just without the hope in the future, investment in human capital, rise in living standards etc..
In other words, the internet-of-things was a really shitty idea.
Weird that now the EU has a pressing need to re-industrialize all of a sudden these stories are popping up. Without much evidence to support them.
Show me the teardown of the hardware, please. Until a story is posted with specifics, this is hearsay.
It's also worth noting that proper sourcing, production standards and chain of custody processes for critical infrastructure are the reason for the oft-ridiculed 50-dollar-screw in the US military.
He's too busy working out how to do more for his real constituency: israel.
my organization rto'd very early on after the pandemic, and promptly lost 40% of their staff who retired. It's an old place, demographically. I can guarantee that everyone forced back in was refusing (and continues to refuse) to buy anything for lunch and brown-bags out of spite, especially given some dummies were stupid enough to claim that as the reason. Lots of eateries continuing to shut down in the area, and you know what? nobody cares. In attempting to "save" something, they've practically guaranteed its demise by pissing off an entire generation.
because the state and fed levels are corrupt as hell. the local level seemed more amenable, although i suspect the nyc mayoral elections will be thoroughly fiddled.
I love a lady who enjoys pulling rank.
The same author did another similar novel called Thin Air, which you might like - it maintains that tech noir theming.
The first season does the detective noir thing pretty well, and doesn't deviate too far from the novel. They tried rolling the second book (Broken Angels) and the third book (Woken Furies) into one season, it didn't work out at all.
Now I want to make an ai slop Altered Carson poster.
There's so many great book series out there. Ian Banks' Culture Series, Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Ruin series, could re-do Altered Carbon properly and base it on the second book more faithfully; which was actually quite interesting. Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space series. Terry Pratchett's last contribution in The Long Earth series. What happened to the supposed adaptation of Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars series? Neal Asher's Polity series. Dan Simmon's Hyperion, anyone? And that's just a small fraction of more modern SciFi.
None of these series really get a look in because we're still busy repeating the same formula ad nauseam until the fan base literally can't take ingesting another two hours of recycled dross.
Let's try something new.
someone tell that to the kripsy gnome, or whatever her name is..and the trump administration..
view more: next ›
On-and-off smoker here (mostly off)
In my experience, nicotine is great for moderating rage and resentment. It can help in bad situations and also provides a space where one can effectively shut distractions out and enter a somewhat meditative state to work on issues. It performs this task very, very well.
It is not the same as "just taking a walk" or "standing outside". Absent-mindedly smoking provides a different experience. I am envious of people who can go to the park and get the same kind of effect out of it, but for a raft of different reasons I can't reach the same experience.
I know smoking damages nearly every part of your body. I know it's addictive. I know many smokers aren't considerate of others, and blow smoke all over people downwind, in through windows and leave cigarette butts everywhere. I know wildfires start from improperly extinguished butts. I am not one of those people, and take pains to enjoy a cigarette where I will impact as few people as possible. And when my life looks up? I quit, because I don't need it anymore, and it serves no useful purpose.
Unfortunately, there seems to be less and less room in the world to create the kind of space where one can take a few minutes such as this. And that I think is the crux of the resistance here.
We keep asking for more out of everyone, and usually to no benefit for themselves. We keep making organizational decisions which result in people feeling stressed, angry, resentful, and then in turn quite deliberately fail to understand when people pick up a vice that is harming them... and then try to ban that behavior, or sanctimoniously tut away that they are somehow selfish for wanting a break from it all for five damned minutes.
There's so many different instances under which this theme plays out. I doubt this law will be enforced evenly, and it seems predictably authoritarian and counterproductive like many substance control laws. We can't stop people stuffing a bunch of plants into a pipe, or into a paper wrapping and smoking it. It's simply too easy to do, and it provides too much utility as a temporary respite from life for people to stop.
Want to solve it? Try finding ways of making life less terrible for the critical mass of people so that they won't feel a need to smoke. And even then some still will, maybe out of spite, addiction (medical/psych treatment could be offered?) or downright contrarianism; but maybe few enough that it won't matter. That's the hard, and proper, fix for this. Smoking cessation drives are quite effective, as well as reasonable limitations on where one can smoke, and I think that is a fine policy balance.
I think cigarettes, especially manufactured ones, should be available and taxed appropriately for the healthcare burden they will produce later in life. Everyone should be aware of the health considerations in no uncertain terms. I think it's appropriate to limit smoking around areas where at-risk populations live and congregate (incl. Children), and the rest really has to be allowed to work itself out in the ad-hoc grey area loosely defined as "Community", "Consideration", "Conscience" and "Respect".
The Law is too heavy handed a tool to be expected to succeed here.
Anyway, I'm sure they've already thought about all of this and discussed it at length. Just like taxing older diesel cars without considering the consequences to folks the rural south who were unable to afford new vehicles.