Windows is transitioning from being software you run to being an experience that Microsoft provides to you. The pattern of pushing new features to users unpredictably and without the option to refuse is clearly inappropriate in the first model but natural in the second. As a power user I strongly prefer the first model, but I recognize that most people these days might be ok with having their computer work like a website they access or an app they run on their phone - something they have no control over the state of.

You want to give the FBI a lot more power to choose, unilaterally and without oversight, which parts of the Epstein files to keep from the public than I do.

It’s not an authentic video of Epstein, but it is an authentic part of their file on Epstein. You seem to be saying that they should not have posted it but my understanding of the law is that they should have posted it and not removed it.

How is it a big deal? We know that it’s not real, that it wasn’t claimed to be real by its creators, and that the FBI has it because it was emailed to them by someone with an innocent question about it. I can see either including it in the release because it’s technically in the FBI’s Epstein file, or omitting it from the release because it actually isn’t relevant information. It looks like the FBI chose the latter policy once they became aware that they had released the video (presumably as part of a bulk upload) and they Streisand-Effected themselves by removing it. I’m not familiar with the specific text of the law so I don’t know which option is more in accordance with it, but either way I don’t see any substantive issue at all.

My guess is that the men who don’t think they’d be bothered by cat-calling are imagining a scenario where there are lots of other people around and the risk of being physically attacked is very low. (Something like the stereotypical image of construction workers whistling at a woman walking by them on a busy sidewalk.) Being on a nearly-empty subway platform with the only other guy nearby accosting you is a genuinely risky situation even without pretending that you’re a woman.

One time I was walking on the sidewalk when a car with several young women drove by and one of them leaned out the window and yelled something at me. I didn’t hear what she said but I like to think that it was positive and it made my day, but the caveat is that I did not feel like I was in any physical danger at all from them.

But both sides sound as if they have done real science, so a basic understanding of how science is done won’t be enough to tell them apart. You can get anti-vaccine books written in an academic tone with citations. They go through the appearance of presenting evidence. The only difference between the two sides that is visible to an ordinary member of the public is that one side represents “the establishment” and the other side doesn’t.

Even professional scientists have to have a lot of trust in the institutions of science - if I read a paper then unless there is something egregiously wrong, I rely on the journal and the scientific community to check that the authors did what they claimed to do and that they got the results they claim to have.

I don’t agree with this. The stuff written by, for example, the “vaccines cause autism” people can sound as sophisticated and authoritative as any textbook. A high-school education isn’t going to help someone judge it according to its merits. Thus the problem is a collapse of trust in authority rather than a lack of basic knowledge, because ultimately an ordinary person can only decide to trust the scientific consensus without meaningfully verifying it.

“Local mom reveals one weird trick that archeologists hate!”

I’m not saying something like this has never happened but I expect that such claims are simply anti-intellectual urban legends more often than not.

(How would we even know where pre-Columbian people stored knives? The sort of structure that would survive for centuries seems like it would be a palace or a temple made of stone, rather than a common kitchen. There the blades presumably would serve a ritual purpose.)

I’m really annoyed by this as well, but why do you jump from that to concluding that the government should ban it? I don’t see any reason why the stores should not in principle be allowed to do it.

The advantage of that last approach is that it has side effects and cannot therefore be optimized out by the compiler.

Members of the British government have been calling for strong efforts to ensure the shipping company and its insurers will pay the costs of the cleanup. Seatrade, which operates the vessel, said its insurers are fully engaged in the process, and in the meantime, volunteers are scouring the beaches, aiding in the cleanup (and possibly taking a few bananas home as a reward).

I did a double-take too, but she’s wearing skin-colored shorts with a red stripe on them over tights.