A chunk of that money is unrecoverable due to various circumstances like death, and the money was just sitting in the bank, building interest. But of course it's being used by the bank to invest in also. All of that cash is going to get yoinked out of the banks, which is going to ultimately hurt the banks.

And who gets the money? Is it just being confiscated by the government for general use like a tax? Or is there some dedicated public program the money is earmarked for?

And I'm sure they know that there will be a chunk of accounts that technically COULD be updated, but it's just not worth the effort for the account holders, either due to it being too small to bother with, or it's a middling amount but has too many hoops to jump through, or hoops they don't WANT to jump through. So again, grab the cash. They're small amounts, but it's going to add up.

And of course there'll be the chunk of them that are fruits of illegal activity, where the owners don't want to take the risk, and so again, yoink goes the cash.

This is looking like quite a (self-made) windfall for the government?

Spreading known lies to the detriment of others ought to be illegal. But the politicians would never support such a bill. For too many of them, that's their bread and butter.

DHS/NSA/FBI has been doing something ILLEGAL for years?! I'm absolutely shocked!

Will there be a shred of accountability? of course not!

Like high speed photography, small lenses require a lot of light, and are useless without it. I wonder how practical something like this can be? At the very least they're going to need to be paired with some pretty high tech image sensors. Regardless, it also brings into question how high the resolution could practically go.

Small, high res, low light, and fast shutter speed are all competing against each other, and you usually have to at least compromise on one (or two) to do well with the others. If you're starting out with a very small lens, there's going to be a lot of compromise going on, which will greatly limit the number of applications you can use it in.

There are at least three different reasons this is bad.

First, this is one more sign (of about 15 court cases at this point) that this court is willing to give Trump massive powers simply because he is pushing for them and they agree with him politically. And there's no reason to remotely think he's going to stop.

Second, it means that the Presidency (already an already too powerful office in the modern form for any one person) is going to be even more powerful under for the first time under a far more authoritarian person without any safeguards in place.

Third, is more subtle: even if we get through this with Trump with only some damage, the long-term damage and threat to stability is massive. In general, parliamentary systems or presidential systems with somewhat weak presidencies are more stable than those with powerful presidencies. One sees this in for example the high instability in many presidential republics in Central America and South America. The standard explanation for this is that when there's functionally a winner-take-all system, the stakes becoming higher and the degree to which any side has an incentive to moderate becomes small. One question then is why this hasn't happened in the US? One explanation is that the US had the illusion of a not deeply strong President, in part because everyone (including the Presidents) agreed tacitly not to push the limits of their authority that much. The precedent breaking nature here undermines that illusion, and makes it more likely that we'll have years (possibly decades) where the Democrats and Republicans will even more than usual treat everything as a zero sum game with no respects for democratic norms.

The bottom line is that everything about this is bad.

loved that performance in Total Recall.

So this is where we're headed? Fail to pay them and they explode?

My wife works in a library. Some of these people become not just defensive, but outright hostile. Part of the problem is socioeconomic and education based. A lot (not all but a lot) of people using libraries on a daily basis don't have much formal education and have little experience with computers. Much of my wife's work is just helping people do very basic tasks, like showing someone how to open a Word document, or how to download or upload a file for a job application. So for probably some of these patrons, ChatGPT must seem like magic. The interface is simply typing what they want, and even highly misspelled or garbled requests will generate something like a coherent response from it, so they don't even need to know what any icon means. And if one is dealing with people who often literally don't understand the difference between a file stored on a computer and a file on the cloud (to use one common example) then even explaining the idea of an AI hallucination is going to be an uphill battle.

As is the case for almost all international treaties, enforcement mechanisms are limited. Egregious violators will get pressure from other countries. Many countries will depend on citizens to enforce it. For example, in some countries regular citicizens can file lawsuits when their country is not fulfilling treaty obligations. But generally, when countries sign on to international treaties, most involved countries also pass internal legislation to comply with treaty aspects. This is the way for almost all international treaties, and it largely works. People have an idea that international law doesn't work but the vast majority works fine, and we often just notice the serious failures and breakdowns, not all the stuff that is quietly working on a day-to-day basis.

