I’ve seen 3 articles posted about this, and the fact that the monkey’s name is Punch has made all 3 headlines very unnecessarily difficult to parse.

The distinction is that NIMBYs only object to the infrastructure when it’s in their back yard. I think the majority of people object to these data centers anywhere, but only have voting power to directly oppose them in their back yards, so that’s where their effort is spent. I haven’t seen anyone say “I definitely want another massive datacenter to go up, just not here.”

It’s not like stealing, it is stealing.

Like most things in life, in moderation it can be fun. Adding some stakes to an activity can make it more exciting.

It becomes a problem when people don’t have the self-control to self-regulate, and when it’s designed to prey upon those people specifically, or to prey on desperate people who feel like it’s the only chance they have to get ahead, or who don’t have a good understanding of the risks or chances of winning.

Humans as a whole are bad at understanding probability, and our brains are wired such that the happy chemicals we get from winning are more impactful than the unhappy chemicals we get from losing. As such, someone can be losing money overall, but still feel like they’re winning, or at least, still get the rush from winning even though they’re way down overall. That’s dangerous, and gambling companies are designed to specifically target those people and exploit those destructive behaviors. It’s like the experiment with the rat that was given a button to give itself happy drugs, and it just sat there pressing the button constantly. Basically, the regulations are necessary because of capitalism, and because without them, those people would very quickly ruin their lives given the chance while the companies running the operation give zero fucks about it.

Then there’s the fraud. Look at prediction markets. They’re rife with fraud and bet fixing and it’s not only politicians and policymakers doing it. John Oliver had a piece on this recently where he goes into some detail, but there’ve also been articles about journalists getting harassed and threatened because they report on something that would cause a Polymarket loss.

In conclusion, some humans are shitty and we need regulations to keep shitty people from doing shitty things.

Another article confirmed it was payment processors again. This is why we can’t have nice things.

I really have no idea, and this would probably be jurisdiction dependent anyway.

They do allow things like food, which it seems would come with more liability anyway, if they can be held liable for kickstarted things.

It sounds like it’s just insertable toys, so it might be a liability thing if they’re afraid people are selling unsafe toys? Who knows. That’s a really weird distinction and definitely one that payment processors don’t make.

And middle seat gets both armrests. Aisle gets the legroom and gets to take a piss without stepping over someone. It is the way.

Yep, I’ll take care of everything - just head down to the lot and pick it up. Best to go after hours.

Well…

The Marchi Mobile eleMMent Palazzo Superior (approx. $3 million) is a 45-foot, two-story mobile mansion with a master bedroom, spa-like bathroom, and over 730 square feet of space.

You’d pay a lot more than 25k for a 750 sq. ft. RV. Quick search suggests RVs typically range from 150-500 sq. ft, so this is 50% bigger than the largest model that range covers.

That explains the wait-then-dismiss situation. On the other hand, I wonder if the person on trial actually did it or if they were pressured into a plea deal…

I do not have a lot of faith in our court system.

I’ve been summoned as a juror twice in >20 years of eligibility. They have a number you call when the date comes to see if you actually have to appear or not; the first time, I didn’t have to go at all. The second time, I did have to appear; I sat in a waiting room with about 20 other people for an hour, then we were all told we could go home.

Overall, shitty experience.

I guess I’m suggesting that if you got kids used to using Linux, they’d be more likely to keep using Linux after graduating, on their personal computers. Nobody’s using ChromeOS for anything serious.

Imagine the technological shift we could see if they were similarly powered linux laptops vs. Chromebooks. Get kids used to linux in school and I bet we’d start seeing Windows losing much more significant market share.

Looks like a disembowelment.

I had to google this, legitimately thought you were referring to a Pokemon or something. Some weird combination of Geodude and Psyduck, maybe.

Look, if I have to go bankrupt for visiting the hospital to make sure that all these “rainbow flag” groups can’t corrupt our youth, that’s what I’m going to do!

• Conservatives, probably

Nowhere near as high-stakes as some of the others here, but…

When I was 16 or so, I was hanging out with a few friends and one of them pulled out a joint and a bottle of some kind of liquor, and started passing it around. I got a really bad feeling about it and bailed on it.

Found out the next day that after I’d left, they’d gotten pretty drunk and/or high, and had decided it would be a good idea to take one of their mother’s minivan for a drive around their property. They scraped the side of it on something, took off a huge bit of paint, and then decided the best course of action would be to use some spray paint they found in the garage to try and cover it up.

They were all grounded for quite a long time, a fate I managed to avoid by leaving when I did.

There’s also endless content of them confidently presenting these arguments to judges when they’ve broken laws and being immediately shut down by said judges.