So, obviously, people don’t generally change their legal gender for an advantage somewhere. But if they do, that’s a pretty good sign, not that it’s too easy to change your gender, but that there’s a gender bias in the law.

So arguably, the easier it is to change your legal gender, the less of a problem gender-based affirmative action is. Conservatives must love this! End liberal overreach in one easy step!

They can put the reviewed items on the coffee table to keep them on camera, and it’s more professional looking than a kitchen or child’s room.

I think it’s clear he’s a fan of Apple and Tesla but he does make negative statements about them, the Cyber truck was not a positive review and he always criticized the fit and finish of Teslas. And he critiques Apple’s idiosyncracies like the proprietary charger and lack of calculator app on the iPad.

I guess my point is that he’s not a journalist he’s a reviewer, we are tuning in for his judgement, his opinion. If he personally likes the products from a certain company, that’s not a bias that impacts his capacity to do his job well.

Like movie reviewer giving Pixar a bunch of 10/10 reviews, and then criticizing Cars 2 as a mediocre cash grab. Maybe they are biased for Pixar, or maybe Pixar just puts out a lot of good movies. As long as you’re calling out the bad moves, that’s what we want from a reviewer.

The fair concern is when he gets exclusive access like this, I don’t necessarily care about the puff piece interview but you hope it doesn’t influence his future reviews.

The last time he was in the wider media discussion was because he negatively reviewed the Fisker Ocean and the Humane Pin and people were calling him a company killer.

He somehow monetized being a Trump reply guy back in 2016, every Trump tweet you’d see this guy with a snarky little “well actually I prefer an X that WASN’T Y” or whatever. Within seconds.

How often do you wear a suit? Dry clean as necessary, hang it up between uses. I’ve never ironed a suit.

The one example I’m familiar with is a name brand ice cream company that produces the store brand ice cream too…in that case the recipe is different, cheaper ingredients to cut costs to the bare minimum. But using the machines for a higher volume saves money.

I’m sure ‘same exact item’ does happen too but just ‘same manufacturer’ doesn’t mean exactly the same item.

Can’t believe Harriet Tubman got all that infrastructure up.

If you’re saying “you should not restrict ALL culture to rich people” then, we’re not. There is plenty of culture available for free on YouTube, or on broadcast TV channels, or FreeVee. And paying for one paid subscription doesn’t make you rich, $10/mo or whatever is an accessible price for a subset of digital media to a non-rich person. And those libraries are sufficiently large that you would not run out of material to watch even if you only had one service.

If you’re saying “everyone should be provided literally all digital content for free at all times” that is a pretty extreme position which does sort of break the economics of any content being produced. Digital content would have to be plastered in way more ads or be government subsidized or something to have the money to make more of it. That’s not a political position I’d be on board with.

If you just want the current system but with you being allowed to download the stuff you want to see on services you don’t pay for…again, there’s an argument for that, but let’s not pretend it’s some high minded one. It’s selfish. You probably have the money to pay for HBO Max for one month to watch the new Game of Thrones and the Barbie movie but you don’t want to pay money and it’s really easy not to.

That doesn’t track at all. I can’t afford a Lamborghini so the need arises for access to stolen Lamborghinis for cheap? It’s absolutely not a need, you can just go without or only access the free media that is available to you. In the car example, I can just buy an old Civic.

If it’s stealing bread to feed your family that is one thing, because it’s an actual need. If it’s getting stuff because you want the more expensive version instead of the version you can afford, there’s no need there.

The ethical argument is that there’s no one harmed because you can’t afford it anyway. It’s not that you need it like a starving man’s bread.

If there was no DEMAND it wouldn’t exist. It exists illegally specifically because it can’t be done legally at the price point. That doesn’t mean anyone needs it, all the content is presumably available elsewhere. It just costs money and people don’t want to pay money.

I don’t want to pay money either, I’m just not high minded about it.

Fortunately and unfortunately, there have been so many changes and breakthroughs on solar power over the last 50 years that this doesn’t really tell us much about current technology.

Metric has been legally “preferred” in the US since 1975. We just don’t use it.

Also while I was looking up that year I came across this wild factoid:

In 1793, Thomas Jefferson requested artifacts from France that could be used to adopt the metric system in the United States, and Joseph Dombey was sent from France with a standard kilogram. Before reaching the United States, Dombey’s ship was blown off course by a storm and captured by pirates, and he died in captivity on Montserrat.

I’d like to rent your home for a weekend, I’ve always wanted to try living under a rock.

This would be a life goal of mine if they could guarantee I wasn’t going to get a damn DVD.

I need examples or I don’t understand.

Not for House or Senate. Age just isn’t a close enough metric for what you’re trying to fix.

If you’re concerned with age-related decline, vote them out if you see signs of it, or if they would reach whatever age your limit is during the term.

If you’re concerned about longevity in office, use term limits or reform campaign finance such that longevity in office doesn’t grant too high of an incumbent advantage.

SCOTUS, sure. I think Canada has appointments until 75. Does not seem meaningfully different from appointments for life except less randomness on open slots.

I find it hard to believe that, outside of work computers, many people would be choosing Windows over Mac or Linux, especially is AI is their goal.

I’m sorry, why? Microsoft basically owns OpenAI and has begun integrating it into their products. Apple doesn’t have any AI capabilities beyond Siri.

I’m not following how it’s any problem for China to just be on Russias side? They get cheap resources while focusing the West away from Taiwan and showing the West the impossibility of trying to win a proxy war against a world power. Seems like they get everything they want. So they lose out on some trade with a smaller GDP than Ethiopia, whatever.

I really like my job but if they started monitoring my data like that I’d absolutely quit. There’s already a monitoring mechanism, it’s called your boss needing you to complete tasks on time. If you’re doing that, the only thing data monitoring does it falsely call out people who are doing their work.