I mean I do think that we the taxpayer are going to get stuck paying for it when there's a shake out and all those bank loans turn out bad but the actual infrastructure is going to continue to be used by billionaires and trillionaires.

The ability to replace white color workers and to eliminate paying wages is what AI is all about. Paying wages is the problem AI solves.

That is worth a hell of a lot of money and that's not going to go away.

I think the confusion is everyone assumes AI is a consumer product because they mostly interact with it by asking it to make cat videos or something.

AI is not a product, AI is capital that the billionaires use to replace wages. It's automation.

If all you can do is hear it you're lucky. A lot of people get headaches from the noise. It's kind of a low level drone that really messes some people up

What they are doing is buying off the state level legislatures which are already heavily controlled by pro-republican politicians thanks to a campaign by the heritage foundation to take over the state legislations.

They also go after the corporate commissions and everybody forgets those exist and doesn't realize just how much power they have.

Then they just passed laws or just have the corporate commission over rule the local community.

If you want to avoid having all your water and electricity taken by data centers you're going to have to change how you vote and that means you're going to have to be more difficult to manipulate with propaganda blitzes. Because we have winner take all voting and quite a bit of voter suppression so all it takes to pack your state legislature and your corporate commission is it 2 week ad blitz right before the election and an extra hour of wait time to vote on election Day

El Bunko’s transnational schemes

This is quite a network of “deals”:
        https://www.nytimes.com/intera...

A short list of his bunks compiled by me and not from the article (which is waaasy more extensive than I have stomach to compile):

1. Sneakers
2. NFTs with him doing stupid shit
3. Watches
4. Fragrances
5. Cabinet positions: he promises “cabinet advisory positions” to the Maggots in emails, all you need to get one is contribute to him.
6. Bibles
7. His "media company".....just announced they "lost" $400 million in the last year. That's $400 million of other people's money he and his cronies have made off with.
8. The el Bunko guitar
9. Shirts with he and Elmo on them
10. Gold one dollar bills
11. Gold Bars
12. Siphoning money from criminal seizures into a National “Strategic” Bitcoin Reserve thereby increasing money into the shitcoin industry and his own shitcoins.
13. Cabinet positions for his billionaire “contributors”
14. Advertising Teslas on the White House lawn. The Bunk: Elmo announced he’s putting another $100 million into el Bunko’s political operation.
15. $447,000 Birken Crocodile Handbag.
16. Golf “tournaments” at his golf course fueled by Saudi money; the Saudis are above corruption in the same way a brick is above the Sargasso Tea (thanx Douglas Adams)
17. Don Jr. has a millionaires club to rich to get inside scoop on new Bunks.
18. Eric has crypt company merging with another so they’ll be listed on Nasdaq.
19. el Bunko’s own crypto so foreign governments and “friends” can contribute directly. United Arab Emirates put $2 billion into the Trump family’s new cryptocurrency outfit, World Liberty Financial.
20. Qatar’s 450 million dollar airplane “gifted” to DoD but he gets to keep it when he leaves office.after DoD tricks it out to make it secure.which they’ll do by first stripping it down and putting it back together again.
21. Auction to dine with el Bunko.
22. Qatar chipped in to help finance a Trump-branded beachside golf and luxury villa project in the country worth $5.5 billion.
23. el Bunko hotels for housing foreign “dignitaries”.
24. Selling pardons, sort of like the Catholic Church selling “Indulgences”.
25. A “gold-plated” phone ostensibly made in the U.S. but looking suspiciously like a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.
26. The el Bunko Wireless Company.
27. The el BunkoRX company, they do deals with drug companies to lower prices, for which they profit.
28. The new round of watches and other tat he sells from the Oval Office.
29. $240 Million he’s demanding from the Injustice Dept. for calling him out on his crimes and attempting to prosecute them.
30. Grifting off the Epstein files telling his Maggots he needs their money to defend himself.
31. Deal with Pakistan’s crypto-bros to dump money into his own crypto-crap.
32. Bailing out Argentina and Milei because if Argentina goes much further south, el Bunko and Scott Bessent lose their “investment” in the cypto-crap Milei was promoting until it tanked.

All of his tat is made in China. And he is hawking it now from the Oval Orifice.

Of course, they also charge you more for your heat and air during the day. With a whole-home time-of-use plan, they're likely to get their money either way.

I'm pretty sure the only way you're not going to get screwed with your pants on is to have a separate meter on an EV-B rate plan. Totally worth $1.50 a month. Too bad I'm not currently eligible because of where I live (because PG&E doesn't own the meters). Then again, I have unlimited supercharging, so I guess I probably wouldn't use it anyway. :-)

Sure, but only if you also have a Powerwall or similar. Otherwise, your car is going to be at work during the day, rather than charging at home, and you're going to be getting jack s**t for your excess solar during the day thanks to PG&E's rate structure, and then buying that power back at night at full price.

PG&E nearly went bankrupt with lawsuits over their mishandling of gas pipe maintenance (San Bruno explosion) and high tension line maintenance (multiple wildfires). If they can't make a profit from cutting corners on maintenance, their only choice is to make a profit with extortionate rate hikes. /s

In all seriousness, the biggest mistake multiple California governors have made was not letting PG&E go bankrupt, buying up the assets, and starting over with a state-owned not-for-profit power company. For-profit essential utilities are like for-profit medicine: you pay more for less. Competition never really works when you have a natural monopoly like essential utilities or when comparison shopping is impractical, such as emergency medical care. That's why certain essential services are generally better off socialized. And anybody arguing otherwise doesn't have a solid grasp of economics.

