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Comment Good. Screen Culture was a plague. (Score 2) 23

Screen Culture in particular was spamming YT with fake trailers years before AI really blew up, and labeled them very, very deceptively ("Official Trailer Release", and such). YouTube should have banned them years ago, and the studios should have sued. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Comment Re:China is still a developing country (Score 1) 50

They aren't clones, they are just the optimal shape. The USSR's Buran had similar claims made against it, but it was very different to the Shuttle. No main engines, larger, different mission profile, and much faster turn-around times. It's just that the best shape for a spaceplane is the shape that the Shuttle is, so every other one looks like a "clone" of it.

Yep. Similar to aircraft. There's a reason why planes that perform a specific function at specific performance parameters tend to look alike. Because the parameters demands certain shapes, airflow, capacity, etc, and you end up with planes doing the same mission but designed by different teams yet look alike. See the DC-10/L-1011 airliner situation.

Comment Re:Plasma and fusion science is pointless (Score 1) 58

The stable genius jr. has concluded that fusion technology is pointless anyway. Coal and oil are the future! Soon also on Mars.

Oh FFS. Trump is the most pro-nuclear president in four decades, including supporting fusion research and exploring new reactor designs: Trump Bets Big on Nuclear

"United States President Donald Trump is putting his money where his mouth is as he doubles down on efforts to accelerate the expansion of the country’s nuclear energy sector. The government will spend billions in public funding to reinvigorate U.S. nuclear power, following decades of underinvestment. Unlike renewable energy, Trump views nuclear power as key to expanding the U.S. electricity generation capacity and recently announced the target of quadrupling nuclear capacity by 2050.
In May, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the U.S. to develop 10 new large nuclear reactors by the end of the decade. In addition, several tech companies, including Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft, are providing billions in private funding to restart old nuclear plants, upgrade existing ones, and deploy new reactor technology to meet the growing demands from the data centres powering advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DoE) loan office will dedicate significant funds to the nuclear energy industry to support the development of new reactors. This week, the Energy Secretary Chris Wright stated, “We have significant lending authority at the loan programme office By far the biggest use of those dollars will be for nuclear power plants — to get those first plants built.”

Comment Re:good (Score 0, Troll) 24

Probably a good thing, handling CNN to the Ellisons before midterms would have really bad outcomes

It wouldn't do jack shit, because no one watches CNN. Travelers used to be stuck with their network, as CNN used to pay airports to display their network, but that ended in 2021 as mobile devices took away that information monopoly, and CNN lost that ad revenue. CNN has half the viewers of MS Now, and only a quarter the viewers of Fox. CNN is way past their glory days, and essentially has become an Also Ran. And cable news doesn't have nearly the reach that the traditional US Big 3 news networks does. All the major cable news players combined still make up less viewers than the lowest rated Big 3 player, CBS, with 4+ million viewers. Which, btw, pales in comparison to ABC, with 8+ million viewers, and NBC with 6+ million. The idea that the Ellisons would "take over" American media is laughable on its face, even if they got Warner Bros. They'd still be a distant third in broadcast reach behind Disney and Comcast, hysterical wailing to the contrary.

Comment Re:I said it before and I'll say it again (Score 4, Insightful) 56

The worst case scenarios are going to happen. Or worse.

OK. When? Because I've been hearing worst case scenarios all my adult life, and most of them are now past their predicted dates. Beginning with Paul Erlich's infamous predictions of mass-starvation in the 60's and 70's, nearly every year the press is filled with credentialed experts that tell us the end is nigh and that the point of no return is almost here. If you want to know why most of the public is so Meh about these doomsday predictions, it's because we've been inundated with the Boy Crying Wolf all of our lives. Would you like a timeline of all the point of no return predictions over the years? It's readily available.

Comment Re:Start paying people normal salaries (Score 3, Interesting) 199

We all know tipping in the US is mandatory in all but law, it's culturally obligatory which bears little difference to a legal mandate.

Uh, no, it isn't. Post COVID, some companies are trying to guilt trip customers into tipping all employees in every job... I'm looking at you, fancy-pantsy coffee shops like Starbucks, Dutch Brothers, 7-Brew, etc.... but the vast majority of employees do not ask for nor receive tips as part of their jobs in America. And in jobs where I'd like to tip them for extra service.... grocery pickup, for instance... they're generally not allowed to ask for or receive tips.

Tipping is fine for waitressing, because if the service is good they can make considerably more money. But the post-COVID attempt by some companies to normalize tipping in their industries never took off in the US. Americans resented the push and saw it for what it was.

Comment Re:Warrant? (Score 2) 62

They did not mention the German equivelent of a warrant.

Cant he police do this at will? (as in, no one checking to see if the officer is doing it to his ex-wife?) Or do they require a Judge's permission (aka search warrant)

Anyone know the answer?

Without a warrant, this seems like an obviously bad idea. Cops should care more about guilt then they should care about protecting the innocent. But judges should be the other way around.

