Because it’s a monopoly created by international agreement. It’s like a phone number - it needs to be routable in the system, but if you follow the standards, you can get integrated into the system as a registrar

The top level domains are owned by countries - the UK has .UK, the US has .com and .gov, the UK has .io (because they stole it), but most countries have just one. They charge a fee to register a secondary domain, and the registrar can charge whatever they want to their customers to register on their behalf

This is just the centralized system though - you could build your own, AOL tried to do that through “keywords” back in the 90s

It’s more than that - he failed to create PayPal so his group bought a competitor, he didn’t found Tesla or spaceX - he claimed he did, then reached settlements with the actual founders to not contest his claims. He did start the boring company. It didn’t get off the ground because he can’t build a team

NASA doesn’t have effective control of their budget anymore. Congress holds the purse strings and uses them like a harness

NASA gets funding to do something - like go to the moon, or track CO2 emissions. But it comes with strings - sometimes you have to build a certain component in a certain congressional district, sometimes Congress chooses the design you have to use

It’s a problem of politics and corruption. When the public supports NASA, they have more autonomy. When NASA gets a blank check, they do more with it - reusable rockets aren’t a new idea, and when they cancelled the shuttle program NASA had brain drain. Some of those people founded spaceX - Elon didn’t start it, he came in when they were getting off the ground, just like with Tesla

That’s not what arbitration is. This doesn’t stop valve from reaching a settlement, it stops them from using fake privately funded bench trials

Binding arbitration means the results are legally binding, non-binding arbitration means a judge needs to approve the arbitration results before it’s final. Sometimes it’s with an off duty judge, sometimes anyone can be the arbiter

Regardless, on one side you have a repeat customer, on the other you have someone who will probably never be back - there’s a built in conflict of interest

I eat the joints of bones - further up they tend to splinter and taste more chalky, but the joints are delicious and satisfying once you get past the ick factor. I thought even the cartilage was gross as a kid, but at some point instincts kicked in and my body told me it was a great idea. I knew marrow was nutritious and some people ate it, but I still don’t find it that appealing - joint bones are one of the most satisfying things ever though, I highly recommend gnawing on the end of a chicken wing

Just because of your comment, I grabbed some tree bark to try… Cinnamon sticks. And holy shit, I just wanted to try it out, but I couldn’t stop. It just splinters at first, but once you start grinding the flavor kicks in and it just melts - 10/10, it’d be easy to eat enough to make yourself sick, but I’m going to be trying this again

And FWIW, I’ve never had a cavity. I brush my teeth every morning but otherwise only if I feel I need to. I slightly cracked a tooth once, but my dentist was great and told me to use fluoride toothpaste and hold off on a crown - it’s been a decade and it hasn’t bothered me in years

Trust your body. Yes, gnaw on bones and tree bark - not all of it, your body knows what is edible and what isn’t. If your instincts say “gnaw on this”, and it’s not made of plastic or metal, give it a try… If you take it slowly, what’s the worst that can happen? Probably a tummy ache

I really don’t get how people so easily accept this. This is an engineering problem, not a law of the universe… How would someone possibly prove something is impossible, particularly while the entire branch of technology is rapidly changing?

I loved that the Gameboy was designed to survive a fall from the average shirt pocket. I love that the Wii controllers pushed gyroscopic technology so far that it allowed the explosion of quadcopters. I loved the idea of 3d through rapid aspect switching.

I loved when Nintendo pushed boundaries, not just through hardware but through gameplay. I enjoy and appreciate the Nintendo polish

I agree with your sentiment wholeheartedly - good gameplay is much more important than flashy graphics. But the polish was nice - pushing boundaries is what made the difference

The fediverse is just a barnacle on the larger Internet at this point. It has to become more - we need to make our own web

Stomachs aren’t necessary… You can jump straight to the large intestine. Even humans can survive like that

Obviously, they’re useful. It’s another stage of digestion, which means more energy and nutrients are extracted from your food. It widens your viable food sources, just like chewing does

Ok, let’s be real here. A charger can last a decade even if the charging speed slows…a cord will not outlast a phone. If it does, there’s a serious issue

By getting in early, and having a lot of child branches on the tree of life

I once got on the topic of the moon lending with a creationist co-worker. He said he wasn’t sure, but that if it happened we should be able to see it from satellite pictures. So I said “yeah you can”, pulled it up, and zoomed in on a landing site. You couldn’t see footprints or anything, but you could see the shadow of the flag next to clearly man-made debris

I showed him exactly what he agreed would be proof in a difficult to fake form, and it just temporarily nudged the needle for him

Now, I fight conspiracies with the opposite conspiracies.

Earth is a 4D hypersphere, the earth isn’t hollow, Agatha is just another part of the surface reached by holes

The elites are hiding all the best vaccines, like the ones that cure cancer

Fun fact, we did have a 20 year start on COVID. This was bird flu, SARS, MERS, swine flu… Scientists have been saying this was coming forever

This was basically as prepared as we could get. There were protocols in place for everything

I respect it. We think of the Olympics as this Grand international unity thing, but it’s not. It’s a for profit entertainment company

It’s not the best in the world, it’s hundreds of feeder organizations that submitted the paperwork, and the people they chose to select

No one had submitted paperwork for Australian breakdancing… So she and her husband did

It’s art - intentional or not. Skilled or not (it was not). I don’t even know what county won breakdancing… But that couple made an impact on the world, undoubtedly. I could do some of her moves and anyone would instantly recognize it

Morality is definitely relative, there’s just some common overlaps

Sometimes the answer is just the same no matter what (coherent) moral framework you examine it through… Sometimes it’s just that simple

For all we know, they’re literally just passing massive checks in a circle to one another to say “yes, it says right here in our bank records that we spent a combined $100,000,000”, meanwhile only 25% actually goes into the production, and they pocket the rest.

That would be illegal and easily discovered

But you could pay $10M to hire another company to do the sound mixing. They might spend $500k to do the work. You might also be the owner of that company, and the money ends up back in your pocket…And that’s not embezzlement or a kickback, because that’s what it’s called when poor people do it

Recently, a bunch of people on tik tok found this “bug” in their banking app where you can write a bad check, then withdraw the funds before it clears… Then started crying about it when their balances updated

Dude definitely thought he discovered a cool new life hack

One of my favorite tweets goes something like “the morals of a society live in the myths they tell. Superheroes, our demigods, show up to fix the problem then go back to their day jobs”

It used to be true… But I think tastes have changed

I find it’s about size. A small organization can be good or bad, depending on the members. At some point, you reach a size where the orgs focus shifts to perpetuating itself

Which would you pick - one person who will support you when the world turns against you, or a few tens of thousands who are rabbid fans so long as you keep saying what they want to hear