You mean, the governor who defended Texas by sending in the Texas National Guard and preventing the US military from taking over? Because I'd stake money that True Believers think that's exactly what happened.

To clarify, I am not a True Believer.

Yes, thank you. There is no reason whatever that my non-technical family members should be able to easily not update their computers. They don't have the technical knowledge to make an informed decision other than "yes, please".

I'm not jo_ham, but I just did that and got about 270Kbps through Apple Music streaming.

But the thing is that I like my MacBook. It has its tradeoffs but everything does. My problem is that his statement implies that everyone else has been doing it wrong, and that only he is qualified to judge what's Good Enough, as though sound quality is the foremost or even only concern. Since pretty much no human has the audio sensitivity required to affirm his statements, it's just insulting to everyone who isn't him - or at least it would be if anyone took him seriously.

Ironically, enjoyment of music has very little to do with sound quality and much more to do with music, lyrics, and listening environment. If the audio fidelity were as important as he claims, then no one would be buying junk formats like vinyl. But yet, some people enjoy the tactile process of damaging their audio media as little as possible with their inherently destructive hardware, and that's an important part of their listening experience. Music isn't about bullshit concepts like "staging" and "presence", but about the enjoyment of the whole package. Focusing on one relatively small aspect of it misses the whole point, which is why it blows me away that Neil Freaking Young is making that mistake.

And more to the point, does it matter?

A 256Kbps AAC is objectively equal to CD sound quality, as confirmed by double-blind test after test. Furthermore, a huge portion of listeners will be hearing your angel's choir over cheap-ass ear buds or crap laptop speakers. Maybe you have a golden ear and can tell the difference between a CD and a FLAC file (are those good enough for you, or do they lack the sharp ones and smooth zeros of the digital masters?). Maybe you're not actually a delusional once-great who has lousy hearing and permanent tinnitus after years of playing rock concerts, and, well, being almost 70. Maybe your home hi-fi (do you still call it that?) was hand-wired by a wizened master of recording engineering fame. Maybe you have your own private anechoic chamber so you're not exposed to anything but the pure and sweet sounds of your own singing. But the rest of us listen to normal-person music with a dynamic range that's been shot to hell in the loudness wars, via normal-person audio formats, through normal-person digital-to-analog converters, into normal-person speakers, in a normal-person environment with kids playing and horns honking and dogs barking and coworkers chattering.

Your music, pristine to the heavens though it may be, sounds no better than Miley Cyrus when piping out of my MacBook. You've become a crotchety old curmudgeon trying to remain relevant to those kids who won't stay off your lawn, and maybe it's time to sit down with a hot cup of keep your yap shut and enjoy a nice book.

Good day, sir.

And 10240 = 10100000000000, which has 12 zeros, and 1+2=3. Half Life 3 confirmed.

Well, Texas has to take pride in something because their barbecue never was up to snuff. #KansasCity

Them's fighting words.

I work in San Francisco and live in East Bay. My house is a block away from a Transbay bus stop, and with its use of the carpool lanes I can get into the city faster via bus than is possible in a car. Once in the city, I can either stroll for a pleasant walk along the Embarcadero to my office or I can ride a Muni for under a buck, and the latter drops me off next door to Safeway with their Sriracha Sausage Breakfast Burritos ($2.71 including tax).

It's easier, faster, and cheaper to ride the bus than drive, and I get breakfast burritos. I'm living the dream.

It's soon going to be easy to do a screen on the security of a system or application: just ask for delivery to the UK of the system you were planning to use somewhere else.

This is a wonderful idea, as long as: the people facing backward don't puke on takeoff; flight attendants don't mind breaking up the inevitable fistfights; and you remove the bathrooms so that there's no temptation for the 6'4" next to the window to want to pee mid-flight. Except for all the horrible downsides, I don't see any drawbacks.

Secondary radiation, however, is a different matter. And someone said that the fusion was only a source of neutorns to enhance fission. (That seems like a pretty wierd idea, since we don't currently have fusion working.)

Hate to break the news, but bog-standard fission bombs have been getting a boost from fusion-generated neutrons since the 50s (maybe 40s -- I don't feel like looking it up ATM.

https://careers.mozilla.org/

HTH, HAND. :-)

There's a mechanism in US law to deal with this kind of thing. It's called a "declaratory judgment," where a plaintiff who has reason to be afraid that the law will be enforced to land him in prison or bankruptcy sues for a judgment that either the law doesn't forbid his (in this case) publication of his research or that the Constitution forbids a law that would. Yeah, such suits ain't cheap. Fortunately there are several nonprofits that exist to fight exactly that kind of battle.