Hey, be nice to the big company. This policy of shooting an email doesn’t undermine the profitability their addictive money machine. Won’t you think of the shareholders Mister Curtis?

Only a matter of time before these advanced printers begin printing themselves, then we’ll have to develop a 4D printer to fight them off!

I imagine an image of the Teletubbies vacuum with a label on its nozzle reading ‘apps’, a label on its hose reading ‘advertisers’, and a third label on the tank that reads ‘data brokers’.

Good idea. I just looked at a drive I bought six months ago and it’s up 40% or so. Wish I’d have got two now.

In the statement “keep your religion outta my government”, the line between ‘keep your religious beliefs from influencing governmental decision making’ and ‘people belonging to a religion should be restricted from participating in the running of government’ is quite fine, which is why I asked.

I appreciate your answering.

Are you suggesting only agnostics should govern?

Talarico said in the interview he wants the separation of church and state to return as the current blend diminishes both.

You’re preaching to the choir here.

The chart is for people that have never tried to sing.

From the United States perspective, less blood in reserve drives up prices for the population, so it seems to jive with healthcare as a whole there. I know Canada was buying plasma from them as well in the before times, but I’m not sure about that any more.

Several new plasma donation clinics have opened up to collect from people with more common blood types. It’s interesting to hear the UK ships blood in from the west at all. I would have figured there would be closer options available. Unless Brexit also made that more difficult too.

I understand the necessity of shipping blood around, but it sure would be nice if everywhere had enough donors to keep the blood in country. Though I suppose even in such a utopia, gold blood would still be sent around the world when necessary.

You’ve reminded me some years ago I donated at a pop up clinic, and it was across the street from a carnival that came to town. They went and got a bunch of ride and games tickets and gave them to blood donors. Big sign over at the carnival, and the clinic was packed.

That’s a random way to get people in, but it worked, and it was fun. Now if only they could take the donation while people wait in line for a ride haha.

Most appointments are to have something done to a person’s own benefit. Chiropractic, dental, accountant, that sort of thing. Making an appointment to donate blood to a person you’ll never meet is a type of selflessness that surprises me when I hear of people missing those appointments.

Someone at the clinic I go to once mentioned they had two or three missed appointments every day. I don’t know, I suppose I take it more seriously than most, but it strikes me as an odd thing to miss. Especially when the service here calls two days before an appointment to confirm.

To further this, the negative and positive value also matters. Someone with a negative type can only take negative blood, whereas a positive type can accept both.

I wish it were easier to get people to donate. Just this morning I heard a radio advertisement for the blood service that included the line ‘please schedule and attend an appointment’, which seems wild that so many people book a time then don’t show up.

I’m no geopolitical expert but probably not the nation right next door.

Don’t forget morfans!

Why do you think baskets should be required? To prevent theft? This has been implemented for a decade now, evidently thievery isn’t much of a concern.

There are no doubt multiple factors at play, but when things are easy and quality of life is decent, the honour system works.

That could work also, but not all shops have carts, and people don’t always need a basket. It’s common enough to scan things and pop them directly into a bag you brought, skipping the need for a basket altogether.

It was more accurately described as computer vision at the time, but your memory is right. They wanted to get to 5% of sales being human reviewed, but it was more like 70%.

What’s funny about Amazon’s efforts for Just Walk Out is that checkout free shopping already existed. Simply by letting customers carry a handheld scanner and payment terminal around the store with them.

Oh to live in the parallel universe where those local and state governments tell them to pack up their data centre and shove off once their carnival leases expire. The sonic schadenfreude would be felt around the globe.

Oh I couldn’t speak on their modern build quality as mine is from 2014, back when Sony still owned Vaio. I wouldn’t choose it over a Macbook to use as a racquet, but that wasn’t the intended use case then nor would it be now.

I did use an Acer laptop for a bit once and that thing must have been damaged or something because the hinge was so loose it would slowly open up when I was typing. Eventually I remember propping it against something to keep from constantly adjusting it. Fortunately my Vaio doesn’t suffer such an issue.

Anecdotally, I just picked mine up in a similar fashion and despite being uncomfortable from the imbalance, it seems to hold up fine. Might depend on the gesticulation factor - I gave it a ‘tree in the breeze’ sort of motion but not a ‘wacky inflatable tube man’ kind haha.

I take my Vaio on the go from time to time but similarly don’t often see much else but Macbooks. People with tablets and keyboards are becoming a more common sight though.