FriendOfDeSoto

Kids are probably old enough to get it. I would just think that you will be loading a shotgun that’s going to shoot you in the face down the line. Either the ladies will get in each other’s hair or, worse, they’ll team up against you. I think your girlfriend is either insane or not entirely honest when she says she would be fine with your arrangement. I would sooner suggest you look for a place closeby. I’m guessing the 15yo is eye rolling you hard and the 13yo will soon not care about you either. You’ve carried them through the divorce rough spot with your unique living arrangement. Take a bow and let it go. Provide a better environment for your new relationship.

but nobody is discussing this initiative

Well, go ahead. Discuss it. I don’t know what it is.

We are just asking old questions here. The printing press, novels, and pamphlets were the end of truth! We struggled, many people died, but life moved on. Then newspapers, more death, radio, world wars. Television, photoshop, the internet - fewer deaths in between but still. And life moved on.

Every new medium brought a phase of uncertainty (and possible carnage). That’s where we are right now. Every time we think “this is the worst EVER.” Until the next thing comes around. We will figure out the slop tsunami as well. I think fewer people will die than during the reformation.

Some people will successfully bend truth to generated video or whatever. But in the end, most will not succeed. Because we get wiser at spotting the bullshit. Q Anon showed us the learning isn’t a linear development; it follows more of a two steps forward, one step back pattern.

Not everything but a lot. The short answer is cost. This will be long and simplified simultaneously:

Ever since the latter half of the last century companies have really loved one way to reduce cost in manufacturing. And that’s labor. Go to a place where the cost of living is low and work those people to the bone for a pittance.

After WW2 a lot of stuff was made in Japan, then in South Korea and Taiwan, and then China. We have since moved on to places like Vietnam, Myanmar (when politically palatable), and India. All of these stories are different and the same. Japan’s industrial heartland was bombed to smithereens and had to be rebuilt, top of the line. People needed jobs, those people were good at it too, and manufacturing jobs went there. The economy grew, wages grew with them, and it became too costly again. Enter South Korea, after successfully democratizing in the 80s (I think). They looked at what Japan had done and did a version of that. The economy grew, wages along with it, and it also became too expensive. Enter the People’s Republic of China in the 90s, ready to blend communist political power with Manchester red capitalism. A billion people who need jobs. So they looked at what the other so-called tiger states had done and did a version of their own. The economy grew, wages grew with it, and they are teetering on the edge of being to expensive again. But their sheer size, both geographically and inhabitants-wise, keeps them in the game longer. Because the policies the communists implemented to grow and steer the economy are quite unique and perhaps the lack of having to explain everything (i.e. democratic oversight) puts them in quite a strong position. And over the last 30 years anybody who is somebody has gone to China. Big market to sell goods to, big labor force to make stuff, somebody else’s rivers to pollute. It was so tempting a deal that both the US and Europe blindly became very dependent on China. Certain base chemicals, e.g. for medicine, were almost exclusively produced there. I think there world’s entire canned mandarin industry is one village in the middle of nowhere. It takes time to change this. 47 is trying to do it the impulsive, not so thought through way (tariffs). But he may yet learn that you cannot make an iPhone in the States for the price suicidal youths put it together in Shenzhen. At the heart is always cost. Labor is expensive in Ohio, cheap in Guangdong. Slightly cheaper in greater Hanoi. If we could just stop the genocide and coups, Myanmar. India has a harder time catching up because - at least for the time being - there is democratic oversight. But the gravy train will move on. Subsaharan Africa will be the next big thing. Capitalism.

Have you ever noticed the difference in screen quality before? Did you ever watch a YT video on something slightly better than a cathode ray monitor and thought to yourself: “hmm, this is shit.”? If so, don’t cheap out on the tablet. Maybe a used iPad might even be ideal. I’m leaning Apple here because Android tablet screens tend to be worse on average and there will be fewer good ones on the resale market.

If you don’t want a big TV, how about a smaller one that you can cast content to? Just as another suggestion because other folks have already suggested laptops.

As you get older, your eyes turn to shit and most of this won’t matter that much. So you’re right to be cautious on the spending.

I proudly watch movies on my phone. If I don’t want to watch Paw Patrol or Frozen it’s the only way to get some not-made-for-kids content in. And I can take it to the toilet and continue watching. And I don’t mean porn, just to clarify. Sure, as the cinematic experience goes, it isn’t what Christopher Nolan had in mind but shit happens. It’s that or nothing.

