I have a landline. Sort of. But it's not copper. The last mile is fiber that carries my phone and my internet.

...laura

With the lower proof of work competition, because mining no longer pays out, computational requirements will drop, which will make it that much easier for any large mining outfit to do that 51% attack, making bitcoin effectively worthless.

Go to Haiti and see how wonderful life is in a tropical paradise where there aren't enough police.

It's hard to live in a bitcoin.

You mean the noughties?

Actually I think he only worked three hours a day, three days a week. and had to press that button as many as fife times per shift. No wonder he was so stressed!

According to TFA, he "was in the middle of giving deposition testimony".
Perhaps someone didn't want him to finish his testimony, or be available for whatever the next thing in legal proceedings that happens after that?

Even if you had Helium 3, and it cost cents per kg to mine, process and get back to earth, does anyone have a reactor that could actually generate more electricity than it consumes?
Last time I checked, fusion reactors such as were barely making physics break-even, and very far from engineering break even let alone economic break even when they could actually be run at a cost that is competitive with alternative energy sources.

Best I have heard of so far was NIF, which has exceeded physics break even, but is still about two orders of magnitude away from engineering break even, let alone economic break even.

If you and your wife had successfully conceived a child, but were told at 8 weeks that it had a rare severe genetic defect that would have severe mental incapacitation and likely not live past 20 and would need constant and expensive medical therapies and would you proceed with the pregnancy, knowing that you would not have the resources to afford additional children, or would you abort and try again, hopefully having a heathy child, knowing that in this case, you could actually afford to have two or three children?

Either way, there is a potential human that will not be born - either the one with severe mental defects who likely wont live past 20, or the ones you will not havewho could have lived full rich lives, because you can't afford a second or third child.

Companies would rather hire young people because inexperienced people are cheap. Hence also the huge numbers of H-1B and TFW visas - despite the hype, people knew damned well that the only reason Microsoft built their facility in Vancouver was so they could hire temporary foreign workers once they had exhausted their H-1B quota in Seattle. Cheap, do as they're told, work 70 hours a week.

When my current employers show me the door (or I walk) I know I'll be unemployable in tech at 62. So be it; I've had a good run and have a huge backlog of other things I want to do.

...laura

All these sites have been shadow-banned by the usual search engines. I'd love to see one so I know what to watch for.

...laura

What technology did you have in mind?

We have far better control systems and radios and things, but making rockets that don't blow themselves to kingdom come if you look at them the wrong way is as hard in 2024 as it was in 1977. Or for that matter, 1969.

...laura

Have blue Origin managed to achieve orbit yet?
Seems like a big leap to go from sub-orbital to moon lander mission in 12 to 18 months, when it took NASA from 1958 to 1969 to do something similar, and Blue Origin has been around for 23 years but still hasn't achieved orbit yet.

There's a saying I heard - you can't outrun a bad diet.

From what I have researched the biggest killer for weight loss is getting rid of insulin spikes. If you have elevated insulin levels, it doesn't matter how hard you exercise, your body literally can not burn fat - your metabolic pathways stop it from being chosen as an energy source, and you burn any carbs and muscle instead if there's an energy deficit, and causes any excess energy to be stored as fat.
How do you stop insulin spikes? don't eat sugar, or simple carbs that break down into sugar quickly.

I personally have experienced this - I have seen my weight creep up about 10kg every decade, from about 85kg in my 20s to now topping out at 112kg (246 lb) at 53 in December last year, which for my 193cm (6'4") height doesn't look massively fat, but was still a big concern for me.During the day, my weight might do up and down by as much as 2kg, typically lightest in the morning and increasing during the day depending on what I eat, sweat and bathroom breaks, so weighing in at a consistent time like first thing in the morning after ablutions has been the most consistent and accurate way for me to track my progress.

