I recall reading the "Mother Earth News Handbook of Homemade Power" back in the 1970s. They had an extensive interview with an Indian guy named Ram Bux Singh, talking about "gobar gas," which was an Indian colloquial term for methane.

It also featured an in-depth article from an originally-British guy who ran a major pig farm in South Africa for 70 years, turning the manure into methane and running a modified diesel engine on it. You can read the interview here for more info.

Not only did his investment in the methane production equipment pay itself off (in the late 1950s) in the course of about six years, it also helped with another major problem found on pig farms: flies. Fly eggs in the manure went into the methane digesters and ... that was the end of them. The fly problem basically disappeared and the pigs were healthier as a result.

This is mindless.

Companies have to raise prices during fearful times in order to profit now so they can cover the potential losses later.

I jacked my prices up BIG TIME in early COVID because I didn't know if I would be out of work in 2 years. I made a fortune in 2020 and half a fortune in 2021 as things equalized and nothing really bad happened.

I deserved that profit for taking a risk, tho. If things would have gotten shut down for me, I would have had enough cash to weather 2-3 years of outage and rebuild my businesses.

To wit, fuck you for your collectivism.

So, you really can't discern the difference between having to track the original costs and eventual yard sale selling price of possibly hundreds of items across years of your life ... and having to pull out your ID every couple of years when you vote?

This sort of hyperbolic false comparison says more about your need to our elections sloppy and unaccountable than it does anything about having to do paperwork to prove you don't owe income tax when you unload some old furniture. Trying to use this as a distraction in the interests of preserving a highly abusable voting system sure is predictable, though.

That Politico article talks about how many people get around their drone's NFZ/Geofencing features, and then demonstrate how easy it is by linking to a walk-through of using DJI's native waiver process to allow their drones to operate in restricted areas. But: DJI's process will NOT let you work around the restrictions on the very air space the article is about (the DC NFZ). Go ahead, article author, give it a try (which they obviously didn't do, and didn't actually ask anybody to try to do in support of their point on this).

If you're going to fly any relatively recent DJI drone in the DC FRZ, you need to do a pretty profound hardware hack, or have well out of date firmware which has been hacked. None of the user-accessible features in an off the shelf DJI drone nor in either their self-service or manual contact waiver-generating mechanisms allow this to happen, despite what the article hand-wavingly asserts. Those casual tourist types aren't buying a Mavic 3 and flying it over the Pentagon or the Capital or anywhere in a 15-mile radius around it.

I keep seeing people trying to make the case that this is an example of why regulations are good. In this case, the fact that a lot of financial activity IS regulated served to lull witless investors/users into a stupor of zero curiosity and diligence. Followed by, "Hey, isn't somebody else supposed to make everything I do perfectly safe for me, especially when it comes to me getting lots of money?" New laws/regs passed in the wake of this won't stop scammers any more than new gun laws aimed at law-abiding people ever stop criminals who simply ignore those laws and hold up a liquor store anyway.

We're already in a state where we get called into a meeting and ... that could've been handled with an email. Trying to add email to zoom isn't going to help matters. It's bad enough that stuff sent through the existing chat channel, in a Zoo meeting, disappears when the meeting ends. We've stopped using that and stuck with our existing chat client to keep that from happening.

What Zoom DOES need to add is a list of my most recent meetings. 95+% of my meetings are with the same handful of people, with the same meeting room info as last time. Show me a list of who all I've had a Zoom meeting with recently, and what meeting room info was used for them, and let me select from that list to enter a meeting. THAT would be useful and it involves info which Zoom already has.

First off, the Senate vote was a stunt by Marco Rubio. Afterwards, when reporters asked various Senators why they voted for it, they were all "wait, WHAT did I vote for?" There's a variety of procedural stuff that no one really pays attention to and votes in favor (breaking for lunch, breaking for the day, etc.). Rubio managed to get that thrown into one of those periods.

Second, we did try the year-round DST thing back in the 1970s. Kids waiting for their schoolbuses, in the dark, were getting hit by motorists before the sun came up. It wasn't "kids walking to school," as some have stated; they were waiting for this buses. And while it's much less likely kids would be walking to school, these days, it's every bit as likely that they'd be waiting for buses. That killed our experiment with year-around DST. Biden was a Senator back then, voting in favor of it and then, after seeing the results, voting to rescind it.