No. This is how the legal system works. When you appeal to a higher court, they can make a call themselves when massive mistakes were made at the lower level or they can say the lower court overlooked something and then make them redo their work. It’s a convenient choice for the higher judges not to have to do more work themselves. But it’s part of the process.

Loosely defined legal terms. A “computer program” can be copyrighted. You can write your own that does the same thing but you cannot copy the other code and slap your label on it. With a lot of imagination and bending the words of the shitty outdated law, you could say a website is also a “computer program.” You cannot just go into the code and change it, e.g. by blocking ads. The lower court ruling didn’t take this possible interpretation into account and now has to rule again with this in mind. Nothing’s been decided yet. We’re running a little hot in this thread on misleading headlines.

You would be building it on pretty much the same legal foundations. So it will just be history repeating.

Let’s take a deep breath and consider what’s happened. The Federal Court of Justice has sent the case back to the lower court. They have not ruled on anything. They have not said ad blocking is piracy. They have essentially said: lower court, you had 25 boxes to tick but you only ticked 24 in your ruling. Go back and do one that ticks all of them.

It’s entirely possible that the lower court will change its ruling based on the intricacies of German copyright law, which is shit. But it’s not very likely if you ask me. Regardless, whoever loses will appeal it again. This rodeo is far from over. And when it’s eventually over the technology will have moved on, with any luck the law along with it, and the only beneficiaries will have been the lawyers.

So the headline should read more like “German court does not rule out that ad blocking could be a copyright infringement.”

The argument that Axel Springer is just doing it for their love of democracy is also comical. Media pluralism is important, I agree with them that far, but they are stuck in an outdated mindset. They launched a silly tabloid Fox News wannabe TV channel and failed. They are trying to force eyeballs on their content like you are at a news agent. Meanwhile, news is happening on TikTok and so-called AI is going to reduce their page views to dust. By the time we get a final ruling they will have pivoted strategy 10 times to keep the c-suite in caviar while the established media business that made them successful is rotting away under their assess.

Corporate needs you to find the difference between this picture and this picture.

“Random” “Random, with rules”

Me: They’re the same picture.

Having to learn about genetics made me drop biology as a subject as soon as I could in school. I might have been able to wrap my head around it slightly better than OP but not by much.

I’m not a geneticist, I don’t even play one on TV. But i’m fairly confident in saying: evening out? That’s not how this works. When your daddy’s sperm combined with your mother’s egg, a whole host of chance processes happened to make up your genes. It’s random as far as I can tell. It isn’t just averaging out between them.

It took centuries to get to disposable contact lenses while trying to figure out the physics, both in optics and in manufacturing any sort of spectacles, at the same time.

Will the survivors of the apocalypse be able to pick up where we left off or will they essentially start from scratch? That depends on the apocalypse and on the survivors. Do documents and knowledge survive, perhaps in a stash or in digital form? Do the survivors include an optician or a material engineer? Chances look good if that’s the case. If no, life will get a lot harder for many people.

Germany is a collection of regions and former midieval fiefdoms that pretty much all hate each other. Munich and surroundings is representative of Munich, not the whole country. But a lot of the stereotypical things Americans think of when thinking of Germany will be there. Most of the South was occupied by US forces post WW2 and all the lederhosen, Oktoberfest, and Neuschwanstein Castle should feel just right for you. And that pisses off the Germans in the rest of the country like telling a Texan their BBQ is trash.

Somebody said Germans aren’t into smalltalk. That’s probably true by comparison to the average American but by comparison to their countrymen in the North they are positively chatty in Bavaria.

Bring cash or research at least two ways to get your hands on it while in the country. Just in case one method fails. A lot of places do not accept credit cards and that will probably extend to US debit cards that run on a cc system.

And yes, especially intercity trains are a clustereff of neglect and wear and tear and timetables are not to be trusted at all.

Don’t rent a car and just floor it on the autobahn. Take it at 120kph/75mph first for an hour before you put your pedal to the metal. Get a feel for the road and the rules first because Germans love a rule. And it decreases your chance of hitting a concrete pillar. No speed limit areas tend to be between cities, not on the built up areas. Know that speeding tickets will be charged after the fact or they will follow you by mail.

