Which reservoir? There were three that have been drawn dawn as part of this project. Ahh, reading the article I think that number is the total surface of all the reservoirs being drawn down.

Not making a list of the largest reservoirs in the United States is far cry from being 'smallish' when there are around 80k to 90k dams in the country. Looks like Copco Reservoir was the 71st largest in California with an actual storage capacity at 77k acre feet.

Hopefully not. Miserable rodents.

I trap them and nutria in a stream alongside my driveway when populations move upstream from a wetlands about a mile away. Although flooded driveway was always a very good excuse for not being able to drive into work.

Where do you get this number?

The dams removed had a generation capacity of around 160 megawatts. Name plate. The largest of them, JC Boyle, according to even an advocate for removal (Hydropower Reform Coalition) had an average annual generation of 239k megawatt hours. Figure around 11k kilowatt hours as the average annual consumption of a US home that is 22,000 homes for the one dam. Assuming the same ratio of nameplate to reality, the other dams would add power for perhaps another 12,000 homes.

Yes, small on the grand scale of things, but far more than 100 homes.

You look at more than a late winter snapshot of California drought conditions after one abnormally (and delightfully) wet winter? Do note that the area in California being discussed has a nice big yellow oval over it. Yes, yellow does not explicitly use the drought word, but is labeled as 'abnormally dry' and is the lowest drought level in this dataset. 'None' indicates no drought.

Also note that the current state of California water is a very short term anomaly. Currently 4.54 percent of CA is in D0+ status. A year ago it was 45%. Year before that it was 100%. Year before 99%. Year before 75%. Year before 7%. Year before 77% Year before 23%. Year before 96%. Year before 100%. And so on and so on. With the Klamath Falls Basin always being worse than the state average.

Half right. It is sparseley populated, at least relative to the metropolitan areas I suspect most Slashdotters posting here live - maybe 125k people in the region.

Where is this idea coming from that the Klamath basin is not going through drought? Long lasting major drought in the region. Fish people aren't happy they aren't getting the water they want. Farmers and ranchers aren't happy they aren't getting the water they want. Fish and bird die offs. Wells drying up as ground water levels sink. Very much drought.

Which dam? Using the singular here makes me wonder about your level of familiarity with the region. There are four dams being removed, and several others that are not.

Heavily silted up? Not any more than any other dams of their age. Silting is just a fact for dams -- rivers carry sediment. Sediment settles out when river water hits the slow water beind a dam.

The algae blooms are seasonal and primarly in the large lake (Upper Klamath Lake) being the Link River dam. Yeah, naming is weird. Link River is a stubby little thing connecting two lakes there at Klamath Falls.

Uhh, are we talking about the same Klamath River Basin? It has been considered in drought status for the past two decades. Farmers and ranchers are not getting the water they need. Wells are going dry. Fish and bird die offs are occuring due to the increased water temperatures (and assorted unpleasant growths that come with that) in the area wetlands, reservoirs and rivers.

its a big part of how they hit the target price. I mean it sucks, but if you want phone with all these features, and you don't want to pay for them... this is what you get.

Phone activation, which I tried, did not work. It's been a few years, and I don't recall what the issue was, but it didn't work.

And when it did not work, there was ZERO support whatsoever from Microsoft, as expected here.

I run Windows XP Pro (retail box version) in a VM to communicate with old MSDOS industrial embedded systems that simply will not talk to newer versions of windows.

The last time I needed to rebuild the environment, back in 2020, getting the XP license activated "legitimately" simply did not work at all.

Fairly early to pin down a cadence after only two gaps. Seven months between 1 (April 2023) and 2 (Nov 2023) and four months between 2 and 3 (Mar 2024).

I see three main factors that necessitate waits between test launches. Time to build. Time to test out pre launch. Waiting for government.

Time to build really has not been a problem. The build facility has an area called the Rocket Garden where constructed rockets are being parked while they wait their turn for testing, finishing and launch. Even with that months, are being shaved off individual Starship and Booster build times and capacity is being increased. In January 2022 the site consisted of three large tents, a mid sized assembly bay and a high bay. January 2023 added the first wing of a real building and what is being called a mega bay. January 2024 is up to a very large and still growing building and a 2nd mega bay.

Time to test is also getting significant upgrades. An second site just down the road from the construction facility was purchased in 2022. This site, Massey's, had zero useful infrastructure when bought. 2023 saw build out to the point where cryoproofing of Starships and Boosters was now being done there. 2024 is bringing the ability to static fire Starships. This will free up the main launch site for Booster static fires and actual launches. Te main launch area has been greatly expanded in both propellent and testing gas capacity and ability to move those gases around. Early work to add a second launch tower is beginning.

SpaceX can't do much to speed up the FAA. The mishap reports that need to be generated and reviewed just take time. Once SpaceX gets past the early flight terminations, however, those will be a thing of the past and it is expected that launch licenses will no longer be issued for individual flights. At that point time to build and time to test will be the limiting factors.

"Yes, but it's cheaper than a bad intern, and it never sleeps."

A bad intern is a net negative because it wastes good developers time. The less they do, the better.

A bad intern that works extremely fast 24 hours a day would be a catastrophe, even if it worked for free.

Oh, they would be. Can't say how successful they will be, as this time of year is always filled with left and right media hyperventilating about proposed legislation that has little to no chance of passing. Virtua signaling proposals from both sides are a time honored tradition.

I am more concerned about a variety of bills from the left I foresee coming to 'encourage' the masses. Similar to electric cars how about government subsidies for vat grown meat along with staged dates for mandatory percentages of sales; By 2030 15% of meat must be vat grown rising to 100% by 2040. Perhaps trigger laws similar to microstamping casings or fingerprint ID firearms; when lab grown meat becomes commercially available then supermarkets must carry it prominently along with other mandates to artificially boost market share.

I didn't forget...but I also didn't preview.
i put it in angle brackets or something, and slashdot ate it.

"When someone requests a quote at my job, if they reply with a thumbs up emoji, I absolutely will not assume that they want to purchase it, merely that they're acknowledging receipt of said quote."

Which is fair, and why there is even more context here; specifically the historical relationship with previous contracts, and the casual agreements made in the past.

For example,

If I ask a restaurant how much to reserve a table for 20 in a private room would cost, and they send me a number, thumbs up is "quote received"

But if I book a table at this restaurant once a month for various group sizes in private rooms, and am on a first name basis with the host, sommelier, and chef going years, and for the last six months the "negotiations" had shortened to text message exchanges like...

me: private room for 10 people, friday the 3rd at 7pm to close?
them: 8pm earliest availability, i can reserve you a table in the lounge until the room opens up, 2000$ booking/minimum spend, 20% gratuity will be added to total
me: book it

And then on our most recent exchange:

me: room for 25 people, wednesday, 3rd 6pm to close?
them: time is fine, it'll be be the room at the back with the fireplace, 3000$ booking/minimum spend, 20% gratuity
me:

Anybody reasonable would think i had booked the room, and was on the hook for the booking fee with that history in place. And that's what the courts are saying in this case - there was an ongoing relationship, and a history of casual acceptance, and the deals were practically 'routine'.

It would be unreasonable to argue that the thumbs up just mean, "hey thanks for the quote, ill consider it and maybe get back to you" with this history.