Ergo, if it had passed the House and Senate, he would most likely have vetoed it. Because he's been around long enough to remember what happened LAST TIME we went there.

It's been my experience, traveling someplace where a different language was the dominant one, QR codes on menus can be a pain or a blessing.

What I'd like to see is a paper menu with a QR code next to each dish which, instead of linking you to a website, shows you the text describing that menu option in another language. For example, if I'm traveling in Puerto Rico, where everyone speaks Spanish, a Spanish-language menu could have QR codes which give me an English translation on each dish. That would help me improve my Spanish skills, as I could compare what's on the menu to the translation, even if I have to use my phone to decode the QR code and see the translation.

Yes, QR codes are typically used to provide you with an easily-decoded URL. They don't HAVE to be used that way.

I could also envision an AR app which looked at the Spanish-language menu and overlaid the Spanish descriptions with the English translations from the QR codes. That could end up being a "killer app" which drove greater adoption of AR.

When we visited Iceland, some years ago, they had a lot of English-speaking tourists (USA and Britain) but they also had a lot of French-, German- and Chinese-speaking tourists. All Icelanders have to learn multiple languages in school (there's about 360k people who speak their language, world-wide; they all learn Icelandic, English and at least one other language). That comes in handy when dealing with tourists, but few of them had the option to learn Chinese so such tourists had a particularly hard time; the Icelander is usually speaking English as a second language and the Chinese tourist is usually speaking English, or trying to, as a second language. The people we talked to mentioned having a very difficult time accommodating Chinese-speaking tourists. If they could pull out a menu or something with QR codes which Chinese-speakers could decode (no WiFi, no website needed), that could've helped. Maybe the menu has multiple QR codes for each menu item, with flags indicating which QR code provides which language's translation.

If you're using your phone to decode the QR codes, and actually READING the output, instead of surfing the net based on QR code URLs, it's less likely that you'll get sidetracked into checking email, etc.

I rocked one for multiple years. When it finally died a few months ago, I had a funeral.

I had a Pebble 2 HR. And yes, the HR means it had heart rate monitoring.

The step counter wasn't bad. It was off by < 10% compared to some of the other things I've used. The heart rate monitoring wasn't bad; within about 5% of a chest-strap-mounted heart rate sensor. The sleep tracking was quite good.

It had a smart alarm. I could give it a 30-minute window in the morning and it would wake me up, as early as possible within that window, when I was in a light-sleep state. Trying to wake up, when in a deep-sleep state, leaves me groggy as hell; I never woke up groggy with this. I could make any alarm a smart alarm, including different times for different days of the week (getting up for work on weekdays vs getting up Sunday morning for church vs no alarm on Saturday morning). I could set / disable / alter these alarms on the watch itself, instead of needing to use the app. If I was off work tomorrow, I could disable the wake-up alarms for the next morning on the watch itself.

If you were willing to leave the Bluetooth on all the time (which ran the battery down), you could use it to:

• control music, playing on your phone
• see who was calling
• see incoming text messages
• send one of a handful of canned responses

etc. If I left the BT off most of the time, I could go 7 - 10 days on a charge. If I left it on all the time, two days tops.

The app synced with Google Calendar, such that appointments with notifications on them would trigger the vibration alarm on the Pebble. I could be eating lunch and ... oh, crap, I forgot about that meeting. I was rarely ever late for an appointment or meeting because the watch didn't have to be actively synced with my phone, at the moment, to know about appointments. It would hold a couple days' worth of appointments; I made a point to sync it every day or so, such that it stayed up-to-date on what was upcoming and sync'ed my sleep tracking and step count off to the app.

When my phone would no longer work with it (updated to newer version of Android), I had it sync with my tablet (still running an older version of Android). Sounds like the new app would let me use it with my newer phone, if I still had a Pebble.

If I woke up late at night and needed to navigate to the bathroom, I could tap the watch and it would illuminate just enough that my adjusted-to-the-dark eyes could see obstacles and I wouldn't bump into stuff. It was pretty faint; I could do this without waking up my beloved.

