snooggums

Lefties can argue with the void without needing any encouragement!

Dark Side of the Moon and now I feel old.

Oh, it will let us do the thing we already do if we take the time to learn common behaviors and actually pay attention?

Oh good, at least they spoke to someone who knows what they are talking about.

“But AI often generates made-up responses that please the user rather than being anchored in objective reality. This could be a disaster if applied to pets’ welfare,” said Birch, whose input to the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act led to it being expanded to include cephalopod mollusks and decapod crustaceans.

Birch points to separation anxiety: dog owners often want reassurance that their pet is not suffering when left alone for long periods. Futuristic “translation” apps based on large language models could promise to provide that reassurance, but end up causing harm by telling owners what they want to hear rather than what the animal actually needs.

They also had more free time to figure things out.

The internet was successful because it was predictable and reliable and filled a previously unserved purpose. LLMs could possibly serve a purpose creating text that doesn’t need to be correct or accurate, but it won’t replace anything that requires any level of accuracy or accountability because the design is inherently flawed due to being a prediction algorithm.

There are uses for pattern matching AI that will continue to be tools used by humans to help focus efforts in massively complex work, but they won’t ever be foundational replacements.

Now this is pod racing a shower thought!

Both Russia and China have long histories of centralized authority.

Most western powers have been comparatively short lived, constantly expanding and fragmenting into new power structures. That includes the US, which has always had back and a forth infighting between state level and federal powers. I give the current regime a decade more (they have been building up for decades) due to speed running the few things they could use to placate the populace into the ground.

If you replaced it with something that requires connectivity, then your first approach may have been a better design if even if it didn’t work out quite right the first time.

There are always individuals who put themselves first, even in completely horrible groups.

But the cultists are the bad guys!

They seem so positive and bubbly from the outside!

Definitely a cult.

Oh boy, they are going to get so many bad Glassdoor reviews.

Or more likely they weren’t actually being lazy, they knew they needed to leave room for swelling and healing. The surgeons that did tight stitches thought theirs was better because it looked better immediately after the surgery.

Surgeons are actually pretty well known for being arrogant, and claiming anyone who doesn’t do their neat and tight stitching is lazy is completely on brand for people like that.

Brazil shuts BYD factory site over ‘slavery’ conditions

From 2016 and still true today:

Chinese Government Subsidies Play Major Part In Electric Car Maker BYD’s Rise

Yeah, subsidies and other benefits from governments exist but China is going all in.

Expense is not the only way to make something hard to get, and gun laws have a long history of being made in a way that intentionally or unintentionally makes it difficult for minorities.

Many of the historical laws they found were virulently racist, restricting access to weaponry for enslaved people, Indigenous Americans and other racial minorities.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-02-07/if-we-must-rely-on-history-and-tradition-to-assess-gun-laws-does-racist-history-count

The more I know the dumber I feel when I make a stupid mistake.

It isn’t that I am dumber, but I do feel dumber.

There is a massive gap between handing out guns in happy meals and being hard to get.

Committing violent crimes or being of unsound mind are perfectly fine reasons for restricting possession as long as there is due process and the possibility of restoring the rights under certain conditions. If someone is charged with a violent crime then they shouldn’t have possession of firearms until that matter is settled.

There will always be the cases where someone has zero history of violence before they commit a crime so it wouldn’t be perfect, but even in the US most states have restrictions based on obvious reasons someone shouldn’t have a gun.

It is super easy to discreetly open a folding knife in a fraction of a second before use. No longer than a spring loaded knife or one with a thumb opener thingy or one in a sheath.

You just said

No reason to carry knives in public

Pistols are military weaponry. Most pistols are designed for sale to militaries as their primary audience.

Regular pump shotguns were used in WWII for clearing trenches. The really common AR-15 in the US is a very close equivalent of the M16. Most hunting rifles are comparable to most sniper rifles.

Which small arms are used mainly comes down to what is available to carry, what ammunition is available, and how well they hold up in local conditions. The AK range is extremely popular because it holds up extremely well in a wide variety of conditions with minimal maintenance and it does especially well in desert/sandy conditions compared to almost every other rifle. It is also mass produced in a ton of places and as a result ammunition is plentiful.

They mainly use weapons produced for militaries because that is what is available and reliable enough for their use. They would have used any small arms they could get their hands on that performed as well.