That's definitely the case with things like dinner etiquette. Nobody REALLY cares about which spoon is which.

But politeness, being kind in your interactions, thanking people, etc., that's all there to help interactions with people that aren't your friends or family. I say please and thank-you to the folks at the farmer's market. I don't know them well enough to do anything else. There's a little bit of social lubricant there that gives me a framework of how to act with someone that's mostly a stranger.

I get that sometimes the niceties are annoying—don't ask me how I'm doing if you don't actually care; I'll TELL you and then what are you going to do?—but lots of them are just a way to make life a little easier.

Women aren't any more or less logical than men, from my experience. They may sometimes have a different set of assumptions, but most of the outcomes from there are internally consistent.

I've had a LOT more trouble with men being illogical or saying "that's just how it is" or something similar. They're far less likely to change their minds in the face of overwhelming evidence.

It comes down to who you surround yourself with. If you find that the women in your life aren't very logical, it may say more about how you've decided to associate with. (If you claim that you haven't chosen these people and they were somehow thrust upon you, that's worse, and still your fault.)

No, I haven't. The code that LLMs generate is suspicious at best. But that's the thing with so-called 'vibe coding': it's something that non-programmers do. They iterate using the prompts, not by taking the code generated by the LLM and fixing it up themselves.

If you're 'vibe coding', you're not interacting with the code anyway.

Well, no. You can see the difference between BL2 and BL3 despite them both being cel shaded games. You want fancy visual effects and the lighting still matters.

Also, we should be clear that Unreal isn't just a graphics engine, it's a whole game engine, and I don't think that we should be surprised that UE5 is a bit heavier and is doing more things. BL4 is a more open world game; I'm sure that's doing something.

Anyway, I haven't played it yet, and launches these days all seem to be a bit difficult for companies, so I'll reserve judgement until I get it on sale on Steam.

New home or apartment construction is more air tight than it used to be and companies cheap out and don't install real exhaust vents over stoves.

I've heard this touted as the reasoning, and it seems plausible at first glance, but I don't that better ventilation is going to make a significant difference for the following reasons:
1) In my personal experience, people tend to only turn on vents when what they are cooking is smelly or smoky in some way. The hazards as I understand them are from the burning methane itself, which is largely odor free
2) There's really no way to determine how well a hood is set up and how well it ventilates, even when it is ventilated to the outside. No doubt it is better, but by how much? Has anyone studied this? I'm unaware of any standard regarding this or any reasonable way of measuring.
3) There are situations where "proper" ventilation is pretty much impossible. What do you do in this case?

In order to properly address this issue we'd have to acknowledge the hazard, which a lot of people seem to be resistant to. I don't think we're doing anyone any favors by blaming bad construction.

It's using UE5, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here? That it didn't need the new engine? That UE 5 is worse somehow?

Also, they can't drop the cel-shaded look, it's part of the character of the game. I'm not sure what they would transition to--more realism? That would be weird.

If you don't plan correctly in an ICE, it doesn't start at all. The 12v battery won't turn your engine over.

There are drawbacks to EVs still, for sure, but we talk about ICE vehicles like they've solved the problem of extreme temperatures better and they really haven't.

I mean, you tell yourself that if you want, I guess, but there are two eras: pre iPhone and post iPhone, and the Android phones before the iPhone did NOT look like a modern smartphone. That was Apple. And Samsung and various Chinese brands still copy Apple to this day.

It's really just a fact, though you can cover your eyes and wish it weren't so, if you want.

Apple's phones never used thunderbolt. If you're talking about lightning, you'll note that before Apple made a cable where it was impossible to plug it in upside down, Android phones used micro-USB, one of the worst interface standards. There has been some talk that Apple itself was the progenitor of USB-C and they gave it to the USB standards consortium, but I've never been able to verify that. They WERE on the committee that developed it, though.

Wealthsimple will refund up to $5s in ATM fees if you have an account there. I think it might require an account minimum, but their chequing accounts pay out something like 3% (it's pegged to the Bank of Canada rate).

Anyway, I got super sick of the fees at TD, so I've switched basically all my banking over. I feel strongly that everyone in Canada should take a look at their bank and probably switch to either a Credit Union, or some sort of online bank. It doesn't have to be Wealthsimple, just get away from the big 6 banks. They're bleeding you dry with high fees and strongarm sales tactics.

"His concerns are echoed by Mercedes CEO Ola Kallenius, who recently warned the European car industry is "heading at full speed against a wall" and could even "collapse" if the EU doesn't reconsider."

Why is everyone a capitalist believing that the market will give us the solutions we need up until the time where they were caught sleeping and now they want us to please be nice to them?

We do not have time to coddle these babies. Figure something out or die, that's not my problem. My problem is that fires get worse every year and the droughts get worse every year, and more people die in heatwaves every year.

1. That's not true
2. You'll have to back that up better

Whether you like Apple or not, the SoC is still the most powerful one on the market, the cameras are still excellent (and better than 2021 cameras from any manufacturer), the video is still better than anyone else (and has been basically forever).

Like, there are plenty of reasons to not want an iPhone and I could name a bunch if you wanted, but this is a stupid comment that completely ignores reality.

It depends on what you mean by 'innovating', I guess. They deliver a lot of functionality for a price that's much lower than dedicated hardware would. Even for small-time creators on tiktok or instagram (or even YouTube), with no modifications, the iPhones pro are probably the best video camera you can get if you can have only one thing. So yes, I guess? They're miles ahead of anyone else with stabilization, video quality and features, and that happens to be pretty useful these days.

And despite that, everyone slavishly copies their phones and their UIs, for better or worse.

It doesn't matter if you think they're bad or not, the claim that they're the centre of the tech universe has been objectively true for years. Where Apple goes, others follow.

Are we starting to see that fade a little? Maybe. Nothing that you said was a counterpoint to what you quoted, it was just stuff to (rightly) be angry about.