Everyone is rightfully making fun of ol’ Jimmy Jack, but the chain of events here is he bought a product based on claims by the maker and then used the product for those claimed features. Fraud is a crime. Texas needs to make more arrests.

Do not adjust the gas tax for 33 years, do not listen to all the civil engineers telling you heavy vehicles do almost all road damage, and propose a tax with no method of enforcement. Brilliant leadership out of DC.

Good stuff. One small note: I’m not sure how useful the distinction of “Chinese state-sponsored companies” is in recent history when comparing to the US, let alone now. The US has retooled much of federal research engine toward promoting US AI. Even fired the NSB (among many other long standing, expert driven advisory boards) to replace it with a bunch of tech baron stooges. States are offering unprecedented payouts to data centers. The AI hyperscalers already have a bailout all but guaranteed when the bubble pops. It’s all state-sponsored, just with extra steps.

Can someone ELI5? Is this extremely token gesture an appreciative nod or strings (visible or not) attached trojan horse?

I’m not a big Avatar fan, but you make a compelling case. Extra points for a B5 reference.

The morally-gray stories CAN be good, but not in the hands of most modern movie/streaming writers who somehow all seem to have gone to the school of “Trust me bro, I’m somehow better than the internationally acclaimed author who wrote the IP I’ve been handed” with a major in “mystery boxes” and minor in “identity IS character”.

Both sides? If only it were that simple. There are three sides: the complainant (citizen Trump), the defendant (Trump 45’s IRS), and the mediator (Trump 47’s DOJ). On the plus side, shining a light on the absurdity of our criminal Justice System is sometimes helpful.

Trump (47) ordered the DOJ to write up an incredibly illegal deal for Trump (citizen) over the wrong committed against him by the Trump (45) administration. The DOJ added, he’s immune to every law ever and the courts can’t review this decision because we said so.

You know where would be a great spot for a data center? Martha’s Vineyard.

What anti-gun stance? Obama expanded gun owner rights. Biden’s big anti-gun push was to enforce existing laws and even that faltered. There is this narrative that liberals are coming for yer guns, used primarily by people who want to stop socialized medicine, abortion rights, etc…, but reality is telling a different story.

Yeah! Like when Obama took everyone’s guns. Then Biden did it too. It’s literally all I hear them talking about.

I mean, what do you want us to do? Index tax taxes or make them percentage based so they don’t go 33 years being eaten away by inflation? Create a system that actually pays for the roads it needs to exist instead of saddling the future with massive debt? Not make it legally difficult to impossible for any alternative forms of transport to exist or at least be usable by sane people? That all sounds impossible. /s

Classic Fortune, sowing the seeds of blaming labor for every problem. Though, they should be careful because these Hynix/Samsung stories are showing the world how much the parasite class cheats workers. You suppose Micron workers who thought they had a good deal making high five-figures are looking at these bonuses and suddenly developing class consciousness?

There’s this cool new thing where you can search for stuff on the Internet. You should check it out. To answer your question, yes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button,_Button_(The_Twilight_Zone)

Context for all you n’wahs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR-K2rUP86M

I have watched Waterworld. There is a lot to like (concept, practical effects, Hopper as the villain), but there is a lot lacking (writing, about something, also Hopper as the villain). They should have finished the script instead of barreling ahead. They needed someone in the room to manage Costner’s ego. It’s a very mid Mad Max “inspired” film, of which the 80s/90s had many. The Salute of the Jugger/The Blood of Heroes is about on par and it didn’t cost the GDP of a small nation.

Sharknado had a tornado filled with sharks with not much more special effects budget, and that was 13 years ago (how the time flies- like sharks in a tornado). We not trying to win Academy Awards for VFX with these demakes.

The Chinese probably gave them normal gifts, pins, and phones because why waste money on tech when top secret files are stored in the bathroom and POTUS tweets sensitive information?

Nice idea, but you’d never get funding. So lean into it. Instead of remaking flops, demake them. Redo Battlefield Earth or Waterworld on a half million dollar budget. As the world watches your film with effects that would make Sharknado blush they will finally ask “what is art?”