I live in a city with no streetlights. In fact, you have to drive 15-20 minutes just to encounter one. I drive that 15-20 mins just to get to the closest grocery store. I can see the northern lights in my back yard when a solar storm hits and can use a telescope for more celestial browsing. This part of the world is plenty dark and has been for years.

The point is, we moved out of the city to enjoy a quieter (and less nocturnally illuminated) life. No noisy urban madness. No super bright lights. No riff-raff.

You will never achieve low light, noise, or sidewalk safety in urban settings. If you want to achieve those things, you have to move out of the city. Plain and simple.

I don't think the article mentioned "Human-Caused" enough times. Because if it did, maybe people would stop electing the same people who accept the same lobbyist bribes to never change the status quo, so old men in power can retire to yachts and island villas with their golden parachutes, while I drink my iced coffee with a paper straw.

Seems to me the use of AI would be to provide an executive summary of the book, and perhaps to ask AI what a character was doing between appearances in the narrative. Perhaps a newer look at Choose Your Own Adventure.

George Orwell wrote of computers that wrote the mass-production books, filled with information and themes the government wanted in them to keep the Proles entertsained and subdued..

Always assume that you are being watched and listened to, with and without your consent. Not just your Alexa or Smart TV at home, but all manner of street cameras, security cameras, and other devices. The 15-second conversation an Apple watch might pick up and summarize while you're meeting for lunch outside was also captured by the cafe's security camera, the flock camera on the nearby street lamp, the ATM's camera across the street, the iPhone of someone on Facetime with their grand kids, the person at another table with the an Airpod laid out to listen, and many other things.

Good news, most people don't give a shit about your life and conversation -- they are too busy and concerned with their own. So I wouldn't worry too much about it.

I'm a physical library owner. My collection spans from the Atari 2600 to the Switch 2, and all manner of consoles and handhelds between. I like that, when I buy a game, I own a physical copy I can play without an Internet connection. Yeah, for modern titles, that might mean it doesn't have the Day One patch and future content, but the point is being able to play the game in some basic way, 20 years from now when the current e-stores and/or "permission-to-play" servers go offline.

Quite frankly, if the game is only available digitally, I simply don't buy it. I'm not their target audience.

Very soon, the digital-only game premise will be the only way to buy games, and when that time comes, I'll have plenty of games 1980-202X to re-play and re-discover on their original hardware.

It might not be called Skynet, but it is already being used for military operations and can consistently get outside sandboxes.

What if the next "misconfiguration" causes death and destruction?

The PS3 was $600USD back in Nov 2006. That's the equivalent of $972USD in 2026.

You could say, Sony is going 20 years into the past for pricing.

I swear, California has so many laws and controls, it's a wonder why anyone does business there, let alone lives there.

The generation that was enslaved to a Broadcast over-the-air TV turned to Cable for "edgier", less FCC-moderated content and hundreds more channels.

Then that generation got enslaved by greedy cable prices, especially as things went exclusive like NFL Football on select days and adding 1 channel to watch a hit series was about a quarter of the cost of cable.

People turned to streaming because it was cheaper and in many cases, free. People also rediscovered broadcast over-the-air TV. The pandemic helped with this.

Now that people are already moving on from rising streaming prices and looking for alternatives, Cable is now a relic of the 00's. The generation that loved it has either moved on or died off. I hope the suits that raised prices have their Golden Parachutes ready if they haven't used them already..

Longtime Windows users have enjoyed the simplicity of built-in apps like Notepad and Paintbrush.

Stuffing new things into them to make them something else (such as a Wordpad replacement) makes them lose their charm and introduces new headaches.

You would think at this point, Microsoft could just offer MS Word for free with every Windows activation.

College Is Expensive
College is more expensive than ever, leaving graduates living a life of virtual indentured servitude until their 30s or 40s when they might be trying to raise families.

Degrees with no Jobs
There are plenty of degrees being offered that have no actual real job market, some students spend all that money on a degree and don't even have that "high paying" job to go to, because they wasted their time.

Many people are starting to see the value in learning a practical trade and being able to go out in the world and make money sooner and with much less student debt, if any. The world needs electricians, plumbers, and welders, not Gender Studies, Philosophers, and "University Studies" graduates.

Falling Birthrate
Lastly, there is a lot of infertility happening causing the birth rate to drop, as well as people not being able to afford kids (student loans ironically being possibly part of that problem), or have beliefs that they should sterilize themselves.

I still hope NASA can send some version of the "Europa Clipper" that one congressman keeps pushing for.

Apart from the Voyagers, Cassini, and New Horizons, we should explore the moons of the Gas Giant planets and see what's on them.

We already have microplastics in our bodies, please don't sully the air, so some corporate scumbags can retire with golden parachutes.

That's all I can think about when it comes to the explosion of celestial bodies.

Well, Star Trek may not be humanity's future, but the science fiction writers sure make good guesses at times.