The problem with giant media companies online is that the internet has become a huge method of communication, dwarfing everything else. As such, it can be argued that accessing it has in fact become part of 'free speech', in practical terms.
Plus you have background companies like CloudFlare that don't do anything directly apparent, yet essentially control a huge percentage of the internet by way of the services they provide directly as well as sub-contract out to other resellers.

...but then again, private companies should be able to make their own choices as to who they have as clients, also. If they really want to... yet govt should encourage them to be as open as possible to all people...

So how about this?
Make a new law that says that there can be only TWO kinds of internet/data service providers--moderated and un-moderated.
(this includes *any* company providing internet/online/mobile data or related services, of any kind. Not just ISP's)

1. Un-moderated companies can only terminate service for material reasons (such as if you stop paying for your hosting).
They have zero control over the content of what you post, and cannot terminate your service for that reason...
-but the advantage they get is that they have absolutely no liability for anything you post.
The ONLY way they can discontinue service for content reasons is if a court procedure or order is involved, telling them to do so.

2. Moderated companies are allowed to make arbitrary service decisions (like terminating your hosting at any time if they don't like your website) but the downside here is that they are partially legally liable for everything they allow.
If they want to kick off extremist content that's totally fine, but then they have to keep 100% of their business clean.
They cannot be free to pick and choose their targets, since that is how discrimination begins. This would force them to be consistent in their application of the rules they decide on.

This would let any company make the decision themselves.
They wouldn't like it, because they can't play it both ways as they are now.
It would still be better for consumers however, because this would let the consumers know exactly what terms the company is providing.
The terms would be dictated by the government, and companies would just need to accept one or the other.

Semi-related.... About a year ago, there was at least two sellers on Aliexpress offering transparent computer monitors--just a frame that you could put stuff behind, and that displayed a translucent image.
They may have been storefronts for the same company. I don't recall the names.
I found them accidentally while looking for something else.

The main use that they showed in their storefront images was,,,, -umm,,, trade show booth displays.
Both sellers seemed at odds to show any reason that an ordinary person or industrial user might want such a thing.
And they were charging ~$500 for a translucent monitor of a size that would cost maybe $200 normally.
I wish them well and all, but I didn't buy one.

It's not like anybody else wanted it?

('success' is a little bit different in dot-com land)

You don't need a law, you just need companies that are willing to go to a bit more trouble to block this practice.

I know of some items (industrial machine components) where when you purchase the item from an authorized retailer, at the time of sale they link the purchaser's ID info to the warranty.
The warranty is not transferable to any subsequent owners, even if the box is unopened or it is shipped directly to a third-party buyer.
The result is that the resale market for new 'scalper' parts is pretty much non-existant, since nobody wants to pay full price for a part without warranty support.

Of course, this blocks all efforts by 'independent' retailers as well, and there would be complaints about that.
You can't have it both ways however.
To stop scalpers you must do something unique during the first sale, that can't be re-done for later re-sales of the same item.

Look, this is no big deal.

It's all perfectly natural, it is only big private business taking control of essentially all internet content.

They just want to get rid of 'bad' people and stuff, and make sure that you see only things that you should see. There is nothing to worry about.

And worrying is pointless anyway, because there's nothing you can do to stop it. You aren't anybody.

And if you start complaining about it online, those posts might be removed, and your internet access might be disabled for a while. Because that's not good for online business.

If you persist, then your internet access might be removed permanently. Big business has lots of experts on this, and they are certain that it's really the best outcome.

They invested a great deal of money to provide the ideal environment for you. If you don't like it, then you are perfectly free to go build your own internet.

Before contributing anything to the new OS, I'd like to ask a few questions about the old one...

1 -- Every commercial install of Android I've ever dealt with was locked, preventing the user from uninstalling crapware. Whose fault is that?

2 -- Most of the Android devices Ive owned had the problem of filling up with updates until they would no longer accept new updates (including huge updates for crapware that I never wanted in the first place) and being mobile/web devices generally, were no longer practical to use. Whose fault is that?


Android was sold to the public as 'open-source' in that it would better serve end-users needs, and it is difficult to argue that goal was ever achieved... or even attempted.
It did data mining for Google and it did whatever the device manufacturers wanted, and the need for OS-level management tools for the end consumer were ignored.

How is the new OS going to be any better than the old one?

If the original persons never had permission to install them, then the "metal things" would have been considered littering/vandalism by the park service and the items would have been removed anyway as soon as it was convenient.

...And as far as art goes, , , , it was shitty art anyway.
Modern art sucks; the garbage man (or in this case the metal scrapper) is the only person who is honest about its worth.

>Pallets of goods arrive at Walmart already organized so that the pallet contains meant for one area of shelving.

At the local walmart to me, people who have worked there say that the trucks that arrive every night (10-15 trucks per night) do not have loads palletized at all.
The product cases are stacked right on the floor (up to the ceiling) and a few employees have to unload them using skate-wheel conveyors.

They do have palletized displays (that they just unwrap and leave in the aisle centers, still stacked on the pallets) but that's only a small part of the total merchandise.


