Perhaps the voltage regulator in your alternator is throwing a big voltage spike on the 12V supply, killing your adapters. There are large capacitors made for car audio that will stop spikes. Try one of those.

Yes, AI contribution is an area that needs legal clarification. I know you brought the question up for graphic arts, but the same thing is happening with music. I can use an AI tool to generate tracks, tweak them to my taste, then supply lyrics that are also at least partially generated by AI. But if I never admit that I used AI, it’s probably impossible to detect.

What makes this really interesting is that entertainment industry workers went on strike partly because of AI fears, yet would the resulting productions be copyrightable?

I’m a bit confused. If I use AI to generate an image, then modify it, can I claim copyright? And how would anyone know if I used an AI? I know there are telltale signs that computer algorithms were involved, so I guess the question is how much does the artist have to contribute before it’s no longer considered non-human art? Or does any use of AI tools invalidate the copyright?

Me: I wish I could stop paying taxes. Genie: poof Wish granted! Me: Woah…I don’t feel so good! Genie: It’s a fatal heart attack.

Home and garden center, hardware store, or Amazon.

Use bug bomb(s) first to kill the existing spiders. Then apply permethrin diluted with water to a 0.5% solution, spraying at all entry paths to the garage, edges, and dark areas.

The idea is to not just prevent spiders from returning. It’s also to deprive them of a reason to return by removing their food supply. Permethrin is a wide-spectrum insecticide and repellant. It has very low toxicity to humans, most mammals, and birds. Not good around cats or fish. It has good persistence (6-8 weeks).

I was with you up until you decided to hide under the insulation. Seriously? I start scratching just looking at the stuff!

My house is built on an old vertical mineshaft. I’d take the secret elevator to the bunker 300 feet below ground where my command center is. Then I’d take control of the gun emplacements hidden in the trees and the fleet of AI enhanced drones. When the agents are eliminated, the robotic dogs will drag the bodies to the incinerator shaft.

Or maybe not. You didn’t think I’d really tell you what awaits you Agent CraigOhMyEggo, did you?

If it’s just one room, use a tower air purifier. Mine is set up in my workshop at a window. I cut a piece of fiberboard to adapt the purifier to the window frame, but cardboard works.

I like this method better than the box fan/filter combo because it provides greater air flow and removes pretty much everything with the HEPA and carbon filters. It’s saving my sanity right now with all the pine tree pollen and smoke from debris pile burning.

For a whole home, place a window fan in one room pointing out. Then put air filters in the windows of other rooms. This has the benefit of keeping the noisy fan in an unoccupied room while you’re trying to sleep. Alternatively, if you have an attic, you can get a fan that fits the attic access. This works better because you’ll be cooling your attic as well. You can also consider a dedicated attic fan which can knock 10 degrees off the inside temperature on a hot day.

Look up how to debate. Success is not measured by how bad you make the opponent look. That may work on one person, but you have to repeat it for every person who advances the same argument. Instead, take apart their argument, reveal underlying motives, expose untruths with irrefutable documentation, uncover false logic and bad assumptions, and respond without attacking the messenger.

For instance, “The economy is terrible! Everything is so expensive.” Well, stuff -is- expensive. But is the economy really the reason behind it? The US stock indexes are at record highs. Most companies have been beating the expected earnings per share. Isn’t it more likely that things are expensive because companies are taking more profit to give to their shareholders? Which candidate do you believe is more inclined to change that?

The object is not to defeat the opponent. It’s to prevent others from being convinced by their arguments.

Keep doing what I have been doing - dragging MAGA fence sitters back from the brink one by one. The ones who have adopted Trumpism as their religion are too far gone. But there are a lot who just need to be taken by the hand and shown a better path.

When you see MAGA BS, challenge it with well-reasoned arguments. The object really isn’t to change the mind of the poster. It’s to prevent them from changing the minds of others.

That there is an all powerful supreme being that demands our worship or else we will suffer for all eternity after our death.

The same things were said when industrial robots replaced assembly line workers, when farm equipment replaced agricultural labor, and now with AI systems. People still need jobs. But looking at the big picture, those improvements made sense. Most displaced workers found other employment.

Our medical system costs much more than it needs to, creates anxiety about long term medical needs in “at will” employment, has forced millions to declare bankruptcy over medical debt, destroyed the financial security of millions more, and in some cases, has lead to patients who opted to forgo medical treatment because it wasn’t covered. And when payment for care is tied to a job, that leads to age discrimination - older employees cost more to insure.

Taxes were meant to pay for things everyone needs. I can’t think of a better example of that than medical care.

(Edit for clarity)

I reuse the small Amazon shipping boxes. Each box has a number and a general category. My phone has a database. When I put something away, I take a picture of the item, add it to the database, put it in a box, and record the box number.

This. Absolute game changer. If my job gave me the money they spend on my behalf for the crappy health insurance they provide, it would likely result in an actual increase in my net pay after the increased taxes to pay for the program. Cut out hundreds of thousands of parasitic middlemen, like insurers and pharmacy benefit managers. Throw out the crazy quilt of non-doctors who decide what medications and procedures are are covered. Reduce billing staff because of the major paperwork reduction (don’t need to deal with hundreds of different insurance plans). And do away with coding - the letters and numbers on a bill that can drastically change a procedure’s cost to the patient.

Based on telomere degradation. Recent developments may result in human telomere repair in the near future.

Where did I ever say that? Age discrimination is age discrimination. Either you’re qualified for the job or not, independent of your age. It seems like OPs question is a one-size-fits-all reaction to the geriatric choices forced upon us by the two party system. The real solution is to open the system up. Ranked-choice voting does that. You don’t have to vote for the candidate who has the best chance of beating the opposition. You rank your choices. First choice is the person who best represents you. After the votes are tallied, the candidate who gets >50% wins. If nobody achieves that, the candidate with the least votes is removed and the second choice of those who voted for them is used. This process continues until someone achieves the supermajority.

It has the advantage of doing away with the idea that you’re wasting your vote by not voting for the candidate who has the best chance of prevailing against the opposition. If your candidate is removed, your second choice receives your vote. Your vote ALWAYS counts. A side benefit is that we no longer need runoff elections. Everyone’s second (and third and fourth) choices are already taken into account.

I wonder if Khamenei senses the end is near and is clearing the path for succession of his son, Mojtaba. Raisi was the other likely candidate to become Supreme Leader.

No. That’s age discrimination. If you’re concerned that a person could be suffering from mental degradation, require annual testing for it. I know folks in their 90’s who are better critical thinkers than a lot of 20-somethings.

The problem we have is not that a bunch of old people run the country. It’s that a bunch of young people put them there because they were the only real choices they had. Fix the two-party system first by employing ranked-choice voting. That will break the stranglehold that Republicans and Democrats have on the US political system.

One independent source of true random numbers with timestamps:

https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/interoperable-randomness-beacons/beacon-20