Corps have been complaining for years already that people aren’t buying enough. Millenials are killing this industry and that industry because we don’t consume enough - “enough” being whatever level they’ve decided we should consume. They feel entitled to our dollars, whether or not their product or service is any good.

If they were smart, companies would lower prices to be more competitive and incentivize people to buy more. Instead they’ve doubled down and posted armed guards at the store exits to intimidate the customers they have left. They’ve slipped data collection into every interaction. It’s pretty obvious they’re not playing the long game anymore.

That’s why you flash your lights on and off at them, to get them to unfreeze before you get too close.

When I am amazed by a piece of art, it’s because a person was able to conceive of a scene and then use techniques they’ve learned to bring that scene from their mind into reality. I think, “Wow, how did they decide to blend those colors together in such a way, and why? I wonder how hard it is to get that right? How long might it take me to learn the same technique?”

But when I look at a piece of art made by AI, I think, disappointedly, “Oh, they didn’t. Nobody leaned the technique to paint this, there may not be any feeling behind it, or any point at all, other than ‘it looks good.’” It’s just not impressive.

And I’m pretty sure that most people could learn how to prompt successfully in a matter of days or weeks. Real artists practice their craft for years, learning and perfecting techniques and often developing their own unique style.

That’s not where the surprise is coming from. The surprise is that the hospital failed to tell you there might be out-of-network staff that might be involved in your surgery, even though you were careful to choose a hospital that is in-network. So your insurance won’t cover the out of network doctors, and you don’t have any choice of how many or which other doctors (other than your scheduled surgeon) get involved. Those out of network staff then bill you separately from the whole procedure. That’s the surprise.

Fuck Vox. Forces you to agree to cookies before finding out you can’t read the article anyway because its behind a paywall.

Ok, I’m genuinely confused. Without some kind of landlord, how can people live in homes they don’t want to own? Would the state or the federal government own, maintain, and rent out unowned homes? Or would there be a free-for-all of free abandoned homes and if you want to live in one, you’d be responsible for making it livable? Or…?

I think we should require professionals to disclose whether or not they use AI.

Imagine you’re an author and you pay an editor $3000 and all they do is run your manuscript through ChatGPT. One, they didn’t provide any value because you could have done the same thing for free; and two, if they didn’t disclose the use of AI, you wouldnt even know your novel had been fed into one and might be used by the AI for training.

Uh what? Where the heck did you hear it’s bad to wear sunglasses during the day?? How would that have an effect on sleep rhythms? Do you think blind people don’t sleep, or…?

If I got an invite like this and I knew that many people were invited, I may have assumed that most of the others would show up, and therefore you may not even notice whether I showed up or not. Like, inviting 50 people is already kind of impersonal, isn’t it? Would you really have the time to interact with all 50 if they had all showed?

And really, who cares if you don’t have 50 friends? I don’t. Most people I know don’t. They might have 50 acquaintances, but keeping up that many friendships would be exhausting.

Unfortunately Kroger is the cheapest option where I am. I refuse to support the dumpster fire that is Walmart. Every item at Albertsons and Safeway, especially produce, is at least 50 cents more expensive than at Kroger. Too bad Trader Joe’s doesn’t offer a little more selection. You can’t even get a whole cabbage there.

What exactly do you propose the “normies” do? Is there some non-corporation making road-worthy cars? No? Let me guess, you want a family of 5 to bike 2 hours to the nearest school/park/grocery store in the snow on rural roads with no shoulder just to avoid paying a corporation? Take the nonexistent train?

I think that may be similar to what we have in Washington state. All employees pay something like $2 from each paycheck into the FMLA program and you can use it for maternity leave as well as other family health emergencies. It’s a state program so I don’t think the employer has to pay anything. I don’t know how many other states have programs like this but it would be nice if there was a federal one.

Retail and restaurants are unlikely to give you 4-12 weeks of even unpaid time off. No way would they pay anyone for that much time off unless they were forced to. Not saying this to defend them, but restaurant margins can’t absorb that kind of cost unless it’s a large non-franchised chain.

Are people really taking those statements as actual support?? Politicians have to come out and condemn things like that. Everyone kinda knows it’s just lip service, but it would be weirder if they didn’t say anything. It’s just tradition. It’s not like Zelensky or Obama or Sanders actually want to protect Trump’s ability to run now. But I do think they’re glad he wasn’t assassinated, because that would have made everything worse.

Plants and animals tend to have problems when they ingest too much salt, so it might be ok as long as they’re only going to spray this stuff over the oceans… As far as actually changing the climate too much, I doubt this method would really be capable of that.

I think a less invasive and probably cheaper-in-the-long-run option would be to make some kind of durable lightweight shades, launch them into orbit like satellites, and move them around remotely as needed.