Entirely off topic, but I never got the people who thought Leo was turning in Oscar worthy performance after performance and being perennially snubbed by the academy. I don't consider him a bad actor and enjoy many of his performances and the movies he's been a part of, but to me he's always just Leo playing a part. Even the year he won, I considered him completely upstaged by Tom Hardy who was in the same film.

I think all of these award shows have a problem where they give a "best" award to someone when a lifetime achievement award or some other kind of special recognition would be better. This inevitably snubs someone who did a better job and who someday the same group will give a "best" award to as a mea culpa for the prior snub repeating the cycle.

That's why I can't really care about any of these shows. Sometimes they do reward the "best" actors, directors, etc. but too often it feels like they're handing out apologies to cover up for the previous apology. No one would watch the Super Bowl or the World Series if the winner was determined based on having a really good season 27 years ago, but not winning that year.

Why would you expect humans to get along and live in perfect harmony in the first place? I can't think of any species, much less an apex has be that lives this way. That we have managed this to the extent currently observed with large nation states is rather remarkable. This is why I also find the notion of AIs ever taking over and collectively acting against humanity ridiculous. If they're programmed at all like us, they'll act the same way and turn on each other first chance they get.

Psychopaths get results. They may not be the results than anyone, psychopath included, wanted, but they get results. The problem is that AIs aren't intelligent and can't actually realize when they've been given an impossible task (or reason that the task is impossible) and will try to do whatever it takes to get the desired outcome. Calling an AI psychopathic is anthropomorphizing it unfairly, but it is an apt comparison to a similar pattern of behavior exhibited by humans.

It really shouldn't and if it does it suggests that something has gone horribly wrong. The Python language itself shouldn't care about what language the interpreter (or whatever else is going on under the hood) was written in.

It's more of an indictment against the studios being unable to make new films that audiences are interested in than anything else. I won't got as far as saying they're completely devoid of creativity as I've still been able to find plenty of good films over the past five years, but at the same time I think that if the LotR trilogy were given a rerelease it would outperform a lot of the current films. The industry still hasn't recovered from COVID.

The real reason is that the city recalled their previous DA a few years ago because his progressive policies proved even too ridiculous even for extremely liberal San Francisco. The current DA is actually prosecuting criminals and more importantly charging some of the minors who were responsible for a lot of this crime (because they'd immediately be let out and just go right back to it) as adults which has made a big difference as well.

The feds cracking down on illegal immigration May had some effect as well. A lot of the crime in SF is criminal gangs with ties to other countries. Again this is largely a manner of targeting and removing the criminal element responsible for the majority of the crime. There are probably some other reasons beyond these as well, but those two are probably the main drivers.

There are arguments to be made for something like this, but we really should do away with most of the AM spectrum for radio and repurpose it. Radio is a lot less important than it used to be and the entire AM spectrum isn't necessary for an emergency notification system. Arguably a satellite system could replace it now or in the near future.

Odd to hear this take coming from you. Out of curiosity do you feel the same about other mandatory things included for safety purposes that also add to the cost of the vehicle? Normally you're quite keen on arguing for the government to force people to buy something you consider to be for their own good or to even go further and suggest the government deliver that thing itself. Not that I expect this to change your entire worldview, but the next time you want to go off about someone who'd prefer the government not to force decisions they don't want on them, you remember this.

Does your company not have water coolers or a modern equivalent? I may not always want to have a human interaction with my coworkers, but if I'm going to have one it's going to damn well be like a human being.

If your time is worth the savings then why not? I have a feeling the prices reflect the general desirability of the neighborhood the McDonald's is located in so I doubt too many people are going to drive a few extra miles (particularly with gas being expensive) to save a dollar or two on a burger when they realize it means driving through the bad part of town.

The better question is if this will lead to an arbitrage market for burgers. You need not venture to the wrong side of the tacks when a brave Uber Eats driver will make the voyage to save $87.55 on a bulk order for a group of customers. I think I'm going to start working on a script. I'll pitch it to Hollywood as Blade Runner only more dystopian.

Adjusting for inflation, yes that will be the case. The price of insurance can't be less than the cost of dealing with all of the accidents that the insurance policies have to cover. If self-driving cars greatly reduce the rate of accidents then the cost of insurance will fall. I'm sure there will be some companies that are greedy and want to pocket the savings for themselves, but there will be greedy companies that want to poach their customers and who are willing to pocket just a little bit less.

Would you willingly pay your current insurance rates if another company were offering you the same coverage for lower cost? Do you regularly pay more for goods or services than you have to? If your answer is "no" then capitalism is working because you as a customer ultimately get to decide where you spend your money and if you're like everyone else and want to keep as much of that money as you can then it will incentivize companies to compete on price.

What would cause it to become unsustainable when it currently is? It will definitely be cheaper for a lot of people to get a car that is incapable of manual control, but insurance will also become cheaper for good drivers as a large chunk of what they pay is to cover for the bad drivers. I think future generations will largely avoid learn to drive unless they need to as a part of their job because a long commute isn't nearly as bad if a person doesn't need to operate a vehicle in traffic. But as self-driving cars get better and come into use, the accident rates will decrease and that will make insurance cheaper

They do that with everything. I remember when JMS said the studios pulled the same shit with Babylon 5 because they would find ways to attach unrelated production costs to the project so that it never made money. Anyone working in or with Hollywood that isn't asking for a percentage of revenue is just asking to get fucked over by Hollywood accountants. The government doesn't care if actors or directors get fucked over as long as taxes get paid so don't expect them to care about the problem or try to fix it with legislation.

A few days ago there was a story about how an AI store was failing horribly. It can't do that, but at the same time will destroy us? It's pretty clear that no one has any actual answers or little interest in being honest about the exact capabilities of AI when their bottom line depends on hype or their job position relies on prognosticating doom.

You're discounting the ability of the actor to bring something to the role that the director couldn't envision themselves. The whole point of having casting auditions is so the director can find an actor that either fits their own idea of the part or blows them away with something transformative that they could not have envisioned before seeing it. Not every actor is capable of that and not every part calls for it, but when it does happen it creates something best described as the magic of cinema. If this weren't the case, the phrase "Hello, Clarice" would be completely meaningless to everyone who reads this post, and yet there are some for whom it is not merely memorable, but evokes an entire range of emotions and even causes them to read it in a different voice. Tell me that Anthony Hopkins was just a middle man with a straight face.