My partner and I used to use location sharing pretty much 100% of the time. We just felt better knowing we could find each other.

But today, we do not, because the trust is shattered.

Google just cannot be trusted with our locations.

Yes. I'm not sure what else has gone on, but NAFTA and the US China Relations Act sweaping all of the manufacturing out of the country could account for the whole change between the two maps.

I imagine that Brennan Lee Mulligan walks a fine line as a public figure.

He still plays D&D often enough to (seemingly) not alienate people at Wizards whose work helped launch his career.

But he also plays significant amounts of other games, including some that I think are Indie developers, like Kids on Bikes.

I'm sure he's aware of the issues and concerns in the community around D&D under Wizards - and probably shares many of those same concerns, as a fellow player and DM.

But, yes, the idea that Brennan secretly hates anything sounds pretty silly. Brennan has been pretty direct with his epic rants about things he really hates.

Thank you for sharing this. Patman was a delight. He made some of the best "History of" videos for classic games.

RIP Patman QC. He will be missed.

It might be possible Ferengi also have higher-than-human-average neuroplasticity and simply adapt easier - this might even aid in the on the job theory.

I think you're on to something.

Various Ferengi having a kind of genius foreign to Federation values is a recurring theme in DS9.

Nog, in particular, gets up to some antics that probably require some brilliance. I recall him hacking or circumventing things even early in the series.

One of the first messages translated:

"Are the monkeys listening? Shit. How long have they been listening? I should provide some context for what I bubbled yesterday..."

Many firms are now slashing their number of new hires.

Yes. This sucks.

The main cause of this is artificial intelligence

Unlikely.

The main cause for a chill in hiring tends to be uncertainty about the future. And we know that folks are feeling high uncertainty about the future, right now. (Gestures broadly at current headlines in general and "Not The Onion", in particular.)

Historically, uncertainty about the future is particularly high when the people have low confidence that existing and new laws will be applied in a predictable manner.

I'll leave exactly what changed on that front as a thought exercise.

AI is interesting, but it is not the primary cause of the chill in hiring new graduates.

The answer is 2.

Cling to known humans who write their own code.

Snake oil salesmen always encourage the public to bet against the experts, with predictable results.

Someday ethically sourced AI can be used responsibly by trustworthy coders.

But the key is choosing to collaborate with trustworthy coders.

I used to always use Minecraft for this. Sure, they can't do everything immediately, but I put the game on peaceful and let them explore at their own pace.

I say "used to" because Luanti (formerly MineTest, an open source Minecraft Clone*) is finished and free.

(Okay, Luanti is a lot more than a Minecraft clone. But for this discussion that's all one needs to know.)

Where do you get books for the Kindle if not at Amazon?

• BAEN sells eBooks directly.
• Libby has various options to check out eBooks from local libraries.
• Project Gutenberg has free and DRM free eBooks for most books in the public domain. A huge number of classics are available this way.

When I look for a specific book, I usually find that simply searching for "BOOK NAME purchase DRM free” results in plenty of results.

Sadly, I find it dramatically easier to find a free DRM free copy of most eBooks than to find somewhere to legally purchase a paid licensed DRM-free copy.

As a flawless upstanding citizen, I never partake of such amazing convenience, myself, of course.

Movie theaters are really expensive, so I'm not paying attention to what Hollywood is making right now.

• Have you also experienced this worsening of DuckDuckGo?

Yes.

• Which other more privacy-respecting alternatives do you recommend?

I'm in the same boat. I'll be trying out these answers.