Rate of change in 2021 (last data point on this graph) is nearly vertical. Five years of that would put a few zeros at the end of that figure, which is exactly what happened.

they have a 180 day period to define the regulation and a year for it to be contacted and implemented.

This has a familiar smell. The 3d printer “gun printing prevention” bill(s) that are floating around have the same “we’ll figure out the actual law after the bill is approved.” And here I thought that punting congressional authority to executive agencies was bad. Now they’re not writing laws, but instead, blank checks for vague things within even more vague legal outlines.

In a more general sense, it also resembles the work being done to level this requirement at online services as well.

Ultimately, the only way to really enforce any sort of age verification system is to force all content providers to have an age verification step.

My biggest fear here is that this will have teeth, and will be crafted so that the only feasible way to make it work is to be 100% cloud connected behind federally approved vendors (e.g. Apple and Microsoft).

If it doesn’t work it’s harmless. If it does work, you’re out a little water, a few minutes for a ceremony, and might just save untold weekend and evening hours for everyone.

these are influencers paying thousands of dollars to play dress up at a music festiva

I’m still trying to wrap my head around this. I see pics of a “music festival” but there’s no mud, dirt, dust, and a complete lack of patrons that look strung out on days of drugs and a total lack of sleep. Then I hear about the premium experience you describe and I just shudder as my brain latches on to “this might look better, but it doesn’t seem right.”

Please insert brain into drive A: and press [Enter] when ready.

I trust that they’ll be complete push-overs when it comes to law enforcement and agency data requests without a warrant.

Outside of moving data overseas, away from 5/9-eyes, I’m having a bad time figuring out how to obtain cryptographic control over my data within existing services. This leaves me to just upload crypto blobs everywhere with no real services to support it, or buying my own hardware and co-locating it myself.

I often wondered about this behavior. Every so often I would see someone go to their car in a parking lot, sit down in the driver’s seat and just… go nowhere. Engine is running, music is on, driver has a 1000-yard stare. It’s so far removed from my own experience - I never do this - that for the longest time, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Somehow, the phrase ‘after a long day’ made it click. So thanks, OP.

Apartment living also showed me that some people just hang out alone in the car instead of in the apartment. That I can understand as some units can be downright claustrophobic if you have a big family. Want privacy? Get a car payment I guess. :(

That man is a menace.

I had a dusty laptop running a homelab for you, and figured I should show something nice on the screen. Then, I typed in my password like an idiot. Not gonna put that online. :(

https://youtu.be/6ztxYDaxyd8?t=52

For anyone else that needs it, there’s also stuff for co-ax. Some cable guy went nuts putting coaxial cable into just about every room of my new (very old) house. I seriously considered MoCA for a bit, but wifi is working well enough for the moment.

https://www.techreviewer.com/learn-about-tech/ethernet-over-coax-a-complete-guide-to-moca-adapters/

I think that’s just the Post Office, with extra steps.

The Crow could make for an awesome RPG experience.

It really deserves the Disco Elysium treatment. Yeah, the eponymous anti-hero gets his kill on throughout the whole story, and that’s tempting to build a game out of; standard revenge plot stuff. That said, there’s way more on offer here. How about a detective story that follows a murderer that’s already dead? Or, maybe you start off not knowing you’re dead and puzzle that together as you go. Or perhaps you’re constantly crossing paths with said detective, solving your own mystery, always a step behind the shadow of your dead friend?

The cook:

We have some monstrously large hurdles to clear in this regard. What’s working against a general strike:

• No social safety net for housing or medical until you’re below the poverty line for a tax year
• Bankruptcy, poor credit, limits future employment options (e.g. background checks)
• Most industries are not unionized, so your job can easily be filled in your absence
• Really high unemployment right now for skilled sectors like IT
• A lot of people are paycheck-to-paycheck thanks to a host of factors like high rent

To say nothing of all the illegal shit government and private business will do to end and/or prevent a strike.

It’s not impossible, but it does mean that any reasonable person would like to know that millions upon millions of others will be striking alongside them. Support networks for unemployed strikers along with strategies to deal with scabs would be a good start, too.

I think I’d still rather this than have a heavy device on my head,

I’ve wondered about this, actually. We’d need necks like an NFL linebacker.

an umbilical, and motion sickness.

Joking aside, that’s a legit concern. It’s not for everyone, that’s for sure.

May I recommend looking into your local kink-scene? I know you’re joking, but honestly, that’s the closest thing to an actual “sex guild” and it may be worth your while. Bigger metro areas typically have highly organized clubs for this - no fooling. If nothing else, you can learn some very cool things to do with rope.

This. A LOT of this. There’s a reason why the VFW has/had a lot of alcohol available, cigarettes were super popular, and why biker clubs became a thing post-war. The “greatest generation” was doing a lot of self-medication without managing to fix anything.

You can kind of see boomers become aware of how that’s not okay, as the tone of war movies shifts dramatically from WWII to Vietnam. They still missed the mark, but at least the idea of vets having “flashbacks” was something in popular media from that point forward. It was progress, if however minimal and incremental.

On the one hand, that’s over $3000 in monitors for one cubicle.

On the other, “office furniture” and “IT equipment” can be two completely different budgets in different departments. So the numbers aren’t directly comparable when it comes to requisitions.