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.

The out of state group is the Democratic Governors Association. The Republican Governors Association could have spent just as much money on this race, but they chose not to. Washington isn’t going to turn red, so I don’t know why the article would expect R’s to spend big on a race they know they’ll likely lose. What a non-story.

Had to replace Rush Limbaugh with something, I guess.

Where and when was that? I’ve lived on both sides of Washington for 40 years and have never seen any “English only” signs.

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.

A lot of cities have started regulating (or even outright banning) Airbnbs. Get your neighbors on board and start a dialogue with your city council members.

There’s not a lot you can do about corporations, but you can encourage other owners not to sell to shell companies.

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.

It also makes amazing tofu. 20 min at 400 gives it an actual texture. No pressing or freezing required.

So if I walked into a restaurant that specialized in a certain cuisine (choosing the right one out of hundreds is a skill, right?) and wrote down a list of ingredients, and the restaurant made me a meal with those ingredients according to however the restaurant functions (nobody can see into the kitchen, after all), does this make me a chef?

There’s still the issue of birds, which do not like these things in their airspace and, depending on the size, will absolutely either attack drones or be maimed by them. Also, helicopters and small planes often fly quite low. We haven’t had a great record with autonomous cars, but sure, let’s try autonomous flying drones. What could go wrong?

Seems like the airline could have just… not over served him and none of this would have happened.

Edit: yeah it sounds like over serving alcohol may be a recurring problem for this airline:

“It said it bans between five and 10 customers each month for disruptive behavior, including intoxication.”

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.

But what about a car? Cars are as smart as smartphones now, and you certainly wouldn’t notice the small amount of power needed to collect and transfer data compared to driving the car. Some car manufacturer TOS agreements seemingly admit that they collect and use your in-car conversations (including any passengers, which they claim is your duty to inform them they are being recorded). Almost all the manufacturers are equally bad for privacy and data collection.

Mozilla details what data each car collects here.

I started a free trial of Adobe stock. I forgot to cancel after the first month. They charged me $30 for the next month, ok, that’s on me. But when I tried to cancel during that second month, they said I had signed a contract to pay them for a year (I didn’t, all I did was sign up for the free trial) and I now owe them $165 to cancel the subscription. So in essence they were going to charge me $195 for one month of Adobe stock. That’s insane.

software latches onto existing installations, which can include government-owned surveillance cameras as well as privately owned cameras at businesses and homes.

How can that be legal, or even possible? If you and your partner film yourself in the bedroom, I guess they’re gonna tap into that too?

An enormous chunk of housing sits unused and empty because real estate speculators want to rent them out at exorbitant prices rather than use it for it’s intended purpose of having a roof over people’s heads.

If they are renting it out at exorbitant prices, then it’s not empty. If it’s empty, then they get zero money. You’re saying it’s both, which makes no sense. Interest rates and property taxes are both high right now. It costs investors money to hold empty property without renting it out. They don’t have to wait for people to pay inflated prices. The demand is already there.

I’m all for more regulation, especially for developers and investors. Stiupulate that at least 50% of all new housing built be affordable. Give incentives to rehab old condemned properties. And stop letting AI algorithms determine rental prices.