It's not just Germany. Most of Western Europe has been trending this way since the end of the Cold War, and the roots of such thinking were there long before Hitler was even an itch in his daddy's pants. A lot of Americans seem surprised by this. But Europe isn't America, and European governments have always had a more paternalistic view of their role than American political philosophy allows for. Further, most Europeans are fine with that. Americans gasp when they see such things, but this is just the latest line of code in the old European We'll keep you all safe, comfy, and warm under the blanket of *insert European capitol here* script. European thinking sees the welfare of their people in totality. So it's not just social welfare you get from such systems... "free" healthcare, subsidized housing, schools, etc... but you also get the rest of the "protection" philosophy... that you have to protect people from themselves. Speech codes, bans on anything the government deems "extreme", they're all part of the paternalistic view that you're protecting and providing for your people. Father's job is to feed, house, and keep the kids safe. Part of that is disciplining and setting rules that they have to follow, for their own good. With a few exceptions, this is No Bueno is most of North America, but again, Europe isn't America. It has a considerably different mindset.

Comment Re:Nepo babies (Score 1) 32

This just illustrates the way the rich get richer.
Going to a "good" school means that you make connections to get a good job and then it just keeps going from there on out.

Did you even RTFA?

"Our analysis takes advantage of administrative data from a large, urban, public college system "

The analysts are from Columbia, a private Ivy League school. Not the students. Since they're NYC based, the students they were studying were almost certainly from the public City University of New York system. Not at all hard to get into, and no need for "nepo baby" admissions.

Comment Re:Netflix movie (Score 4, Interesting) 43

Sounds like he planned to double his money through some quick investments and then lost it all. Ironically, this would make a great Netflix movie.

There was a movie called Kill the Irishman, starring the late great Ray Stevenson, that had a similar plot point: Danny Greene borrows money from the Mob to start a restaurant. The courier tasked with delivering the cash decides to take it and buy heroin with it, re-sell it at a profit, and keep the difference for himself. Except the sellers are Feds in a honeypot scheme. The money is gone, the Mob demands Greene pay them back, he refuses, so the order goes out to "kill the Irishman".

Comment What a lost opportunity for Microsoft (Score 2) 19

Microsoft could be making a killing on ex-VMware customers if they would just improve their management tools on Hyper-V. That keeps a lot of enterprise customers away. MS's management software for VM's is barebones compared to what VMware offers. But Broadcom seems determined to dare their customers to leave. They're pretty arrogant because they're confident most of their customers will pay the bigger bill instead of jumping to a far-less feature-rich solution.

Comment Re:I laughed (Score 1) 56

For Aldi, which uses Instacart, I assumed it was because there is no 'fee' for pickup, but they have to pay someone to shop for you. I consider the difference a convenience fee.

That said, by not shopping in store, I end up getting only what is on my list and end up paying FAR LESS than I would if I was wandering around.

Comment Re:Just a RIF? (Score 3, Funny) 39

More and more I am wondering if these AI "initiatives" are just an excuse to reduce headcount and figure things out later, rather than an actual commitment.

It's a bit of both. They really think AI will eat those jobs, and they're almost certainly right. It's just a matter of getting the timeline, and better to be early than late on big defining trends.

The glorified scripting that we're calling AI, along with other automation and robotics, is going to end entire categories of jobs, with nothing visibly in sight to replace them. Unless you can get governments to mandate make-work positions, there's really no way to stop the waves of layoffs that are coming.

Comment Re:Trump Trying to Silence CNN (Score 3, Interesting) 206

It's easy to make your case when you just exclude alllllll the conservative media particualrly in new and alt-media spaces. Let's list some out:

With the exception of Fox and the WSJ (and maybe Rogan), that list has nowhere near the reach or audience numbers as even the worst rated MS-Now program. For every thing you list there, there's at least one and usually more left-wing equivalents. And all of that is beside the point, because...

For Republicans to claim they have no media presence

Uh, who is doing that? The whole point of the parent post was his assertion that conservatives are buying "all the media". It's a horseshit assertion, just like "Republicans claim they have no media presence".

while they have been dominating the entire media landscape for 20 years

Holy shit, you're either delusional or that's the most Stalinesque piece of spin I've seen in years. In what alternate fuckin' reality do you live in where Republicans have dominated the Big 3, NPR, Newspapers, wire services, etc etc etc?

Comment Re:Trump Trying to Silence CNN (Score 2, Insightful) 206

It's legitimately frightening how conservatives seem to be buying up all the news media/p>

What? Please give me an example of "all the news media". Even if Paramount would get WB and properties, and even if you count CBS as "Pro-Trump" now... which is laughable on its face... ABC, NBC, PBS, MS-Now, The New York Times, and the vast majority of city newspapers and wire services are in no way, shape or form owned by, or friendly to, conservatives. Add to that the considerable influence of magazines... Politico, etc... and any notion that "conservatives are buying up all the news" is farcical.

Comment Re:College education is still worth it (Score 1) 145

If anything, the Internet has revolutionized and democratized education to an extent undreamed of in human history.

Yeah, go ahead and put "Didn't attend college, but I spent a lot of time reading Wikipedia, Reddit, and getting tutored by ChatGPT." on your resume and see how far that gets you. /s

There are already first-level companies that no longer require a degree for entry-level positions... Google among them. This is only going to accelerate. There will be more things like 3rd party certification programs that to some extent replace traditional degrees. Colleges can either adapt to this change, or be wiped out by it.

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