I find myself mostly watching small creators on YouTube these days and only pay to watch a film if it's unusually good... But I never want to pay a cent to consume the output of some statistical model.

The point of Hollywood accounting is to intentionally create enough inflated expenses (billed from companies controlled by the studios or related parties of the producers etc.) to ensure that the net profit is zero or less, even when the film actually generated a lot of income.

It's true that tax gets paid eventually (and somewhere, maybe a tax haven) but it is intentionally creative accounting designed to minimise tax and screw people out of their royalties.

1. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-6-2007-5938-...

A compliant device has quite a lot of protection against all sorts of faults (short to VBUS etc.) but if the device was non-compliant then all bets are off.

Who knows, the charger might have been so non-compliant that it could have somehow got mains onto the connector, which is potentially deadly so probably good if it's stopped working...

But at the end of the day you shouldn't judge a standard by dodgy and possibly dangerous electronics that completely fail to comply to that specification!

It didn't work at all for that though - we had a lot of private investment in large-scale batteries anyway, because the cost came down quickly just as most people (apart from the conservatives) expected. Then the other side of Government got in and put a subsidy scheme to get hundreds of thousands of home batteries installed, which has been multiple times better bang-for-buck than the Snowy 2.0 scheme, as well as taking far shorter a time. At the same time coal plants are shutting down as expected because they are increasingly unreliable given their old ages.

Snowy 2.0 be an expensive stranded asset basically, it will work and be somewhat useful but extremely uneconomical so basically relying on the cost being written off - if it had to recoup any investment then it couldn't run because it'd never be able to sell the power for high enough.

For stuff like passives it's usually easier to use Digi-Key or Mouser and you can filter by MOQ so you only see things that are available individually.

Things like soldermask, multiple layer stackups and plated holes and vias are standard on dirt-cheap Chinese boards but are challenging and time-consuming to do at home.

I’m not American but happy to agree with the OP - being an elected MP is not just a job and if they want to take leave whenever they want to and miss critical votes then I’m sure they would have no trouble getting a normal job instead!

Surely the parliamentary sitting schedule gives them plenty of time off already where they would not miss votes (I know it does in my country)

I also had one that couldn't tell the difference between a speed sign and a speed 'ahead' sign so it'd start screaming at you hundreds of metres before you reach the actual speed zone!

Then there was the fun of driving on a highway at 110 km/h (I think with a friend with a Tesla) and we passed a school bus that had a '40 km/h when lights flashing' sign on the back but with 40 is in the red circle like our speed signs (like [1]). So the car decided that was the speed of the road and the cruise control suddenly slammed on the brakes! Obviously the lights were not flashing (and wouldn't unless it was stopped at a bus stop and letting off children) but the car is also not smart to interpret any of that!

I'm glad neither of the cars our family owns has any of these features!

1. https://www.austockphoto.com.au/image/40-when-lights-flash-s...

The OP’s argument is that lots of people wanting CarPlay is evidence some kind of monopolistic anti-competitive behaviour by Apple, which is nonsense. Nothing in your comment relates addresses the argument or the rebuttal!

Your comment would only make sense in a hypothetical situation where the car infotainment only worked if you had an iPhone or if there was some kind of exclusivity agreements to preclude it working with Android, but that isn’t the case in any circumstance I’m aware of.

A 10-20% reduction in fuel burn is actually considered pretty huge...

I hate to be cynical but I worry that this isn't going to matter, because it really seems that a lot of the pressure behind age verification isn't actually very interested in the age verification part...

The 787 is nice but I find the seat width quite cramped in economy, and unfortunately premium economy isn't great value either to pay or for points upgrade on any of the airlines I fly...