He does not have a dog. He spends weeks coaxing a plague-surviving stray to come to him in the hope of finding a companion to end his loneliness. It is one of the last glimmers of hope for a return to the old way. His time with the dog is very short-lived.

The novel is better, but the shortcomings of the film’s story are only known to the viewers who have also read the novel. People who have not read it don’t know the book world’s lust for empathy and want of animal life. The earth of the film is more like the world of 1982 than not like it. The book is the radical…

Because calls for “better” mental health care are actually calls for a return to everything that people decided was wrong with the mental health field. People want more ability to hold people due to suspicion of danger without any evidence to prove it. You see the same thing when an adult with mental health issues…

Exactly. Neither Russia nor China have any desire for war. Neither is destroying itself to keep the Kim family in power. The economic cost and humanitarian crisis that would result would be too much. And ending juche could be a huge boon for China. DPRK is like 20-30 years behind the rest of Asia. It is a market that…

DPRK can’t strike the US. It does not have a re-entry vehicle for the terminal phase of flight. It would need to use shorter range missiles (like those launched from submarines or ships). That is why DPRK threatened Guam. They can hit Guam. Probably. They don’t have very good guidance systems. US, India, Russia,…

The list of people you thought were dead, but are actually alive gets shorter.

Time for a fun fact about the “Monty Hall problem”? Nerds will say that Monty never allowed a switch, but the setup in the logic question did appear on the show. Just not as doors. It was car keys to open the door of vehicle. The contestant chose one of three keys. Monty then showed the contestant that one of the…

I am not sure about the film, but in the book is was not possible to make a replicant with a longer life span. Of course, fragility of life was a major theme in the book, so it makes more sense that you can’t create “life” that is immortal.

I don’t think I like the original. I like the book though, which is probably why. Dick wrote some great stories (and some stinkers), but few really lend themselves to big screen adaptations. The Robocop fighting underground robots one was probably the best. And, as we all know, it was terrible. The rest explore too…

Laser-like specificity for sound (aural or ultrasonic) is not outside capabilities of known devices. You can buy a little parametric speaker kit for $300. (And that $300 device could theoretically result in hearing loss.) More advanced kits are designed to direct advertising or even compensate for the hearing loss of…

This is why I don’t understand this. They are all running basically the same hardware. The differences are the software. Why do the machines need to exist at all? My TV can easily run this and has the Bluetooth support to add a controller and keyboard. Stop with the tchotchkes and just release software for machines we…

The truest experience would be the SNES real hardware, though you would need to dump Star Fox 2 and flash it to a compatible cart to play that game on real hardware. And it probably would not play so well there either (upgrading to fx2 chip might help similar to how it helped with the original Star Fox.) Your PC…

Why, professor economics? What is the point? The working class already over consumes. All americans do. If you are serious about fixing inequality, then you should be calling for a tax on Americans and Europeans to move their disproportionate shares of wealth to the world’s poor. 90% of the population growth over the…

Look at studies, idiot. Economic mobility is about education. One person being more rich in a very rich society does not matter. Inequality does nothing. Americans are already very rich. Every one of them. Compare consumption of the poorest Americans with people at the median net worth and wealth of the world (PPP).

NY policy is set by NYC, which has resulted in stagnation in the rest of the state and NYC having to spend billions of dollars trying to get businesses to set up shop in rest of the state. NY actually introduced special zones where businesses would pay no taxes for five years with possibility of five more years of no…

That is all buillshit and you are an asshole for linking it. The rate of consumption poverty has continued to drop. People have much more than they did in times of lower income inequality. Income inequality does not matter in rich nations. It has no effect on economic mobility or anything. Stupid people just bring it…

The flatter the marginal rates, the more stable and reliable the revenue for government. Exempting the first $20,000 or so and then having a 30% rate on $20k-59,999, 50% on $60,000-149,000, and 75% on $150,000+ would generate much more revenue and be more consistent. Other countries use this type of tax structure to…

Nolan is an ignoramus. It is sad to think he believes he is being insightful.

i agree. Giving money in a very public way is bad enough, but making it some hash tag marketing nonsense is beyond the pale. When did this type of garbage become acceptable?

My parents have chickens for eggs. So do a bunch of their friends. The egg layers are not bad. More flighty than fighty. At least when it comes to people. They are always attacking each other with their pecking order.