There were a variety of watch faces to choose from; I settled on one with large digits that was very easy to read at a glance. There were also other apps you could load. I kept a countdown timer app. I'd put laundry in the dryer, start a countdown timer, put laundry in the washer, start a countdown timer, put something in the oven, start a countdown timer, etc. and it would silently notify me when each of these expired. I couldn't begin to count how many loads of laundry I dealt with, how many loaves of bread I proofed and baked, over the years, with this thing silently letting me know when to get up and deal with something.

There's no way for a smartphone to do sleep tracking or smart alarm things; only something wearable is going to know what sleep state you're in. A smartphone can do everything else, assuming you carry it all the time.

Still looking for a smartwatch which can duplicate ALL of that. I'm wearing a cheaper device from Withings, at the moment; it tracks sleep and step count and can have one smart alarm per week (it wakes me up for work, on weekdays), but that's it. When I find something which can do the smart alarms, hold multiple days' of appointments and run various apps, without needing to be BT tethered all the time and without needing to be charged every day, I'll probably plunk for it. That seems to be a pretty tall order; I was very spoiled by my Pebble. It's gotten really hard to find Pebble 2 HRs out there; they don't last forever and they're in very high demand, so anyone parting with one either has serious issues with it OR wants a small fortune for it.

Yeah, it was WORSE.

No, it was entirely deliberate, and every party involved knew exactly how much of a lie the "this is Russian disinformation" narrative was, but carefully kept the NY Post's well documented article from being seen (or even searchable!) until after the election. The FBI went to FB and TOLD them to suppress it - you couldn't even link to it in a private message. Twitter knew perfectly well that preventing people from seeing it by shutting down NYP's account was in keeping with the Biden campaign's desperate need to keep the information out of circulation in the weeks before the election.

No, they didn't. They saw a well-written article about material that had been confirmed as legitimate by multiple sources - including people corresponded with in material found on the laptop. The salacious crap highlighting Hunter Biden's idiotic lifestyle wasn't germane (other than we all pay the Secret Service to chase around and clean up after his messes), but the ample documentation of Joe Biden's direct involvement in influence peddling and the movement of millions of dollars of Chinese money into shared Biden accounts, that was (and very much still is) the real issue. And of course Joe Biden had just stood there in a debate and repeated his lie that he had absolutely no knowledge of his son's international entanglements, while his son's own words showed that Joe Biden was knowingly, deliberately lying - he was WELL aware of his son's dealings, personally enjoyed lots of cash from it, helped facilitate it while he was VP, and is very likely in criminal jeopardy from all of that.

All of that was plain from an even casual review of the material on the laptop that third parties (involved in their activities!) confirmed, with documentation. The FBI/DoJ knew that when they sent agents to Facebook to tell them to clamp down on it. Every other media outlet knew about it and - with only a few exceptions - acted in lock step to prevent the Biden family's substantial corruption from being know to voters when it mattered to know it. Multiple polls of people who voted for Biden NOT knowing this now 100% confirmed information show that over 15% of them would have reconsidered and likely changed their votes if they'd know he was looking them in the eye at that debate and lying about it. That would have completely changed the outcome of the election, every other factor not withstanding.

Originally, for the USA, DC had the most deaths per capita because population density; there is no rural territory in DC.

Then New York took the top spot 'cuz population density (the NYC metro got hit pretty hard, which extends beyond just NY; CT and RI had pretty high numbers, too).

Then New Jersey took the top spot. It has the highest average population density of any US state.

Then vaccines came out and Blue States jumped on 'em. New Jersey is now bumped down to like #8 or #9 with Red States taking the top spots because their populations are less likely to get the vaccines.

Alaska and Hawaii both have very low population density, and low deaths per capita, but they vote differently. If you think about it, you would expect high-population-density to correlate with deaths per capita.

Utah is an anomaly partly for the reason you stated: they may vote red but the main influence in that area is not the population but the religion. They are also low population density.

If your definition is "whatever Zuck / Meta says," no. We don't need that. Zuck wants a playground where people will focus all their attention, as long as possible, so he can influence what you see and how you spend your money. He wants to make Fecebook more immersive. Again, we don't need that.

