Number6 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 11, 2023 10:22 pm
I can see where someone living in a rural area or somewhere where there's snow a four-wheeled drive vehicle is needed. I see a number of luxury SUVs around San Diego but there's really nowhere for the to drive off-road unless the take them to the desert or the mountains off the roads. Mostly, its a status symbol.
Hey 6.
I’m sitting is San Diego as we speak. Nice place so far. Gonna do the hop on and hop off tour tomorrow. Anywhere I need to make sure to see.
JoeMemphis wrote: ↑Mon Dec 11, 2023 10:32 pm
Hey 6.
I’m sitting is San Diego as we speak. Nice place so far. Gonna do the hop on and hop off tour tomorrow. Anywhere I need to make sure to see.
Depends upon what you like. Are you taking the Old Town Trolley Tour? It's a bus designed like a trolley that you can ride and hop-on and -off all day. You can visit Old Town and the Whaley House which is supposedly one of the most haunted places in the U.S.. Here's the link. https://www.trolleytours.com/san-diego/tickets
Balboa Park has a number of museums including the Air and Space Museum, the Ruben H. Fleet Space Theater. Next to Balboa Park is the San Diego Zoo. You can tour the Midway aircraft carried and just down from the Midway is the maritime museum featuring the old sailing ship The Star of India.
Visit Carbrillo National Monument on the tip of Point Loma for a panoramic view of San Diego. There's the Hotel del Coronado you can visit and if you take the trolley tour you can hop-off and visit it. There's also the La Jolla Children's Tide Pool where you can closely see seals on the beach but don't harass them as they are protected by law. Also, you can go whale watching but if you do make sure you wear warm clothing because it's cold on the ocean.
There are the usual tourist areas like the Gas Lamp Quarter where there are bars and restaurants mostly for tourists and I'd suggest staying away from them.
Number6 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 11, 2023 11:27 pm
Depends upon what you like. Are you taking the Old Town Trolley Tour? It's a bus designed like a trolley that you can ride and hop-on and -off all day. You can visit Old Town and the Whaley House which is supposedly one of the most haunted places in the U.S.. Here's the link. https://www.trolleytours.com/san-diego/tickets
Balboa Park has a number of museums including the Air and Space Museum, the Ruben H. Fleet Space Theater. Next to Balboa Park is the San Diego Zoo. You can tour the Midway aircraft carried and just down from the Midway is the maritime museum featuring the old sailing ship The Star of India.
Visit Carbrillo National Monument on the tip of Point Loma for a panoramic view of San Diego. There's the Hotel del Coronado you can visit and if you take the trolley tour you can hop-off and visit it. There's also the La Jolla Children's Tide Pool where you can closely see seals on the beach but don't harass them as they are protected by law. Also, you can go whale watching but if you do make sure you wear warm clothing because it's cold on the ocean.
There are the usual tourist areas like the Gas Lamp Quarter where there are bars and restaurants mostly for tourists and I'd suggest staying away from them.
Most of the ads I'm talking about, except for the much-hyped Defender, are for compact cars, sometimes electric ones. If you are subjected to enough of these, as happens in any televised sports event, eventually you can read all the disclaimers that are up for about three seconds. They invariably have language to the effect that if you really go 35 MPH down some stream bed or rocky dirt road on a mountain, you'll break your cute little car.
It's obvious that the adventurous SUV thing has been jumped on by ad agencies, probably on the basis of the usual research. In the long run, it proves that Americans live in a media-defined dream world.
Indeed, right now the Defender is a status thing, the way the Land Rover was. All the biggest houses around here have one parked in the driveway. Why anyone would drop that kind of bread on a car and not garage it is beyond me. That's one advantage of sports cars. They take up less room in the garage, and you can leave all your shit in the rest of it. The other advantage of sports cars is that they're nimble, and you can avoid all the housewives driving tanks to the market or school. I've jumped out of the way of many distracted women in great lumbering climate changers.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
Glennfs wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2023 7:56 am
Go see the whale that washed up on the beach
Nature happens. If that's what you like doing then go look. Myrtle Beach had a whale wash ashore in 2021 and Huntington State Park, just south of Myrtle Beach and across from what used to be Myrtle Beach AFB, in 2019 so did you go see them?
I guess next going to claim the whale was killed by a wind mill off the coast of San Diego.
