I was in the 2nd grade when that happened. From my perspective, it was a great novelty and meant we got to take (mostly unnecessary) flashlights to school that we used in the morning walking to our bus stop. It was a hit with the kids I knew. We were disappointed that the "experiment" was stopped.

Meanwhile, in the northern-most states, the kids go to school in the dark now part of the year.

U.S. Banks have managed OK opening after "business hours" start and closing before they end for pretty much the history of the U.S.

Googling there were 659,880 vehicles stolen in the last year alone and a total of 69 recorded instances of Flock abuse. Now, that obviously doesn't tell us how many were thwarted nor how many police abused Flock and weren't caught...but this is why I want number and enough of this stupid Flock emotional melodrama. Sounds to me like the Flock downsides are a bit overblown...but...I also don't know how to quantify the upsides.

Even a few places where it doesn't actually rise in June because it didn't set in the first place and won't for another month or so.

So #1, I don't know...you could be right, but I am neither confident you're wrong or right. #2, even if it's not a deterrent, arrests are. If they drive a stolen car by a flock camera and it helps police find them and take them off the street for a few years, in a way, it has stopped them from stealing...at least until they get out, at bare minimum.

The problem with flock for me is that I have no data to weigh the pros vs the cons. There's some problematic cops breaking the law with them. However, I don't really know how to quantify the benefit. I think anyone who is not a moron would weigh the pros vs the cons. The flock problems are theoretical for most of us non-criminals....so I am not as outraged as others, but I also don't know what I am getting in return.

I have a rational perspective. I am not a freedom/liberty absolutist. I am not phobic of crime. I need data to know if the benefits outweigh the potential for abuse and just the general cost of this program. If it prevents my car from getting broken into and reduces crime in my neighborhood tangibly, I'd be open-minded about it.

Ask Jack Smith, but you should wait until the GOP in the senate is done embarrassing themselves trying to perjury trap him.

This is more like worrying when someone successfully brute forces a 6 bit RSA key (which has been doable for a very long time. 6 bits isn't much space to do an exhaustive search in).

Baking powder is in the pH neutral range because it has acid and base in it...that's the point of it as a leavening agent. I think you meant baking soda, which is alkaline. However, regardless, if that was the case, none of us chewing through tums would get cancer. Look, you want to give this old crank argument about big pharma, but you're just poorly informed.

No alkaline will "cure" cancer. It might prevent some forms due to stomach acid wounds?....but it's not related to infection. Baking soda can only treat symptoms. It won't cure an infection.

Also, if administering alkalines could cure disease, big pharma WOULD be all over it because there are a lot of more effective solutions than baking powder or calcium carbonate that could target the acidity more precisely. Tums just dissolves in your stomach and stops working. More complex packaging, which they could patent, could ensure it works outside the stomach to prevent colon irritation, for example.

A reliable cure for heartburn would be quite profitable for big pharma, especially if OTC. A HUGE portion of adults over 40 have it regularly. We have lots of money and lots of need. It's not that they're not motivated. it's that baking soda doesn't work. If it did, no one would have heartburn!!! Every doctor would tell you just to take it. Doctors want to cure you. They want to keep you healthy. They have no financial motivation to keep you sick. They'd rather see 1000 mostly healthy patients less frequently than 100 depressing, sick ones every week. Remember, the sicker you are, the less money you have to spend. You're either not working to full capacity or you've already spent a huge chunk of change to stay alive.

I'm even skeptical that pharma doesn't want to cure you. I don't think they're that insidious or calculating. I think they want money for useful treatments. There's no evidence of pharma suppressing cures to ensure you're addicted to their drug for a lifetime. They'd rather charge you 10,000 for a single shot cure than 100/month for the rest of your life. It's easier money that way. So if you're going to make stupid stoner conspiracy claims, provide some evidence next time.

Reddit is not all things for all people. There's a popular /. consensus that they hate the politics discussion. I don't give a rat's ass. I don't want to "dunk on liberals" or berate conservatives. I want to see new tools for my hobbies, rumors about upcoming product developments, discussion of technique or troubleshooting, etc. My joy in life is doing hobbies, not having "real discussions of complicated topics." That sounds like homework.

Usenet was an echochamber for like minded, technically-skilled individuals. It was great for Linux and programming and maybe some extremely male-oriented bands and movie genres, like heavy metal or star trek. There were barely any women and few who weren't computer enthusiasts. I don't want to talk to LARP-ers and tech workers. They're at my day job.

I want to hear from chefs, cooks, DIY-ers, artists, artisans, plant enthusiasts, dog lovers, perverts, people from far away, and people who are nerdy about thing other than computers, especially those I'd encounter naturally. I was able to get very specific advice on my specific niche interest in a very specific species of succulent houseplants and how to fertilize them...or how to fix my ailing blueberry bush. I get more joy from that than ranting about wokeness, the DSA, or Gen-Z or whatever assholes enjoy bitching about these days. There are subreddits that have art challenges that allow me share my drawings and painting of very specialized niche interest with a worldwide audience...something that would have been my dream as a teenager.

Reddit is not perfect, but if you can't see why it is so superior, then your interests extremely narrow and I feel sorry for you. I wish you had more that brought you joy in life than argument and controversy, for your sake as a human being, alone.

Reddit's beauty and joy is fully it's network and community. Their practices as a business are hit or miss, but I do applaud them for the bot/spam management. It's far better than I've seen on usenet, forums, or any other form of social media, especially X and facebook.

