As a long time editor I've seen how the bias works. It's frustrating because I remember when, broadly speaking, it was neutral. It starts at the top where the Wikimedia Foundation funds left wing groups and does not fund right wing groups. It runs fundraisers but people don't realize that it is swimming in money and diverting it to Art +Feminism, Black Lunch Table and Whose Knowledge.

These organizations publicly admit that they aim is to edit Wikipedia pages with leftist ideologies. Art + Feminism has an instructional guide showing how to create Wikipedia content about transgender and LGBTQ+ individuals.

Wikipedia has removed conservative news organizations as acceptable sources for news articles. The problem with that act of censorship, is that to construct a neutral article you frequently need balancing sources to achieve neutrality. Often there are facts that only a right or a left wing source will say. Given that mainstream new organizations are left wing, certain facts become impossible to source on the site.

You won't find the same treatment for conservative leaning people as you would for progressives. Often a few dog whistle words are added prominently by editors to a conservative's profile to signal that they are outside of Wikipedia's own Overton Window. And they will not uncommonly coordinate privately off-site, despite that being a violation of Wikipedia's rules.

Ironically, I remember completely different times before 2012 when I got into an edit war with conservatives that didn't want inconvenient facts mentioned about an anti-immigration organization. I spent significant time expanding a stub-like article into something comprehensive, only to be viscously attacked.

Now it's the other way round. It's progressives doing the attacking and edit warring. I was drawn to Wikipedia in part because of it's neutral point of view but it's now a progressive point of view hidden behind a few figleaf phrases here and there to deceive a superficial reader.

You think it is bad timing because it will increase the number of people leaving Disney services. But I think it will muddy the waters so no one will be able to definitively say why people left. Did they leave over Kimmel? Did they leave because the price went up? Who can say? This way, no one can be blamed for falling subscriber numbers.

It may be bad for the company, but it is good for executives who don't want to be blamed.

Of course, the most likely explanation is that this had been planned and the timing was just a coincidence. But that explanation is boring.

... Florida does not have a problem with invasive Python scripts.

As a software developer in Florida, I can tell you that Python scripts are definitely invasive. Twenty years ago, there were practically none, and now they are all over the place! They gobble up precious white space and unused braces just fall from the brace trees to rot, uneaten. They've driven cute, innocent Perl and shell scripts almost to extinction! It's quite a problem almost no one is talking about...

Python is kind of the modern Visual Basic in that it makes it easier for non-experts to create applications to accomplish their specific tasks. While this is probably overall a good thing, it does mean that there is lots of poorly written Python code out there. Even Python code written by professional software developers can be bad. I dealt with some Python scripts once that took 30 seconds to print help usage because of how many imports they were doing.

As far as GUIs, PyQt is useful for creating Qt GUIs. Qt generally uses native platform widgets and themes so they blend well on various platforms. Unfortunately, it is one of those batteries that is not included. Though I just checked and the `PyQt5` module was installed on my local Linux machine, so YMMV.

Jupyter notebooks are a web based Python interface that can help visualize results from Python functions, but again that is a separate package, and may not be what you are looking for.

That article is dated September 30, 2016, which is probably the Friday referenced. I was curious, and found this follow-up, dated 11/04/2016, indicating that lawsuit was again dropped. it further stated that the first lawsuit was dismissed because the federal law cited did not apply (apparently it would have had to have been a race based rape, which seems like a really crazy law).

btw, this was based on a some simple Google searching. Here is a brief Wikipedia description of the case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegations#Katie_Johnson/Jane_Doe_(1994). Wikipedia seems to match both articles, and confirms that this is a 9 year old case.

When the Gov is paying all of the bills it can really drive down prices

That's why all those tanks and fighter jets and aircraft carriers are so CHEAP!

Or alternatively, consider the US university system prices when the government started providing more money (in the form of loans) to students who otherwise couldn't afford college. Yes, that's not the only factor, but an increase in the demand for something, especially by giving out money for that thing, will likely increase that things price, not lower it.

