Very occasionally I run into something that used to be doable without a smartphone but requires a smartphone now, but that’s quite rare. Not having a smartphone now would be very inconvenient, but generally not more inconvenient than living without a smartphone was before they existed. I expect the same with this technology, if it ever arrives.

I’m not sure why the tone is so negative in this article given that the plan being discussed is to make the technology so useful that most people want it despite the disadvantages. That’s not coercion.

I don’t think it’s something dogs are physiologically capable of doing, and even if it were, I think it’s unlikely that dogs would be trained to do it on command.

The claims about dogs seem quite implausible and call into questions the reliability of the rest of the the article, but I’m not sure how Israel actually plans to go from that to reaching the rather high threshold for providing libel in the USA.

No, generally not. It’s possible to lack the knowledge or the intellectual sophistication to disprove an argument that is, in fact, false. So if your life experience or your intuition has caused you to come to believe something, you shouldn’t abandon that belief just because you can’t disprove an argument against it, or you will become vulnerable to various scams and deceptions.

The more reliable approach is to accept the existence of an argument that you can’t disprove as evidence that you might be wrong. Enough evidence should change your mind, even if one piece doesn’t.

It would be foolish not to invest even if inflation were always 0. Present-day consumption is worth more than future consumption, but hoarding (as opposed to investing) in the absence of inflation trades present-day consumption for future consumption 1 to 1.

You can make very low-risk investments (effectively no more risky than just holding dollars) and still beat inflation (not by much) to end up with more real purchasing power than you had before. No one is being forced to spend money now or lose its value.

Students fail to make the is/ought distinction.

Apparently “wizard” originally meant something like “sage”: someone characterized by being wise, in the same way that a “drunkard” is characterized by being drunk. The “-ard” suffix itself is historically related to the word “hard,” which still survives as an intensifier in modern English. (By the time “-ard” was incorporated into English, though, it no longer literally meant “hard”; I just find the historical relationship amusing.)

So? Maybe I’m weird, but I don’t have the moral intuition that an employer generally ought to keep employing people if it can afford to.

My approach to that question is to talk about a skill related to but not required for the role I’m applying for which I would like to learn. I try to present myself as someone motivated to improve his skills in such a way that I would be qualified for the position I’d like for them to promote me to within five years if they hire me.

This one is for screening before the interview rather than the interview itself but it really bugs me: multiple-choice “How knowledgeable are you about X?” Do I have expert knowledge of C++? No, because I have just 20 years of experience. Bjarne Stroustrup has expert knowledge of C++. I’m not sure what these questions are intended to do. Are they just an HR hoop to jump through and I need to say that I am an expert? Or is everyone deliberately trying to be deceptive always claiming to be an expert in everything, so I am supposed to say that I’m not?

I’m rather more libertarian than most but I don’t think the free market, as generally envisioned, implies the freedom to send money to countries that your country is currently at war with.

I wouldn’t want to be one of the dudes in the speedboat though…

Demigods love it when you disturb their tombs.

Almond-scented stuff (not almonds themselves - they have no noticeable smell to me).

Pine forests, the sort with lots of dry pine needles on the ground.

He’s saying that because the population of the USA is approximately 40 times larger than that of Israel, the loss of one Israeli life would diminish Israel to an extent proportional to how much the loss of 40 American lives would diminish the USA.

What’s the problem here? This course of events seems both predictable and necessarily permitted by the freedoms that we have as Americans.

I find AI to be a better conversation partner than humans in most circumstances. It’s not perfect but it’s knowledgeable about pretty much every topic and it’s always fully engaged and attentive. Most people, by contrast, aren’t very interesting and most interesting people are busy. Of course I would prefer to talk to someone who was also subjectively experiencing and enjoying the conversation, but I can get a lot out of a conversation even without that.

The cargo tracking firm Vortexa has reported that at least 34 tankers linked to Iran have circumvented the US blockade since it began, with 19 exiting the Gulf and 15 entering from the Arabian Sea.

I don’t understand why this is happening. Is the US Navy somehow trying and failing to intercept these ships? (That would surprise me.) Or are they being allowed to pass deliberately?

I consider myself very, very lucky that my ex-wife and I did not have any children.