In preparation for a ski trip in January, I joined a gym last November and did intense workout sessions with a mix of heavy cardio based spin sessions, some strength training with circuit training, and yoga for flexibility and core strength, 4 sessions a week for about 8 weeks. I felt overall better and stronger, but didn't seem to lose any weight.
Then immediately after the 2 week ski trip (which was awesome, and also cut about a kg of body weight), I fell ill with COVID, which I probably caught from someone when I was in transit. I lost most of my appetite, and was eating very little, but to help my immune system, I switched my diet to cut all sugar and simple carbs - ie. no baked goods, biscuits etc, not even honey or other sweeteners, though I still ate oranges and some other vitamin C rich fruit in small amounts, and added zinc supplements as well as general muti-vitamin. I also boosted my fluid intake to at least 2 litres of plain water a day - sometimes up to 3 or 4 litres, no soft drinks or cordial - I'd squeeze a lime into every other litre to make it more interesting to drink, and really needed this fluid intake to help break up the heavy congestion I was suffering from. I didn't go to the gym during this time, and haven't been back since. It took me about 12 days to get over Covid, which really sucked - continuous coughing, puss coming out my eyes from viral conjunctivitis for about 5 days, and hot and cold sweats. After recovering, I kept to the same diet, and started doing light exercise and bodyweight exercise like a set of 20 pushups or 40 squats, usually while waiting for my coffee machine to warm up and make my coffee in the morning.

In the last two months I have been able to shed 12kg, and am only a few kg away from my 93 kg target, which is what BMI says would be borderline overweight. Obviously if I become super buff and athletic, able to do 40 pushups, 10 chin-ups and bench press my body weight, and have no visible belly bulge, that BMI ratio might be inaccurate, but I'm not anywhere near being like that, so I figure it's fairly accurate for me, who can only now do 20 pushups and still struggle to do 1 chinup.

Typical breakfast now is 3 eggs, a slice of bacon and a big serve of something green - lettuce and tomato or spinach or kale (kale roasted in the oven with some olive oil) or broccoli, instead of toast.

I find I don't need lunch after that, and have a salad with some kind of protein for dinner - chicken, salmon tuna etc. if I need a snack, I grab an apple or small bowl of almonds or nuts - about 100g or so, and chew them slowly instead of scoffing them down - though overall, I haven't been getting hungry or feeling compelled to raid the cupboard or fridge between meals. I think that's because my insulin levels are no longer bouncing up and down form sugary or simple carb snacks.

I haven't been drinking alcohol either, which has really helped because typically I used to have a few beers or wine, a few nights a week with friends and family and basically inhale whatever snacks were out while doing so - usually cheese and biscuits, chips etc. That's where most of my bad calories came from before.

Might not work for everyone, but for me, certainly the magic bullet has been to just stop eating sugar and simple carbs, and replace it with lots of greens, either salad or veggies, with a little light exercise to hopefully tell my body to hang on to muscle while burning fat.

As of today I'm at 97kg, which is 15kg down from my peak weight in December, and only a few kg from my 93 to 95 kg goal weight zone.

After I reach my target weight, I'll be returning to the gym, eating pretty much the same but with a higher protein intake and gradually ramp up complex carbs like spuds and oats to support workouts. I will also gradually allow myself the occasional refined carbs like pizza or pasta, and occasional chocolate or dessert, while keeping an eye on how it's affecting my weight, and adjusting accordingly.
Overall, except for the covid part, the weight loss journey has been pretty easy hunger wise - I'm not hungry at all, though I am looking forward to eating the occasional meat pie, ice cream or pizza again.

All of this is solved by keeping sufficient distance between you and the car in front.

If you are 3 seconds behind the car in front, that 0.7 second reaction time still allows you enough room for your vehicle to stop, even if the car in front slams on the brakes to full lock.

At 100 kmh (60 mph) 3 seconds stopping distance is about 100 meters.
These are typical reaction distances, stopping distances and total distance required to come to a full stop for various speeds of a family vehicle. on a dry road.

speed react stop total
40km/h 17m 9m 26m
50km/h 21m 14m 35m
60km/h 25m 20m 45m
70km/h 29m 27m 56m
80km/h 33m 36m 69m
90km/h 38m 45m 83m
100km/h 42m 56m 98m
110km/h 46m 67m 113m

The best road safety rules that police could enforce is tailgating and making sure drivers left sufficient space, regardless of speed. Unfortunately there's an obsession in my country by road safety authorities about "every k over is a killer", with steep speeding fines being issued for even 2 or 3 kmh over the limit. (yes, I have been fined for this for doing 85 kmh in an 80 zone, at the bottom of a hill)
As a result a lot of drivers are obsessively looking at their speedo to make sure they aren't doing a few k over the limit, rather than making sure they aren't too close to the guy in front.
Now I use cruise control even when driving round town in traffic, to make sure I don't accidentally exceed the limit.