The fact that one side is a piece of shit doesn’t mean the other side isn’t also a piece of shit

People who build their own computers, AKA the group most likely to complain about this

They should make a Windows version called Windows 10P which is the same as Windows 10 but only the bare-bones necessities and no extra crap or required online services, and sell it for $59.99 (seeing that Windows is already de facto freeware). That’s probably an order of magnitude than what they make from intrusive advertising anyway to a single user over the lifespan of a computer.

Nay, once every week for the past four years, I go to McDonald’s and order a hamburger for $3, but they ask me for $3.27, so I only put down $3 on the counter and then loudly proclaim I refuse to pay the sales tax on it. Then I walk out of the restaurant to force them to accept my money.

(I have not eaten a hamburger in four years)

Today I learned that if I buy some Bitcoin, this will prevent the Government from taking money from my wallet and bank account to give to these people

Today I learned that if I buy some Bitcoin, then this will prevent the Government from giving loads of money to these people

Seeing that he is French, one would think he should know better than to invite this to happen.

When Jean-Marine Le Pen (founder of French far-right political party) died, French people went out into the public squares dancing, waving French flags, popping champagne, and loudly cheering “the racist is dead!”.

I have already procured a bottle of what here can legally only be called sparkling wine, and I’m ready to pop it any day now.

Students view doing that as basically the same amount of work as writing the paper yourself

Aye that’s exactly the same thing that I said

Just another 1.21 jigawatts of electricity, bro. If we get this new coal plant up and running, it’ll be enough.

This is why invisible watermarking of AI-generated content is likely to be so effective. Even primitive watermarks like file metadata. It’s not hard for anyone with technical knowledge to remove, but the thing with AI-generated content is that anyone who dishonestly uses it when they are not supposed to is probably also too lazy to go through the motions of removing the watermarking.

Prior to GitHub, everyone just hosted their own Git repositories. The nature of Git is pretty decentralised. And Linux kernel development still uses old-fashioned mailing lists for development co-ordination, rather than something like GitHub. I have heard before someone say the difference between Git and GitHub is similar to the difference between porn and Pornhub.

Prior to Discord, there was IRC.

There are already lots of viable strategies for getting rid of brine, they are just more expensive than the naïve approach of having a big pipe on the shore spewing it into the ocean. Diluting it with seawater seems to be the most viable right now.

I wonder if something like a 10 km underwater pipe with small holes in it that only let out a little bit of brine at a time would work. Might be a hassle to lay, at least to start, but I think that once it is in place it could operate without maintenance for decades. And piping is not really that expensive. Perhaps there are already researchers studying it, or it has been proven to not work. It seems like such an obvious idea.

And now, since you are the father of writing, your affection for it has made you describe its effects as the opposite of what they really are. In fact, [writing] will introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it: they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own. You have not discovered a potion for remembering, but for reminding; you provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not with its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being properly taught, and they will imagine that they have come to know much while for the most part they will know nothing. And they will be difficult to get along with, since they will merely appear to be wise instead of really being so.

—a story told by Socrates, according to his student Plato

I’m not sure why you took them literally. They’re making a tongue-in-cheek statement about how Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is able to manipulate the American president seemingly with ease and impunity.

This is probably one of the top 10 dumbest war strategies in history. Make the population of the region you’re eventually seeking to occupy hate you even more, and on top of that, it makes the very foolish assumption that Hamas leadership would give up if they see their Gazans suffer, which is so naïve it’d be funny if it weren’t so sad. Hamas leadership doesn’t give a shit if ordinary Gazans starve. In fact, they probably think it’s all the better for their recruiting numbers, seeing that I have yet to see a single Hamas fighter suffering from malnutrition on the level of ordinary Gazans.

To external observers paying attention, this can only lead one to conclude either Netanyahu is a terrible military strategist or he’s using this “strategy” as a cover to snuff out the entire Arab population of Gaza. For all I know, both are true!

You can do that in the US as well, but it will cost more because you wouldn’t be agreeing to a fixed term. For example, my ISP charges $25 a month for 200 mb/s if you agree to a one-year term, but it’s $40 a month if you do not agree to a one-year term. And there’s also the added inconvenience of having to go to one of the ISP’s physical stores every month and put cash into their kiosk.

They will ask for your name here when signing up, but nothing prevents you from lying about your name if you’re going to be paying in cash. They ask for an e-mail address as well, but you can say you haven’t got one, and they’ll create one for you using their own e-mail service and assign it to you. You don’t actually have to use it, but it is for receiving their bills and notices.