Fair enough, and I tend to be the same way. The statement about not tipping was in the same sentence talking about waiters, which pushed my buttons. I don't think Starbucks or Subway and other counter-service-only establishments are allowed to underpay their workers and force them to absolutely rely on tips to survive. Or, to put it a different way, if tipping were made illegal, I don't think prices would rise at those places because they would not need to pay the workers more to compensate.

And there are more hands and eyes on more popular distros

It is nearly impossible to set up a Windows PC without an online Microsoft account, much less friggin' passwordless. Just because something sucks in Ubuntu does not mean its better in any other OS.

So I can see a less popular OS having better security (although isn't this the home of "security through obscurity isn't"?), but why would a less popular OS have better functionality?

You joke, but I tried running gentoo for a while...poor CPU was screaming nonstop.

So, your first point is absolutely spot-on. But, knowing that tipping is allowed to be considered as part of a server's pay so that there actual wages are well below minimum, knowing this is a huge, widely-spread problem, you still feel entitled to choose not to tip? And shit, not just for bad service but service that "wasn't above average"? You feel entitled to decide on a whim that maybe your server doesn't have enough to cover their car payment that month?

The system sucks, it's completely broken. But fucking over the below-minimum-wage wait staff is NOT the way to fix it.

I'm curious where the dividing line here is. AI generated voice actors are called out in TFA. How about AI-generated textures? NPC faces? Dialog? Music?

But what about the *code*? I guarantee you every single programmer is using AI in the code development process. Does that have to be disclosed? At which point, every single game will have the disclosure so what's the point? Why are AI art assets somehow more objectionable than AI code?

And finally, what about the latest generation upscalers like AMD FSR? Are we forgetting that those are all AI-driven? I've never heard anyone complain about that, but I guarantee they used just as many illegally-scraped copyrighted assets as any other AI tool.

Why exactly couldn't the drones have a SIM card and cell connection themselves? Or even better a satellite link?

Hoiy balls, how was this modded insightful? Mass shootings have absolutely NOTHING to do with "thug culture". "Thug culture" *might* increase *targeted* violence (though I am not aware of any data for or against that claim), but mass shootings are by definition not *targeted*. They are acts committed by mentally unwell individuals.

So what's different now from 40-50 years ago? Aside from the population more than doubling since then, the steady decline in real wages for low-income earners has certainly increased mental health issues. The disappearance of the single breadwinner, two parent middle class family. These days, social media both causing a whole raft of mental health problems and also luring those disturbed kids with the promise of fame. Meanwhile, guns are not any harder for an average kid to access. Just because they're not openly allowed in school anymore, kids can still get their parents untended guns. Unstable adults can still buy all the guns they want. Getting those guns on school is only a minor problem since (a) as TFS states, most of those expensive security systems don't work all that well and (b) if you go in shooting, detection systems don't matter much do they?

So we've been pushing for years to make power-hungry appliances like washer/dryers, dishwashers, and *refrigerators* more energy efficient. We put stickers on them with Energy Star certifications telling you how much power they use on average. But now we're going to run power-hungry AI for...reasons? And I guess it won't affect the efficiency rating, because that excess power is consumed at a data center somewhere, not your home. Humanity deserves to die off.

The why are you assuming anyone knows "what they say"?

Maybe tips were a reward for good service 50-something years ago, but those days are long gone. Most people working service positions don't even make minimum wage if they're not getting tipped well. And it's more and more common that the majority of tips go into a pool and may be shared with e.g. kitchen staff.

Besides, it's always been a bullshit concept. When your food takes a long time to come out because someone in the kitchen screws up, the waitress ends up with a lower tip. Wait staff tips have always been expected to be a percentage (the expected amount of which has been steadily increasing). It takes just as much time for a waiter to serve someone who ordered surf and turf and an expensive bottle of wine as the person who ordered a cup of soup and iced tea. Did they somehow perform better service for the person with the more expensive meal? Tips have always been expected for bellhops...how much room is there really for "good service" carrying your bags?

Tipping has always been a way for vendors to artificially advertise a lower cost than what the customer ultimately pays, and a way for sociopaths who feel entitled to stiff workers to exploit the tragedy of the commons.

I'm a huge fan of the no tipping, but I have to disagree on the "completely transparent" part. About half the places I've been tack on a "table charge". Many will put unasked-for baskets of bread on the table and then charge you for eating it. Water is sometimes free if you specifically ask for tap, but sometimes not (but then asking for tap water is a dick move anyway).

I'm not saying any of the above is necessarily bad. It's the cultural expectation and no surprise to anyone that lives there. But just because it's expected doesn't make it "transparent", certainly not any more so than tipping in the US.

Is that a really big nanotube?

Get back to me when AI can make me a bowl of hot grits.