between the words although there aren't vowels. And as far as sounding words out when you've only been taught whole words, I'd imagine that figuring out how to do it on the fly can be rather intimidating if you've never even encountered the idea before, especially if you're not a very good reader, but I'm willing to be proven wrong on that point.

and if you're stuck the teacher will tell you to sound it out.

And if you've never been exposed to phonics how are you going to know how to sound words out? I learned to read back in the '50s, when teaching phonics was at its peak, and it's served me well ever since. Being Jewish, I went to Hebrew School and learned to read Hebrew but not, alas, to speak it. Up through my 20s and into my 30s I could sight read it during religious services, but gradually stopped going and lost the ability. Now, I can still read Hebrew out loud, but slowly, sounding it out one word at a time except for the occasional word that I recognize. I very seriously doubt that I could do that if I only knew whole word reading because once you've forgotten what a word looks like, it's gone for good. My older sister can also read Hebrew the same way: she knows the letters and grew up with phonics just like I did. How many people do you think that can learn to read out loud in a strange language and a different alphabet by using whole word reading? Doing it with phonics takes time and practice, but once you know that alphabet, it's just a matter of practice.

People buy Honda because they're simple, boring vehicles that are easy to learn to drive and maintain. They don't have complicated whizbang features and are very appropriate for people who don't want to have to get a rocket surgery degree to own.

An EV is an incredibly scary proposition to Honda's demographic. It's no surprise at all that their EV venture fell flat.

The absence of the delete feature and unlimited storage was prompted by grants from law enforcement. Email stored for over 6 months is considered "abandoned" and does not require a warrant for law enforcement to obtain and read. Another feature of abandoned emails is that attorney-client and spousal privilege are set aside because clearly no one cares about "abandoned" material.

People who speak louder, thinking they're helping, are actually kind of annoying.

How very, very true, especially when you've already told them that speaking louder won't help, but clearer will. But there's one thing that's worse. I have a notch in my hearing, caused by exposure to too much outbound on the Gun Line back in '72, and some women's voices fall right into the range I can't really hear. Most of the time it's not too bad because women are usually good about shifting their voice down to a lower pitch, but there are some who either don't understand what's needed or just don't care if I can understand them or not. About the only way I've found to get them to cooperate is to speak so quietly that they can't hear me.

I was one of the lucky ones to get a Google CR-48 prototype back in 2015, and at the time, it was simply amazing. Yes, it had its shortcomings, but damn, it was impressive. While today's Chromebooks/Googlebooks sometimes feel like a marketing team collectively threw up on them, they have come a long way. My hope is that there will be enough settings on the new devices to tweak it to my liking.

So, you make your EV buying decision based on what connector it has? Why do you care so much about a connector?

*I like mail. Because we have had decades of legal precedent around mail fraud formed."

And that's why law firms still use faxes. You can fax somebody a document a few minutes before midnight on the last day and you're considered to have them in on time as long as the originals go out in the mail the next day.

I fix my taxes so I always have to send some money to them on the Ides of April.

Cute, but wrong: "In March, July, October, May, the Ides come on the fifteenth day. The Nones the Seventh; all the rest are two days less for Nones and Ides." The Ides of April come on April 13, not 15.

Hillary and Kamala were perceived as - if I may use the word - bitches.

Hillary is most definitely a bitch, and a dominatrix to boot. The only reason she got nominated was because, "It's my turn!" Kamala struck me as more of a bimbo, and a bit submissive as well, with her "Whatever Biden wants is OK with me." attitude.

The effect is far from new and people have been concerned about it for generations. In fact, Cyril M. Kornbluth published a classic SF story about the problem back in 1951.

...that government cameras really suck.

Jet Engines are as efficient as the steam turbine generators used at power plants.