Rhaedas

Yes, there is a low unemployment number. As with the rest, you haven’t validated that it’s a good measure of the current state of things. It’s arguably never been.

Yes, definitely increased some. Where’s the rest of the data, such as part time or unemployed, or even population growth? Like I said, a single number means not so much without context. But it’s an impressive graph.

Curious what shift there has been in full time/part time numbers. Full time wages going up is great for those who are experiencing it, but if there are less actual full timers, is that an improvement?

The art of a good statistician is to make sure what their numbers are saying is an actual reflection of reality. I’m not saying this graph is falsified, I don’t know. But numbers can be made to say anything. I learned this years ago in arguments about what “unemployment” meant. It’s much more complex than a single number, but a single number is used in the media because it’s easier to paint the picture wanted.

Usenet. Go back to the base level.

The issue isn’t the prices. It’s that the prices go up but income doesn’t. Get out the pitchforks, but let’s go after the real villains.

Spore made a huge impact, not only in mainstreaming the idea of an evolving game but in the ability to control characteristics and shape interactively and easily. Plus being able to share creations online was huge, even though so many of them ended up in certain shapes (humans being humans). Where I think Spore failed is in trying to rush through the first stages and get to the “civilization” parts. It would have better if it had a slower pace staying within the animal world. They also failed when they dumbed down and sanitizing the original game, which was much more violent (see the demo with Robin Williams)…but that’s how nature is.

Thrive is very impressive, but it might be too realistic in its complexity and trying to include everything and that will keep it from getting popular. If I remember you can dial it back some, but it’s still very technical compared to the simplicity that made Spore work. Maybe there can’t be a good middle ground.

If it looks to potentially reduce Republican votes, then Republicans will just compensate by more effort trying to restrict certain demographics and areas from getting their vote in. They never have been supportive of everyone getting a chance to vote, it skews things towards the left. Anyone still remember when Karl Rove lost his mind on live TV because he knew what the numbers should have been had everything gone to plan, and liberals getting more votes was inconceivable to him.

Looking at the petition itself it wasn’t very specific on the terms, which is why I questioned the very broadness of the request . “Keep” implies maintaining how it is currently, not a transition to open source and player run.

I’m curious on how signers of this petition think companies could afford to do this. Often times shutting a game down is because the interest of players has waned. Making a law to require them to keep that server and software running…forever? Is the end goal to kill any online game development?

It would make sense to require a company to release the code for players to host their own servers, which has been done by many games in the past. Not to continue to run it themselves.

Same here. When I stop at a stop sign and there is a car behind me, I routinely take bets in my head to see if the next car just goes through it. Most often they do. Running red lights is another…if you are at a red light waiting for it to change to green, always wait a split second before going and also give a glance both ways. Don’t assume because the light is good there isn’t someone trying to beat the red. Or just going through an obvious red because they’re more important than everyone else in their head. I’ve gone through many a yellow light thinking to myself that I really cut it close, then I notice one or even more people have followed me through the intersection. Boy they get upset too if you actually stop for that yellow.

Regulatory measures shouldn’t be relaxed because people aren’t following them, they should be enforced better. Of course how to do that in many situations such as this is the question. Other things are similar, like group speeding or smart phone use while driving.

If anything I think the development of actual AGI will come first and give us insight on why some organic mass can do what it does. I’ve seen many AI experts say that one reason they got into the field was to try and figure out the human brain indirectly. I’ve also seen one person (I can’t recall the name) say we already have a form of rudimentary AGI existing now - corporations.

LLMs are just very complex and intricate mirrors of ourselves because they use our past ramblings to pull from for the best responses to a prompt. They only feel like they are intelligent because we can’t see the inner workings like the IF/THEN statements of ELIZA, and yet many people still were convinced that was talking to them. Humans are wired to anthropomorphize, often to a fault.

I say that while also believing we may yet develop actual AGI of some sort, which will probably use LLMs as a database to pull from. And what is concerning is that even though LLMs are not “thinking” themselves, how we’ve dived head first ignoring the dangers of misuse and many flaws they have is telling on how we’ll ignore avoiding problems in AI development, such as the misalignment problem that is basically been shelved by AI companies replaced by profits and being first.

HAL from 2001/2010 was a great lesson - it’s not the AI…the humans were the monsters all along.

A fleet/company car. A Chevette. I pressed the accelerator to the floor, the engine went “huh? you want what?”

Guess no one at Microsoft realized people use computers differently and more options is always better than one. Or they intended to have the option and either forgot to include it or it was buggy. Either way it was #2 on my “how do you disable this” list, and I had to deal with it for a while. I get how grouping can be good for some things, but when you want to be able to bounce between various windows and some happen to use the same app, it was a pain.

Even the small things. When work upgraded to Win11 overnight and I logged into the Start being in the middle, I almost lost it. Yes, I could fix it, and a few other things, but I had a moment.

That was disappointing, when you grow up thinking your parents are progressive and then as old age and its symptoms happen their guards drop and you find out that they always had some racist tendencies. I guess credit to them suppressing them for so long.

Emphasis on “plastic is often not”. Only PET (#1 on the symbol) can truly be recycled into new material, and usually it’s tossed in with other materials and contaminated enough to make that not possible. There is the reusable path, where plastics are remolded into other purposes, but that’s not “really” recycling and likely ends there for that form to eventually degrade and be trashed.

So just make more things with PET and recycle better, right? I’m guessing there’s limitations on what PET can be used for given its characteristics vs. other plastics, and it is still cheaper to just get new material for new PET rather than recycle. So of course companies are going to go that route.

The interesting thing that I learned not so long ago from the YT channel Climate Town is that people see the triangle symbol with the plastic type number inside and assume it’s recyclable, since that’s the recycle symbol. But it’s not that symbol, it’s just designed similar to give that impression.