If you want showing your passport in the Apple Store to be accepted, just make Apple do that.

This could be solved by the same government that is mandating that IT companies apply age controls mandating what forms of ID they must accept, and if necessary putting in place infrastructure for data protection and security...

And I can also always use a passport or driving license for that without any security issues (because it's universally accepted and it's some bored employee looking at it right in front of me in the shop, not a private computer system recording my formal documents forever).

Yes, but that's not really essential to life in the same way that using a computer is nowadays.

On your map, this route drives all the way round the "United States"

Business - France confirms oil crisis, says 30-40 percent of Gulf energy infrastructure destroyed France's Finance Minister Roland Lescure revealed on Wednesday that between 30 and 40 per cent of Gulf refining capacity has been damaged or destroyed by Iran's retaliatory strikes, leaving a shortage...

Multiple years to recover the previous export capacity...? Erk. 70s here we come.

www.france24.com/en/france-co...

Doesn't matter if it's a fountain pen or a ballpoint.

I don't really think this is true though? Even time you lift the pen, you lose a little bit of time repositioning it. It's far easier to keep flowing as much as possible. I scrawl in pretty illegible cursive and can beat my individual letter printing speed by doing so with basically any pen.

If we go by the films. I can't remember if the books agree that he has no nose and smells awful or not.

Or tails, pointy elf ears like Grimes, ... I mean, Voldemort at least is exploiting the potential by going for the noseless amphibian look.

The entire wizarding world being a bullshit jobs conspiracy to preserve the sanity of a community whose powers render them unnecessary to each other would actually make some kind of sense.

Think Iain M. Banks only retro.

So you'd simultaneously have no real work to do, and transformative powers over every aspect of your environment except other wizards. This sounds like a recipe for decadent, psychosis inducing hedonism to fill their long lives.

Not even sure it'd be a minority tbh. If you look at the Potterverse, magic seems capable of both automating all work (although they still keep slaves for some reason, maybe just for s***s and giggles?), and also granting extreme transformative powers over your body and environment.

Honestly, any adult-targeted book in the franchise should probably address that there's no way a substantial minority of wizards aren't getting freaky with this stuff. Much like we all know what the holodeck would be used for if Star Trek was real.

That may be true, but that still doesn't mean they're universal in all countries where Apple might want to do age verification? Or that they're intended for that purpose?

Although I think this applies to a lot of JKR's worldbuilding. A lot of stuff that should be socially or economically transformative is just shoved into a niche because otherwise it'd affect the story.

What would happen if anyone could save some hairs from their youth and then transform back into a 20 year old body whenever they wanted?

What would happen if cosmetic surgery was effectively instant and free?

Even leaving aside trans people, why isn't everyone with magic supernaturally beautiful and/or freaky? Imagine what the modern world would transform into if anyone could easily look however they wanted, with little cost or pain.

It's so weird that Rowling created a universe where *magic can literally transform someone into the body shape of anyone, of any gender* and yet the logical consequences of this are never really addressed by the author.

But I completely agree that if the government is determined to mandate age verification, it should then provide a free, safe universal platform to allow people to verify their age.

I don't have a credit card because I've never wanted one. Many British adults don't have them but do have debit cards. Trying to use easy access to debt as a measure of adulthood is terminally America brained.

I have papers (passport etc.), but it's crazy (on top of the craziness of even requiring age verification to use basic computer services) that Apple's preferred means of verification appears to be owning a credit card, which is an optional debt vehicle, not even ID at all.

Lucky this can't happen to me, because I work for a European non-start-up and have no equity package 😅😬

Is this not just theft? Just another good reason to develop your own defence industry and never buy weaponry from the US...

They definitely didn't fire a missile that far, so if so it would have to be a team on the ground committing acts of sabotage...?

Did Iran do this? The timing seems very coincidental.

I just think there's a plentiful supply of teen focused immature interpersonal drama and relationship angst already, and not as much supply of whatever you want to call the thing Star Trek often was.

Star Trek is, above all, a show about sci-fi, exploration, and institutions. It's not supposed to just be an exotic, space-based version of Love Island.