FriendOfDeSoto

In no situation where weed is legal minors are allowed to buy it. I would be onboard on this propaganda train if all I saw on Netflix is 15yo’s getting high. Which I don’t see that much really.

Minors should not consume it. Minors have parents. Minors’ parents’ job it is to keep them away from that along with sniffing glue, tobacco, vaping, alcohol and eating laundry capsules, just to name a few dangers more.

The negative effects on brain development I read about were all linked to regular, if not heavy use. There is enough wiggle room for school/education and, once again, the parents to step in.

Idiocracy is happening anyway.

You are judging work by somebody who doesn’t feel compelled to follow guidelines made by other people with those very same guidelines. Those other people looked much more closely at flags for geographical entities, not movements, to come up with their guidelines. No one is required to follow them or retroactively abide by them. They are a great style guide but not the law.

Every flag serves a purpose. This flag’s purpose is to show representation by color and design for everyone in the community. It’s was the point to be busy.

Why don’t they just stick with the rainbow flag? Because the idea of the rainbow encompassing everyone was made at a time when gay and lesbians came out with pride but many of the letters that abbreviate that community today were still marginalized more harshly, maybe even within homosexual circles. They weren’t all suddenly anthropists and free from discriminatory points of view. Development of ideas and communities takes time. And that’s why an artist took ideas from many different flags that were created over time and combined them into one. It is eye catchy and instantly recognizable, even at a medium distance still.

I don’t find the result aesthetically pleasing either. But I recognize a) that wasn’t the point of it and b) I’m not a member of the LGBTQ+ community. If from within that community a movement rises to change the flag into something else, by all means. Other than that my design opinions - and I suspect many other ones in this thread - are largely academic and frankly irrelevant.

Good flag bad flag is not the gospel. Take it as a starting point for new designs but don’t scrutinize all existing flags by it.

That’s unfair to microwave ovens because they have established uses, even in some fine dining establishments. So-called AI has none of that just yet.

Dehydration is but a secondary concern as you’re being chased by a sabertooth tiger.

The short answer is a court of law.

The long answer includes a reference to the location because a few countries do not list “escape from prison” as a crime in itself recognizing the human yearning to be free. So only incidental stuff would be interesting in a subsequent legal case, i.e. damage of property, threatening people with violence, etc. If you can manage to slip out in a laundry basket, you are okay. Andy Duphresne would be liable for the wall and sewage pipe he broke. (And committing fraud, of course.)

Yes, we are. Please stop masturbating. Thanks.

That’s great, I wasn’t aware of that.

If you’re only looking at the tools everybody can get a hold of, I agree. I think if you look a bit further, you will find medical diagnostics that can hopefully top human detection scores and that’s worth pursuing as well.

I don’t see any good reason why the general public needs to have access to most of the models today. Most people just play around with it - and I don’t see the value there. When we get the final tally, we will have made the climate crisis worse and caused droughts with all the thirsty data center consumption. All so Alexa can remember what you said two queries ago and you can animate your childhood teddy in the Ghibli style.

I agree that women are still being objectified and that’s bad. I don’t agree with workers being dehumanized by being referred to as such. “Workers of the world, unite!” was a big rallying cry. For some people, it’s an identity-establishing part of life that they’re using manual labor and not fart into a desk chair all day. They take pride in being working class.

If by referring to a group of working folks is dehumanizing then we cannot talk about people like housekeepers, street sweepers, nurses, or engineers either. They’re people too. And I don’t see “people with job X” catching on in the language either.

I’m not sure what point that is. My inkling is that OP doesn’t live in the States.

No, you’re not overreacting. You know you and you can point at serious consequences now. Keep the license valid if you can - you don’t know what life still has in store for you and you want to keep your options open. But by all means toss the keys to somebody else.

The American fear of a proper ID system is puzzling to me. It’s constant fear mongering of overreach by the man and not enough appreciation of the benefits. The first one is a self-updating voter registry that eliminates the process of registering or having to check on your registration to make sure you didn’t get knocked off for no good reason. All people need to update their home addresses when they move. Another benefit is - if implemented well of course - that everybody could have a 2FA-quality chip in their pocket to allow for many services to be done reasonably safely online. The dreaded lines of the DMV come to mind. Another benefit is you could prove very quickly who you are, especially if fingerprints are on the chip, to counter mistaken identity arrests that may or may not have been instigated by a so-called AI.

So the government knows everything about you, sure. But it’s not a one-sided deal. And frankly, even if the government did not have this information on you before it turned tyrannical, it would ID you as a possible malcontent in no time. Your data is already available for sale on various data broker sites.

I realize that me preaching the benefits of a proper ID system to the Americans in times of 47 and ICE raids is a bit wonky. I am not going to speculate if the self-updating voter registry could’ve prevented 47. And ICE under 47 might find its job “easier.” But from what I’ve read and heard they haven’t exactly been detail-oriented public servants. When the rule of law breaks down everybody gets effed. And so-called illegal immigrants also have phones and use the internet so their information was also available for sale before stable genius returned to the orange office.

Of course there are dangers that need to be addressed. Access to the database needs to be tighter than a sphincter and every query needs to be logged. Every system will be abused. Checks and balances need to be there, ideally with a right to find out who looked you up and for what reason for everyone. I’d prefer a system embedded in law over internet data brokers.

I think both Apple and fictitious closed Android would be way more interchangeable and data from within would be more portable. Developers would get more of a cut. The saving grace for Google in the real world is that they can do Apple shenanigans while pointing at the open-source availability of Android and not get dumped in hotter antitrust water. If we only had two OSs and both were closed especially regulators in Europe would hit both of them much harder. And like tougher environmental restrictions on cars became the de facto US standard for everyone, the forced equal playing field (the EU guys LOVE an equal playing field) would over time make shit better for all users everywhere.

