hnuser847

Nah, I don't see it. They've been trying to make smart glasses a thing for over a decade and it's not working. Nobody wants them. I don't think it's necessarily a privacy thing, it's just that smart glasses don't solve a real problem. Same with VR.

> if you think the president can go to war without congressional approval then you are unamerican

The last time congress declared war was 1942. That ship long ago my friend.

Exactly. As distasteful as it is to put it in these terms, some slaveholders had massive "balance sheets" consisting of thousands of human "assets". Outlawing slavery meant reducing the value of these assets to zero.

So if I'm understanding you correctly, prior to AI tools you spent 1 hour per week coding? And now you spend 30 minutes per week?

The sole purpose of companies hiring foreign workers is to pay less in wages. This results in lower wages for Americans. It’s that simple.

This law needs the addition of a third kind of person: one who is neither devoted to the goals of the organization nor the organization itself, but merely wishes to use the organization as a vehicle to push their own social and political beliefs (such as DEI).

Are the Elites in the room with us now?

I mean, it sounds like your kids are just following the example you set. They're watching you sit in front of a screen as a form of recreation and they're simply doing the same. I think it's also worth noting that your hobbies are solo activities, so even if your kids did want to connect with you in a non-screen hobby, you'd be unavailable anyways. Maybe you could make the first move and invite them to do something outside with you?

Yes, only the best buildings from hundreds of years ago have been preserved, but that still doesn't explain why we build ugly buildings right now. You would think we would be able to draw on centuries of architectural trial and error to determine what is objectively pleasing to people. Instead it's like the past never existed. Architects keep building hideous blobs of steel and glass and wondering why people don't like their creations.

That's not why the electoral college was created. The three fifths compromise was appended to the electoral college system, but it was not the reason for it being created in the first place.

The reason why we have an electoral college system, according to James Madison in the Federalist papers, is because the United States is intended to be a mixture of state-based and population-based government. States within the US are not meant to be mere provinces; they are intended to be mini-countries with their own laws and customs under a broader federal umbrella. The electoral college system allows the states to cast the votes for President, instead of the majority of citizens voting directly.

It's sort of like how an HOA works, where each unit has one vote. The units themselves comprise the voting body, not the individual people living in each unit. The individuals in each unit might have different opinions and preferences, but at the end of the day they must submit a single vote representing their unit. The electoral college system works the same way, with the caveat that the number of votes apportioned to each state is relative to the size of the population.

If Amazon did that, sales would drop to zero and retailers would leave Amazon. eCommerce is a low-margin business. Sellers will only stay on Amazon as long it's profitable for them.

> You pay these fees so the products aren't cheap.

Except they are, otherwise consumers wouldn't use Amazon. Whenever I want to buy anything, I check Amazon first. 9 times out of 10 it's the same price as every other retailer with the added benefit of free shipping and free returns. If that wasn't the case, I would have no reason to use Amazon.

The “hidden tax” described in the article is to sellers, not consumers. Free shipping is subsidy for consumers that costs Amazon billions of dollars. I have personally never seen what you’re describing.

The TL;DR is that the “hidden tax” is onerous advertising fees paid by third-party retailers to have their products appear high in search results.

I don’t really see the issue here, since this appears to be a win-win for both consumers and sellers. Consumers get the cheap stuff they want with free shipping, and sellers get access to hundreds of millions of customers and the volume of sales needed to survive in a low-margin business. The fact that sellers are willing to pay these fees suggests that’s it worth it for them to be on Amazon. If it wasn’t worth it, they would be somewhere else.