A person or group of people suing a private company falls under none of them.

It falls under the first of them, in the appellate form. SCOTUS would not re-try the case or anything, but could consider the application of law(s) used in the case and whether those laws are compatible with the constitution.

I think we're probably saying effectively the same thing, just in different ways.

SCOTUS only hears cases that related to either lawsuits involving the government or government officials, or matters of law/legality (including constitutional/civil rights).

The second part of that is correct, though the first is not. Any cases could come before the Supreme Court, though a great many will involve the government (executive branch) in some way. This is kind of a selection bias, though, because the government has the resources to appeal (or fight appeals) all the way to the Supreme Court, and because the government is a party in a great many court cases (all criminal cases, for example).

Important cases do tend to involve the government, though, since they establish what the government can or cannot do, which affects all of us.

[ IANAL, so any or all of this could be wrong, but I think it is correct ]

Seen Youtube lately? I just watched a video on how to make nitroglycerin. Stuff like this has been available for over a decade.

Back in the days that home solar systems still mostly used lead-acid batteries - which in some cases of degradation could be repaired, at least partially, if you had some good strong and reasonably pure sulfuric acid - I viewed a YouTube video on how to make it. (From epsom salts by electrolysis using a flowerpot and some carbon rods from old large dry cells).

For months afterward YouTube "suggested" I'd be interested in videos from a bunch of Islamic religious leaders . (This while people were wondering how Islamic Terrorists were using the Internet to recruit among high-school out-group nerds.)

Software - AI and otherwise - often creates unintended consequences. B-)

A bunch of billionaires who shouldn't have had copyright a day later than 14 years are whining that they can't have even more intellectual property stuffed into copyright.

AI is not copying your songs. They're learning from them to make something different. Humans do this every time they create something new and are influenced by what came before.

We need to reduce copyright back to 7 years where it's economically justified to encourage innovation. And allow low income creators the chance to renew for up to another 7 years later. Waiting a century before copyright expires is simply mad.

Copyright is being abused and it's no longer about encouraging innovation. If concentrates wealth and is a key driver of inequality. It has been extended and extended. It went from a reasonable 7 years to 14 years renewable to 28, then life of the author plus 50 to life plus 70 years.

It was extended to buildings which is completely ridiculous. They industry tried but failed to extend it to clothing. There is absolutely no reason why an AI shouldn't read a work because it doesn't compete by selling a copy of the original work.

Copyright holders have no limit to their greed. (I don't want to debate a straw man of an AI reproducing an entire text verbatim. Yes, it happened briefly but that does not happen anymore.)

AI cannot replace human human touch or smell. Human touch is inversely correlated to anxiety, depression and stress.

Human touch calms us and slows down our heartbeat. It lowers blood pressure and cortisol. It triggers the release of oxytocin, (the hormone known for promoting emotional bonding to others.)

Humans are constantly smelling themselves and other people. A study in 2020 revealed that people subconsciously smell members of the same sex more often than those of different sex.

Researchers have found evidence that the explosion in teenage depression is linked to insufficient human interaction because its replaced by digital interaction.

AI friends sounds like the stuff of a dystopian sci-fi movie.

If taxpayers already paid for the research, they shouldn't have to pay twice. Making the research publicly available is an excellent idea.

Federal spending after WW2 went from about 14% of gdp then to about 23% of GDP now. State spending went from about 6% then to 6% now. So we're taxing and spending a lot more now.

In terms of spending on higher education, states reduced spending from 0.45% of GDP to about 0.3% now.

A lot of that was because Medicaid costs went up and the Federal government forces costs sharing with states on that.

High marginal rates actually hurts revenue and GDP. Some states have high combined marginal rates of 1.45% + 0.9% + 13.3% + 37% = 52.65%. (California). It's close to the point where economic growth is harmed.

And without GDP there's nowhere to pay for all the goodies we all want.

It's kind of surprising it isn't all squealing nonsense.

Give it a little more time. B-b