No buyer's guilt. When you receive money, you have to make decisions on what to do with it, and that includes saving it. When you get a gift card, you know you have to spend it.

I love movie gift cards. When I get one I am at the movies the very same weekend.

I went to look for the latest Matrix movie in one of China's streaming sites (iqiyi.com) and noticed that all the Matrix movies were missing, which is odd because they are pretty popular here.

There is a workaround though (besides VPNs). If you run Windows, the Microsoft Store is still accessible and you can rent movies there, and I just checked: the Matrix is still there.

I am not recommending the Microsoft Store as a streaming service in general, but if you are in China and don't have a VPN it is currently the only way to avoid this kind of censorship.

You need to write with html p or br tags on slashdot if you want to format your text into paragraphs.

Here you go.

Here you go.

Rip the graphics all you want, but those were the heyday years of arcades, which were crazy fun. I wouldn't trade my years playing Galaga and Time Pilot in the arcade for anything on modern consoles. I remember competing with friends I met and never met (only knew their initials on the machine) for high scores everytime I went.

I still think it is the future. The tech hasn't caught yet, but the advantage of instantly printing things as opposed to needed transport is just too huge. Just because some things do not evolve in internet time, doesn't mean they are a bust. If I had to predict a future next big thing, it would be in printing.

But what does a good get-rich-quick schemer see?

It goes both ways. People heavily investing in bitcoin in the earliest days also seemed like dumb motherfuckers, but the real dumb motherfuckers were the ones laughing at them (I certainly did my share of dumb motherfucking too back then metaphorically speaking).

The latest NFT craze seems like insanity to me, and Web 3.0 also seems like a dead end (a world where corporations and governments don't control everything is just so blissfully naive), but now that I am in my mid-forties I know can safely say I have learned that I don't know shit about the future and neither do other people.

Say you are walking home alone at night. You are worried. Imagine being able to make a phone call and a drone walks you home. The drone could also record your entire walk, so anyone who messes you would know they are being recorded, and if you do scream for help it calls for backup: multiple drones come to record the situation and contact the police.

The drones should not be equipped with weapons (that would pretty dystopian). They just record and communicate. To me this is better than a big brother recording your every move ala China (or London for that matter). I am in China right now, and you literally cannot be in any public space without being recorded (and I am not in a major city center).

Training a drone to avoid fire might be relatively straightforward depending on how quickly they can move. AI should be able to pick up when a gun is pointed at it, and there is no reason for a drone to just float in one place.

He essentially attempted a coup less than a year ago. Yes, I am still unhappy about that.

The Metaverse will need smell-o-vision if it wants to attract dogs

from the how-about-that dept

Should be from the "feeling-blue-about-blue dept". Please update!

It's not ear-splitting. It's just dance music. And everything has its pros and cons. The park is a little noisy, but giving retired/older women a social outlet that also provides physical exercise is a wonderful thing. They are less lonely and healthier. Which also lowers health care costs for everyone if you truly want to be selfish about it.

Loneliness is practically a pandemic among older people in some parts of the United States. I think it would be wonderful if something similar became more popular there.