Someone way north of here had a dead whale wash up on or near a coastal road, and had the bright idea of blowing it up. This was not a good idea at all. The results were messy beyond belief.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
Senate confirms Harry Coker Jr. as national cyber director
The Senate confirmed Harry Coker Jr. as the new national cyber director.
The Office of the National Cyber Director was established in 2021 to coordinate cybersecurity across the federal government in light of emerging challenges from states such as China and Russia. Coker, confirmed in a 59-40 vote, served as director of the National Security Agency during the Trump administration from 2017 to 2019.
Google to pay $700 million and make tiny app store changes to settle with 50 states
On December 11th, a jury decided that Google has an illegal monopoly with its Google Play app store, handing Epic Games a win. But Epic wasn’t the only one fighting an antitrust case. All 50 state attorneys general settled a similar lawsuit in September, and we’ve just now learned what Google agreed to give up as a result: $700 million and a handful of minor concessions in the way that Google runs its store in the United States.
The biggest change: Google will need to let developers steer consumers away from the Google Play Store for several years, if this settlement is approved.
ap215 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 19, 2023 10:10 am
Google to pay $700 million and make tiny app store changes to settle with 50 states
On December 11th, a jury decided that Google has an illegal monopoly with its Google Play app store, handing Epic Games a win. But Epic wasn’t the only one fighting an antitrust case. All 50 state attorneys general settled a similar lawsuit in September, and we’ve just now learned what Google agreed to give up as a result: $700 million and a handful of minor concessions in the way that Google runs its store in the United States.
The biggest change: Google will need to let developers steer consumers away from the Google Play Store for several years, if this settlement is approved.
The technology to amplify bad reasoning and bias and to multiply racism and bad behavior and injustice. The more undisciplined, egotistic, and irresponsible the users of the technology the greater the destruction of the publics privacy, human and civil rights and communities.
The Federal Trade Commission has banned Rite Aid from using AI facial recognition technology, accusing the pharmacy chain of recklessly deploying technology that subjected customers – especially people of color and women – to unwarranted searches.
The decision comes after Rite Aid deployed AI-based facial recognition to identify customers deemed likely to engage in criminal behavior like shoplifting. The FTC says the technology often based its alerts on low-quality images, such as those from security cameras, phone cameras and news stories, resulting in "thousands of false-positive matches" and customers being searched or kicked out of stores for crimes they did not commit......
And the judges here in the U.S. will say no this merger is legal no need to step in these out of control mergers are total nightmares.
Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Global in Merger Talks
Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global have held talks about a potential merger of the two media companies, Variety has confirmed.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav met with Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish in a lunch meeting Tuesday in New York where they discussed a possible merger, sources said. Zaslav also has talked with Shari Redstone, whose National Amusements Inc. owns a controlling stake in Paramount Global, about a potential combination of the companies.
Jeezus H. Frickin Christ, how many conglomerates has Warner's been in since, say, 1990? By now it must require the fingers of both hands to count. I can't keep it straight any more. For a while it was Time Warner Discovery CNN, but that was a long time ago in the frenzied world of Big Entertainment. Whatever they called the thing that week has long since sold their building on Columbus Circle to some bank, and it's been three or four other companies since, and now it's gonna merge with Paramount?
So glad I don't work for those people any more.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
ZoWie wrote: ↑Thu Dec 21, 2023 12:25 pm
Warner's again!
Jeezus H. Frickin Christ, how many conglomerates has Warner's been in since, say, 1990? By now it must require the fingers of both hands to count. I can't keep it straight any more. For a while it was Time Warner Discovery CNN, but that was a long time ago in the frenzied world of Big Entertainment. Whatever they called the thing that week has long since sold their building on Columbus Circle to some bank, and it's been three or four other companies since, and now it's gonna merge with Paramount?
Judge rules that Twitter violated contract when it withheld millions of dollars in bonuses
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A federal judge ruled late Friday afternoon that Twitter, now known as X, violated a contract when it failed to pay what amounts to tens of millions of dollars in bonuses that the company had orally promised its employees.
Mark Schobinger, the former senior director of compensation for Twitter, filed suit against the social media company on behalf of himself and other current and former Twitter employees in June.
Biden Administration Gives Broadband Providers More Buildout Flexibility
Broadband providers are applauding the Biden administration’s guidance on implementing its multibillion-dollar broadband subsidies to states, guidance those ISPs said will make it easier to build out the universal high-speed broadband that is the administration’s end-of-the-decade goal.
