The power of Christ.exe compels you.

They've got to be taxing something. The decline in tourism has to be hurting Nevada (it was in decline before Trump, but the tangerine traitor would have sent that decline into overdrive), I've been told Vegas is a ghost town these days, so they've got to make up the shortfall... They can't tax people or they'll flee the state that offers little else but low tax and they can't tax corporations for... erm... some reasons.

I think the problem is that he gave the code to the manufacturer for a bounty... so the manufacturer knows what the code looks like and where the guy lives to serve him court papers.

Also a lot of the time the end user isn't informed until they've already purchased the product. In some countries you're able to return them as "not fit for purpose" but even these laws have limits.

And people are pretty thick (British term for dumb). We should be labelling these things as restrictive "Will not work without an Internet connection", "functionality may be later degraded by manufacturer", "Requires a subscription" and the like but it can't be in size 0.000001 font on the bottom of the box hidden in a QR code as a manufacturer would put it... We'd need to make them prominent warnings like most countries put on fag packets (British term for a cigarette), we'd need "Will not work without an internet connection" to be printed over a picture of a Cat6 cable extending out of a prolapsed anus.

Even then, I suspect they'll only be marginally effective.

Long term, legislation needs to change to make manufacturers responsible for the long term sustainability for their goods. This means they will either work independent of the manufacturer (as our cars do, or at least used to) or the manufacturer is required to support the product beyond it's expected service life (as car manufacturers are expected to do). If they make a product dependent on their servers, those servers must be up and running for as long as the product is expected to be useful, even if it's long past it's warranty date. Even then, the issue remains that if a company goes out of business, no-one can be forced to support it even if they are forced to relinquish the IP.

Got to love the single mod down... Really just tells me I've upset someone and they can't argue.

The fact Airbus cannot open their order books fast enough for the A320 and A220 families tends to have a lot to do with it... where as Boeing are struggling to sell the 737 MAX crash edition. Customers are also turning their noses up at the 787 Squeezeliner as almost every single one is configured for high density, which is the opposite for Airbus' widebodies. Airlines that care for customer comfort are taking note.

Korean was likely offered a very, very favourable deal on this with very few penalties for withdrawing. Airbus will offer you no similar terms at the moment.

As an Australian, I can assure you no-one in Australia drinks that swill. Fosters is for export only, nothing is too bad for the rest of the world.

Seriously, I'd moved to the UK before I'd even tasted it. If you do get to Oz, Little Creatures is worth a taste.

This is pretty much true for any country. Mass produced piss-water is just that. You've got to get to the smaller breweries to get decent beers.

Asia I've found is particularly bad at producing any kind of beer, South America on the other hand has quite a few decent breweries. Colombia off the top of my head has 20 Mission, 3 Cordilleras and Bogata Beer Company (BBC). Sure it's all lager style but the climate is too hot to make ales. Mexico is good also I have been told, it's more than just Corona.

Although I suspect heroin would be cheaper in the US.

The problem isn't the AI... It's the society that makes young men want to kill themselves.

People, especially teen aged boys killed themselves long before ChatGPT came along.

I've once accidentally entered something into Google that made it come up with one of the number of one of the UK's help lines in the AI response. I can't remember what it was for the life of me but I found it rather hilarious at the time. I think they're taking reasonable efforts.

The problem is, when someone is dedicated enough they'll find a way and pain has a strange way of motivating you when you've had enough of it. Got the T-shirt and the scars (figuratively and literally).

The problem the parents have is that they ignored the kid, ignored the signs and then need someone else to blame for it all going horribly wrong. The kid felt he either couldn't speak to his parents or would be punished for even trying. Probably was punished for stealing his parents alcohol. Now that the worst has happened and they really don't want to blame the two people most responsible the parents are lashing out at whoever or whatever they can to avoid feeling guilt over ignoring or mistreating their son. As long as they get to blame someone else they can ignore the fact that they did, at the very best, ignore the problems and the fact that even if ChatGPT had of not helped at all he still would have found another way.

The problem for us, as western cultures is three fold
1. Parents seem to have a very privileged position where they're above all blame and responsibility. Having managed to accomplish one of our most basic biological functions seems to make them think they're above everyone else. This means whatever goes wrong they will never have to bear responsibility for it.
2. We treat suicide wrong. It shouldn't be taboo and it shouldn't be shunned. The more open we can be about it the more likely someone will seek help before whatever is troubling them becomes such a burden that they see no other way out. Those who survive a suicide attempt are treated as pariahs and outcasts, which makes the problem even worse as someone who thought death was their only option is then thinking they're so much of a fuck up that they couldn't even manage that is then treated as a burden and problem.
3. We internalise far too much, especially if the parents or community is living in a John Wayne fantasy of masculinity that never really existed.

I think a bigger problem is when a company tries to introduce it's own specific terminology. You're not a "worker" you're a "Company Xer", it's not an office it's a "X productivity hub", they're not your balls, they're "X-ticles"... So on and so forth. The more they try to enforce it the worse it becomes.

It's an attempt to force you to love a company, a company that will show you no love or loyalty but is trying to force the same out of you and in so doing break down the barriers between your work and home life.

I'm not against a bit of workplace socialising, you spend 25% of your life with these people and over 1/3 of your waking hours so it's nice to be able to like them but ultimately the agreement between me and the company is that I am exchanging my labour for money... that means I set barriers to when and where the company can expect that exchange to occur. I'm happy to work, just don't try to make me care.

What really annoys me though are the overly enthusiastic presenters that always try to whoop and holler and get everyone involved in what is inevitably a very dry meeting. I have no issue with the dry meeting as it's better to be informed about the company as a whole... but it's not eviction night on some vapid reality TV program, get to the meat and potatoes so we can all go about our day.

I wonder if these people get home after a long day of acting like a flog and say "Where did it all go wrong? I have a degree in media studies and drama... Andrew said my Hamlet made him weep like a little girl and now I just whoop on a corporate stage".

That's not the issue.

The activation is done completely outside the store's control. Mostly by Denuvo and if they stop activating it you can download it as much as you like but you can't play it (well, not without a crack).

And will probably have the same problems as operating a helicopter. They're hugely weather dependent, require large flat areas to land and take off from (even though the foot print is fairly small, they rarely land or take off vertically) and will be pretty expensive to run. Also they tend not to be the safest aircraft as they have a lot of single points of failure. All of this makes them impractical to operate in urban environments.

Not sure why you'd pick one over a tried and tested Bell or Eurocopter if you've got the use case for one.

Put simply, these will not be landing on your drive, even if your drive can accommodate a few stretch limos.

They're way ahead of you buddy.

Every aircraft will be travelling with at least one of these (or similar) as standard. The best (and sometimes only) way to stop a lithium battery fire/thermal runaway is to smother the device in something that can cool it completely. The bags are also designed to contain smoke as well. Somewhat lighter than gallons of water and lithium batteries can keep burning even when completely submerged.