I stridently disagree. A voice conversation of some sort is almost always going to be more efficient than an email one.

Video is more efficient than email and phone is more efficient than video (really, I mean it: take a hard look at how much time is spent just dialing a number versus setting up a video call). In-person is the most efficient of all.

Carefully measure how much time it takes you to write a carefully-worded email versus just saying what's on your mind. For me, the ratio is about 5:1. And then, with an email the response isn't immediate, the correspondent likely didn't take the time to read the email carefully, so gets something wrong, and you have to send a clarification. This cycle repeats a few times. A simple, traditional phone call would have been done in 1/10th the time, and with a better outcome. At least for one-on-one communication, which is what TFS is about.

I had to educate one of my daughters on this very idea just the other day with its two implications. First, if you want to be understood, use the tools that best allow that. And second, if you are too lazy to make that low-level effort, you are implicitly insulting the recipient of your message with the subtext that the effort they spend trying to figure out the meaning of what you wrote is less important than the miniscule time you saved.

For me, as someone whose professional career is built upon communicating ideas, not using the right methods to communicate your message succinctly and accurately to your intended audience is a major failing. If it is out of laziness, then it rises to a character flaw.

Moreover, if your thinking is so clouded that an emoji is the best way of communicating an idea, you need remedial work in expository writing. Or you're hungover, one of the two.

I know of at least one company that was trying to do exactly that: have long tubes into which you pump air to some ridiculous pressure to store energy, and then run turbines from that compressed air when you want to draw back that energy.

No. Tipping is the problem, and the problem has gotten entirely out of hand. Make tipping illegal, and employers will be forced to pay wages that will retain their employees, and then, in turn, raise prices to compensate. At which point, we will have the system that Europe has been using for longer than I know, where being a waiter is not a stop-gap employment option while you're trying to do something else, but a respectable profession. There are establishments I frequent in various parts of the Continent where I see the same waiters working there, year after year, and there is never any problem with the service. Tipping is not expected, and if you do, it's a couple of percent. The prices on the menu are the prices you pay. No extra taxes, no extra tipping. Completely transparent.

It is pure commercial greed that prevents the US from adopting the same rational standard, and instead we get the fraud where the price you see is nowhere near the price you pay, except in very specific, isolated cases like fuel and airline tickets.

That's what's driving the recent increase in asthma: a more aseptic environment.

I ate dirt as a child, and I almost never get sick. My wife lived in a pristine environment and gets sick at the drop of a hat. These anecdotes are examples that are backed up by reams of rigorous science, some of which was done by a friend of mine, looking at the rate of respiratory illness in Papua New Guinea populations pre- and post-westernization. Their conclusion: we would be healthier if we lived with dirt floors.

I've seen Meta's glasses, and they look close enough to normal Ray Bans that you might not give them a second look. What was this guy doing to evoke such ire? I mean they look like normal eye glasses, not something unusual that would stand out like Google Glass.

Dude, learn about punctuation if you want to be understood.

But, you eventually will. Trust me, you will. Time catches up to all.

Best option is to write them down and put them in a bank vault, or similarly secure location. And include the bank identity in your will, which you entrust to a respected legal firm. Make sure that the bank knows what to do with the contents of the safe deposit box if they go belly-up.

Sheesh, talk about a rookie mistake.

Dress rehearsals are intended to be a run-through under full production, not dev, conditions. You hope and pray you never discover problems during dress rehearsals, but they exist for a reason.

And there are countries in Europe where if you do NOT do that sort of minimalist transaction arithmetic, you are given such a serious stink eye by the cashier that you think twice about going back again.

I jest ... but only a little.

There are plenty of places that will take your exposed film, develop, and scan and/or print for you, by mail, or in-person, at least around here. If there's a Hunt's Photo near you, they do a great job.

If you only want digital photos printed, then there are many, many places that will print pro-grade photos for cheap, and the results will be a damn sight better than what you get at the local drug store.

You're describing the consensus models, and they are better than any individual model, at least thus far.

When the new options are demonstrably worse, the change has no clear motivation other than just being for change's sake, and the outcome will lead to a worsening of already poor ability to communicate, then, the answer is, "yes."

No, no, no.

This, this right here, this is enshittification.

There have been many studies at this point showing that exposure to dirt, dust, and dander early in childhood results in low rates of asthma. I'm personally fondest of the one a friend of mine (Hi Dubes!) worked on in Papua New Guinea where they found the westernization of formerly isolated cultures where dirt floors are replaced by cement results in an increase in asthma.

I recall recently hearing of a study where it was determined that when an infant's pacifier falls on the ground, and the parent cleans it by putting it in their own mouth first before returning it to the child, the children end up with substantially stronger immune systems than if the pacifier is cleaned more vigorously.

As with many aspects of developmental biology, we are born with scaffolding that needs to be trained in order to function properly. A lack of that training leads to disease. So, yes, let your kids play in the dirt.