Yeah, this stuff takes time to work out. As long as the side effects aren’t a big deal, they might err on the side of too much.

Covid vaccines were something of an exception because they were motivated and infections were widespread. Lots of chances to get good data. Treatments for other diseases don’t have those advantages.

The HPV vax, for example, was released in 2016 on a three dose schedule. There’s some studies out there that argue two doses would be plenty, but it’s not a consensus, either. That’s after almost a decade.

PrEP is already keeping HIV infection rates pretty low, at least in rich countries where there’s money to do these studies. Not going to be good data on dose schedules for many, many years. Maybe even decades.

They may have been a foundation to build on, but they largely failed in their goals. There was a sudden surge in cities proposing budgets that defunded the police. Once the sausage making process was done, those budgets largely reflected the status quo.

The best you can say about its direct practical effect is that Chauvin was convicted. I do think we’re seeing more cases of abusive cops actually being prosecuted for misconduct, or at a minimum, losing their job.

It’s still taking some effort to even get that, though. I just ran across a case in my YouTube feed, where a civil rights lawyer with a channel brought attention to a case. This had happened months ago, but all the sudden, the prosecutor dropped the charges and the cop was fired. If it weren’t for it blowing up on YouTube, that probably wouldn’t have happened. There’s almost certainly thousands of stories like it in process right now that aren’t getting that attention.

Oh, and we got Juneteenth added as a day off. I guess that’s nice. Except some companies have already dropped it from their holiday list (mine did).

I help run a non-profit makerspace, and believe me, I know how non-profits in this country are bullshit. Not that my makerspace has done so, but when you go over the laws involved, it’s quite obvious how many loopholes there are. Just for starters, the board can pay itself whatever salary they like. As long as you do all the paperwork, tons of stuff is legal.

(I was President for a year. I got a salary of $0 like everyone else on the board.)

That said, the reports coming out of AI Now are not what AI advocates in venture capital want to hear. Not at all.

It’s a temptation every Miata owner faces.

But we wouldn’t see sunrise/sunset.

She’s also the founder of AI Now, which produces reports on the social impact of AI.

Its 2023 Report argued that meaningful reform of the tech sector must focus on addressing concentrated power in the tech industry.

The company behind Signal, Signal Messenger LLC, is not publicly traded. That and VC money tends to be where the problems begin. When it comes down to it, companies are just collections of people who band together to accomplish something that they couldn’t on their own. We’re so used to companies being soul sucking parasites of capitalism that we’ve lost track of what they’re for.

Why split hairs about what’s going on rather than focusing on the fact that he talked down to a subject matter expert?

Or Franco or Pinochet or Marcos or Saddam. Hell, put Tito on that list. Or any number of countries that had been subjugated by colonial empires, like India or the Philippines.

There are so many ways that oppressive governments work and ways that protest movements can work effectively against them. Germany 1933 has parallels to today, but it’s by no means an exact match, or even a very good match.

Can people learn about dictators that aren’t Adolf Hitler? Please?

Is this based on a careful study of violent and non-violent protest movements under regiemes in many countries? Or did you pull it out of your ass?

The Estes Corporation makes rockets that will do 600 meters.

It’s great that Honda is doing this. We really need other companies in this area, because SpaceX is dominating it. Even if Elon weren’t a walking disaster, we don’t want one company so badly outclassing everyone else.

Almost like non-violent protest movements are a marathon, not a sprint.

It’s not just breeding. Are the offspring sterile? A male horse and a female donkey will get you a hinny, but they’re sterile. Male donkey and female horse makes a mule, which are almost always sterile with a few exceptions.

Eh, it’s just a start of development. It only goes 300 meters. Blue Origin goes higher, but even they aren’t in orbit.

Japan also has some odd limitations on their rockets as part of their self defense only constitution. They don’t build a rocket that could potentially be used to strike mainland Asia.

https://youtu.be/UZaIs6oSlOI

Why anyone would even start a YouTube channel right now is beyond me. Unless you’re planning to go full Louis Rossman and DGAF.

Who could have guessed that ahead of time? The industry is famous for seeing a successful new strategy and then driving it into the ground with a list of copycats. The strategy has made so much money before; why would it ever have failed this time?

/s

(Let’s all laugh at an industry that never learns anything tee hee hee)

Pascal’s Wager, as well as other “logical proofs” for God like the Kalam Cosmological Argument, never get Christians or other religious people anywhere they want to go. Even if we accept their conclusions as given, it tells us nothing about the nature of that god. They want their god to be the one, and that doesn’t follow from any of these. Which is what the comic in OP is getting at.

As far as the conclusions go, worshiping the Flying Spaghetti Monster is as good as any.

It’s tricky to estimate things. If you take footage from drones or helicopters, how many people will be hidden behind trees? There are ways to guess, but those come with assumptions that can give you very different numbers. Local organizers, police, and the media can all come to different numbers with perfectly reasonable differences in assumptions or techniques.

This should be kept in mind for any big outdoor event where there’s no specific entry points to count people going by. Affects Trump’s parade, too.

Correct stat, but it’s not like you get to 3.5% and then the regime magically falls. There’s context around that. It requires keeping up the pressure.

We can’t fizzle out the way the George Floyd protests did.

That $25 estimate included a 30% profit margin already.