Volcanos being caused by overpopulation in hell.

Are you sure about that? Straight courses are used for drag racing.

Almost makes me wonder if this is a mechanical turk situation.

Oh, another thing about secret votes. It transfers blame from individuals to congess itself. If votes are public, and a popular bill fails, then the individuals and parties are blamed, if secret, then the whole of congress gets blamed and you could see incumbents lose reelection not because of how they individually voted but because of how the body as a whole did. That could force cooperation, but it could also introduce a new form of gamemanship.

This isn’t an ideal solution, but a practical one. A simple hack for the U.S. would be to make congressional votes secret. Yes, this means congress people would be less accountable, but think about where their accountabilites lie. These people are far more worried about their parties’ strongmen and sponsors than their gerrymandered constituents.

Impossible to implement in the present U.S. climate, but more idealistic is to divide the US into 50,000 person districts (greatly expanding an individuals access to their rep), then group those into evenly sized super districts. The reps choose from among themselves a super rep to attend congress, who they can recall at anytime. This should make gerrymandering more difficult, and dilute the effectiveness of corporate donors while increasing the influence of individual voters.

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It is also the origin of the anime “wow” sound effect. https://soundeffects.fandom.com/wiki/Anime_Wow_Sound

Changes could have so many repercussions even well meaning actions could make things worse. The safer bet would be to collect lost books and art.

That said, stopping the Lincoln assassination is tempting. I’d hope to change reconstruction to better wipe out the confederacy, prevent lost cause doctrine, and better integrate former slaves into full citizenship and society.

VR - It has been through a few hype cycles, but never quite makes it. Cost, weight, battery life (or tethers), lack of highly desirable games, required floor space, nausea (in some people), etc.

Starlink - when announced it sounded like the solution to ISP monopolies and rural broadband access. But the roll out was so slow that other solutions have caught up. For people with no option other than satellite internet, it is still great (if they can get it) but for a lot of people, better options now exist.

One second ago I put a dollar on my dresser. That’s on pace to be 30 million in a year.

Same here only it was 20 years ago. UML professor was convinced it would replace programming.

Hot dog buns. In my opinion, the generic, white, store brand buns make the best hot dogs.

I worry that she actually is “middle class” and the wealth disparity has moved to the point that those of us who cannot spend $150 on pet insurance or drop $750,000+ on a house or $100,000 on a truck are effectively “poor”, at least as far as the market is concerned.

Earthday. Not just on its own merits (which are substantial) but because there is a general lack of US federal holidays on that side of the calendar.

Instant karma. Weighted based on intent. E.g. If CEO cuts benefits to improve his stock value, then his balls explode. If a driver accidentally cuts someone off but feels bad about it, a full mosquito hits the windshield.

Happily married, with a brand new baby, living in a large house, on a well established farm, with financial security and steady income, plus a small fortune in extremely valuable wine aging in the basement, near a friendly town with lots of festivities, where no matter how badly I screw up someone will find me and bail me out so that I can get home or see a doctor.

I’m honestly not sure if a vegan cat diet is possible or not, but random people giving unqualified advice that could easily lead a less knowledgeable person to harm an animal is a problem. What should have been done in this case is for a mod or admin to shut the discussion down with a note telling people to consult a qualified veterinarian regarding any change to their pets diet.

I’m not sure I even made it 1/10 of the way. I want to like the game but there was just nothing compelling me to continue or to pick it back up. The combat was especially disappointing. They captured the monotony of an rpg button masher without the ability to just zone out or multitask while playing. Also seems way to reliant on the moonerang.

It has been a few years, but I was once asked to implement 800-171. The document was aggressively vague and really the sort of thing that requires hiring a consultant to setup and probably at least one FTE to maintain. Thankfully our project was abandoned before I had to start looking for other employment just get away from the damn thing.

So I emphasize with Georgia Tech for not perfectly implementing the rules to the governments confusing standards.

However, the researchers refusal to run anti-virus even when required by the contract was just stupid. “Academic freedom” doesn’t mean anything when your grants are revoked or you get sued for millions over a breach. That said, they should have been able to work out some sort of “compensating control” to use instead of anti-virus and get that approved by the government.

I’m still hoping for good customer support AI. If I’m going to be connected to someone who barely speaks English and is required to follow a prewritten script, or worse plays prerecorded messages to fake being fluent, I might as well talk to an AI, especially if it means shorter hold times.

AI is a bad replacement for good customer service, but it could be an improvement over bad customer service.