There have actually been a few cases that have made it through the courts that apply “employee” status based on how the company treats the worker rather than how they’re paid.

Especially in cases where the worker is on long-term assignment somewhere like Google.

A lot of science fiction writers try to address the problem of time when humanity becomes a space-faring race. Star Trek has the idea of a “Stardate” and instructed the script writers to just fucking make it up,

For example, 1313.5 is twelve o’clock noon of one day and 1314.5 would be noon of the next day. Each percentage point (sic) is roughly equivalent to one-tenth of one day. The progression of stardates in your script should remain constant but don’t worry about whether or not there is a progression from other scripts. Stardates are a mathematical formula which varies depending on location in the galaxy, velocity of travel, and other factors, can vary widely from episode to episode."

Meanwhile, Asimov in the Robots / Foundation universe, everyone still uses the idea of a 365-day / 24-hour day “year”, even if no one remembers Earth (except a R. Daneel Olivaw and a few others).

And Kim Stanley Robinson in his Mars trilogy does what OP notes – Martian years are longer, and the societies diverge pretty rapidly, within a generation, for a whole host of reasons.

From the article, this looks like it’s for GM’s “Cruise” program, which is already out there in limited scope in a couple cities. It’s aself-driving car service limited to a small area of San Francisco and… I want to say Austin?

They’re already operating vehicles that are essentially “self-driving” now. This is about rolling out a new class of vehicle using the same technology, but without the human controls.

I don’t know a lot about the service, or what, exactly it does, but I suspect it works well because the area the vehicles operate in is extremely limited and the vehicles can have an incredibly detailed, and up-to-date map of that area. I’d also wager the area selected is free of most obstacles and has only one type of terrain, i.e., “downtown low-speed streets” or similar.

That said, I can’t imagine the NTSHA will allow a vehicle on the road without any sort of manual emergency control mechanism in place. Though, it may be very rudimentary, like others have suggested, a joystick and a throttle/brake intended to get the vehicle somewhere safe so people can get out.

It’s okay to say “No” to two things at the same time without having to choose one or the other.

For fuck’s sake, this article is nothing but outrage bait. Wired has gone to shit.

I have a whole protocol for this.

You got a 5-count once there’s no one in front of you to go. Then you get a quick tap.

Then you get a 2-count to start moving. Then you get a double tap.

Then you get another 2-count. If you haven’t started moving by now, you get 1 tap every second until you fucking move for the love of fuck just fucking GO jesus tap-dancing christ in a Bethlaham drag show GO!!

Let’s not forget the Saudi royal family. They really hate social media.

Yes, this is called regulatory capture.

Don’t forget old people glued to FOX News telling them “Democrats are evil” 24/7.

Capitalism is great, but it absolutely must be tempered by regulation.

The problem comes when the capitalist gains influence over the regulator, aka, regulatory capture.

As an Xbox junkie, I want more stupid games on the Xbox platform.

But even I can recognize how bad this is for the industry.

In finding Comer liable to Bungie for those costs—as well as over $80,000 in legal fees and $25,000 in statutory damages—the court also laid out the basis for “a new common law tort” that paves the way for other companies to do the same. As Tewson describes it in her Twitter thread, “the Court has created a path for those with the resources to identify stochastic terrorists and hold them accountable to do exactly that and recover their costs in court.”

I am rarely on the corporation’s side, but in this case, the outcome is the right one. While there’s still a bar in that you need to be able to identify the person and have the resources to sue, this case sets a precedent that the behavior isn’t okay.

Here’s to hoping it stands on appeal, presuming the defendant bothers to appeal.

Disco stick, as in

“Let’s have some fun, this beat is sick / I wanna take a ride on your disco stick.”

We tried separating the food and water.

The cat just went to where the water was and howled. We’d show her the new spot, shed drink, and do the same thing in 20 minutes.

Just moved it back, less howling and she still drinks.

Cool, I’ll continue to get my life-saving medications shipped overnight and eat primarily a vegetarian-based diet and not feel bad about it.

I’m hoping that as the platform matures and we start seeing various apps and even more web-based interfaces like _wefwef Voyager, the signup process will be handled by those apps themselves. Like, a bunch of instances agree to be listed or something, and the app randomly selects one to present the new user on signup as a default, which both distributes the “load” across instances, but also provides a simple default.

I know the above proposal has problems; it’s a 30-second spitball idea, not anything I’m spending more time thinking about seriously.

Let’s put the edit history on the blockchain!

The first one I played was Zelda, on a gold cartridge, on the original NES.

The oldest system I played on was an Atari.

The oldest system I played games on was an Appie IIe, and it was Sticky Bear Basket Bounce. That game is like, my youth.

I’ll pile on with a “Yup!”

While I fell into a pattern where I intend to upgrade every 2 years maybe 5 or 6 years ago, I’ve noticed in that same time frame that both the cost of new devices has gone up significantly and the durability of those devices has dropped.

I’m very easy on my phones. They spend a vast majority of their time on my desk, or plugged into my car. I’m old and boring enough that “going out” involves sitting down at a table at a nice dinner with friends and then going home. That said, the battery life on my phones starts to degrade after about a year. Various flaws start to creep up in the device. I’ve already had to replace the screen on my Pixel 7 Pro once – though, to be fair, it took a tumble from the couch onto a hardwood floor, but even that, really, shouldn’t turn the screen non-functional.

It’s disappointing to see that planned obsolescence rearing its head.

I don’t either. But I tend to use (La)TeX to typeset documents.