EarthMephit

Aren't these all solved problems that we've worked out decades ago with certificates?

Certificates prove that a website/server (and sometimes the client) are who they say they are.

We force the website to renew their certificate from an issuer every year so that stolen tokens/certificates are less of a problem.

The issuer can protect or hide the identity of the certificate owner, and doesn't get any information about which clients accessed a server.

You could make that exact same argument for alcohol, cigarettes, prescription medication - The reasons are the same.

My partner 10+ years ago used to be very OCD about Asbestos when we had toddlers, and said that she would see tiny white fibers of it in the bark chips at a bunch of parks that the kids were playing at.

Turns out she was correct, its since been found in loads of mulch around Sydney.

We also came across a huge pile of it illegally dumped a bunch of years ago in the sand dunes at Kurnell beach, kids were happily playing in it.

For vacation rentals you can often save 20% by Googling.

I usually find the place I'd like to stay on AirBnB and then google the title & description and the property management website usually pops up.

Since they don't need to pay AirBnB, its usually 20% cheaper via their website or calling.

AirBnB takes an obscene amount for doing almost nothing.

Microsoft Authenticator is annoying.

It doesn't work if you have notifications off or "do not disturb" on, so I can't log on to anything in the evenings.

I've got an LG Gram 17-inch laptop that weighs about the same as a 13-inch macbook air.

Having a huge screen on a super-light, super skinny laptop is so handy for portability and all the extra screen real-estate is great for a developer. Its difficult to go back to a 14-inch.

I wish more laptop manufacturers would make ultra-lights with large screens.

You used to walk into a newsagent and see the regular papers and magazines, and then the rack of playboy and porn just sitting off to the side, often not that far from the kids magazines and comics.

They did the blood work on premises, the doctor owned the clinic and the on-site pathology.

I was effectively uninsured as a foreigner, and had to pay for it myself hoping that I'd be reimbursed by my company later.

I had a nasty ear-infection, could hardly walk, and was in no state to argue, but the nurse gave me dozens of what they said were completely "normal procedure" blood tests from their in-house lab, which the doctor would have profited from directly. I told them I was leaving the next day and wouldn't get any results if they took a day, but they ignored and persisted.

I looked at the bill later and they were for loads and loads of completely unrelated conditions, diabetes, HIV, etc... a useless waste.

It was price gouging from the doctor directly pure and simple, no insurance providers involved, but I'm sure that normally that also adds an extra layer of silly costs.

In Australia its carefully regulated what a doctor can charge, and its a different company that does any tests, or gives out medication, the doctor or company can't profit directly from sending patients off for more testing, or for prescribing medication.

Australians are more litigious than Americans, with similar insurance costs for doctors, yet our healthcare costs are still half of the USA's.

So insurance costs may be a factor, but its doubtful that its a large factor in healthcare costs, they largest factor is by far the public vs private system.

I experienced US healthcare when I went to visit a doctor in the US for a simple (obvious) ear infection. I was charged $600 USD for a five minute consult because the doctor wanted to milk as much $$$ from me as he could, giving me lots of unrelated/pointless blood tests (which were pointless because I was flying out the next day and wouldn't get the results).

In Australia it would have been a $65 fee paid by the government, and $10 for the antibiotics, around 1/10th of the US costs.

The problem in the US is that doctors and hospitals are incentivised to give patients unnecessary tests and medication, because it inflates their bills, and they make more profit.

I've noticed the same thing happening in Australia with private vets & vet hospitals because they are less regulated. They try and talk you into a lot of unnecessary procedures, test, and drugs because they make more profit, and the industry is not where near as well regulated as healthcare.

At least with a vet you can usually shop around, when you are sick often you cannot.

I find that LLMs are almost comically bad at projects that have a hardware component like RaspberryPi or Pico, or Ardunio.

I think that its because often the libraries you use are niche or have a a few similar versions, the LLM really commonly hallucinated solutions and would continually suggest that library X did have that capability. I think because often in hardware projects you often hit a point where you can't do something or you need to modify a library, but the LLM tries to be "helpful" and it makes up a solution.

Internet is a utility, like water.

We can't have true competition with utilities, because we'd need six sets of pipes into every apartment just to have six competing providers, so the government needs to step in and regulate utilities, because they are a natural monopoly.

The change is a good one, and there's still abilities that differentiate species, so dwarves still have toughness, and a bunch of other abilities.

Previously a Dwarven wizard was just a really bad choice, and you'd be noticeably less powerful than say an Elven wizard so no-one ever played one.

Now an Elven Wizard for instance has a few bits and pieces that might make them a bit better, but still leave a Dwarven Wizard as a viable choice.

This makes the game far more interesting in every way: players have more interesting builds, more character choices, and can play whatever combinations that they want.

Japanese users are migrating rapidly to Bluesky away from X.

Mainly for the extra features, apps & integrations that Bluesky offers:

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2024/11/25/companies/b...

