Torchlight 2 and 3 are fun looting co-op experiences.

Sandersons … too much of a choir boy to match Martin’s tone

I’d agree, it’s not an ideal match. But another talented, perhaps up-and-coming writer (as Sanderson sort of was at the time) could do a good job.

Remember when GRRM was so pissed that people criticized his friend Robert Jordan for faffing around for over a decade and never finishing the Wheel of Time series? Yeah, same.

¿Porque no los dos?

Hey, while we’re on the subject, does anyone remember the forum thread that went viral a few years ago of a guy whose HOA booted his car, and he managed to hide the booted car in his garage and the towing company freaked out? He updated the forum posts as the saga developed, and it’s a very funny read.

https://www.jeepforum.com/threads/epic-hoa-parking-boot-battle.572540/

our Search Choices might be of use here

Thanks, I think that’s a valuable option! It’s probably not what I was looking for. As I understand it, the “bang” use is just a way to use the search on a specific webpage, and is just a nice little hack to speed up searches on commonly used websites (i.e., Wikipedia, YouTube, BBC, etc.) I can probably get used to going straight to those sites, but it was a feature that got me using DDG at first and broke my reliance on Google.

For anyone seriously considering this tactic, they already have your license plate and VIN when they boot your car. If you manage to remove the wheel and destroy the boot, many jurisdictions will come after you for damage to city property and it will cost you a lot more than paying to get the boot off. I had a buddy who found this out the hard way.

They just need to be better than humans, which is a rather low bar.

Man, hard disagree. These systems have to be WAY better than humans to justify their huge costs. From a policy perspective, “better than humans” isn’t good enough. And from a fiscal and legal perspective, it’s disastrous. Companies need to achieve perfect or nearly perfect records to avoid being sued out of existence in products liability suits.

Also, just a friendly reminder that Cruise (competitor to Waymo) admitted that it had an average of 1.5 employees directing each so-called autonomous car. Waymo hasn’t had to disclose those numbers yet, but it employs far more people than Cruise, so I think it’s safe to assume that the number is not zero. As much as I want it to be true, this tech is nowhere close to actually autonomous yet. My suspicion is that true autonomous vehicles are still many decades away, due to computing power constraints, sensor fidelity, etc. https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/11/one-and-half-remote-cruise-employees-were-supporting-each-driverless-car.html

Mojeek

Thanks for the rec, I’ll give Mojeek a try for a while. So far the results seem better than Brave (which I didn’t seriously consider using regularly anyway) but I miss the bang options (!w, !yt, etc.) that DDG has.

Propoganda and marketing spin. Waymo also said its previous cars were safe and they’ve still had multiple incidents.

It’s utterly unacceptable that these companies have been allowed to beta-test their 2-ton vehicles and beta software on public streets.

Thanks, much easier! (I like that username, btw!)

That’s what the first reviews of the Ioniq 5 all said, it’s proportioned like a hatchback but it’s quite a bit bigger in person. Which is a shame, I don’t need or want bigger. The VW Golf or Polo presents a nice niche that no one wants to fill in the North American market.

I agree that I’d prefer to see it disabled in c/News, it adds nothing to the conversation.

Plastic recycling, definitely. Aluminum/aluminum recycling is very effective. Approximately 75% of aluminum that has ever been mined and processed is still in use, and it can be re-used and recycled a functionally infinite number of times. But you’re totally right about greenwashing in plastics. Even the easiest plastics to “recycle” (like PET or PETE) can only be reprocessed once or twice before the polymers break down too much for re-use.

Extremely hardcore.

back spasms after sneezing (of all things)

This is the true humiliation of getting older. In my 20s I climbed mountains and had plenty of scrapes and mishaps, but I just shook them off and my body just healed up quickly. Now I can tweak my back with a sneeze or be sore for days just by raking leaves. Life comes at you fast.

Good on you, I’ve read elsewhere that the better shape you can be in prior to years of decline, the better you handle the natural aging process. I don’t need to do anymore marathons, they’re too hard on my knees, but running/biking and body-weight exercises are part of my attempt to stave off the inevitable.

Read further in that paragraph:

Researchers assessed 135,000 different molecules (RNA, proteins and metabolites) and microbes (the bacteria, viruses and fungi living in the guts and on the skin of the participants).

Also, see the previous article in Nature linked in the article. That study looked at fewer proteins, but had over 4,000 participants.

Better title:

Maduro regime begins standard dictator practice of building false charges against opponents who won democratic vote