If there was no Android I think we would have a long list of failed attempts to build one that all fail because every company wanted to build their own walled gardens, and didn’t get enough traction. iOS probably would have succeeded thanks to Apple marketing budgets and their somewhat cultish follower base. But I suspect it would have followed more the initial Steve Jobs idea of doing most stuff in browser; the app revolution wouldn’t have happened. So there would be a big iOS share and then the lower 30% or so would be fractured into other walled gardens for poor people. One result of that would be an earlier agreement on a RCS-like texting solution and not just in the States but everywhere. Because more players would have a stake in seamless communication because stuff like WhatsApp (a reaction to high texting rates, mostly in Europe) and blue/green bubblr iMessage did not happen.

We know nothing about your kid. We don’t know if he’s an angel or a little shit.

Without knowing more I think the bedtime rules are alright. Structure is good. If he doesn’t throw bucketloads of ice water on him still snoozing 6:01I don’t see a huge problem.

As for smartphone and screen time, every kid is different. These restrictions strike me more as he’s been a little shit punitive. If he’s never known different and doesn’t mercilessly gets teased for it in school, it might be okay. Our opinion doesn’t really matter as much as yours and you asked the question. So I’m sensing you may be dissatisfied with both these rules and perhaps their unilateral implementation. I would just advise you not to talk to hubby like hey I asked a bunch of strangers on the internet about your rules and here’s what they thought.

Millions of peaches!

The music industry has a problem. Only the cream of the crop earn any significant money from streaming. Not enough people buy to own music. Lily Allen famously said she earns more money from here foot pictures on OnlyFans than her music on streaming. The only thing artists can earn a bit of money from is concerts. Be it tours or rich people gigs (incl. corporate ones). There are plenty of big budgets available in the top 5%.

And it’s not a new phenomenon. Artists have gotten into how water for performing for Gaddafi’s son, the Chechen strongman, or at the Indian richest guy daughter’s wedding. These stories bubble up and down because there’s controversy. A kpop band performing for the daughter of a run of the mill millionaire is causing yawns in the newsrooms. Now, if he was an arms dealer we’d be in business.

If you have a garage, at home. You might want you drop more details to get better answers. E.g. location.

I’m criticizing the use of the phrase “new global language.” And I’ve laid out my reasons why I think that’s wrong. I didn’t think I was grilling OP, just the perception of Mandarin being the new global language. So I’m a little taken aback that you read it that way; that wasn’t my intention.

… how pervasive the new Global Language already is …

I’m going to challenge you on this point. First of all, what’s Chinese? I’m guessing you refer to Putonghua aka Mandarin, the erstwhile variant of Beijingnese prescribed for official use within the PRC by their political leadership.

And second, how “global” is it? It’s useful primarily in one contiguous area of the world. Even there a large chunk of people kind of learn it as a first semi-foreign language because they speak something different at home. Cantonese, Shanghainese, or a language that cannot be written in Chinese characters.

Which brings me to my third point: a language that requires study of a script this idiosyncratic will not rise to a global language. Vietnam has gotten rid of hanzi, Korean pretty much as well. Ironically, the north has already completely abandoned it. By comparison, the Latin alphabet was spread by cavalry and cannon boat into all parts of the world for centuries. It spread so far that it is now used to teach pinyin to PRC schoolchildren. And while it is not without its own problems, the simplicity and adaptability of this phonetic alphabet to any language makes it far more useful than Chinese characters. And I’m not shitting on the cultural value of them: that’s unimpeachable. It’s just too complicated.

The alphabet spread with English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese all over the world. I’m not saying that’s a good thing but it’s already happened. Mandarin cannot have a similar success today unless the PRC starts colonizing at gunpoint fast.

Most Chinese as a foreign language speakers outside the PRC learned it for economic reasons. Economic ties have become somewhat dicey. If anything I suspect interest in learning Mandarin to wane.

There is also the tonal aspect. Any atonal-native language learner is going to have a much harder time than trying to remember the non-sensical English orthography.

More people on this planet learn English as their first and possibly only foreign language - if they learn one at all. The forum you asked this question on is in English. The internet cements the use of the alphabet.

I’m in Japan where foreign language education is notoriously sub-par overall. English is the first foreign language. Some private high schools offer Mandarin as an optional, I haven’t seen anything substantial in state-run schools. At college level, most people chose between French and German as a second foreign language. Like we’re still in the Meiji Era. I’m a big proponent that they abandon this tradition in favor of Russian, Korean, and Mandarin. It always helps to learn the language of your neighbors. Language schools advertize k-pop-trendy Korean more.

You ask a lot of legitimate questions there, causes that you and I could come to an agreement over. I would erase the starting point though. Pride movements and workers movements might both look like similar demonstrations. They are borne out of very different motivations. People might look down on manual laborers but you wouldn’t have to fear for your safety in certain parts of your city for being one. LGBTQ+ folks can’t say the same. Pride movements bring awareness that we have discriminated or are still discriminating against whole swaths of the population - mostly for silly reasons. That’s different from a disagreement about how exploitative capitalism should be permitted to be.

Another negative connotation is that this “why are there LGBTQ+ pride parades but not …?” is the leading question of people who think straight people need to have a pride parade as well. Like you couldn’t live a heteronormative life every day without fear of retribution. And I’m hoping that you don’t think along those lines and therefore would not want to be this close to that argumentative train of thought.