it is called inflation - expansion of the money supply that accumulated over the years (bail outs, social payouts, covid.. ) In terms of gold HDD prices fell.

My company, my rules. For example almost all people working for me are Ukrainians, my policy is that Ukraine must win in this war against the murderous ruzzian aggression. Anyone not aligned with my values shouldn't be working here. I also completely support Israel, anyone not aligned with my values, shouldn't be working here.

government has long surpassed that threshold. Government shouldn't be so big, that its failure would take down the country, yet here we are, all of us.

I find cruise control a blessing on long drives. I can concentrate on other things, like the environment around me. Speeding tickets are also a non-issue.

My last rental car (in Texas for the eclipse) had adaptive cruise control, which I really like. I've looked in to retrofitting this to my own car (a 2016 Golf with dumb cruise control) but decided it's not worth the hassle. It also had lane assist. This showed me what it would be like to drive with an autopilot, though if it got angry with me if I took my hands off the wheel for more than 10 seconds. Nevertheless, I see the attraction.

...laura

Google is one of the companies that built the tools that allow propaganda to be made much more efficiently, funny its own employees fell for it hook line and sinker.

In the age when males are beating females in sports by pretending to be females the structural inability to tell the truth, to provide negative feedback is not only hurting female sports. Musk will never land a star ship on the Moon or Mars or anything because he is a sharlatan and he hires former government officials who signed government checks, he is burning through billions of tax money with every flight, all of these star ship flights are pointless. Gaza residents and Hamas operatives not only indistinguishable, they share the same values. People protesting pro terrorism (against Israel) are wrong for the same reasons this male athlete is participating in female sports. USA denying help to Ukraine is literally murdering thousands of Ukrainians and promoting putinism, which is terrorism. USA federal reserve has created the inflation by monetizing government debt and so the economy is dying. The planet is going to become extremely hostile to people because we are still burning coal, oil and gas for power and heat production instead of building more nuclear power plants. There are more and more lies all over.

These Googlers are a sad reflection of the modern approach to reality - our game is ignorance, lies and denial and these protests are just a form of it.

Terrorists are very good at pushing their messages, this is clear today. ruZia, hamas, Iran, north korea even, apparently they are very effective at this entire psyops thing. Israel needs to eliminate the threat, AFAIC this can entirely mean whiping out the entire Gaza population also I hope they take out Iran's rocket and drone manufacturing capabilities, this would help both, Israel and Ukraine.

And modern music is no exception. Some songwriters have more of a way with words. "Around The World" is one extreme to great effect - it's a neat song. Then there's song verses like:

Dive bar on the East Side, where you at?
Phone lights up my nightstand in the black
Come here, you can meet me in the back
Dark jeans and your Nikes, look at you
Oh damn, never seen that color blue
Just think of the fun things we could do...

You Know Who at her (IMHO) best. The notion that the only good music was performed in the 1970s by men with guitars is, at best, circular reasoning. De-valuing Taytay's music because her music and persona appeal primarily to women is nothing more than misogyny.

...laura

He mentions why it looks old on the home page, point number 12.

So what that he encouraged or developed something, he is not the person who had actual access to this information, he never worked for any agency in USA where he would have to promise not to disclose information, to him (or anyone who doesn't work for such agencies) status of any 'secret' information is completely irrelevant, as it should be.

For example, if I egged on some general to disclose top secret information about some project and then he did disclose it, it would be on the general, not on me or anyone who encouraged him. HE IS THE ONE WHO PROMISED NOT TO DISCLOSE IT NO MATTER WHAT, not me, not anyone else.

I am not a 'right wing', I am not a 'left wing', I am a libertarian, anarcho capitalist, it puts me completely outside of what is considered to be normal politics in the USA by the way and I say that Assange has done nothing wrong at all and he is being terrorized because he embarrassed people who have power.

*this* is what "proves" it? Not the kidnappings, the torture, the murders? )

Yeah, you don't understand what will actually happen. What will actually happen is just more terrorism by the government that is already terrorist in nature. Kadyrov is a murderer, torturer, terrorist, his fame to claim was that he murdered his first russian at the age of 16. Today he routinely murders anyone who opposes his rule in any way, real or imaginary. His son kidnaps and beats a kid who posts something online that Kadyrov finds offensive. People routinely disappear, never to be seen again. People get tortured for anything that Kadyrov doesn't like.

At the same time Chechnia's economy only exists because putin provides Chechnia with billions of dollars every year from the russian budget.

You don't understand what is actually happening there. They don't care about law or whatever, if they hear something they don't like, you'll disappear and be raped and tortured and killed and that's about it. This entire thing about the music is really nothing at all, it just means that if someone *hears* music that is not Chechen they will report you and you will be gone.

You are correct. What Canada needs is a 3d printed AI government, which would be a vast improvement over Trudeau.

I got a pair of real eclipse glasses with my copy of Sky & Telescope's eclipse guide. They don't work very well with my glasses so I'll do the pinhole camera thing for the partial phases.

Loved Dr. Becky's collander.

...laura

1st of April was 2 days ago, was there an editing delay? In any case, there is only 1 Matrix movie, it was released in 1999 and I went to watch it in the theater 7 times. I have heard rumors about sequels but only that, they don't exist, whatever exists is not the Matrix, to make a movie like that one needs balls...

I wanted a weekend driver and got myself a 2014 Boxster, no way in hell that would have been an automatic, that car is for fun and has nothing to do with any 'retro' crap. I wouldn't be caught dead driving an EV though.