USB-C is much smaller and weaker, physically. Plug it in and out 2-3 times a day for a year or two, and it wears out, becomes loose or god forbid put a bit of pressure on it from a slightly angled/bent cable for a few weeks and it's game over. USB-A is much more durable, cable seems much more flexible, and it just holds things better without becoming loose. Some of this is helped with dongles/hubs/docks, but then again you take your laptop home every day and the first thing you do when get to work plug it into USB-C, go to meeting with laptop unplug, plug back in x times a day. It helps that most laptops nowadays come with multiple USB-C, but not much....

Same thing that happens under capitalism. Or socialism. Or any other system. Depends on how much people don't want something and how much they are resisting whatever the current law is. Try it out, say no to capitalism, go try to take what you think you "need", as you would under communism, from someone that disagrees with you. Depending on how much you insist, police will likely get involved, if you disagree and resist... there can be severe life changing/ending consequences. Same as communism really. So ideology itself isn't evil. One could argue that more people died under capitalism even. Comparing human suffering to ideology is like comparing apples and oranges.

They were worth it at 5.99$ without adds, but only for the first 6 months at 2.99$. I stopped buying streaming services when they started sticking adds in them. 20$ A MONTH for one of these fragmented services, even without adds, is too much.

If we go by laws of the time, why were there Nuremberg trials? Weren't German soldiers just doing what they were ordered? Yet, they were tried after the fact and convicted. This sets a precedent that "Yes indeed, if you do bad things that might not be illegal now, you may end up on trial for them later". So it really doesn't make sense why the crew of Enola Gay hasn't gone to trial as well. The west in general has huge problem with consistency, none of the laws or rules really matter, hypocrisy on top of hypocrisy. Iraq/Afghanistan Invasions, Ugoslavia, current conflicts in middle east involving Israel/Iran, Syria, Ukraine etc... almost every one of them contradicts the other. Ex: It's NOT right to invade Ukraine!, but it's ok when we invade Ugoslavia/Iraq. It's not right to help terrorists! But we still helped Al Qaida in 80s and Syrian "freedom fighters" that are beheading christians after.... and then suddenly Israel does a bombing run on these new Syrian freedom fighters we liked so much and we're ok with it lol. Torture is wrong! *cough" Guantanamo Bay *cough*. Dealing with western nations is like dealing with a seriously bipolar/inconsistent person, doesn't matter what rule they followed 5 minutes ago, as soon as it becomes advantageous for them they'll break it.

30 billion of 26 Trillion GDP is roughly 0.115%. That's equivalent of making 100k a year and donating 100$, exceedingly generous you say?

Make it possible to survive and afford basic lifestyle and a few luxuries occasionally on a single income. Population problem solved, almost overnight.

Make it necessary to have 2 incomes in a family, and you get population rates dropping like they are today.

Same in any place, any country, not just Japan.

Google better pray Russia loses WW3. In the event that they and their allies do happen to win, I don't know what laws are like over there for indentured servitude, or how many generations of anyone associated with google will be in debt for. I'm sure it won't be pleasant though.

Don't kid yourself, WW3 is already in progress at its early stages, almost all nations are involved already in one way or another, it just hasn't spilled out of Ukraine yet. This type of conflict is a first though. They may or may not lose conventionally, depends on what allies they'll have or how far it will go, but when facing conventional defeat, that's when nukes come out. Then what? No one can tell you for sure, because it never happened before. Best case scenario, agree to disagree and both sides walk away peacefully... but if comments here are any indication, mutual respect and walking away isn't very likely.

I get free AppleTV+ (cheapest plan with commercials) from T-Mobile. Nothing to watch there, as in at all, except maybe Foundation (it's alright). This is one of those things where free, still costs too much (I do have to deal with ads...) for what it is.

Biotech companies (most of which seem to work on cancer treatments/vaccines/cures/detection) go in and out of business in US all the time (https://biopharmguy.com/links/company-by-name-defunct.php). Startup>get capital>live large>fail miserably>go bankrupt. Sometimes last 2 steps are: get at least something useful out of your research > get bought by big pharma to cut some of the losses. But result is the same, cancer is still there and killing, but that's incremental progress for ya (maybe someday?). There's an article about some or other trial/breakthrough on slashdot at least a few times a week, this one happens to emphasize trials in Europe, so it's not that special.

Better example of that same song Contra Spem Spero I was talking about (I think it's youtube channel from original author). This one has a video they attached to it, no clue if AI generated the video to soundtrack. https://youtu.be/HNILpRZ0M1o?s...

Suno AI is pretty impressive. My wife got me with "Hey listen to this song" , I listened and I'm like hey it's not bad (PS: It's in Ukrainian). Sounds professional, pretty catchy, modern, overall I liked it. Then she comes back with "You know who sang it? AI". I'm like no effing way, let me hear it again. I listened a few more times, intonation, voice, accent and everything, beat, flawless.... I expected to hear some kind of quirk or something, but found nothing where I could say "Oh yeah it's AI". Turns out it's a poem written by Lesia Ukrainka sometime in 1890, they fed it into this AI, probably did it a few times as it does change styles (there's some piano in beginning and end, that's not in the middle) and some editing post that. Result absolutely professional sounding song. I mean to really appreciate it you'd have to understand Ukrainian, I don't have any examples of good songs in English generated, but damn this is quite impressive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

In other news, buggy whip manufacturers have been on strike for over a 100 years over unfair practices impacting their businesses after widespread usage of cars began. Surely someday the market will cave in, just like for these actors.

In other news, silicone and plastics also found, in large amounts, in women's breasts.

The whole 10% owns 90% needs a reset... Unfortunately those resets generally come in flavor of French or Russian revolution (beheadings, executions, civil wars, etc..). The modern equivalent being nuclear conflict. We're pretty much on track for that right now. If only there was some peaceful way, but who am I kidding, like those top 10% lottery winners would give anything up peacefully.... And I use the term loosely to describe people that lucked out in something, business, career, inheritance, made the right bet somewhere on something and followed through with it, doesn't exclude putting in a lot of hard work or having grit or persistence (by far not in all cases), but as we know there are plenty of people that worked hard all their life, but didn't make it into the top 10% too. So don't give me that whole must have worked super hard BS, go shovel a hole in the ground super hard and see if you are guaranteed to become a billionaire. There's always that "luck" or "circumstance" factor involved in making it to the top, like in the above "digging" example have to dig in the right place at the right time to actually get that chance to make it, so hard work alone isn't all.

Well, there goes any hope of me leaving SOMETHING to my kids after I'm gone.