My brother (Australian) spent some time in Canada and was able to see a doctor straight away and really cheaply a bunch of times, and visited the hospital once with a nasty foot injury with no dramas. It seemed like a pretty good system.

I remember contrasting that with my US experience at the same time, where a 10 minute consult with a doctor cost 600USD. I had a really obvious ear infection, just needed some antibiotics, but he must have seen me as a cash-cow and ordered a ton of unrelated blood tests that were pointless since I was flying out the next day. I walked away feeling like I'd been scammed.

(In Australia a doctor's visit is under 30USD, blood tests don't cost much either)

No I think that there's more to it than superstition - We often blame things on superstition when we don't understand them ourselves.

I've been playing around with sleeping with a fan & air-conditioning and I always notice that my throat is all dryed out in the morning from the air flow directly over my face.

I need a couple of glasses of water to re-hydrate after sleeping with a fan or air-conditioner, so if its not too warm a night I prefer to leave them off. I seem to get a better night's sleep too, but maybe that's just because it's a cooler night.

Even in Australia is the LLM lag to a server noticable?

Generally an LLM seems to take about 3s or more to respond, and the network delay to the US is a couple of hundred milliseconds.

The network delay seems minimal compared to the actual delay of the LLM.

There's many companies that have reproduced the tictok algorithm. Surely if it was sold, the multibillion dollar company would have no issue with that aspect.

My SurfaceBook has a better build quality that my MacBook Pro model from the same era (2019) - MacBooks have improved a lot in the last few years though with the new chips I guess?

I prefer the MacOs to Windows, but MacBook hardware was definitely disappointment on this model. I had numerous graphics & power issues on the MacBook Pro, plus touchbar was annoying.

Dell & Lenovo are crap, I've given up on them. Surface is good, and I'm happy with my LG Gram.

The system settings UI on Windows 11 always shows an ad which says that an account should be used to use office and other apps.

Macs also do this with their iCloud accounts, with little widgets all around the place prompting you to log in to their app store, etc... if you don't have an account. Possibly those prompts or ads are even more "in-your-face" than Windows? Probably most Mac users don't notice them because most just create an account

Surely if the government wanted to go down this route, it would be a lot fairer and simpler to manage with the government sending a low-income rebate/refund check to low-income households when they do their taxes?

They could then collect the costs off the energy companies.

The proposed solution seems like a corporation's wet-dream - Being able to charge consumers exactly the maximum amount of what they are able to pay for a product.

I don't know, I used to catch gypsy cabs in London twenty odd years ago and you were taking your life into your own hands. There were some pretty shady operators. I can see why a government might want to license taxi drivers.

Why shouldn't you be able to start what you call a 'gypsy taxi business.' what's the need for arresting you? Is it that authoritarian of a nation?

Why do we bother licensing drivers then too? Are we that much of an authoritarian nation that we need to control who drives a car? Should Uber drivers be allowed to drive without a driver's license too?

At the end of the day, Uber broke the Australian laws as they stood (even if you didn't agree with them).

If I had started an illegal gypsy taxi business I would have been fined or arrested. Why are there different rules for large corporations?

If the story or characters or dialog are similar enough, he has to pay Puzo, even if the work he created was quite different and not a literal “copy”.

I don't think that you can copyright a plot or story in any country can you?

If he re-wrote the story with different characters and different lines he wouldn't have had to to pay Puzo. I'm sure it would have been frowned upon if its too close, but legally ok.

From your Wikipedia link, the World Bank 2020 GINI index ranks the countries that you mentioned like this:

#8 Netherlands

#14 Denmark

#23 Sweden

#108 USA

Once we reach about 40% of vehicles being EVs a lot of petrol/gas stations in more expensive areas in cities will become non-vaiable economically - It'll probably happen quite quickly.

Gasoline vehicles will become more expensive to maintain and run, and more of a hassle to refuel, so even people like me who like to keep their cars for ages will be forced to switch a lot earlier than normal - especially if you live in the city.

This study involved 1.8 million patients:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220624123814.h...

People who received at least one influenza vaccine were 40% less likely than their non-vaccinated peers to develop Alzheimer's disease over the course of four years, according to a new study from UTHealth Houston.

That's because 10 minutes away is too far, that's almost a mile, and it becomes a chore.

I live a block from a store, and its much, much easier and more plesant than going to the effort of getting the car out, driving somewhere, having to find a parking spot, etc... Driving's a pain in the arse.

A decently walkable suburb/city would have a store within a block or two, maybe a five minute walk.

In Australia we cull feral cats. We don't trap, neuter, release:

https://www.agriculture.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents...

We're not likely to release a neutered cat back into the environment where it will kill more native creatures. Feral cats have already caused the extinction of 20 native species.

I'd be happy with a self driving car that could just safely stay in a single lane on a freeway for an hour in good weather while I did something else.