No, actually if you read them, you'll find most of them are quite reasonable, and have already been copied by other countries (incl California).
The only dumb one IMHO is the FLOPS training limit.

So far, AI companies have only complained about one thing specifically: the fact that they couldn't train models using private user data without their explicit consent.

All the other companies have *claimed* that they were hindered by the AI laws, only to promptly release their models in the EU a week later. I don't live in the EU, but I checked with a VPN and it was indeed the case.

A lot of this is pure marketing and companies trying to exert political pressure on the only countries in the world trying to enforce sane privacy laws.

Drop the "(Gulf of America)", just "Gulf of Mexico". It's cleaner.

I have a very different interpretation.

> an LKML rust technical disagreement

The point is that there's no technical disagreement. It's only a philosophical/religious disagreement about whether Rust should belong in the kernel or not. (Go see the original thread, the maintainer flat out says that much.)

My issue with this situation is Linus' inconsistency. Either Linus accepts Rust in the kernel, or he does not. Since he did accept Rust in the kernel, he shouldn't allow maintainers to boycott patches just for the sake that they oppose Rust in the kernel, which is _exactly_ what seemed to be the issue here. There was no technical argument for refusing the patch. Nor was there a request for C developers to learn Rust, nor even to have Rust drivers consume C APIs directly.

This *really* seems like a situation where any leader worth the title should step in and resolve these social/philosophical/religious issues. Again: either kicking Rust off the kernel, or allowing it, are both fine options. But just an in between that causes chaos, including several maintainers to resign out of desperation, and just doing nothing, is leadership failure. Linus may have been very successful, but he's not a god, and this is clearly a failure on his part IMO. (I added this last sentence because people seem to put him on a magical pedestal).

You missed the point entirely, that's not at all what's being claimed by anybody. Go read it again more carefully, and while you're at it read the original post too, which precisely uses AOSP as an example.

Imagine graphics performance vs price depicted as a saturation curve: PS5 went the wrong way, getting more expensive for very little performance gains. I wish Sony would have (in addition to the Pro, perhaps) went the other way: give me the same PS5 graphics (perhaps even slightly less!) but for WAY cheaper. And smaller, while we're at it. That might have gotten me to invest in a PS5 while I would never get a Pro.

Tablets are great for browsing and reading pdfs, but prefer a laptop to writing documents and productivity things,even if I was to use an eternal keyboard.

The nice thing about using eternal keyboards is how long they last...

Couldn't agree more.
That IS the problem.
And a pretty major one.
Hence my last line about inviting everyone to drink the kool-aid and join me in the walled garden. It really would make my life easier, if everyone would just overlook questions about mysterious pre-approval of applications and Apple getting a 30% cut of everything and just join me here where the toys are shiny, the dragging and dropping works just fine, and no one is axing any instant messenger platform. At least for now.

Your post was insightful, informative, a fascinating slice of history and an excellent all-around summary. I don't mean to take away from any of it.
But when you wrote:

To date there's no match for messenger's "share photos", which let you drag and drop pictures to the chat window and have them automatically resized and compressed to something more decent, and shown "big" in the chat window. With the option, of course, to download full size and keep

That's not quite true. I regularly use iMessage (the client is called Messages on OSX, the service is called iMessage) to do exactly that. Having used both, I can say that I prefer the iMessage implementation. Not only can I drag and drop photos (songs, files etc.) but the ability to share with both people using the Desktop client (other OSX users) and iOS users (iPhones and iPads) is convenient and VERY useful. It sure would make my life easier if the rest of you would just join me here inside the walled garden...

Not speaking to the overall rightness or wrongness of your post -- BUT -- you got some basic facts about coal plants wrong in your last paragraph:

"Not a single coal fired plant currently operating on the planet existed when I was born (1959), every one of them has been built (and often rebuilt) in my life-time"
30-40yrs (the working life of a coal fired generator)

This links to a list which contains 37 coal plants in the US alone which have been in operation from 1938-1950 (the list stops at 1950 but one can reasonably infer that there are additional plants which were built between 1950 and 1959).

Again, not speaking to your overall point but you may want to consider how to incorporate this data set when making future posts...

And here is where I post simply because I've had the same signature for over ten years now on Slashdot and it certainly applies to this sub-thread...

I wonder if it's actually possible to commit suicide by swallowing placebos? Or is there some limit to the nocebo effect's severity that'd prevent that?

It can certainly lead to you hearing your neighbor's dog talk to you.

...um... And here I thought I was just upgrading to a newer release, not drinking Kool-Aid or proving I am a slave or whatever.

10.8 is a nice dot release. I am VERY happy to have AirPlay mirroring to my AppleTV. I travel and give presentations to small groups and in meetings, knowing that I just lost my tether and will be able to sit anywhere around the table instead of right next to wherever the monitor cable happened to be is kind of nice. I also appreciate the integration with my reminders app on my iPhone.

I dislike the fact that they removed Podcast Publisher. This means I am going to have to find a workaround for what (had been) an easy workflow for me. I'm sure I'll find other little annoyances over the coming days and weeks. And I'll adjust.

All things considered, I'm pleased. More than that, though, I guess I'm just really confused by the us-vs.-them mentality in the above post. I happen to use the OS I do because it seems to be the right tool for the job. I also run Windows 7 (via Parallels) so that I can run Visio and MS Project and a few other programs that I need. Sometimes my smartphone is the right tool (happens to be an iPhone but I've seen similar functionality on Android phones and Windows phones) sometimes my tablet... I don't feel "locked in" to any of it any more than I feel locked in by the choices a television network makes for their fall lineup or the choices my state has made for when and where road construction will occur. There are projects in life that are bigger than one person and choices are made we don't always agree with.

Jeepers. I had no idea I was drinking Kool Aid or stifling dissenting thoughts so as to stave off madness. I've been coming to Slashdot for over 14 years. I appreciate a low 4 digit UID. But really, does a content free screed about how open source is the only right path posted minutes after the article hits the front page really further the discussion about the OS X Mountain Lion review?

Precisely Pangolin.