It likes bots writing to the site, for the engagement; it doesn’t like bots reading the site (for free).

They took out the “report spam” button. Presumably that’s because Google’s whole business model in 2024 is delivering spam in all its various forms.

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Create the problem, sell the solution.

But why pay all those programmers when all they had to do from the beginning was a simple

#include “ai.h”

People are weird about gasoline. They’ll drive around looking for the cheapest option, to save 2 cents/gallon. Even with a huge tank, that’s less than 50 cents of total savings.

So a grocery store can offer, say, 10¢ savings, and it only actually costs them like $1.50-$2.00 per customer. That’s way less than other sales that are harder to advertise and don’t bring in the same amount of business.

Ultimately the psychological benefit for the shopper is more than the financial cost to the store. The others societal costs don’t come in to that equation.

Budget analyst

When you start a new language, you learn “The Rules” first, and wonder why your first language doesn’t have such immutable “Rules.”

Then when you get fluent, you realize there are just as many exceptions as your first language.

A rock with no electricity is just a rock. Meat with no electricity is just a body. Electricity is the only conscious thing there is.

Reminds me of one class I had in high school right after lunch. The teacher was occasionally late getting back to class from the bar.

It was going to be the 513, but we got an overflow error instead.

Backing this up with some history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_version_history

In March 2011, Mozilla presented plans to switch to a faster 16-week development cycle, similar to Google Chrome.

Firefox 1.0 was in 2004, and it took until March 2011 to get to version 4.0. Then by the end of 2011, they were on version 9.

That was a very long way to say electric boats are bad because they’re preferable to sharks.

Don’t worry, though. It’s not in development hell, it’s going to be a AAAAA game, and that takes time.

Only 3 options? Does Brawny think it’s illegal to grab 3/4 of a sheet?

Not sure why NA is being singled out here. Bottles are largely the same shape (with a few functional differences, see below) no matter where they come from.

The round shape is mostly a historical artifact from early designs that were hand-blown. A hexagonal (bestagons!) shape would pack better in an infinitely large container, but since most shipping crates are rectangular, there will be wasted space either way, and round is far easier and cheaper to mass-produce. Also, as a carbonated beverage, sharper corners could create stress points and exploding bottles.

Toppling over could potentially be reduced with a wider base, but fitting in the hand is a hugely important factor for any drinking container. There are larger-based bottles, but they also need more specialized packaging and storage space. By using bottles that are similar size to aluminum cans, lots of infrastructure can be dual-purpose (I’m thinking of things like can/bottle storage in your refrigerator, for example).

Double the volume of what? Glass bottles have to be thicker than other materials, so to get the same volume as a can with the same size base, it has to be taller.

If you want to do a lot more reading, here’s a few sources I borrowed from:

https://sha.org/bottle/beer.htm

Regarding the functional design features referenced above:

https://www.hillebrandgori.com/media/publication/beer-bottle-sizes-and-their-surprising-history

Those ‘shoulders’ we keep mentioning remain in modern beer bottle design mainly for aesthetic reasons. Their original function was to provide a handy place for the yeast residue and dregs to collect, so that these didn’t pour out into the glass with the beer. Nowadays, most beer is filtered, so this design feature is no longer needed. Unless you’re bottling a yeast beer like a Belgian beer, of course.

Also PETA got involved, because they’ve never seen an animal-centric story they couldn’t weasel themselves into.

Bans often rely on the obscenity exception to the 1st Amendment:

https://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment1/first-amendment-limits--obscenity.html

SCOTUS has never given a clear, well-defined, repeatable test to say exactly what “obscenity” even means, so local jurisdictions are free to push the envelope.

If that sounds like a pile of bullshit waiting to be exploited, yes, and that’s exactly why we’re seeing this happening.

“Corrupt” would almost certainly be a statement of opinion, so not actionable in the US. A lot more detail would be necessary for this to be defamation.

“Judge XXXX has taken millions in shadow bribes and has consistently ruled for the wishes of his/her benefactors. There has been a history of being reversed on appeal proving their bias. Also I watched them kick a puppy.”

Then, obviously, these things would have to be false. Even then, the bar is pretty high. There are exceptions both ways on this, but as a general guideline, if the public knows a person’s name (judge in a high profile case, for example) they are probably classified as a public figure. The rule there is one of “actual malice” which isn’t exactly what it sounds like, but it’s the highest bar for defamation cases.

The speaker would have to say something factually false, knowingly or with no regard for the truth. Giuliani, for one recent example, was found guilty of defaming the Georgia election workers, because he went into great detail about his false claims, and he was told repeatedly that thise claims were false, but he kept going.

In your case, I’m guessing lots of people have heard the horror stories of shitty, scammy repair techs in various fields (automobiles being one prominent example). The good ones have to deal with the occupational reputation driven by the worst of them.

For me, I don’t consider myself a real expert in any specific subject, but I’m adjacent to a number of financial areas. I try not to delve into the weeds of those internet discussions too often (like I said, not an ironclad expert), and even when I do, it’s only to address the most egregious errors. Money can be an emotional topic, and many of those opinions are based on the way people want the world to be rather than the way it is, so show up with facts and references and they tend to understand.