You jest, but there is the possibility of solar panel that would do just that, by absorbing IR from the ground and using the air above as a heat sink. That's if it ever moves past the vaporware stage.

https://www.saurenergy.com/sol...

While Picard exists in a "post Voyager" timeline, Discovery seems to exist in an entirely other parallel universe for no other reason than wanting to abandon canon.

One nitpick: in a recent episode of "Discovery", a synth body is created for Gray so that his consciousness can be extricated from Tal's mind.

That body is derived from Altan Soong's work, and they made a point to say that Picard himself received one of Soong's synth bodies.

Since when did "vaccine" EVER mean "halts transmission"?

I've only even known it to mean "prevents serious illness for most"... and that's all they were ever supposed to do.

No car lasts forever, let alone ICE's, and as more and more of them land in the junkyards and EV's replace them, charging stations will start to become one of those amenities that places can advertise alongside things like a swimming pool or on-site laundry. Those may not be super common, but they aren't regarded as luxuries these days either.

Places without chargers will end up becoming so poorly-regarded that they end up not being able to keep enough units rented out, or at the very least, they end up only being able to rent to relatively poor people who still drive ICE's because they can't afford EV's.

Either way, they'd be forced to try to spur demand by either upgrading their facilities, or lowering rents. But rents can only go just so low before landlords can't keep the lights on.

So while it may seem prohibitively expensive to install chargers, it's a foregone conclusion that landlords will start going bankrupt if they don't. It's only a matter of time.

To be a little more specific, we (Jews) believe that the majority of the bible is simply a *history* book, and most of the rest is a collection of stories, parables, personal accounts, and songs.

Sure, there are various laws and rules to be found in it, but we don't believe it was ever meant to be treated as if yester-millennium's norms should (or even can) apply today.

Of course, just *how much* of it can reasonably be shrugged-off as stories and nonsense varies by denomination and individual interpretation.

It's okay to look for answers and meaning in the text, just don't go around acting like it's a be-all, end-all, meaning-of-life book.

So, they could have loaded-up automatic arms up with blanks, and opened "fire".

Or fire hoses.
Or more tear gas.
Or pepper spray.
Or rubber "bullets".
Or those new heat rays (I forget the proper name).

Any of these would have dispersed the rioters, with only minor injuries (even a "blank" cartridge can cause burns).

Of course, they'd still have needed a few cops standing ready with live rounds in case it were really needed.

Um, if you have a few solar panels sitting there 6 hours a day turning water into H2 and O2, then who gives two shits how efficient it is, aside from how much physical space it takes? You're still making X cubic centimeters per watt of output, regardless. It's not like a using less-efficient panel in a non-mobile setting is somehow going to pollute more than a high-efficiency panel (assuming both have comparable lifespans, price, and end-of-life considerations).

In the absence of some declaration to the contrary, Jadzia was a woman for sure before joining, but it was always Dax, the symbiont, who formed the basis of the joined person's personality. The two become a composite person, and the symbiont carries with it the life experiences, memories, and personality traits of all of its hosts ("Facets", DS9 S3E25).

So, the symbiont is most definitely non-binary; how their gender is expressed from one host to the next is flexible.

As for the human condition, a person being non-binary is no less real than being mixed-race. It's just how some people are. You don't have to agree with the concept, just don't interfere with their freedom to live as they see fit. That's all anyone really wants.

Of course, I assume without RTFA, that they mean the Y. pestis bacterium, but when you think about it, SARS-CoV-2 has pretty much all the features needed to call it a plague: it spreads rapidly, infects easily, when it does kill it does so in a pretty gruesome way, and leaves behind lots of damage in those it doesn't kill.

Maybe it's time "plague" came to mean this virus instead of Y. pestis.

Protecting Americans’ health also means fighting infectious diseases. We are coordinating with the Chinese government and working closely together on the coronavirus outbreak in China. My administration will take all necessary steps to safeguard our citizens from this threat.

Current events prove this was indeed a lie. If it were the truth, we would not now have about 9100 [1] dead in the US from this. States begging for ventilators. Doctors and nurses wearing trash bags for aprons. The 3d printing hobby community (and even filament manufacturers) going full blast making PPE. Hospitals using their parking lots as triage centers.

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/...

So what if they did?

Social Security recipients would likely receive the UBI money in lieu of their SSI/SSDI payment. For most recipients, that would be an *increase* in income.

For the rest, chances are they would continue to receive just their regular income (there's a rule in place, at least for SSDI, that basically states that a recipient's payment can't go down, except if they are working).

Price controls don't usually work, I won't disagree, but your question deserves a humongous "fucking duh!": if you hike prices, you interfer with or destroy poor folks' ability to get the things they need, while the more well-off end up buying more than they can actually use, just because they can. Wealth absolutely does not correlate with need.

What DOES work is rationing, or anyway limiting per-sale. Yeah, so some dipshit is going to abuse the limiting and go back and forth between the store and his car to stock up, but most who would hoard will just say "screw it, not worth the effort" once they make it to the car on the first go-round. Tell me you haven't had an "aw damn it, I forgot X" moment just after getting in the car, then electing NOT to go back inside to get X. "I'll just get it next time", you probably thought.

In the meantime, others will still have a chance to buy what they need, at prices they can afford.

For my uses these days, an ideal balance would be around $40/mo for 50/10 Mbps, but that's not offered here.

I recently moved, and as far as I could find beforehand, there's only one actual broadband ISP in this area (unless you count satellite as "broadband"), and the cheapest plan they offer is about $36/mo for 28/3 Mbps, and that's an "introductory" price. It's gonna rise to about $61/mo in a year. At my old place, I was getting 200/10 or so, for $70/mo.

If I'm gonna have to deal with that price range, I'd much be paying for gigabit, so overall a far better value, even if it would be way more speed than I really "need". I don't even care that it's run by Google (just about everywhere uses https these days, and anyway with Ublock, I fear no targeted marketing :-P ). But, they're not available in this area yet.