Given his other examples were mostly containing real stuff, you seem to totally agree.

The railroads continue to be key to this day, even if they overreacted in the day.

The Internet infrastructure absolutely is critical now, despite the somewhat false start.

Reform copyright, allow derivative works, abolish moral rights. What's the worst that could happen? Solves the problem of AI being "inspired" by existing works. Well, perhaps someone will write a crappy HP-inspired story about Tanya Grotter, a machine-gun wielding lady wizard who goes after bad Chechens (that is a real book, BTW). So what? The goal of copyright is cultural abundance, and that will (eventually) include AI generated works.

Look at Nosferatu, considered to be one of the great vampire movies. The movie was called that because they did not secure the copyright to the Dracula story, and after a lost lawsuit they had to destroy all copies and negatives. Luckily a few survived, and we can still enjoy it.

Exactly what background and/or career does prepare one well for the presidency? A law degree? Founding a successful business? A career in politics? An MBA? Perhaps being a comedian. Or perhaps the job (like many high level managerial jobs) is such a complex multi-faceted one that no career is going to prepare you for it, and no background is a great predictor for success. Perhaps it is more about personality than experience, but even that is not a great predictor. I've seen plenty of politicians who looked great for the job, only to turn out complete rubbish, or the other way around. Or a brilliant mayor who turned out to be a shit minister. And it depends on circumstances as well... one of our MPs is remembered as lackluster and ineffectual, but I think he would have been great if times had been different. Likewise I think that Zelensky would have been a so-so president in peacetime conditions... but he stepped up brilliantly after his country got invaded. Kind of how people look back on Churchill... before the war, people didn't think he was all that either.

Third options never go anywhere in a de facto two party system. You need 2 stage voting: "I want to vote for [independent candidate] but if he doesn't make the cut, I want my vote to go to [rep / dem]"

I grew up under the (basically) Soviet education system. I can tell that it's waaaaay better than the average K-12.

One easy fix? Have a high stakes gaokao-style exam for the US students. SAT/ACT are about as tough as a wad of toilet paper.

The K-12 system in the US has failed. The conservative fix here is absolutely right: institute a voucher system, with the Federally guaranteed funding level, and let parents choose schools. With obvious allowances for students with special needs, rural areas, etc.

It's quite clear that regulation is getting nowhere fast. Even the milquetoast Common Core requirements resulted in a revolt from schools not able to teach even basic literacy.

Hmm, I'd return it then, if they have got that much worse. A friend got a recent Panasonic 32" budget set and that seemed very responsive and quick to start up.

I think for all his faults, Xi does genuinely hate poverty and desire to lift people out of if. Maybe it's for selfish reasons like cementing his place in Chinese history, I have no way of knowing, but he is succeeding at it. His methods can be extreme of course, amounting to genocide in some cases, but the fascists got the trains running on time...

But if you are using it as a dumb TV then why do you need the interface? All you need is to change channels and inputs, and maybe the volume (I use my Nvidia Shield remote for that via CEC). I barely ever touch my TV's remove.

As for the lag, it depends on the model. The older and cheaper ones are bad, the newer ones are fine. I had one a few years ago (returned due to developing a fault with the screen after a couple of years) that was inexpensive and didn't think the lag was bad.

I'm a little surprised nobody has made a fridge with a motorized door yet. It seems so obvious, and those guys spend their working lives thinking about how to make fridges better.

It depends what you mean. Compared to the USA today... I'd say it's at least comparable. The UK legal system seems to be having some issues at the moment too.

But also failure to deploy renewables faster enough. This week we have had two periods of free electricity due to the abundance of renewables. The things keeping retail prices high are mostly gas and a bit of nuclear. Our system works on the basis that everyone gets paid the price of the most expensive source, which is always gas or nuclear (we don't have any coal).

Another example of NIMBYism making things worse for everyone. Every objection to renewables is forcing prices to remain high.

Tesla started doing it, now everyone is at it. At least with Xiaomi they don't change the behaviour of the system unless it's actually broken. It's not like Tesla were one week it does a stretch of road perfectly and lulls you into a false sense of security, then the next week it's broken and you die in a firey wreck.

I've heard complaints from autistic people that they have been accused of being AI due to the way they write. I bet the false positives are pretty bad with this one.

The real sad case is that there's nothing in the vast collection of film and TV that suits your taste. There seems to be plenty for everyone else.