And most of them will as it's less about pollution and more about cutting fuel usage... Which lets them get that MPG (or L/100KM) figure down in sales brochures. Also most other countries are going to keep the requirement and the US will adopt it when the current government finally collapses.

The bigger the engine, the more you notice the fuel consumption dropping, I had a BMW M240i and it was easy to keep the system from kicking in (just hold down the clutch... most steering wheel attendants will need to ask a real driver what that is) and the difference was a good couple of (British) MPGs over a 30 minute in town commute (a lot of stop-start). The fact was back in 2017 the system was good enough that I never bothered disabling it permanently as it was practically instant (and if I wanted to start the engine earlier, I could just use the clutch). This was a German 3L turbo, I imagine the difference it makes on an American engine would be even greater.

X-men... no, this is how you get Snorks Stalker.

With B5, it was really the side characters that made the show, far more than the main characters.

Londo and G'Kar both played brilliantly, Same with Garibaldi and Ivonova. Even the comic relief characters like Lennier and Vir, I always felt Londo's line of "Never let yourself become a joke to them Vir" (something along those lines) was a bit of fourth wall breaking showing that Vir Coto had stopped being mere comic relief.

The acting was terrible, but not really beyond the standard of 90s scifi.

Given what is happening in the US I have been wondering for a while now, did JMS really see this coming 30 years ago or is this just a case of life imitating art. There are a lot of parables between Presidents Trump and Clark.

You're familiar with India, right?

Modi has no intention of letting go of power. They're a democracy in name only.

As much as I think that Social Media corporations need to be held to account, this is just blatant over-reach and utterly pointless as the government has little power outside their own borders, even China can't police the worlds internet content and not through lack of trying (the US will have exactly the same problem if it tried to do the same). I predict this will just result in the Indian government being largely ignored, it's not like the EU will support them given how much they're begging European governments to loosen the migration rules for Indians.

I think we need to take a page out of the book of Skippy the Magnificent... because the answer to this question is a very sarcastic "duuuuuhhhh".

Most people just need a web browser these days, oddly enough we can thank Apple for hurrying that up. For this, something like a Chromebook is more than powerful enough, just not comfortable to use for extended periods (which is the problem phones and tablets have). ARM have struggled to break into the laptop/desktop space because X86-64 has been cheap enough and powerful enough that we haven't needed a cheaper architecture and the drawbacks haven't been a hinderance. It's less about the blame (on the user or otherwise) and simply about inertia, there isn't an impetus to change the hardware.

An impetus to change the software is coming (here for some of us) but this will take time due to inertia and resistance to change, however as more people start to use Linux you'll end up with even the laggards moving to it eventually.

I'm in the process of experimenting with gaming on Steam (and yeah, taking my sweet arse time about it) and I'm finding the biggest problems I'm having are trying to migrate my libraries from Windows to Linux (to be fair, I'm trying to use my existing Steam library on NTFS drives). I think if you're starting out fresh it'll be far easier. Also, those who want to game already know about hardware. Gamers are usually early adopters for PCs.

Apple's software (and hardware) quality has been bad for ages, it's just that the Reality Distortion Field is down and the shiny marketing is wearing off as everyone has become acclimatised to it. Basically people are now seeing Apple products for what they are, overpriced.

Apple has always been a massive cult, but it's gone from the kind of cult that did Waco to the kind of cult your dad joins in his 50s where everyone wears sandal and socks and pretends to be satisfied (also the odd bit of dogging or wife swapping but It's a modern society so who are we to judge).

I'mma just going to stop you right there.

This is not a new thing, especially in the US.

The idea that people owned up to things because it is the right thing to do hasn't been true for my entire life, probably far longer than that.

It's a result of our ultra capitalist society, altruism is one of the first victims of extremism.

However no-one embodies the quality more than faceless, well protected corporations. I have a dash cam (AU/UK) because if I'm involved in a car crash I want to be able to prove beyond doubt it wasn't me, people will lie when they know the truth will cost them... However the last thing I'd want to do is upload that to someone else who has the right to sell it to whomever they want. Sure, keep a camera for security. It's quite prudent in this day and age, but get one that stores the video locally otherwise you're not just telegraphing your life to all and sundry, you also risk losing access to the footage yourself when they decide that they can charge you for access as well as subscription.

"Why don't you open the curtains and let some light in" they ask... Because every mother fucker has a surveillance camera these days Karen... every... fucking... one.

This is before you try to explain to them that they're all uploading to the mother ship (Google, Amazon, MS, et al. ). after which they'll look at you gormlessly.

This, the gig economy exists because some companies found a method of employing people without having to say they're legally employed, ergo skirting employment laws, taxes, denying them benefits and being able to get rid of them if they dare challenge the management.

Its like companies that pay cash to hire people without putting them on the books... except they've found a way to do so in plain sight and have courts back them up.

Amazing that the "taxes are just wealth redistribution" or "taxes are theft" crowd never seem to get where the taxes are being redistributed to.

Exactly, the US has plenty of home grown idiot... no need to import more.

And on top of that... they're dumb enough to believe that once that has happened the apparatus the state has constructed won't be turned against them.