The current batch of editors here don't like posting things that aren't tech or nerd related no matter how big the story. The only exception seems to be the actual presidential election every 4 years.

But this is too much to not talk about so they posted a story with an AI angle.

In California, even if you can charge at home, the cost per mile is more than many gasoline-powered cars:

Model 3: 3.7 to 4.2 miles per kWh. PG&E residential service averages 45.33 cents average per kWh. That's 10.79 to 12.25 cents per mile.

My usual gas station is $3.90 per gallon. A Prius hybrid gets 56 miles per gallon. That's 6.9 cents per mile. Add to that an oil change for $100 every 5,000 miles on oil changes, which is 2 cents per mile, and the Prius hybrid is still 2 to 4 cents per mile cheaper than the Model 3.

The only way you save money per mile with an EV in California is if you have free unlimited supercharging or free workplace charging. And even then, somebody is paying for your charging, just not you.

But that kind of stuff is usually easy enough for a company to work around with a little bit of legal bullying.

The reason we're talking about Betty boop in the public domain at all is because the original character is genuinely in the public domain but it's the original character not the one we associate with Betty boop.

So yeah well technically some of the other character work might be in the public domain it gets real dicey real fast. And I don't think anyone would risk the lawsuit. Certainly not for a commercial product

Regarding your numbers, he won the popular vote and increased across nearly all demographics. He gained ground among pretty much all groups.

Keep it up, you're just ensuring that when DJT runs for a 3rd term, he'll have a much easier time doing so. Kamala was a dud, just like Romney. I would probably enjoy hanging out with either of them. She seems pretty cool, generally. She won my vote, but the election is about more than me. But she didn't lose because she was black. She didn't lose because she was a woman. She lost because she was less persuasive than DJT to the voters. It's the highest office in the USA and you need to bring your A-game. She seems pretty swell...but that ain't enough. Being the superior candidate is not enough if you can't convince the voter.

But for fuck's sake, cut it with the LAZY racist bullshit. She lost, fair and square. Want to know how to win?...come up with a candidate who is more persuasive than the other....you won't win a fucking vote by shaming people for not voting for the black/Indian woman. People don't vote because they're afraid you'll think they're racist.

FUCK OFF with the identity politics. You're just alienating potential voters. Sorry, the party of "hey, we're responsible adults AND we put an Indian/black woman on the ticket"...can't compare with the bullshit DJT sold. Frankly, the message "hey, the other guy is a clown" also isn't very good to anyone but rational voters....and sorry, there are not enough rational voters to win a majority.

Obama won 2 terms handily. There are many theories as to why, but I'd go with he had a message of hope and change and a likeable personality and a well understood campaign...as well as inept opponents. Kamala had neither. I followed the election closely and can't remember her message or much of her campaign at all. She blew it. Hillary blew it. It's not race or gender. It's simply sucking at running for office. If either was better at their job, they would have won.

Adults see this and say "shit, my sales pitch failed, I need to come up with a better one."....children like you whine and call the voters racist/sexist.

If we could recycle it in a good way that was worth doing and profitable we wouldn't be having this conversation.

We need to be getting away from plastics and disposable culture in general but that's not on the table because it's not profitable so instead we're going to solve the problem for the wealthiest out there and everyone else gets screwed.

If you've got the money you'll have filtered water and food that's been raised on filtered water and if you don't you get plastic in your balls and your brain.

Lots of young black, Latino, and Asian voters voted for him as well...as well as lots of older ones. You do like democracy, don't you? If you need someone to blame, blame the Democrats for their consistent losing streak and their inability to adapt to changing times. Are they the best choice? absolutely...especially since the alternative is so terrible...however, it's their fucking job to make the sale, not mine, not yours....and Kamala was a SHIT SHIT SHIT saleswoman...same with Hillary. Sorry, that's democracy. Candidates make the pitch & the public votes....and DJT made a better pitch.

Finally. Please go fuck yourself. Seriously...you're a racist, an idiot and an asshole for such statements about white men. I'm not young. I'm not white. I will wager I vote just like you...and you're really fucking hurting our cause. You want to win elections? You do so by persuading people your ideas are superior, not by shaming them based on their race. Whatever you think of young white men, every vote counts. Your statement is shitty and racist...but beyond you being a shitty racist....you're also very poorly informed. Do your research. Trump gained in nearly every demographic.

But as far as I know the original Betty boop is in public domain but that's the one that is basically a doggy girl. The Betty boop that most of us think of as Betty boop isn't yet in public domain.

I agree that trademark doesn't cut it here. Disney can use Mickey mouse as a trademark because they really do use the mouse ears as a trademark symbol to indicate Disney but there is absolutely no one using Betty boop as a trademark. Still as long as they can threaten legal challenges that will prevent pretty much anyone from touching the IP so mission accomplished I guess.

Colloidal silver is almost certainly useless when taken orally, but don't knock silver in general. It is used in wound dressings for a reason. Candida auris is one of those reasons. From the article: