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Petrichor isn't very evocative though? It sounds more like it should be a description of a scab or something than a smell, and I guess maybe it rains too much where I live but the smell of rain isn't something I have a strong feeling about, it's just a warning to get inside.

It's also commonly used in the US. I've never heard it of it being associated with the commonwealth at all - based on the vulgarity I always assumed it was a native production.

Some of the most beautiful English-language writing I've read is describing the interplay of light and shadow under a canopy. This is an area where I think having a single word description is a linguistic loss.

Wealth imbalances are bad largely because many assets have upper limits on available quantity, ie. the amount of land in most countries is relatively stable. If those assets are hoarded by a relatively small number of people, it's much harder for less wealthy people to become more wealthy. Our entire socioeconomic system is based on the premise that one can work hard and change their lot, so making sure that's actually possible is important for societal stability even if you don't have any religous/moral/ethical qualms about hoarding wealth.

That's representative democracy. There's not really any practical ways to delegate power without enabling corruption, so corruption is more or less inevitable without radical levels of transparency and public oversight.

Protest is almost always a criticism of the current government. Why would you expect a government to protect their enemies? People who aren't interested in using power don't try to obtain it.

Russia does have elections, but they are internally meddled with so outsiders don't see much point. Even places known for brutal authoritarian regimes like Israel and Iran have elections. Elections are a great tool for promoting social cohesion even in decidedly undemocratic countries. It's totally illogical, but people like to vote for the winner - and when everyone knows who the winner is going to be that's quite easy. Elections in illiberal countries are like a societal placebo that can ease the mental burden of the voters and give them a sense of participation and belonging without making any actual changes. Letting the controlled opposition vent regularly and then crushing them in a "fair" election keeps their popularity at a manageable level and helps governments gauge public opinion. Democracy is a system rather than a process, and confusing the trappings of democracy (elections) with the system of democracy (self-governance) is something that's been done by with purpose by antidemocratic forces.

Authoritarianism and corruption are not mutually exclusive. Plenty of professionals are corrupt and bribeable.

Israel and the US are also not part of the ICC. Yet they still call out "violations" of international law all the time. The ICC is just a colonialist tool used to beat down any trend towards sovereignty.

They are US vassal states. SK's military in particular is formally under US command since the Korean War and have participated in every US conflict since.

It's not even an "other epidemic" - a very large proportion of opiate/opiod "overdoses" are due to taking them with benzos. At least 3/4 of overdoses I've personally witnessed involved both opiods and benzos.

OpenBSD usually has far fewer hoops than Linux on laptops - IME, either it works or it doesn't. Pretty much any x86 machine that isn't bleeding edge is going to work.

As I understand it, the argument is about defending intellectual property. Not that strange to hear from the Free Software community, where many people have strong opinions about stuff like licensing. The "Free Imformation" (pirate) community does not fully overlap with the Free Software community.

People won't be left without AI/LLMs. They'll be left with less value in their investments. The tech is here to stay, the market discovering the actual commercial value of these products won't change that.

Most of the brain is not doing intelligence, it is doing nerves and muscle control. Larger bodies require larger brains because otherwise they wouldn't be able to control all the muscles needed to move.

IIRC, short-necked birds have a brain density significantly higher than other birds.

Having personally witnessed a group of 5 crows being tricked and driven out of their newly made nest by a pair of bluejays, I have skepticism that they are any smarter than most other birds. Other than owls, which are definitely dumb as a bag of rocks.

I don't really know. Why do we get along with some people but not others? There's probably a definable reason but it's not usually a conciously-reasoned thing that can be easily specified or classified.

Most people are completely and utterly uninteresting. I feel that interest in people is largely a physical reaction rather than a thought exercise. Even people who have done cool stuff are often uninteresting. Their story may be interesting, but their person is not.

Why not just direct democracy? We have the tech to do it all, no need to give up agency to whoever makes the model.

It is normal, at least it's how pretty much all human societies and governments have worked in practice forever. Public education and propaganda have left most of us with the impression that the system is/should be much better and cleaner than it is in practice, because government-issued schoolbooks usually don't spend a lot of time criticizing current government practice.

Iran previously reverse engineered US drones to create the Shahed. Now they will expand the arsenal.

A lot of Apple's advantages come from tightly-linked memory and compute in a fully integrated design. I somewhat doubt that advantage can fully translate to servers, where features like hot-swappable memory are standard. Maybe they should skip mid-scale and head straight to mainframes?

Honestly, I don't mind wool. I've never felt it to be scratchy, but I hate polyester, which I do find irritating. I don't wear suits because I hate collared shirts and I'm not a tophat capitalist, but I've never found them to be uncomfortable.

There's a reason people stopped wearing them: toilets. Robes are fine when you can pop a squat and drop a deuce on the roadside, but are a hassle when you have sit down.

The problem is that mass-produced clothing is not really machine-manufactured, it's assembly-lined and streamlined but most of the work is done by rooms of women with sewing machines (try designing a shirt or pants that can be 100% machine made). We can automate parts like the pattern cutting but the whole system is set up for 1 big order and there's no existing logistics chain to handle 1000 individual orders in many different styles.

Do you ever "dress up" in anything but a suit? Color coordination and properly matching all the pieces of clothing, shoes, and accessories are the most basic of basics but very few people do them.

Linen gets softer over time and is extremely durable, as well as quick-drying and lightweight. My favorite fabric for clothing/sheets/towels.