That could not be further from my position. I’d prefer marijuana be largely decriminalized for personal use, not simply legalized. I’d prefer that we have universal healthcare and that Regan’s war on drugs be officially over with, with appropriate medical research be started for relevant substances and harm reduction policies enacted for public health.

@Mouselemming points out that as soon as the “fun” part is separated from the pain suppressant part, the latter will get insurance support and the former will be left on the cutting floor of history, due to market pressures.

@chonglibloodsport suggests we don’t let “the bosses” make this decision - as if it’s going to be a vote or something similar and not the wheels of capitalism doing it’s thing. People won’t get a choice about how bosses exert influence on this.

Nobody wants the bosses to be making these decisions, it ought to be in the hands of the people with guidance of medical professionals and the backing of science. But pretending like meddling isn’t exactly what corpos are gonna do is kinda naïve, in my opinion.

If you think there’s some other takeaway I’m missing, I’m open to contrasting opinions.

First time dealing with late stage capitalism?

Whom precisely do you think wants that decision in their bosses hands?

Price fixing is a form of collusion, and it’s a crime - even if the sellers can claim they didn’t all sit down in a room together.

Phoenix apartments had an inflated housing market that was caused by price fixing. The property management used software to set rental prices, and the terms of service required them to use the prices suggested. None of the managers individually spoke to each other, but the software algorithmically inflated rent based on what other properties could get away with charging.

https://www.azag.gov/press-release/arizona-attorney-general-announces-1-million-settlement-weidner-property-management

I happen to have seen that one before. It’s very layered … like an onion.

Yes! But I’m definitely an oddball. I also read the terms of serving refuse to use services that have terms I disagree with.

Imagine how scarring it would be to look in a “smart mirror” and have it automatically censor your own body.

This is of course, aside from the million reasons I don’t trust the government when they talk about “for the children” …

Yes, but please tell me where the asshole ends and the decent person begins?

Rich asshole fireplace briquettes?

It’s a risk many are willing to take, especially if we can use their money for universal healthcare.

NIMBY in action (but far more palatable than usual)

I see your point and it pleases me. Let’s upvote it so it will be seen more by others like me.

But to post a controversial opinion - I believe the internet is a giant confirmation bias machine.

It could be a throwaway.

Yes. It is very possible for average dudes to look incredible naked, even to traditional beauty standards. Plenty of gay photographers take on this challenge and have portfolios filled with such shots (presumably in part for the challenge and in part for the subject matter).

Technically this is a tangent to the question you asked, save for the case where they do nude self-portraits. Nonetheless, I have been to a few homes where all the walls filled with their own photos of basically average gay bears in posing in very artistic ways that I’d assume were professional models, if not for the fact that I could identify subjects to their local ‘online dating’ profiles. (And to be clear, while some photos definitely have ‘I’m here to fuck’ energy, many more were going for tender vibes and artistic poses).

Guys with [good, interesting] tattoos appear to make great photography subjects - I suspect that it gives the artist something to compose the rest of the shot around. Unless you’re a modern prude, tattoos don’t carry the stigma they used to, they’re [often] artistic, and broadly well-fitted to the male beauty aesthetic.

Wish I could give you names and such, but in my defense I generally wasn’t visiting to see the wall art.

I prefer the term Computer Intelligence to Artificial Intelligence or Synthetic Intelligence. It grounds the term in the computational logic of a math rock, and allows the intelligence not be a ‘pass/fail’, but rather what scales to what’s been discovered.

It covers modern LLMs, but also includes classic fuzzy logic, probabilistic calculations, Bayesian networks, etc.

I’ve had hit and miss with Ventoy. I love it and it’s my goto, but I have a handful of ISOs that it’s effectively just storage for - then I use Balena Etcher, Rufus, Raspberry Pi Imager, or sometimes classic dd to burn it to a smaller USB - but if I had to pick one tool, I’d recommend Raspberry Pi, Rufus, or Balena Etcher to a new user just trying to get the job done.

She’s told that someone on earth would die and she doesn’t know them. The twist is that while it’s implied that it’s a random person, it’s revealed at the end that it’s the last person to press the button.

That’s actually a fairly good take - they could make a bunch of old scripts and make them enticing to license, and couple that with a small fund to seed some ultra small-scale productions (by Hollywood standards). I like it.

Couple that with remakes on whatever gets traction and it could prove short term profitable as well as raise the overall long term value of their vault. (I hate that this analysis is needed, but unless we change copyright law, this buy-in would be a necessary step.)

Really itching to try that golden goose recipe.

Both?