Socialism as in Norway, not Stalin.

It should be pointed out that Norway is not socialist. It’s a social democracy/capitalist country.

“Drill, baby, drill!” has always been an immensely stupid rallying cry, even if you don’t care about the environment.

But a funny one, if it was in an Austin Powers movie.

Fun fact #2: Not all oil is equal. Refineries are designed to process certain grades of oil into specific products, and different parts of the world have different grades. Refineries also often blend oils from different parts of the world to get the characteristics they need for their process.

And the infrastructure to do that doesn’t currently exist. Even if they could drill overnight, they don’t have the pumps, platforms, and refineries set up.

I think the hot drink might be getting a bit too hot in that second photo.

Does it matter if it is weird? Everyone is weird in some way.

There’s no weirdness warden who will whack you into gaol for being weird.

Maybe if you gave him a wet food diet, like a cat or something.

Eventually we’ll hit it with phones, and then it’s just a matter of time till a solid “base” with swapable components come out. There’s been a couple already, but they still require a sacrifice of size or speed/power.

I’d honestly argue that we’ve more or less hit it already, since a lot of phones over the past few years haven’t really changed from the template of being a black glass rectangle with some buttons on it.

What happened?

ChatGPT itself is also many text-generation models in a coat, since they will automatically switch between models depending on what options you choose, and whether you’ve passed your quota.

Roomba, the robot vacuum cleaner company, had to institute a policy where they would preserve the original machine as much as possible, because people were getting attached to their robot vacuum cleaner, and didn’t want it replaced outright, even when it was more economical to do so.

That isn’t an LLM though. That’s a different type of Machine Learning entirely.

Especially since it doesn’t push back when a reasonable person might do. There’s articles about how it sends people into a conspiratorial spiral.

No. Because any advanced civilisation capable of sending a colony ship across light-years to another planet is already so far outside of our current technological ability that it matters precious little.

We would be easy to colonise either way. Doubly so if they have some form of FTL technology to make that trip in reasonable time.

But there’s also an argument that anyone who can do so would have a much easier time not dealing with all of that and just colonising an uninhabited planet, or outright using materials to make a thing to colonise instead.

Because it’s not a small thing to change. You’re basically overhauling everything if you wish to transition from a monarchy to a republic, because it’s rooted in everything.

The names of the governmental positions, and possibly their responsibilities would need to change, as would official documentation, the money, the flag, the national anthem…

You could hardly call yourself a republic if your passports are still carry the authority of the monarch, and your national anthem prominently features the King.

It only gets more complicated if you’re a former colonial power, since they may also be affected, and have to change everything as well. If the UK decides to ditch the Monarchy and become a Republic, Australia and Canada would need to follow suit, since it would be silly for them to have references to a monarch that no longer exists, or a GG who’s meant to be representative for a position that no longer exists.

Either that, or there will be a political/legal headache deciding whether they become the new inheritors of the monarchy, since the parent is gone, or would they be also need to make the same changes (see above).

Boo. Currently in the mood to cuddle the cats, except that they hate being picked up, and I’m virulently allergic.

Trying to monetize the piracy of your users. That’s a bold business strategy.

Some time ago, never mind how long precisely, Plex were trying to legitimise themselves, by adding streaming from official sources, etc.

I would be curious if this is meant to be a deterrent, or just to look like one by making piracy expensive, so they can eat their cake and have it too.

Plus I can’t imagine that a company who is adulterating their milk with chalk dust is going to stop to find and choose a food-safe chalk dust and supplier. They’d just scoop a bunch from whoever’s cheapest, and if they adulterate their chalk dust with bleach or something, that’ll be going straight into the milk.

A free market is one that is free of corruption and unfair business practices. Which cannot exist without regulations and the enforcement of those regulations.

We’ve had numerous laws precisely because companies couldn’t play fair, and made things worse for all involved. The government didn’t pass laws against company towns, scrip, and predatory pricing because they decided to ban things for fun.

Maybe people should do research on the available milk brands before giving it to their children if they didn’t want them to drink bleach.

Without regulation, the company could also just lie. Nothing would dictate that they would have to tell the truth about their product.

As an example, medical care/inheritance rights are one.

Back before the days of gay marriage, there were no end of horror stories of LGBT people whose partners were dying from HIV, and were forbidden from seeing their dying partners, or for estranged family to swoop in and kick the “friend” out, preventing them from seeing their partner, often taking everything that belonged to the deceased in the process.

A relatively famous art piece has a similar story, where Boskovich’s boyfriend’s family swept in and took everything from their shared apartment after he died, effectively erasing their relationship in the process. All that was left was an electric fan.

What did you expect, it literally has Virgin in the name (!)