Who'd a thunk that e-Bay was a rotting cesspool of gangland activity and pressure campaigns. They had a team, this couldn't have been a 'one-off' thing, clearly there were other victims; I doubt if they killed anyone (directly), but I'm sure they ruined a few people along the way.

Ammonia as ICE car fuel, just in case you've always wanted to drive a car which smells worse than they do now.

I can't imagine the refueling smell or even process, as it's one of the worst. I could be wrong, perhaps your car won't smell like bad sweat and you wouldn't need a breathing mask to refuel, but ...

Help! I've been catfished by the CIA Chat AI and now I have a what must be a Predator drone following me around town. I swear I was just cosplaying a dangerous guy really, let me live! The only scenario I could see happening.

It doesn't take a real genius to know that the targeting module is an important part of any space born laser system. Orbital debris tracks at insane speeds, especially the small stuff. Do the math, take a good look at the physics and find a slightly more realistic fantasy, may I suggest molten salt nuclear reactors?

My dual fuel system (gas furnace 'emergency heat') only runs part of the time for maybe three months in my mid-atlantic home. It runs automatically below 35 fahrenheit, but will kick it if you raise the temp more than 2 degrees, with the warm winters it rarely runs. It might have cost me maybe another 25% at the time, but that was saved in just a few months. While it's true that heat pumps lose efficiency on a sliding scale in very cold weather no other system keeps a house at a consistent human happy temperature more efficiently.

When my heater gave out in my townhouse, I replace it with a dual fuel system, my 'emergency heat' is an 80% efficient gas furnace (the 90%+ one would have needed a liner for it's chimney). My bill (combined electric and gas) has never been bad since, it was the best decision ever. The reasonably high efficiency heat pump (I think it was a 16 SEER) does most of the heavy lifting, but the gas kicks in when the heat demand is high.

I've waited 10 minutes or more queued at the pump for people to do their morning food shopping at Wawa. Time spent parked in or waiting for a gas stall while otherwise on a morning commute me always made me to fill up the night before, often it was still a hassle no matter the time. Now, I'm sure to plug in at home when less than 95% and while the EV queues are brutal when they happen, it's a hell of a lot less time spent overall than the chumps pumping their own gas weekly or more.

We already have a tremendous surpluses in both agriculture and industry which will only continue exponentially in the absence of a destructive war. Human society works best when it works to ensure the safety of all people, even those who you deem to be 'unproductive'. Besides, in a world in which 'influencer' is an obtainable, sometimes well paying occupation how does one even define 'productive'?

At least I was trying to make a point, which you seem to be vaguely against. So how much electric do you believe is used in to create gasoline?

Musk's recent turn to free-formed reactionary bullshit had been quite distressing and I'm sorry that I confused you by using a controversial figure as part of the conversation, but that's the sort of mistake that his own staff reportedly avoids. It's said that his staff actually practices before the meetings to keep everyone, including Elon on topic and focused toward the important goals, rather than meaningless dick swinging.

While it varies by the difficulty of creating the end product, most don't realize the tremendous amount of electricity used simply by the processing and transportation of crude oil and it's consumables. Musk once claimed it was about even with the electric needed to power his EVs over a similar distance in an ICE car, but most calculate it about 4 Kwh/gallon, which is about 2/3 of his claims. I've seen articles discount this further by claiming refineries produce some/much of their own electricity, but that the power generation aspects won't go away and instead will likely become a net generator in the short term.

Also important to understand is the timing of the charging, which is naturally done at night when electric suppliers are often giving discounts for 'using off peak'. Even most of those who travel longer distances to work and then use level 2 chargers in the parking lot (cheaper/easier) will do most of the 'filling up' in the mornings before A/C cooling 'peak hours' in the afternoon.

As a 'non-Tesla' EV owner myself, the number and even condition of privately owned charging networks does need work before I can confidently do road trips. However, I do nearly all of my charging on a normal household plug (110v) in my garage and don't yet even have 'the dryer plug' needed for the level 2 capacity, yet I rarely even leave the house with less than 100%. While people who use random street parking will still have problems, most apartment building parking lots can adjusted with charging stations for residents. As the average price per kwh is about 15 cents and level 2 chargers will consume about 6 to 8 kwh (less if you're just 'topping off'; as cells become full charging slows) one can easily see restaurants and other businesses offering 'free charging with purchase' with a cost of a about $1/hour per carload.

An organism which eats viruses wouldn't replace vaccinations as a primary response to common virus infections, even once the decades of research and testing to make it happen is complete. However, assuming the process works in a practical way, it will make fully eradicating at least some viruses much easier.

They rarely if ever revolt against a strong oppressive force.

Revolt? At least one in three will join into any intractractable, easy to follow power that seems to be dominant in a society. It's a basic human survival instinct used most often by the least capable people that has held back human progress since the dawn of civilization.

True, SBF paid out to Dem causes much more than he did to GOP ones and it didn't do him a damn bit of good. If he had given money only to the Republicans rather than both, he could have counted on the 'team Trump' advantage in the courts like many of their career criminals.

Didn't you hear? Military drones are all the rage and there surely is need for something that could capture and retrieve satellites for examination or conduct sabotage. Maybe shooting a glaze on the solar panel, or frying the electronics. One generally doesn't want to create explosive debris in orbit, unless real chaos is the goal, but it could even be armed with satellite killers for high orbit use. Also, there is talk about space tugs which could boost orbits, refill propellent or garbage/hazard collection.

The calculations for home installations are generally said to be about a 20 year payout on used energy (including roofing costs, which ain't free) and there are commercial solar installations being installed under loans with insurance/reinsurance using plenty of hard math business/banking calculations. While it depends on the location, solar investment payouts are starting to beat more traditional energy investments, this trend will continue as the solar panel industry continues to mature.