This reminds me of the dolphin jokes that Lower Decks got away with in almost every season. Dolphins + Universal Translator = Instant workplace harassment.

Yup. Consider the role of NORAD and the missile defense shield. USA is not only a poorly run meth lab, but it also provides armed security for the whole building.

As far as I can tell, the contingency plan is to continue pushing places like Dubai as a tourist destination and business hub. And, honestly, as long as that place continues to function as a major regional air-traffic hub, that might actually work.

Following the path of other regimes around the world, the USA builds their own “great firewall”, segmenting most people here away from the global internet. At around the same time, personal VPNs become explicitly illegal. We might also see the government seize control of at least one certificate registrar, if they don’t fire up their own, thereby “owning” TLS online.

On the upside, there’s a chance we will see more grass-roots efforts to reboot a lot of institutions that were co-opted by the rich. You’re just never going to hear about that through conventional channels. For instance: local newspapers with real journalism behind them. Or more small businesses with the intent to last, rather than sell. It’s possible that more of those things will be co-ops, union shops, or even Mondragon inspired. Either way, there’s a path forward for more community, real communication, and eventual prosperity, provided folks keep their heads and take things offline where necessary.

Can run as fast as Albert Einstein

Now, or when he was alive?

The fact that Ask Jeeves isn’t an AI-only search engine is just beyond me. It was laughable that someone thought to personify a search engine 25 years ago, but now is pretty much the right time for that.

More than zero, which is too many for my taste.

It’s a needle in a haystack, but that’s a really valuable needle. It might actually be worth it.

Here’s my resignation.

Either it’s your fault, it’s going to be your fault, or you’re cleaning this up. Bottom line: there’s a damn-near lethal amount of incompetence in the building and it’s time to part ways.

At this rate, I’d happily vote for Nixon’s undead shambling corpse. Or maybe Taft.

I’ve been in “I’m tired boss” territory since November. I wanna be sedated until this is over.

Those people are tied.

Old, young, we can debate this all day. But anyone around here (USA) in the 30-and-over bracket almost certainly feels tired as fuck this week.

This does make me wonder: do municipalities with a large number of roundabouts have stats for how these things foil drunk drivers? I feel like there’s a serious possibility of reducing fatalities if we just replace the center of these circles with ponds and/or sand traps.

It’s that. It’s been a hot minute, but (IIRC) for me it was the less-than-great UI/UX that really adds up to a high friction experience. Especially when compared with software like Slack or Discord.

That almost makes sense.

I recently tried one of those god-awful “idle clicker” style games, and my first thought was: “This is such a grind… I could write software to automate this.” Then I realized that Factorio is right there.

WRT to Babylon 5 - the Spanish Flu pandemic had anti-maskers and deniers too. I think it’s less prescient and more “this is what humanity actually looks like”, which is a core theme for a lot of episodic sci-fi.

I mean, even Jesse Eisenberg played both Zuck and Luthor on-screen. Can’t get more on the nose than that.

Well, he did come from the future after all. It wouldn’t be hard for Skynet to dig through criminal records, court cases, sales records, bank info, etc… and pinpoint where to get an optimal shopping experience for this mission.

sue the government?

About that. One frequently looks to the Executive branch to enforce laws, rulings, and other things of legal import. Exactly how does this work if that arm of the government is found guilty of a crime?

Honestly, what I find frustrating with Teams is that both MSN Messenger and Skype were right there. It’s not even an issue of copyright or trademark as MS owns both. Even just lazily re-branding Skype would have been head-and-shoulders above what we have now.