The National Telecommunications & Information Administration, which is administering the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program subsidies to states, on Tuesday (December 27) issued guidance on how that money should be handed out. The guidance essentially lines up with the Treasury Department’s guidance on broadband subsidies connected to COVID-19 recovery and capital projects.
SOUNDCLOUD GEARS UP FOR SALE WITH POTENTIAL $1BN+ PRICE-TAG
SoundCloud is set to be put up for sale later this year, with its owners potentially seeking a price-tag in excess of USD $1 billion.
That’s according to a report from Sky News today (January 7), which says it’s learned that two of SoundCloud’s shareholders – Raine Group and Temasek Holdings – have started interviewing investment banks regarding a “prospective auction of the company”.
FCC presses carmakers, wireless companies on connected car systems over reports of misuse by domestic abusers
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is asking carmakers and wireless service providers to give more information on car applications that have reportedly been used by domestic abusers to track victims.
The FCC sent letters to nine different car companies and three voice service providers to ask for more details on the connected car tools and how they may be misused by domestic abusers. The agency cited a New York Times report from last month that detailed how abusers were using internet-connected apps in their cars to stalk and harass their victims.
Supreme Court rejects Epic v. Apple antitrust case
The Supreme Court has denied a request to hear an antitrust dispute between Apple and Fortnite publisher Epic Games. It rejected two petitions, one from each company, this morning — leaving the case largely, but not entirely, a win for Apple.
Epic v. Apple began in 2020 after Epic implemented its own payment system for Fortnite’s virtual currency, bypassing Apple’s commission on in-app purchases. Apple banned Epic from its iOS App Store and Epic filed a lawsuit in response, claiming the App Store — and Apple’s overall walled-garden approach to iOS — violated US antitrust laws. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected most of Apple’s claims and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals largely affirmed the decision.
Game On: Sinclair, Diamond Sports, Amazon in Deal To Keep Regional Sports Networks in Business
Sinclair and its bankrupt Diamond Sports Group unit reached a deal that could keep Diamond’s ailing Bally Sports regional networks alive beyond 2024.
Sinclair will initially give Diamond $495 million to settle their lawsuits. Sinclair expects to get more than $200 million of that back from a richer management service agreement, substantial tax benefits and receiving other assets.
Cable ISPs Look To Shape Expected Return of FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules
Likely seeing the re-regulatory handwriting on the wall, cable internet service providers have told the FCC just how it should reclassify broadband as a Title II service and what it should and shouldn’t do when it reimposes new net neutrality rules, as it is expected to do after a suitable timespan following the public comment period on its reclassification proposal.
In reply comments to the Federal Communications Commission (due January 17), NCTA – The Internet & Television Association continued to argue against either reclassification or the return of rules against blocking, throttling and anticompetitive paid prioritization, which it said are illegal (beyond the agency’s authority), unnecessary, burdensome and counterproductive to the goal of universal broadband.
Congress urged to increase DOJ funds to take on tech giants’ power
Leaders of the House and Senate appropriations committees are facing pressure to increase funding for the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) antitrust division to aid the agency in bringing cases against the nation’s dominant tech companies, according to a letter sent Thursday.
More than a dozen advocacy groups underscored the need for increased funding, based on a New York Times report that DOJ sources said an investigation into Apple was delayed for three years in order to prioritize a review of Google because the department “lacked the financial resources and personnel to fully evaluate both companies.”
$228.2M in federal funding will help close digital divide in NY
New York has been awarded $228.2 million in federal funding to launch the ConnectALL Municipal Infrastructure Program, which will provide tens of thousands of home with high-speed broadband internet.
The money comes from the American Rescue Plan Act’s Capital Projects Fund. ConnectALL will provide grants to public entities, local or Tribal governments, municipal utilities, utility cooperatives and private-sector partners to construct new fiber for broadband.
New York City mayor declares social media an 'environmental toxin'
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is classifying social media as a "public health hazard" and an "environmental toxin," saying young people must be protected from "harm" online.
"Today, Dr. Ashwin Vasan is issuing a Health Commissioner’s Advisory, officially designating social media as a public health hazard in New York City," Adams announced during his State of the City address Wednesday.
