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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)VI
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2 yr. ago

  • Some isolated pockets of people would be in areas where it's possible to farm and hunt. Keep in mind I'm talking about the case where we thoroughly trash the planet. Maybe 99% die but as a species we'd probably survive. Personally I'd like us to wise up and keep a technological civilization but one that's sustainable. Not holding out a lot of hope.

  • Short of engineering a plague I don't think we'll make ourselves extinct but we can very easily wipe out civilization and turn ourselves back into hunter gathers. And it won't be like those post apocalyptic movies where everyone still has good teeth and discover caches of supplies and weapons all the time.

  • Not the cars themselves but I think it'll happen like this: self driving cars will eventually get good enough that they will have a lower accident rate in certain conditions, like highways. Insurance companies will push for self-driving-only lanes on the highway, while not lowering your rates but charging you extra for manual driving. Then it will be segments of highways, then certain surface streets, etc. Eventually you'll only be driving the "last mile" if it's a personal car or relying on a service that sends self-driving cars and drops you off on the corner. Manual driving on public streets will mostly disappear.

  • Somewhat paid attention. The jury awarded two days of coffee revenue. The judge cut it to 3x the compensatory damages, about a half day of coffee revenue. I don't recall if there was a law on the books about that. Some states have "tort reform" laws that limit punitive damages.

  • Disclaimer that I have not followed this case and I'm not a lawyer.

    In the US civil cases can have both compensatory and punitive damages. Compensatory is meant to "right the wrong" where you get reimbursed for financial losses, lost time, things you had to pay for as a result of the incident, etc. Punitive is meant to punish the offender if the case finds they acted with some negligence, and ultimately get them and others to change their behavior.

    Take the infamous McDonald's coffee case. The woman who was injured originally only asked for McDonald's to pay for her medical treatment. She required skin grafts. The jury found that McDonald's knowing let this circumstance exist where someone was going to get a serious injury and added on punitive damages. Which the judge cut back.

  • We can and should as long as it's based on relevant behavior not religious affiliation. If you don't believe in using proscribed antibiotics you should not be caring for kids, for example. I don't care if it's because your god told you they were evil or because you think your healing crystals are better.

  • We might have to agree to disagree on the overall look of the thing, but I want to comment on the job part.

    It's always been a bit of a disconnect that you supposedly had this post-scarcity, socialistic, utopia where we have overcome our baser instincts and work cooperatively. But for some reason the dominant organization has military ranks and some people agree to sign-up to take orders and get thrown in jail if they don't. That never quite squared. But in the real world it's a simple matter of writing what you know and Gene was ex-Navy so that's what Starfleet was modeled on. Doesn't really make sense. It's also why admirals are so often bad. He had a beef with them.

    But yeah I agree I like it better when they talk about their places in Starfleet being a matter of choosing to be a part of it and it being bound by honor and duty. I don't know why they're doing that, if it's supposed to be earlier in the development of the Federation, or if they're just copying the Orville jokes. I do really like is Una. A lot of that is I always felt robbed by the fact that the network made Gene cut out the idea of a woman first officer after the first pilot and I feel like we're finally getting to see what could have been with Majel in that role.

    When I wrote the above I had not seen the musical yet. It was well-produced and fun, but I think it really undercut the show and I didn't like it. It made the characters seem silly. Contrast with the Lower Decks crossover which I thought I was going to hate and I thought actually worked fine if you could ignore the cartoon thing. I didn't mind that it was played for outright comedy because it still took the characters seriously. Much like the DS9 Tribbles episode.

    I do think DS9 was great by the way, with a few exceptions, mostly the mirror universe stuff. And Miles calmly encouraging the Ferengi to go on strike because of course that's what you do, was maybe one of the most subversive things Trek has gotten away with on TV. American media loves to hate on unions so that was a bolder than you might realize and I loved it.

  • What I expected

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  • BeBox had dual processors (unusual for the time) and the GUI had a little tool that let you see the load on both, and a little check box to turn off a processor so that you could force all the processes to run on on the other. If you turned off both processors the computer halted.

    The Be employee I met at the time said they left it that way because that's what you told it to do. And it was funny.

    I always had to appreciate that commitment to pedantry.