I mean, he’s a technocrat through and through. Always has been. Sometimes you need a stint of a technocrat to get into the nitty gritty.

Then again, he’s not my PM so I’m probably talking out my arse about the situation. I’m far less clued into domestic Canadian politics than the average Canadian.

They ain’t monkeys.

This is the correct response. Social media, as a construct, is not evil and dos not do harm to anyone. The commodification and commercialisation of social media by capitalistic companies is what has caused the harm we see today.

All of the harms and evils of social media can be boiled down to a single concept: the algorithm. Because algorithmic recommendation of content wants to encourage people to stay on a platform (for capitalistic reasons), and the most enticing and attention-grabbing content is hate-content, these companies have forced hate-inducing concepts down the throats of people in an endeavour to make more money and destroyed individuals and families/friends in the process.

If we regulate the algorithms, we regulate the harm without disempowering anyone. We can, and we should, regulate algorithms on social media to turn it back into what it was 20-odd years ago - a measure to keep in touch with people you know or care about.

I had like four false starts where I barely left White Orchard, but then I was in just the right headspace and spent the next few months completing every single quest and DLC in the game. It just suddenly ‘clicked’ for me. It may do so for you at some point.

Honestly, while Booking.com acted shittily here, I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone who buys a home and does short-term rentals. Every investment vehicle has risks, and this woman copped the short end of the stick when it came to the risk associated with her investment choice. She chose to purchase a basic human need and try to maximise her profit from it at the expense of the average person trying to buy or rent a house and, if she didn’t want the risk of this happening, she should’ve chosen a less risky investment like bonds or a term deposit.

Landlords are bad; fuckwits who own short-stay rentals are far worse. The market distortion they create hurts so many people in so many ways. Frankly, I hope she takes this as a sign she should just sell the property and move on to something else.

As an Australian I had no idea how ubiquitous WhatsApp had become elsewhere before travelling. I downloaded it for the first time on a trip to Europe because I literally couldn’t contact certain providers otherwise and the only other time I’ve ever used it was when I was in India and was faced with the same dilemma. It was a real culture shock.

I, and everyone I’m linked in with here in Australia, only use WhatsApp to communicate with relatives overseas or don’t use it at all. We all just tend to use SMS or regular phone calls here.

Care to point to any reports that other nations are viewing those other Western countries poorly as a result of Trump’s actions?

Securing the Strait of Hormuz seems to be self-interested actions by those nations; an attempt to reduce the impact of higher oil prices on their own economies. It’s a far cry from the Western world following the USA into Iraq with boots on the ground 20-odd years ago.

Trump is eroding the idea of a USA-led Western bloc. Canada’s PM Carney is leading the charge to create new middle-power blocs to establish credibility outside of the USA’s influence. I’m yet to see reports that those measures are being viewed in a negative fashion by the rest of the world, but I’m happy to be corrected.

Has he really damaged Western credibility, or is he only damaging the USA’s credibility? I’ve not seen reports that Trump’s behaviour is impacting how others feel about Canada, France or Germany. Trump’s behaviour really only reflects on the global opinions of the USA, as other countries and their populations are generally intelligent enough to understand that he is only elected by one country; only represents one country; and is only the product of the population of one country.

https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/problem-with-a-product-or-service-you-bought/repair-replace-refund-cancel

These are direct quotes from the ACCC website (my bolding added for emphasis):

• When a product has a major problem, consumers can choose between a refund or replacement.

• When a business sells a product with a major problem, or a product that later develops a major problem, it must give the consumer the choice of a: refund, or replacement of the same type of product.

While I take your point, the concept of telling a lesbian that they “just haven’t had the right dick yet” is almost always used as a slant to imply that they’d actually be happier if they were straight, not if they were bi/pan. It’s more saying “you’re wrong” rather than saying “you might enjoy something else in addition”.

Being bisexual myself, I find monosexuality to be pretty weird and struggle to understand it. I tend to put people who identify as either straight or gay in the same camp - as just not being open-minded enough to explore what feels like the natural state to me; that all people are potential sexual candidates. While it’s a pretty blunt instrument, I tend to think of the Kinsey Scale as being normally distributed - that true 100% straight and 100% gay people probably exist but are extreme minorities.

Again, that’s just my opinion, and it’s not one I’d ever levy at a person derogatorily. I just think as a species we haven’t yet come to the point of thoroughly and completely deconstructing the social and biological frameworks we’ve constructed around sexuality.

It is when you’re a regular citizen who doesn’t want to kill people for oil or because of the whims of a psychopathic warlord.

It isn’t when you’re the Commander-in-Chief sending people to their deaths in an unnecessary war.

While I totally agree with you, it’s important to note that LLMs are decidedly not part of the evolution of AGI. They’re a separate piece of technology on their own branch. An LLM could never feasibly be developed into AGI. The development of AGI is going on in the background, as you said in a slow grind, but those researchers are not working on LLMs nor are LLM programmers working towards AGI.

Source? Not trying to aggravate or anything, but I just haven’t seen any statistics that bear that out. This report from Pew Research in 2025 suggests that married women are roughly split:

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/partisanship-by-gender-sexual-orientation-marital-and-parental-status/

Married men and women are more likely to identify with or lean toward the Republican Party than their unmarried counterparts, with 59% of married men and half of married women oriented toward the GOP.

The image above this statement shows 45% of married women are Democrat-aligned whereas 50% of married women are Republican-aligned.

How I would love to offer an extremely exclusive and expensive product or service and have a billionaire approaching me trying to get it for free, to be able to say “Oh, I’m sorry, can you not afford it? We only offer this to people who have enough money to pay for it. I’m sure if you work hard, one day you’ll earn enough money to come back and give this a try!”

Nothing would hurt a fragile billionaire’s ego more than insinuating that they’re poor. Their entire lives and identities revolve around being rich and to take that away from them, even for a few seconds, would haunt them for many years to come.

I watched his whole speech and the Q&A afterwards a short time ago and, as an Australian, all I could think was that if I were Canadian I’d have been very proud to call him my PM. He has such a sensible approach to the idea that the world has irrevocably changed and that middle powers need to band together to stand up to bullies like the USA. He correctly highlighted that the current circumstances are frightening and challenging but has a clear vision for the path forward.

I, like many others, was concerned that an ex-banker and leader of two federal reserves would just tow the neoliberal line but he’s shown real courage and vision. I hope he continues to back up the rhetoric with action that’s both in the best interests of Canadians but also in the better interests of other middle power nations.

57s are still pretty prevalent, particularly for guitarists with tube amps/combos that don’t have an XLR output - especially those older amps/combos that are still going strong. It’s also the go to for miking drums in larger venues where that’s needed. As a bassist, I ended up forgoing the amp/stack for a SansAmp DI driver pedal a long time ago though - no regrets on that front.

It’s the 27th draft - there are 27 amendments to the constitution. Seems like it’s due for some more amendments for the modern era. It’s supposed to be a living document - at least that was the original intention.

More fuel to add to the fire - compare a factory worker with a capitalist. The capitalist provides negative value to society, by actively stripping the value of others’ labour from them while contributing nothing themselves, whereas the factory worker creates value for those around them. I’d argue that the factory worker has more value than the capitalist.

The article really isn’t for those of us who already know how terrible ‘AI’ is - it’s for those who treat it like it’s the infallible holy grail of all the answers in the world. Sadly, I’ve met some such people for whom this article might be illuminating.

Actually, the military way to say that would be “sixteen hundred hours”. 4:30PM would be “sixteen thirty hours”. You always specify the minutes, even when it’s zero minutes, which is notated by saying “hundred” for the double-zero.