This appeared this week on our home Windows 10 machine as well for the one account that does not use a Microsoft account. It’s a new behavior.

and it’s generally directly supported by rider fares instead of petitioning for government tax money.

Fares alone do not pay the bills. Buses are always subsidized (which is totally fine IMO. Every fine metro area has a good transit system, and it should be affordable to all who would want to use it.)

trains and busses that actually work and get people where they need to go with minimal hassle and a reasonable cost

Trains predate cars and busses have always been with us since the car. People have voted – with their cars.

The Interstate Highway System started in the 1950s. Population has more than doubled since then. Of course, we have more traffic, we have more people!

This is terrible reporting, emotional, practically yellow. Two academics are quoted. The article and headline tell you how you should feel about this. This should have never gotten past the editor’s desk.

I (age 60) remember buying my condo in 1991 or so, interest rates about 7% with a VA-guaranteed loan. My parent’s first mortgage was 2% or 3% but my mom, a Realtor, said those days were permanently gone. (They weren’t. I had that in the house I bought in 2010.) But it felt forever at the time, and she thought it would be forever.

Nothing is forever. It may crash, but something else we can’t imagine might happen too. I think we all agree the present situation is unsustainable.

I’m keeping to my policy of only subscribing to two things at one time, and rotating so that I get to see the seasons of the things that I really want to see.

I’ve never been much of a pirate, mainly because I do believe in supporting those that produce the art that I love. That said, I am a big user of the library. And when there’s some FOSS product that I like, I support it. And while I could and can buy commercially now, I remember the days when I couldn’t and I survived on FOSS and the library.

With that said, let me say that I think that the content industry shoots itself in the foot when it creates these higher prices, obscene length of copyright terms, polluting their own products with commercial ads ,and fake scarcity. They deserve all the piracy that their own behavior generates!

I think Mike Masnick has it right. The best defense against piracy is to compete against it with superior offerings.