I liked the joke, it had some chemistry to it

Socialism: If you have two cows, you give one to your neighbor.

Communism: If you have two cows, you give them to the government and the government then gives you some milk.

It can be anxiety inducing the first time you do anything on your own like that. Rest assured, though, that you are not the only young adult feeling this way. Just do it, make a few mistakes in the process, and then you will be fine. Plus, you will know better next time.

With regards to the passport photo, it’s fine, just look at the guidelines thoroughly as they are very specific in terms of your background and stuff. In particular, you’re not supposed to use a selfie, because the angle will be all wrong. (You can use a cell phone pic with the proper background and lighting, they just recommend that someone else actually take the picture at the proper angle). Having said that, my last passport pic was a selfie which I took from arms length, and they accepted it…

Nice

Hit up Polymarket, move the proceeds to crypto, move yourself to a non-extradition country, then spill the beans. It’s much easier to be on the wrong side of the US military industrial complex when you don’t have to rely on working for income.

I didn’t quite remember this character (even after all the times my kids watched this show), so I looked him up, and it turns out the voice actor is one of the creator’s kids. So, he sounded like a “real boy” because he was.

The character’s entire purpose for existing was to provide some royalty checks to the kid.

What a Stable Genius

Yes, this could have gone a lot worse than it did, the kidnapper could have had an ICE or ERO badge…

All you can do is go slower, and hope the traffic around you realizes what you are doing. Try to slow down when approaching the intersection earlier so it’s not all so sudden.

There is a left turn lane near where I live where U-turns are explicitly allowed, on a divided road, at a light with a dedicated left turn/u-turn lane and turn arrow. It’s not the cars you behind you you have to worry about, though. It’s the oncoming traffic that would turn right, that has a red light when you are making your U-turn, but they assume you are turning left and can make their right on red (perhaps without stopping like they should).

1977…

Roughly 80 years

If I didn’t misremember, we’re about halfway through waiting.

A bit more than halfway, although sometimes I am shocked by how long ago 1977 was. Wasn’t it just, like, 30 years ago or so?

It can’t possibly be 49 years ago, can it?

I think what they mean is that if the thing starts shutting stuff down on its own, the process to get those things started again is tedious. While if the humans tell it to shut things down, it is all more orderly.

All those benefits mattered a lot more before everyone had a phone in their pocket. A power outage that takes out cell towers is also likely to take out the Telco central office.

Yes, I have. But when I noted I was old, I should have added I am also lazy.

The best I can tell, Iran aims to block the whole strait, while letting their own traffic through. And the US just wants to blockade Iranian ports, and let the rest of the traffic through.

The author misses a few key points about the American model:

First, in exchange for the local territorial monopoly, the providers are supposed to be heavily regulated by the local (or State) government, with controls in place to prevent abuse of the monopoly and promote the interests of its residents. Of course, we all know how business interests influence government to make business- friendly regulations. Governments have the ability to enforce more user-friendly practices, if they choose to do so.

But the more important point is that in the US, we hand out different monopolies based on the connection type. For instance, where I live we have one company that owns the twisted-pair POTS landlines, a different company that owns the coaxial cable TV service, and another company that owns the direct fiber to the home. Three companies, three connections to each home, all three (theoretically) capable of delivering the same services, since there is no longer any real differentiation between voice, video, and data service: it’s all just bits.

We just got our FTTH provider only recently. Before that, our choices were only the cable company or the telco’s astonishingly show DSL. So I subscribed to the Cable company, and their pricing model tried to force you into a bundle for the other services. Their speeds were also quite slow for broadband, until the Fiber company started digging. Then I got all sorts of emails saying “we’re increasing your speed – for free!” And sure enough, I was getting better bandwidth. But all that did was piss me off. These losers could have given me that better service all along, but didn’t bother until they were forced to.

So I’m on the fiber now. But I know how it works, this service will be awesome at first, but once this company finishes building out they won’t sign on any new capacity and it will gradually get shittier over time. It’s the American Way!

(And I still pay the local telco way too much money for a POTS landline. What can I say, I’m an old.)

Word to your mother

I like the Origami club, fun in creases every night

If you mess up your bosses’ hair, there’ll be hell toupee

Take off, ya hoser