If they can access it. I am permitted to write my diary in code. I can send a letter the same way. Why should email be made less convenient?

Siblings are allowed to continue using their invented words into adulthood if they like. We are allowed to have private conversations in an un-bugged room. Phone call: "Meet me at the other place. Bring that thing we talked about.".

Police have never had the RIGHT to access all of our communication. They may be granted permission to TRY if a judge signs off on that but that's all they have ever had.

On a side note, one reason so many people are interested in E2EE is because there have been WAY too many incidents where police skipped the warrant or found a judge with an itchy rubber stamp who just took their word for things and then went on a fishing expedition. They only have themselves to blame for entire populations distrusting them. Meanwhile, tech companies grew tired of the constant stream of "requests" for private information that amounted to a fishing expedition that they decided their best bet is to make sure they cannot provide anything.

OTOH, some cancer drugs give the choice of 9 shitty months with or 6 decent months then one bad month without.

If the only food like substance within your budget (including time budget) is pulped meat nuggets sprinkled with sugar, guess what's for dinner?

You say that as if American auto makers haven't gotten multiple bailouts and other special gifts over the years. You say that as if the U.S. isn't full of malls inhabited by tumble weeds and rats (literally) and doesn't have enough chronically empty residential property to house every homeless person here.

The U.S. is being strangled by the financial and real estate sectors.

The American companies manufacture in China for cheap but sell expensive in the U.S. The huge margin goes to executive management and Wall Street. They COULD profitably manufacture in the U.S. without raising prices, but Wall Street wants it's windfall and CEO needs a new yacht, so that's out.

The complaints are twofold. They moved their manufacturing overseas but didn't cut their prices to reflect the savings. So Americans are getting squeezed from both sides. Consumers can't force them to pull production back to the U.S. but they can (in effect) offshore the top heavy expensive management and Wall Street by buying Chinese. The difference is apparently around $40K on a car.

Different industry, but I have a Chinese 3D printer. It's not perfect, but it cost 20% of what a 3D printer from an American company would cost (which also wouldn't be perfect). All it's missing is a bunch of ugly beige plastic, vendor lock-in on the supplies, and replacement parts made of pure unobtainium. Believe me, I don't miss those "features" at all. It did come with full respect for my right to repair and a wide variety of 3rd party parts readily available.

On a side note, I did consider building a 3D printer from parts, but when I looked in to it, sourcing the parts in the U.S. would have cost me more than buying the ready made (some assembly required) printer from China.

Same here. I've had a Tesla 3 since early 2020. I've driven about 10k miles a year and in that time I've had the same experience. I rotated the tires a couple of times and just replaced them as they were worn out. I've also replaced the windshield wipers twice and added a few gallons of washer fluid.

And that's it. I charge mostly at home and with my local electric rates it costs me about $10 to drive 300 miles. This is easily the best car I've ever owned when it comes to the maintenance cost as well as the fastest (I have the performance version of the Model 3).

I can't see myself going back to a gas or diesel car for a daily driver.

Best,

Upon sentencing, Lachwani turned his head all the way around and told the judge "Your mother sews socks that smell!"

Have you ever signed up for cable or even some streaming? They quote one price and tell you all the amazing things it includes. But the bill is higher and includes special fees for some of the things that were touted to be included in the advertised price.

I see no requirement for a GLOBAL rest frame. Ships push against the water all the time, but ocean water is not a global rest frame.

Wild imagination alert here. Imagine a "dark magnet" that could push against dark matter permeating space. Now the whole thing reduces to either a propeller in the water or an electrodynamic tether. Of course, it's not going to be producing one newton per watt.

You're missing the point. Any decent engineer KNOWS that fiber cuts happen. Whether they should or should not is irrelevant, they happen all the time. Having a state's 911 service depending on a single cable not being damaged is piss poor engineering at best.

Side note, always keep a short length of fiber with you. If you get lost or stranded, bury the length of fiber in the ground. When the backhoe shows up to break it, ask the operator for a lift into town.

We really need the cloud to butt extension more than ever.

Look up Starfish Prime. A nuclear test at an altitude of 250 miles. It caused some unexpected EMP damage in Hawaii, 900 miles away.

Checking out in a power failure has only gotten harder over time. Now it's well beyond just having someone who can do arithmetic. None of the prices are actually on the items so without the scanner and the POS looking it up in a database the cashier has no way to know the price other than have someone go look at the shelf (assuming they can FIND the correct price there). Once it's all totaled up (perhaps an hour or 2 later), there's no way to accept a card payment. If the power outage is generalized, the customer can't get the cash either even if they have plenty in the bank. In some areas, even knowing the different tax rates on different classes of items would be an issue (school supplies vs. staple goods vs. 'luxury' goods).

At least the equipment that would be fried on the local distribution side is easy to come by. The transformers that would need a rebuild on the distribution side would have to be rebuilt since there are no spares. There's also nobody prepared to do such a rebuild in the U.S. currently.

If Congress is REALLY worried about any sort of strategic resiliency, that needs to be addressed. There should be spares and on-shore capability to manufacture and re-manufacture that equipment.