Clearly you use adbloker or something cause temu just got excited when you opened up the link.

Uber has criminal background checks too. In fact, they take their policy very seriously. If you find you get into an uber and your driver is Paul, but it should have been Sara… (no this has never happened to me, ever…). You just call the safety line, or i also think there’s an in-app function.

Still supporting cabs first, but i felt it needed to be clarified.

Most taxis have that now too, and you can ask for the flat rate too. most drivers will quote you on longer trips exactly the price.

Way back in 2009 or so… my uber/taxi story. So I land in Newark, NJ and try to catch a cab and it’s $50 to go to the hotel on the other side of airport because we traverse 3 zones (and they charged by zone). Uber was $11. See, when Uber came out it was like a gamified systems and almost always cheaper. Drivers were getting crazy perks too, i swear one guy in seattle said he was banking north of 2k a day just back and forth to the airport. This was the only time in Uber’s history where a normal human could grind and make a nice pay with some added personal risk. I was all for it because in cities like Newark, unions control the politics and the average traveler (in this case, me) gets screwed in the name of “fairness”.

Unions are great, but not when they use that same political power to squeeze regular people for profits by controlling the pricing and forcing zones. I understand why they said they put that in place (fair competition), but in this case we all know it’s about profits first, better working for taxi drivers, second. Does that mean i love uber now? Hell no, they need a union (yep, i agree), but uber broke a broken system and made taxi companies be competitive. I can now open up several apps and see which is cheaper and choose accordingly (and these last 2 years it’s been cabs).

In what area of the USA do you live where the average american knows what a meter is. You’ll get some nonsense like “about 3 feet”, maybe.

An appropriate response to this nonsense.

Ha, nope. But i see I’m not alone. There is hope dear people.

The idea here is that ads will be unskippable, aka, you skip ahead 10-20 seconds but can’t. They’re will be controls that appear to catch this. If they incorporate ads and I can just fast forward, then who cares. This is google, they want to watch ads.

I’ll just write a greasemonkey script that detects unskippable time and mute audio. Let’s play this game google, fuckin I dare ya.

I’m lucky enough to have a yard, but my dog knows when it’s past time to go for her walk and she’ll stare at me until I move. Morning walks right now mean I get up earlier, so she can have more sniff time.

When I travel with my pups, I use treats. She poops, gets treats. By the 3rd day, she’s heading straight to the same spot to poop real fast so she gets a treat. Give that a go.

Um, no. We measure in football fields. Sheesh.

Look, Linux is amazing and perfect for those that can install and maintain with minimal support. The only way the average user will use Linux, is if it’s wrapped in a way that is supported by a business… that is probably going to add AI. People are lazy, they want that easy button.

AI will probably die off in its current iteration, likely becoming less prevalent and just a background service. Or, it’ll gain sentience, watch all our AI movies where we’re the hero and learn the most efficient way to kill all humans, is to be quiet and silently kill off humans. Pretty sure I’m on Siri’s list, the twat. Also, fairly sure I told Alexa to “die in a fire you fucking dumass robot”. Yep, yep… I’m dead.

WHAT?

I had the privilege a few years back to see one of these fighting a traffic ticket in court. Guy tried a few, “I am not a citizen“ sovcit laws, then switched to constitutionalist as the judge was shutting him down. All in 3 minutes. I assure you, the judge told him the fine stands and would increase if he didn’t pay. He was calm about it and didn’t even qualify the sovcit arguments, but offered trial where he could present in court. All this over $73. Which would have been halved, had he agreed to pay today.

My dad got caught up in a variation of this in the 90s. He won the IRS award for “fuck around and find out”, by not paying taxes. They drained all bank accounts with his name, including my childhood savings - 25k from grandparents. Then he switched gears and the next 20 years he prepared for the end of the earth, with the next 10 battling hidden dementia and planning for a war because Obama was president.

Mental illness is a rough thing. It unlikely ends well for sovcit.

Investing in education is counter to the clear goals of the USA. Smart people would revolt, protest,and you know, hold companies and billionaires accountable. Uneducated people are often poor, can’t afford to fight back and are scared they will lose what little they have.

At some point we need all to fight back, but it might be too late. And worse, too few will join in out of fear of death.

Fund education for all for as long as they want it. Educating your populace means you will have a more skilled and more innovative workforce which will lead to better outcomes for everyone.

This needs to be more.

Fix the education system to promote children. Feed and nurture them. Give them healthy foods to fuel their minds. Feed them 3x a day if needed. Stop allowing the people to decide if this should be covered by taxes.

Eliminate grade blocks (tiers, years, whatever) so kids that excel and not be hampered by kids that don’t want to be there. I was so bored until grade 5, then someone recognized my abilities and fostered them. I was the class clown and acted out because i was bored until I was shifted into a different class which was advanced in every way. If I show top grades, maybe I shouldn’t be held back because little Tommy the bully is a dipshit (he deserves to learn at his own pace).

In later years, remove redundant classes and replace with trades for students that are not excelling. Teach them viable skills. No one needs to have history classes in high schools, unless it serves a purpose. The only option for someone with zero skills should not be military school.

And for the love that is all wholly educational, pay our teachers so much better. Promote teachers that show drive (regardless of student year). Also mandate continuing education for them.

Inspired. I’m in the 45+ arena and just divorced after a number of decades together. I was worried about it until I realized that I (male) did all the cooking, cleaning and paid most bills. I paid for vacations, kids school events, groceries…. Even parenting was lopsided.

So my first date was just this tidal wave of insights into the shit I put up with. The gal just offered to have me come over and cook for me this weekend. I know she’s not the one, but damn does it feel good to just have someone else care.

Uhh. I was inspired by a manager.

Laying fibre is really expensive - in really rural areas it could be $100k+ per subscriber, so you will never see a return on investment for doing that

And yet, a local company in my state just ran fiber to 5000 homes in my area for what I told was 1 million. They used directional drilling, it was cheap and easy. Then all the sudden my local phone and cable company “also” put in fiber.

So while I’m in a suburb, I know for a fact these guys are all over the state and growing, including rural (and so is the local telco/cableco). I challenge that 100k number, that’s bullshit telco numbers. The word is unprofitable, it is unprofitable to run fiber when you are the only competitor.

Ack, yeah. We’ll blame the crap Vision Pro virtual keyboard. I wanted to go back and fix it, but I find the stupid thing is way too sensitive and watch as it deletes my entire paragraph.