I accept that.

I do it just fine. What part of California are you in?

Here you go. https://ebudget.ca.gov/budget/... . If you want more detail, go here: https://www.calcities.org/reso...

The intent of the project is to connect the LA Metro region with Sacramento and the Bay Area. The extent of actual *highspeed* rail, though is intended to go between Merced and Bakersfield (where people would prefer to zip by at max speed anyway). You can see the map of current stations and sections being constructed here: https://www.buildhsr.com/ . It's really quite fascinating the lengths they have to go through to ensure the rail is grade-separated.

Historically, California runs a surplus: https://calmatters.org/explain...

That's related, but not exactly correct. Half of California's income taxes come from California's top 1% wealthiest residents. A whole lot of their income is based on the capital gains tax and thus the performance of the stock market. The market wasn't great, so tax revenue expectations had to be be adjusted downward and cuts have to be made to be more inline with actual tax revenues.

Right now the vast majority of the sci-fi/fantasy books are all Game of Thrones type, set in some medieval-style world where evil lurks around every corner.

Then you have the Kim Harrison types (which usually have fantastic cover art), followed by sci-fi itself which generally revolves around some Earth/Solar System/Universe threat which only one man (it's almost always a man) can solve.

I've tried reading various books at random, but either I've lost my ability to immerse myself in the story or the stories aren't well written to hold my interest.

I'm not sure what the answer is, and maybe my situation is unique, but perhaps publishers should take more chances on new or fledgling authors so different styles of storytelling can get out.

but when activists are actively against Israel policies then it's NOT OK.

For the simple reason any criticism of Israel is not allowed. Nothing. Any criticism of any kind for any reason immediately brands you as anti-semitic. No exceptions. Even when Israel does to others which was done to them you are not allowed to say a single word. If you do, you're an anti-semite. Full stop.

It's not morons.

It's people overwhelmed with multiple crisis scenarios that they can't handle. Most of us wish for a stable society and environment because it makes it easier to plan a future. You wouldn't build a house if you're not sure it's still going to be there in five years.

Calling people morons instead of understanding the actual problem is also a way to avoid looking at it too closely, probably because the complexity is overwhelming to you, too. Easier to just call people morons and be done with it.

Climate change is very much a social, cultural and political problem and the scientists have only looked at the meteorological and biological side of it.

We don't.

It's just not necessary in 90% of Europe. We didn't build mega-cities in near tropical climate. A week or two of really hot weather during the summer is not a problem and you wouldn't install an AC just for that.

Maybe some are, but both in my place and where my parents live (1200 km away, that's 750 miles for the metrically challenged) temperatures have plummeted to near freezing at night and single-digits during the day (in Celsius, that's the 35 to 45 range in Fahrenheit for the temperature scale challenged).

I don't doubt climate change at all. But shoddy journalism that creates headlines where those allegedly affected go "what? not at all, why are you lying?" only helps the deniers.

If you look at a weather map of Europe, like this one stuck in the early 2000s - https://www.weatheronline.co.u... - you'll see that at least right now only the very, very southern tips of Europe (in Spain and Greece, that's in the bottom-left corner and the bottom-right corner, no not the very corner that's already Africa, damn where were you in geography?) has temperatures above 20ÂC predicted for today, and that's not unusually hot for those regions.

We did have unusually hot weather 2-3 weeks ago, but they were unusual only for the season and still well below ordinary summer days.

Please get your reporting right, or you're only feeding the trolls that claim climate change is made up.

It's about time we gave free money to someone other than oil companies and coal miners.

Isn't it funny how people conveniently forget the decades we've been giving money to these two? How many billions (trillions?) of dollars have we the taxpayers been forced to hand over to these companies? Shall we include all that free money handed over to corn famers for their ethanol subsidies?

At least if people would be consistent in their "outrage" they might be heard more.

I wish, and I would welcome it if they did.

However, as one of the foremost SELinux advocates in its early days, I doubt that the government of all places has the capability to do so. Few sysadmins can configure SELinux halfway decently (i.e. beyond the default policies) and the government (outside the military and secret services) isn't a good tech employer.

Also, MS is far more than the OS. With Office and a bunch of other tools, plus lots of custom software made only for Windows, the entrechnment is really, really deep.

Don't blame people for problems that corporations cause.

How is it a "corporate" cause if people are too lazy to move around, stare at their 3 inch screen all day, eat bags of chips each day, don't bother to drink water, and don't make healthy lifestyle choices? Does personal responsiblity not enter into the equation?

There was an article on here a while back which discussed how fake credentials were being used by North Korea to allow its people to work on remote projects. They were given a fake name, fake skills, fake education, etc, which was then passed to a hiring company who then "vetted" the person without even seeing or talking to them.

So yes, it is possible the companies didn't know.

Those terrorists went to the Capitol to deliberately and knowingly disrupt the official proceeding of Congress. They weren't there on a field trip to look at the sights.

If you're claiming those people shouldn't be jailed because they were non-violent, then the same applies to all the people at Columbia who did nothing more than exercise their First Amendment right to criticize Israel's deliberate targetting of civilians, medical personnel, and journalists, such as the almost 300 bodies found buried in a mass grave at the Nasser Medical Complex, some who had their hands tied. This was the same hospital Israel besieged for days, cutting off power and letting babies on ventilators die.

Once AI starts going on an unfettered rampage, we can scorch the sky so there's no sunlight for them to power up.

A perfect plan indeed.

There is no such thing as "extra electricity", only wasted electricity. Bitcoin's energy usage produces absolutely nothing positive for society.

Watch this documentary on the subject.

It's funny that they use really messed up, third world countries as some sort of crypto "use case." These are societies that will try anything and have very lax regulation and environmental standards. Bitcoin doesn't solve any of their real problems. It's just more exploitation.

Precisely. The whole story is a "greenwashing" fraud.

Every change looks like corruption in the eyes of people who don't like it.

And corruption looks like evolution to some people.

Personally, I'm in favor of words meaning as much of the same thing over time as possible. It enhances communication and understanding. If you need a new meaning, you either need a new word or you need to explain yourself at a bit more length. Lest you "decimate" (cough) the listener's/reader's understanding... you get me?