Never let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

…does the chicken’s power level need to be over 9000 in order to be safe to eat?

It’s often advantageous to prevent catastrophe before it occurs rather than clean up the mess once it happens.

That’s a fair call. I just think all reasonable measures should be taken to limit the attractiveness of vapes to children, and that’s just one piece of the puzzle. It’s not a necessary piece, but I think it would have helped as part of a suite of measures to regulation. I think you’re right in that online glorification definitely had a role to play here as well.

If the government, 5-10 years ago when it would have been apropos to do so, looked into vaping and drew up specific regulations to have legal vaping, we wouldn’t have the issue we have today. Instead, because of almost a decade of inaction, we now have a new generation of nicotine addicts that they’re hurriedly trying to stop.

We needed regulated, plain-packaged and limited-flavour vapes available to legally buy at a reasonable price to quash out both smoking and prevent kids from getting addicted, but that horse has already bolted.

The cynic in me says they intentionally didn’t regulate vapes because the science wasn’t ready yet, and they didn’t want to accept any blame for legalising something that could end up to be pretty harmful in the long term. So, because they didn’t want to accept that risk then we now have a whole generation of vapers whose health issues we’ll be dealing with for 80+ years to come.

Spoken as an ex-smoker, current vaper as a smoking cessation method.

I never understood why Americans call a ‘#’ a ‘pound sign’ but then if you put words in front of it, it suddenly becomes a ‘hashtag’. Shouldn’t it be a ‘poundtag’? I mean the rest of the Anglosphere refers to a ‘#’ as a ‘hash’ so it makes sense to us, but why do Americans call it a hashtag? Seems weird to me.

This is absolutely what a ‘Smurf’ account is - someone who is very experienced or has a significant backing behind them accrued from other account(s) creating a newer account to pose as an inexperienced player in order to be matched with them. In World of Warcraft, a ‘Smurf’ is a character that you intentionally don’t let past a certain level and throw a tonne of gold and gear at so that when they come up against regular players that level they have an insane advantage.

Well, yes and no. Paying that fine once would just be a cost of doing business, but now that the precedent has been set if they continue to do it they’ll continue to get fined in that order. Those fines won’t need court cases, so they’ll need to be paid quickly and in full. Sure, the fine they received didn’t really hurt them but it will change their behaviour. It will also prevent others from engaging in the same behaviour.

I don’t think the EU wants to bankrupt companies like Apple - it’s not in the collective best interest. They need to guide behaviour by setting up punishments that are deterring but not destructive. I think €500m fits that pretty well - it’s akin to giving a child a timeout while their friends play or a smack on the back of the hand. It’s doing what it’s intended to do.

Then put the games onto high-storage solid-state cartridges like Nintendo does. There’s no reason to be limited by existing technology like Blu-Ray except for laziness. Hell, they could even just put an SD card reader in as the physical game tray and put games onto SD cards if they’re that lazy and don’t want to spend on R&D.

Removing the capacity to have physical copies of games at all is always a bad move that is disingenuously masked with a “but the world is going all digital!” all the while knowing that this gives them greater control over things we’re supposed to own.

If it’s public domain, then by definition anyone can upload it, for any purpose, and monetise it however they see fit. YouTube could ban anyone else from uploading Steamboat Willie and only have their own version to watch, or they could let literally millions of people upload versions. They can basically do whatever they want with it now.

I think it’s even better to compare the US with other federated nations - Canada, Australia, Russia, Brazil, India, Argentina etc. as they’re all constitutional nations of federated states with separations of power between the federation and the individual states.

I’d argue that a group of new-tech employees is a specifically atypical example of the general population. They’re very likely tertiary qualified (minority), they’d all be earning more than six figures (minority), they’re likely on the lower end of the age bracket, and I doubt they’re representative with regards to gender and cultural background as that’s a known issue in tech. I’m not sure that cohort is in any way representative of the general population.

I’m not trying to take a stand here; I have no dog in this fight. I’m just trying to elucidate why making such an assumption might not be wise. As I’ve said before; it may be true, but I (and you) have no idea if that’s actually the case, so assuming it serves no real value.

Sure, but the answer to a lack of an informed public is not reverting away from democracy; it’s trying to inform the voters. Very many people vote against their best interests on a regular basis in a political sphere, and we shouldn’t revoke their right to vote as a result. Democracy, as a principle, should still prevail.

I don’t think it’s fair to infantilise people you’ve never met in the way that you are. What evidence do you have that the people who signed on to this letter didn’t read it? What evidence do you have that they’re either naïve or easily manipulated? I think they’re unfair assumptions. They may be true, but I have no idea if that’s the case.

I mean, isn’t this just an attempt to instil democracy in their workplace? If the vast majority of employees want something, whether or not it is objectively in their best interest, shouldn’t leadership listen to them? Isn’t this just what unions do on the regular?

I have no dog in this fight, I don’t know who’s a good person and who’s bad, but I believe in democracy even when it doesn’t produce the best result. I wish all companies acted upon the wishes of their employees rather than their shareholders, customers or consumers; that would make for far more cohesive and productive workplaces.

I think a better solution is one year of global revenue (not profit) as it’s really hard to determine damages in cases like this. That way, it’s legitimately a death sentence regardless of the size or scale of the company. If you set the fines at an amount not linked to profit or revenue, all you’re doing is making it extremely hard for the little guy but less hard for the big corporations - the ones you really want to go after.

Trying to make the best of a bad situation, I guess?

This here is the real answer; Elon doesn’t want X now and he never wanted Twitter. Much like Trump falling arse-backwards into the US Presidency he never actually wanted, he’s now just manipulating the thing he didn’t actually want, but now has, to follow his ego and whims. Trump’s presidency and Elon’s ownership of Twitter share a lot of similarities. Far, far too many similarities.

You could use a semicolon rather than a fullstop as well:

“No, Okta; it was senior management, not an errant employee, that caused you to get hacked.”

That may help elucidate the meaning better while maintaining a single sentence, as is par for the course with headlines.

Voice alone? It might be very difficult to claim you have a unique voice unless you’re Gilbert Gottfried or Bobcat Goldthwait. The issue in this ad was that it showed a real clip of Johansson saying ‘follow me’ before the images cut to something else and the AI-copy Johansson voice continued. The fake voice was heavily insinuated to be Johansson because it picked up where a real clip of Johansson left off.

It would be very hard to prove a person intended to mimic a specific person when creating an AI voice unless it’s accompanied by corroborating imagery.

“Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”

• John Donne

Every time a gullible idiot falls into a trap that enriches a manipulator, society suffers. Every time someone spends money on snake oil instead of on necessities or goods that bolster the local economy, the economy suffers. Every time someone falls down the rabbit hole away from the mainstream, we lose a potential ally and friend. Every loss is a loss, and even if you take morality and ethics out of it, it still makes sense to protect the vulnerable - even if only for our own selfish interests.