I don't think it was always intentional,.but computer games are also a great channel for prototyping and UX R&D that pays for itself.

I read this post in the voice of philomena cunk as a "My mate Paul..." quote all the way to the end before I realized you did not intend it that way

The real AI was the CEO... I mean, the friends we made along the way

That is probably part of the motivation - the inventory of original IP to frack-mine from comics is limited, and Marvel movies have not figured out the formula to *evolve* new IP beyond the derivative (besides "hire James Gunn for a movie" which only worked for so long).

Deadpool is peak derivative / self referential humor - which is not a bad thing if excellently executed, but it needs fresh material and new foils. I'm very optimistic about deadpool vs batman on a marvel movie for the same reasons batman is excellent harley quinn's foil - it'd probably be like deadpool2 and x-men.

I don't know what DC will do with this, though - they have not figured out the "derivative exploitation" part outside of parody yet, and on the parody side there isn't much original with this setup the harley brand doesn't cover already.

What are you talking about? The booming tech economy of today rests on the shoulders of giants educated in trade schools to "code" DHTML in Dreamweaver, Coldfusion and Flash during the early aughts. How would the US compete without entry level employees skilled at optimizing the PLT1 / PLT2 for an e-commerce shopping cart?

There is a semi-legitimate argument for CS being taught in highschool - its old enough to have a body of knowledge, and fundamentals that can be taught and transferred across languages / tools. Barely enough.

There is no "AI literacy" curriculum of core skills to teach that will be applicable in 10+ years for a kid in middle of K12 today - creating a required curriculum now would be of limited value and obsolete before it hit the pdf printer driver.

There is a tangential but highly transferrable set of old-but-new skills in math, logic reasoning and data science skills that are very useful on effectively delegating work to AI (or humans), but those are more effectively taught in classical STEM courses.

Moderate republicans and conservative democrats are *not* getting elected in droves. Not within mainstream parties, and not as independents - all the grass roots support is moving democrats further to "the left" and republicans further to "the right".

Conservative democrats and moderate republicans are *retiring* - even when they remain active in politics, because they care about their issues, they are not running tor re-election because they do not see near-future success as *elected representatives*.

There is no *flocking* of significant support for critical thinkers willing to put politics aside for results.

This is not a statement of party loyalty or inertia or whatever - it is an acknowledgement of facts. Party line voters are not the issue, the issue is the voters crossing across party lines or jumping out of the box are not voting for critical thinkers willing to work across the isle.

I wish that were the case, and hopefully that will be the case in the long term, but there is no electoral result or polling evidence anyone is "flocking" that way right now.

Who are these voters flocking to the "independent banner" voting for then? A banner with no leaders or agenda is no banner.

Whenever there is a coherent independent banner, we'd see both third party / independent candidates gaining electoral viability (Nader, Perot, TDR on his 'progressive period'), and establishment parties trying to hijack, or being hijacked by, the growing constituency (tea party, bernie bros).

Conservative democrats and moderate republicans are retiring from politics, not fighting on or starting third-party movements, because there is no active constituency to support them electorally.

The only coherent movements of voters "flocking away" from either party are towards more polarized flavors, which may have started independent but have been integrated into the mainstream and become the litmus test for each party.

The benefit of leasing is not owning non-strategic asset is more flexible, and if there is supply and no artificial incentives its not necessarily more expensive n the long term.

Most businesses lease most of their assets and its not because they are stupid with their financial decisions. They know they are far more likely to terminate their lease for a cheaper supplier than have their supplier refuse to renew a lease because of... personal animosity?

If you have limited suppliers you want to diversify, and for very strategic input risks spare capacity and even vertical integration makes sense. But owning the manufacturing and supply chain of every paperclip, t-shirt or plastic souvenir someone else can make and ship at 1/50th the cost is an obvious net loss.

This. Plus universities are not doing a great job of preparing well rounded literate individuals either - they were designed to support a well rounded individual to pursue higher education. That requires a very different degree of freedom than foundational education.

University coursework can try to compensate for the "literate" part, but they can hardly teach the "well rounded" part without becoming a different type of institution, and typically a worse university.

What is this "banner" you speak of?
Last I checked, just a couple members of congress were independent, and reasontv had some funny videos, but none of the 'third party' movements has exactly coalesced into a coherent party or coalition.

Sorry, this is slashdot - if you are portraying those times; you forgot the obligatory "but information wants to be free" rationalization and a three paragraph rant about how artists in the Renaissance didn't need copyrights because they did it for the art and the fact half their work were portraits of the Pope was totally a coincidence.

No, it was mainly there was more money in play and worth the technological and bureaucratic battle. CDs and Multimedia PCs brought a larger mainstream market ("look mom, its not for games, I really need this video card and soundblaster 32 to use Encarta for my homework"). Suddenly a smaller percentage of customers engaging "piracy" was a much larger loss of estimated revenue - made it worth industrial investment.

Many older consoles had their own nefarious DRM for the same reason, and they did not even have to worry about the easy access to backup tools in an open platform.

You do not even have to RTFA, its in the summary - taxpayers are not in the hook because this is paid by the California State Protocol Foundation which is an independently funded 501(c)3 nonprofit which has been around for *decades* and used by both republican and democrat administrations

That is not necessarily a good thing, if the business donations rather than taxpayers are paying for easier access to the executive is that business contributing their share to the cost of representative democracy based on the priorities of elected officials or businesses buying privileged access to lobby the executive via indirect donations?

Not Californian and I have no clue whether I should exit 405 for Mulholland, but printing money is not the problem here: if I was a business I'd want to know why exactly I didn't get a phone, and if I was in a union I'd want to know who in the union has a similar burner phone.

Who is the chicken and who is the egg and who is paying for brunch?

Well of course you will push the button. Gravity is desire. The Worm-in-waiting loves you, just push the button.

No, you see for supply and demand trends you have to be *accurate*.

That is not a requirement for AI today.