To add on what you said since it was the most complete answer, the first credit cards didn’t start with a magnetic chip but had raised numbering that cashiers would emboss the numbering onto a carbon copy slip. The shop would keep two copies of the receipt and the customer would keep the third.

The switch to magnetic swipe on North America took a while because it required a phone connection to verify the card number. Europe switched to chips earlier than North America in part because a lot is stores didn’t have the required phone/data connections for continuous use, so the chip was developed to be used in cases where there wasn’t any connectivity with the card reader.

I think he’s credible as a witness for what he’s seen. He seems believable, but I haven’t looked into any criticism of what he’s said.

One modern issue is that sites like OnlyFans has caused is a unique type of spam as various models spam in a lot of places in order to build their audience.

Looking at the list of government expenditures, I don’t see space exploration as problematic as other things we are spending money on.

Regarding the Electoral College, the only thing I have an issue with it is that most states chose winner take all and the Senate is counted for votes. If the electoral college votes were given out as a percentage to each state’s popular vote, it would make the system work a lot cleaner.

It will get given out every time FIFA needs to mollify a corrupt official that will impact their work.

“Opposition Leader” is only a role in parliamentary systems where the leader of the second party has that role.

Typically, legislative “minority leader” positions fill a lot of those roles that an opposition leader would, but it isn’t official.

That’s implied in the use of men as a descriptor.

In context, Trump won 2024 with only 77 million voters. If you can get 100+ million to show up, that’s enough to demand control over Congress and the Presidency.

The issue with Linux is going to be if there will be a single distro that dominates or if it will be more distributed. Right now, it looks like Google and Valve are the closest to making dominant distros, but I can see at least one EU government one being created as well. If there are few distros, then I can see development getting locked to those distros rather than across all Linux.

The same thing happened with Android, Google ended up controlling Android so the open source side got hollowed out and the closed source side controlled by Google became necessary to running Android.

It is important to understand the context of who defined it.

It was mainly defined by queer people in various Latin communities as a self descriptor. LGBT acceptance within the various Spanish speaking communities in general is nowhere near universal, which explains why adoption of Latinx isn’t a thing.

I’d only use the descriptor if I knew that a lot of people there within earshot wanted to use that description.

The Army has trying to get more of them for over a decade. The Air Force doesn’t want them.

The whole reason why there isn’t a modern equivalent to the A-10 is because the Air Force knew that said plane wouldn’t be able to survive in a conflict where the enemy had any surface-to-air attack capability.

Is this related to Epstein or something else entirely?

The only “influencer” that I can think of who has done anything involved in Hollywood was John Green, and he isn’t the typical influencer. Even then, his path there was to use his fame to sell his product, books, and then that product became something that Hollywood could turn into a movie.

Outside of that, I think the Five Nights at Freddy’s movies had influencers in the cast, but I don’t see them using this to build an acting career yet.

Usually, it isn’t that an influencer becomes a movie star, but a movie star becomes an influencer since the star can use their same to build a following online. That’s likely why studios use the follower count as a metric in getting actors for certain roles; it is a way to determine fame and the ability of the actor to pull in crowds to see a movie.

Or Oracle will start stealth hiring in other countries like Poland and India to use that staff as their junior devs in a more sink or swim environment.

Whatever gets us all in that autistic kid’s snowglobes.

God yes.

So don’t put AI in front of anything mission critical or without going through a review of a human.

Only one oil country switched to Euros and an invasion switched it back to dollars.

A lot of the international banking structure was built on American systems of banking, so the dollar got baked into a lot.

Until Trump, the dollar was generally seen as more stable given its longevity and being the currency of the largest superpower.

Also, compared to the Euro and Yuan, the American dollar has an internal hedge when it comes to energy prices given that the USA can supply most of its energy needs by itself. It is hard to handle an oil shock when the currency’s value drops because the internal market can’t afford oil.