I'm a coder by day. If I had something which could use 3D rendering to show how the code I'm developing interacts with other code and other systems, that would be helpful. Having 3D for depth could really add to the amount of detail I can perceive and process, something which a 4K display (my current main screen) has difficulty with. I have a pretty good FoV with my 4K but there's only so much detail I can perceive on a 2D screen. "The Lawnmower Man" was fiction but I frequently find myself wishing I had an immersive, 3D environment like what was envisioned in there, not because it would give me superpowers (duh, no) but because of the visualized data in which I could immerse myself, such that my pattern-matching mind would have more data to parse. Visualization software would need to evolve but it's not going to evolve that direction until good, immersive 3D (which doesn't make you nauseous) is available at reasonable price. And it will be "read-only" until such time as someone can come up with a good, useful, systematized way of manipulating stuff in that 3D space. You need to be able to manipulate your position, your gaze, your zoom level and be able to move / manipulate objects "in world."

If I could use some kind of robot for telepresence, such that I could, say, tour the Parthenon in Greece without needing to get in an airplane and go there, and be able to perceive it all in 3D, as well as being able to steer the robot around (instead of just zooming in / out on some bubble-shaped image), that would be cool. At that point, you're not just talking about using a VR headset; you're talking a full 3D environment where you can remote-drive something to change the physical vantage point. That was part of the Metaverse, at least WRT the "Snow Crash" implementation. To make that happen, you'd need a way of

• turning multi-vantage-point imaging (on the telepresence robot) into a 3D model
• transferring that model from point A (the Parthenon) to point B (my system)
• getting said model into my head through my headset
• providing consistent controls for driving, gazing, zooming, etc.

You'd need a consistent methodology for all of this. The systematization of all of this would be a sort of 3D "operating system," on which a wide variety of applications could be built. That OS could, realistically, be known as a Metaverse. Just as a web browser systematizes the WWW (rendering stuff in consistent fashion, providing a recognizable set of controls and input mechanisms, etc.), a Metaverse could systematize all of this other stuff that we aren't really doing (yet).

Until such time as it is systematized, different apps will have very different abilities, different ways of manipulating stuff, etc. The WWW wasn't the first hyperlinked system (see Englebart's Online System - NLS - and Nelson's Project Xanadu). But it systematized things and opened it up for the world to play with. In that regard, HTTPD, HTML, etc. provide the OS upon which so much of our modern life is built, known colloquially as the WWW.

I can't remember which Highlander sequel it was, but obviously doing stuff in the atmosphere doesn't always work. Plus, you can't put some working group of multiple people together, dammit. There can be only ONE!

Crippling unemployment was caused by government actions.

Read The Creature from Jekyll Island for more understanding.

If I had a PHEV which could go, say, 50 miles on a charge, it would need considerably less battery than a full EV. I don't typically drive 50 miles in a week (my wife and I both WFH) so I wouldn't need to charge every night.

It also means the only time I'd need to buy fuel for it is when I do a significant road trip. Those happen a few times / year. I wouldn't need to worry about whether or not there's a charging station, is it functional, or is it full; I could pump a few gallons into the tank and get on down the road. That infrastructure is already built out. I'm just making considerably less use of it.

For 90+% of all my driving, I'd be doing it on electricity; I'd be within 50 miles, round trip, from my home and I can charge up at home. I care, considerably less at that point, about the public availability of chargers and charging networks.

When I lived in a rural area, a PHEV with 100 miles range would do 90+% of all annual driving on electricity.

We need to burn less gasoline; no argument. But there's a point of diminishing returns. If I can spend a little more money and eliminate 90+% of my gasoline usage (only needing gasoline for significant road trips), that's much more economically viable than shelling out 2 - 3x as much money for a vehicle which eliminates 100% of gasoline usage.

There need to be PHEVs with varying amounts of range, such as 50 miles, 75 miles and 100 miles range. Longer range = more $; that's understandable. So far, I'm having a hard time finding any with > 30 miles range. That would eliminate > 50% of my gasoline usage but I'd like to eliminate more.

In light of all that, he's not wrong. If we can make 6 PHEVs with 50 miles range, or a single EV with 300 miles range ... the former is going to make a bigger dent in gasoline consumption than the latter.

I drive a Camry Hybrid, which gets 40+ MPG in town. I'd love a way to upgrade that silly thing into a PHEV but that just ain't happenin'. I don't have enough $$$ burning a hole in my pocket to plunk for a Tesla.