As far as the aisle robots go, a number of big store companies have done this--bring in robots to do some kind of minor job, where the customers can see that it's there.
It seems to be more of a publicity stunt than anything else.
In the couple examples I know of (one first-hand!) the robots were not really very effective, and the robots didn't "take over" any job at all.

By bottom-feeder-employee accounts, the robots got in the way a lot and didn't really help with anything.

Most stories about this subject (old EV batteries being used as stationary building batteries) do not explain the truth behind it. You might think that it's really cool that those companies are helping out the environment, but they're not. They are doing it to push off a huge liability onto other people.

As hybrid and EV cars began to be produced, car companies had a new problem of what to do with old batteries that still worked, but that didn't work well enough to resell for vehicle use.

Recycling them is not financially profitable and storing them until that changes isn't practical either, because of the toxic nature of the batteries themselves. So they got the bright idea of selling them as building standby power batteries. Technically they are selling the batteries as a loss, but they still count it as a profit since they escape the eventual cost of disposal this way.

That doesn't solve the problem for long however, because (as of a couple years ago) the supply of car companies' unusable EV batteries was doubling every year, and the entire practical market for building standby power (that is, customers who would actually PAY for such a thing) was estimated as being tapped out in only eight years. And of course, the projections of future sales of hybrid and EV cars is huge, so what they are seeing now is only just the tip of the iceberg.

They don't have a solution after that, that they will publicly admit to. One idea that got tossed around was to get laws passed to require new residential buildings to all have backup batteries, to further expand the market for these dying EV batteries. That way the public will end up paying the costs of battery disposal, and not the car companies.

Facebook began on academic users, and now has finally turned its back on academic users.

"A sign post on the road to something, but I forget what"

...dogs do instinctively fear vacuum cleaners, and there is fossil proof of this from prehistoric times when giant dogs battled with giant vacuum cleaners roaming the earth.

To claim "climate change" as the cause of California's environmental woes is laughable--the state has a long and glorious history of resource mismanagement.
The causes for their unique problems (among US states) often traces directly back to their own decisions.


On the other hand, have some funny: I heard that the smoke in San Diego was so bad that the street people couldn't find the sidewalks and began shitting in public restrooms again.

I have noticed over a period of many years that all of the solutions proposed for curing the problems of US cities, involves two things:
1. forcing people to live there, and-
2. taking away all of their property rights.

My two favorite terms for these people are 'Mastercard Marxists' and 'watermelon urbanists' (green on the outside, but red/commie on the inside).
If you have any other nice ones please let me know.

Seems like it might be better to start with a small computer first... Chinese Arduino clones cost $3 each, and are programmed in C++. And they aren't dependent on one brand/OS as well...

I don't think it's necessary to train all kids in programming extensively, because most people will never use such knowledge.
Making sure they know the basics of using a word processor, a spreadsheet and a slideshow program would be a better bet IMO.
It's something that low-end jobs like to see and LibreOffice/OpenOffice is free, so you're not teaching them to use an expensive subscription-only office program that they won't have access to after the class is over.

(I am not a teacher but) I think it's a great idea to teach Arduino-level coding to every kid, just to show them that it is possible for them to learn how to tell a computer how to do stuff. Initially that's the part that you want them to remember.
Blink LEDs, show text on an LCD, play a tune on a piezo speaker, make some addressable LEDs blink in a pretty pattern. Just stick to using shields, so there's no soldering/actual electronics involved.
This is a lot more practical in the environment of grade-school classrooms than trying to impart any significant knowledge of PC desktop programming.

These are rather audacious plans however.
From what I've seen posted elsewhere, first we'd need to teach kids about cleaning out the lint filters in their clothes dryers and changing furnace filters every now and then.

...are not always what they seem to be.

A lot of big-box stores in the US want to offer the lowest-priced item in every product class they sell. They prefer to have a popular name-brand item, and they're not real concerned about the actual quality of the thing. They specifically request extra-cheap versions from manufacturers.

Some examples of this:
...soaps and cosmetics from big-box stores are often diluted/formulated differently, with less expensive ingredients so that they can be sold cheaper. Smaller/more-expensive sizes from boutique retailers may work significantly better--it might not be just your imagination. The reason you never find those huge bulk packs anywhere else, is because the bulk packs get filled with the cheap formula only and (-some-) smaller retailers don't want to sell it.

...home electronics sold in big-box stores are often special 'low-grade' models made just to be especially cheaper, which are not offered in the regular mail-order or manufacturer's website catalog. They are cheaper but usually don't have the same performance or reliability specs, or warranty terms.

...name-branded items that are also sold at dealerships (like lawnmowers, bicycles and appliances) are usually lower-grade models than what the dealers sell. In many instances, the dealership associations have an agreement with the manufacturer that the highest-level models that big-box stores get, is beneath the lowest-grade models that dealers are selling.


If you are shopping by price tag alone, big-box stores seem like a great deal.
Many people in the industries that supply that merchandise would tell you differently.
Even if you are only buying "good name-brands", that may not mean as much as you think it does.
( -And also note now that there are "big-box" sellers entirely online- )

This article is from 2006 (Snapper lawnmowers and Wal-mart) but it is still worth reading, if you've not seen it.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fastcompany.com%2F54...