Evan walked the aisles with his basket hanging loose, like he had every right to be there. He kept his head level, though his heart was galloping. A block of cheddar and two tubs of yogurt disappeared under his jacket, followed by a loaf of bread and two cans of soup. Enough for a meal, maybe two, if he stretched it.

At the doors, he pushed through the crowd, forcing his stride into something casual. Then the whir began. A drone lifted from its ceiling nest, rotors slicing the air. Its light fell on him like a spotlight. "Unpaid items have been detected. Stop."

Evan ran. Across the floor, out the doors, sneakers hammering the pavement. Another drone dropped in from above, swooping low, its camera blinking. He ducked, zigzagging through parked cars, until the bread slipped from his coat and the cans clanged onto the asphalt. The drones immediately rose higher, losing interest once the bulk of the haul was gone. Panting, shaking, Evan kept running until the Walmart glow was behind him.

That night, in their dim apartment, Mara sat cross-legged on the carpet. The little block of cheese and the two yogurts were spread before them like contraband treasure. "So this is it?" Evan nodded, avoiding her eyes. "The bread and soup didn't make it. Drones stayed on me until I dropped 'em."

She peeled open a yogurt, dipped her finger in, and licked it slowly, like it was some rare dessert. "It's enough," she murmured. "For tonight." He broke the cheese into uneven chunks, handed her the larger one. "It's not enough. I promised I'd take care of you." "You did. We're eating, aren't we?"

His voice cracked. "I looked like an idiot out there. Running from a machine. Dropping dinner on the pavement." Mara reached for his hand, sticky with yogurt. "You ran for me. That's not nothing." He finally looked at her, saw the faint smile tugging her lips.

They ate slowly, drawing out each bite. The yogurt cups scraped clean, the cheese gone in four small mouthfuls. The sharp edge of hunger had dulled for the night. Mara leaned her head against his shoulder. "Tomorrow we'll figure something else out," she said.

Evan stared out the cracked window at the glow of the Walmart sign in the distance, and thought about the drones, patient as vultures. "Yeah," he whispered. "Tomorrow."

They cannot imagine keeping things in a car for convenience, because a chauffeur or maid always clears it out and puts everything away. They've never worried about whether they'll have everything at the other end of the destination: someone does the packing for them. They have never had to wait for a taxi. They do not see cars as storage or backup. To them, a car is a fashion piece, part of a collection, a toy for pleasure, or a way to get from one place to another.

The idea of keeping supplies in the trunk "just in case" is foreign to someone who has always had food wherever they went, who has never wondered where to sleep in a pinch, never planned a long road trip -- only a drive to the nearest airport or a fun day along the highway or autobahn. All the little practical uses most of us attach to car ownership simply do not exist in their world. So for them a service that takes a person from here to there is all that's needed. They recognize that a poor person needs transportation too, but they see this as a cheaper option that does everything a car should do for a poor person: take him from one place to another.

I've been trying to use ChatGPT like that. It takes an hour of demanding rewrites and pointing out mistakes for it to properly fill out a 16k txt file with what I've got going on at the moment for the purpose of making the days' schedule. It keeps dropping things off, putting in [this thing goes here] and ignoring whatever we weren't talking about most recently.

You know what they were banning? They were banning factual information that contradicted the official narrative. They were banning links to small, but scientific, studies that suggested alternative treatments, people talking about loved ones who got the vaccine and died of COVID anyway, hospitals putting covid as cause of death when it really was something else so they could get that government funding. Go educate yourself you ideologically blinded twit.

Everything is relative. That doesn't mean we should stop pushing society in the direction it aught to go.

Women weight less, drink less, and eat less than men. That alone is a reason to pick more women for an initial mission. The same reason no 270 pound body builder is getting a slot.

America's challenge in any peer conflict won't be satellites. It will be drones, and both China and Russia are far ahead of the US in drone capabilities, doctrine and manufacturing. Buying Ukraine's expertise would be a bargain at any price.

What is wrong with you?

Really, you think I was telling people to act that way?

Thank you for illustrating action 3: Tell them their complaints are proof they're evil

>Treat young men like garbage
-They complain about it
>Tell them their complaints are proof they're evil
-they leave your social sphere
>push for biased laws and hiring practices
>tell all the young girls how evil men are
>celebrate when men start to falter
-they start to group together who notice the problem
>call it radicalization
>sic the FBI on them
Hey, why are all the young men getting angry, listless, and broke? Why don't they just man up? What's wrong with them? Why are birth rates falling? Why don't men want to date anymore? Why aren't they working hard like they used to? Where have all the good men gone?

Most games run substantially slower for the same hardware. I can't run modded Fallout, modded Skyrim, modded several other games. Starfield on Nvidia is out. And for most games you see reports of "minor issues" or "tweaks" that can amount to game-breaking bugs. That's before you get to driver problems. And I'm not giving steam another penny since they let someone steal money from my steam account through the achievement market.

Windows 11 is malware. Not supporting the old version is fine. Pushing that hot garbage is evil. I, too will be running Linux. It will be sad to no longer get to play my games (no, steam and wine are not reasonable substitutes despite what you've heard) but I stopped Windows 10 halfway through their deployment cycle when they pushed the first unavoidable spyware, and I'm sticking to it.

You'll certainly earn more money if you got an MBA from a big name school, but that's not the value of the degree or education, it's a reflection of the schmoozing you managed to perform while you were there. Two or three big money allies takes you a lot closer to success.

No, what we need are less dire consequences but way, way more people receiving them. Severe punishment does not deter crime. Effective policing does. These government criminals will only stop when the actual corruption decreases.