Nope, definitely not. I remember usenet well and used it often. It was nothing but a nerd echo chamber. It was great for autistic dedication to a specific male-oriented band or discussing Linux and garbage for anything more civilian. Also, the spam was legendary. Reddit's strength is their bot management and diverse network. My hobbies involve non-nerds, like chefs, artisans, artists, mechanics, DIY folks, as well as nerds. If my only interest was programming, sure, usenet is great. If I wanted to do anything involving arts and crafts?...it was desolate.

Some places do that. It doesn't help. Many countries have tried cash payouts that far exceed the diaper budget. Also, rich people tend to have similar numbers of kids to middle class folks. The main barriers to having more kids is housing and support. Most high paying jobs are in areas with expensive real estate, so having room is a massive issue, but even if we had enough housing, most parents can't fathom having a 3rd kid because having 2 is such a struggle today. You have to do sliding scale daycare and have LOTS of it, which you implied. In my area, most daycares have a 3-6 month waiting period. But daycare only helps the first 2 kids. You have to do more: free pre-K and afterschool programs to replace daycare once your kids get older. Even if you're wealthy enough to have a stay-at-home parent, the burden of the family gets overwhelming and most quit after 3.

Countries with great support networks have managed to raise their birthrate. The only proven way to raise the birthrate is to support the motivated to have 4 or more, including putting as much of the burden on the state to raise the kid, if the family chooses to. It's EXPENSIVE, but so is finding yourself in a nursing home in your twilight years with a massive personnel shortage of people to take care of you....as well as a lack of taxpayers to fund everything you depend on ranging from gov to basic industry.

That's only 1 variable. It's been tried to disappointing results. You can double everyone's salary and it will barely make a dent. If you've had kids and a working wife, you know how bad it gets. The good jobs? They're in expensive real estate areas....nearly everywhere in the world. So houses are hard to find, daycare is hard to find, and support is terrible once you have a kid.

Once people get a job in the city, they don't want kids. You can't make someone want them. All you can do is make existing parents have more. So you're never going to get every couple to churn out 3 kids, but you can make families of 1 or 2 have 3 or 5. However, support is the main factor. Work is a massive burden and even if your wife isn't working, many kids is a massive burden.

Data has shown that incentives don't make a lick of difference, but support programs have. Sliding scale daycare is 1 great way to get people to have their 1st or 2nd kid. However, if you want anyone to have more than 2, you need support for older children: sliding scale daycare for young ones and free afterschool programs for older kids.

Additionally, you need to alter the culture for parenting flexibility. That's tricky because the gov can only set rules for gov jobs. My job is great about it. I can step out during the morning or afternoon for a school event and make the hours in the evening. Jobs that are rigid and stuck in the past are a huge burden for families. Even if you have a stay-at-home mom, the dad needs the flexibility to be involved with his kids' lives if you want families to go past 2 kids.

More money is not the main problem. It's a huge one, but the bigger issue is lack of resources. Daycares in my area require a 6 month application process. Spots go often. It's harder to get into daycare in some areas than many ivy league universities.

It's not cheap, but sliding scale childcare and LOTS of it, will help the birth rate, help families, and be a MASSIVE stimulus since nearly every dollar is paying for human labor for a segment of unskilled (no formal training) women, most of which are very young or very old. But even the programs for older go out to a diverse pool of individuals and are great investments in future citizens to build skills and a sense of community.

However, many gov have tried throwing money at the problem and hoping for the best. It's easy, but it just doesn't work well. It requires a lot of follow through since the resistance to reproducing is very complex and the causes are many and you can have infinite money. So long as you have a job or other responsibilities, it's a huge load. Reducing the load reduces the friction to the 3rd kid and beyond.

Put simply, you have to make it EASY to have kids. Nothing else really works.

They're massively popular and the best forum site I've seen for every interest of mine. There has NEVER been anything like it thusfar. I've never seen a site control bots as well as they do. Reddit has literally changed my life because it allowed me to engage in my various hobbies much moreso than I have been able to before with a diverse group of people of varying technical prowess. It's the king example of the network effect.

I am VERY happy with them because I have a long memory and remembered what it was like before them: having a login for each forum and the chaos of poorly-managed message boards...plus limited participation for non-technical interests.

The API had a lot more downsides for me and most users than benefit. Shitty websites were scraping Reddit and saving your old posts, including deleted one and monetizing them. Then every AI scammer was scraping it to build their models and contributing nothing in return. I am honestly happier with Reddit when it's used on their terms. I know abusers were a small fraction of the API users, but they really were ruining a good thing for lots of reasons.

The fact that this approach is catalytic rather than requiring a binding agent seems positive in terms of longevity and not being directly depleted by repeat exposure; but I'd be curious how durable the material is under real-world conditions(clothing that gets hard wear tends to get hard washes) and also how specific it is. 'Organophosphate' means something moderately specific in the context of chemical warfare; but a lot of fairly prosaic compounds are, technically, 'organophosphates'(like DNA and RNA when held together by phosphodiester bonds); and this would be considerably less helpful in practice if it is busy chewing up the genomes of random soil bacteria; and markedly less helpful in practice if there's a "do not perturb the nanites in your clothing if you want them to not migrate into your cells and start mitigating the harmful effects of your DNA" user notice on the treated article.