The staring people refer to here may be, to a large extent, that if there are no Chinese tourists in the area, American ones will be the loudest ones around, carrying their cute little fear of dehydration made manifest water bottles around. You look funny to us and we can’t help it. Don’t buy bottled water, tap is fine to drink. But there aren’t drinking fountains around. A lot of drinks in bottles and cans charge a deposit fee you’ll get back when you return the empty container to the supermarket - your kid will know the drill.

If you’re planning to cross borders be prepared for actual border checks. Our version of ICE crackdowns is making the federal police force delay EU cross border traffic with pretty much EU-illegal ID checks. We spend absolute millions of Euros, accruing a gazillion hours of overtime to catch two illegal immigrants or thereabouts. Political theater with waiting times for all.

Doesn’t difficult very much depend on what you think matters? You’re instantly missing out on anything app, anything QR-code related (ordering food in some restaurants, links, etc.), membership cards that no longer exist in physical form. Some places sell certain tickets online only and then you may need a printer or you’re SOL. I’m sure in missing something so that’s not extensive.

But at the same time, if you have a dumb phone, you can still stay in touch with friends and family. You’ll be missing out on images being sent that are bigger than 2 pixels. But you wouldn’t be completely out of the loop. And if you have an internet ready computer at home or at the next door library, just not on you at all times, I think that’s crucial. Without that you’re ending up in all sorts of trouble.

I would say it’s doable if you are good at not giving F’s. If at the same time you only want to use cash or just no credit cards you’ll be making your life much harder though.

Everybody draws their own vague red lines in the sand. There is no universal law. If you like it and it doesn’t feel icky, go ahead and like it. If it feels icky, don’t. Or make sure they get no money out of your enjoyment.

Flip a coin or start both on Duolingo and see which one interests you more. This is only a hard decision in your head. If you’re not planning to move to somewhere where they speak either, this is just a hobby.

They are both romance languages so you’ll find mental handholds in either language that can help you with the other. Similar conjugations, spellings, irregularities, etc.

The French you’ll learn with internet resources or most text books will most likely be French French. As a learner, that will probably still make understanding the Quebecers an extremely hard task. It’s like somebody from a Louisiana bayou talking to a Scottish highlander. On paper, they are both able to speak English but there are accents and differences in vocabulary that increase the level of difficulty, even for native speakers.

No one here can tell you for sure what’s wrong with your cable. So no one can answer if it will be good or bad over time. Slow (normal) charging is better for your battery than fast charging. A wobbly wire might stop and restart the charging process, which might be detrimental to the battery over time.

But it could also be that your port is so clogged up with pocket lint that the contact in your phone is affected and that’s why fast charging no longer works. Something could be broken in the brick you use and that’s why it won’t work any more. It could be that the cable was bent so many times it’s broken. It’s probably that.

You could try to narrow down where the error lies. If you use a friend’s cable does the same thing happen? Friend’s fine-working cable in your power brick? If you got a phone repair kiosk in your neighborhood, maybe ask them if they could clean your port. If they’re friendly, they can probably help you narrow down this problem also.

If your approach at dating hasn’t materialized in anything, perhaps it is time to change your approach. For me, the best things happened when I wasn’t trying at all. Be social, be courteous, be nice - and as the owner of a penis: non-threatening.

You have self identified a problem of anxiety. If your next step is to criticize all “females” as being difficult in terms of dating, you’re missing a beat here and making a bad word choice. The problem may be more of a you-problem than a them-problem. Also, no matter the primary sexual organ situation, people can pick up on both an air of entitlement or the scent of desperation.

Also, all cicadas shout for sex but not every cicada gets laid.

If there is no checking in place, like an airport security check and/or check for devices emitting radio waves. Also, the producers know where the candidates are at, don’t they? If they spot regular drone flights in the area, I think the game will be up as well.

Now i’m torn. On the one hand I want to dismiss your counter argument as a counter factual and therefore there is no need to even glance at it. On the other hand, the omnipotent dick is part of the equation and he can control these things and I kinda see where you’re coming from. I would say he is being more of a d though because he is rubbing Picard’s nose in how unprepared humanity is in the stars. The fact that his finger snapping detour shortened the encounter timeline with the Borgs may have had the one positive effect: forewarning for the feds. And that may have put them in a position to win by the skin of their teeth. So your counter argument holds some limited and not massive amount of water.