Making things even worse we now see MAGA flexing another muscle here to exert force on America; they are getting people all over the country fired for daring to express a non-MAGA-endorsed opinion of the matter. Yesterday ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel indefinitely for stating a few days ago that we didn't know the politics of the shooter. How dare he suggest that the shooter might not be the left-wing devil that MAGA insists him to be!

There are endless counts of other people across the country who are losing their jobs for daring to say something disparaging on social media about Kirk after his death as well. MAGA is very openly celebrating these firings.

USB-A is legacy and is going away. It's like serial ports and VGA. Get an adapter for single accessories (they're CHEAP, like $5 for two) or get a little travel dock if you need several USB-A ports and only have one or two USB-C. (or go wireless)

Everything is either going wireless (because it can) or USB-C (because of the laundry list of upgrades it provides)

In a few years the only new things I expect to see on the market that are USB-A are the handful of things still trying to get minimal power or charging. Though even charging is going away due to the low power delivery of USB-A.

Right now Woot's got a dual USB-C 35w GaN charger for $7, and a decent USB-C travel dock for $14. If you're still clinging onto USB-A, start your transition now. Just rip off the band-aid and get it over with.

We should also consider the non-zero chance that he was shot by someone not for being too far to the right but rather for not being far enough to the right. Remember there are a lot of MAGA folks who are tripping over each other to see who can be the most extreme; years ago the GOP passed a point where they would have thrown out Reagan for being too far left and now the MAGA party is even further yet to the right.

There is a long list of times during this - and the previous - Trump Administration when it seemed clear that would happen. We thought they finally got to the point where they wouldn't be able to stand each other and they would annihilate their own. Never before did it happen; indeed they only rallied harder each time and came out stronger.

Now they have a new martyr. Any time anyone doesn't toe the MAGA line they will be accused of leading towards "another Charlie Kirk". In fact they could have hardly asked for a better event, as they can use it to also brush any other gun violence crime under the rug as well.

Say goodbye to democracy. Charlie Kirk managed to do exactly what he wanted - he killed it. He wasn't wise enough to realize it would take his own blood to take it down, but it is dead and buried now. The new Single Party State rises up now, and by the end of next month it will be illegal to be a democrat.

Right now is a good time to invest in your exit strategy if you don't align yourself 110% with the MAGA party.

Where did I encourage violence? You must have me mistaken with someone else. I have multiple times very plainly advocated against violence in all forms. I don't approve killing anyone by anyone else. Not by or for politics, not by or for the state. Murder is wrong, period.

In the 1960s the assassinations were of people who wanted to improve our country and bring about progress. This decade we're seeing assassinations of people of all stripes. There is no rhyme or reason to the violence any more. The only difference is that one party advocates exclusively for "thoughts and prayers" after any killing, because they are afraid their owners will drive them out of their cushy jobs if they ever propose any kind of legislative reform.

I didn't say anyone would make a new amendment. I said that the MAGA party would ignore the 22nd Amendment, and that the SCOTUS would not stop them from doing so. That's a big difference. Indeed a constitutional amendment is only passed by congress; the SCOTUS cannot make one. Up until now, the POTUS has been expected to follow the constitution, but that is no longer the case. Nobody is willing to apply any laws to Trump.

Again, nobody is looking to pass a new amendment, nor are they looking to repeal one on the books. They have license to simply ignore the constitution, and they will do exactly that. The constitution is no longer worth the paper it was written on.

I'm surprised that any (non-dictator) government today doesn't have a clear path-of-succession in place. The US has like six steps of succession iirc?
Sure, when you're digging that deep into the barrel you're not getting someone with the best of qualifications for the position, but at least you have a name.