The power to destroy an Iranian rubber dinghy is insignificant next to the power of the Force.

Economists make never-ending future predictions. Maybe not accurate, but they do make lots and lots of future predictions.

In my teens and twenties I listened to a pretty diverse selection of music, just not much that was too popular, and not very loud. I mean, as a teenager still living in my parents' house my father would play on the computer in my bedroom and comment how he couldn't hear the music I as playing (which half the time was Venom or Slayer, that he hated anyway...)

But then in my thirties I lived in urban India, where the noise from outside my apartment was usually louder than I liked music, people yelling, maids sweeping the ground, cars honking, trucks revving engines, jackhammers, feral dogs barking, the fucking watchmen blowing whistles to call rickshaws up the street, and all that. And that's hurt my ears, so they're always ringing and now I can't hear a lot of subtleties in music unless it's played loud enough for the loud parts to cause pain. So I got to where I could only listen to rock music that didn't have too much range to the sound.

I only recently got a pair of good headphones and I'm rediscovering some parts of music again. Although a lot of the quieter bits are lost when I listen on the subway going home from work.

That could be why they're abandoned...

It must've been from a video tape from some of those Lambda Lambda Lambda nerds!

Maybe that's everybody in their office who's nuked some popcorn to generate the mystery in the first place.

Nearly two million lines, and almost double the capacity... If they bumped it up to an even two million I wonder if they could've completely doubled the number of the flights that could be tracked.

And what if they expanded it to four million lines of code, could they have quadrupled the number of flights that could be tracked?

And what if they made the code self-replicating? Could they have support an infinite number of flights?

Who said elephants can't dance?

Me. I drink lots of New York City tap water... At my office in Brooklyn I only drink tap water, just go to the kitchen sink, let it run for a minute, then fill up my cup. Everyone else drinks the bottled water we get, but to me it tastes like a plastic bottle.

At home in Manhattan, I keep a few bottles of water in the fridge and refill them from the tap...

And you still don't have to watch any of them if you don't want...

Actually, they consistently promise to eliminate pork. But if it's for their constituents, then it's not "pork" it's vital infrastructure and jobs. It's only pork if it's for a different strict represented by someone from the other party.

Depending how dramatic the site is, the headline could read "Thousands Blown Away by Trinity Test Site For 70th Anniversary of First Atomic Blast."

That's more reassuring than if the Pentagon wasted that money on personal projects instead of military ones...

I'm not sure, either anymore... I carry my cell phone when I leave the apartment, but certainly not inside, where it just stays on my desk. But my wife, on the other hand, carries hers from room to room to room...

Other people I know won't ever let theirs out of arm's reach for fear of missing something....

I think of it as putting a value on my time. Even outside working hours, when I won't lose that income for doing other things, it's still about what my free time is worth. How much value do I put on spending my limited free time doing unpleasant tasks, and what's it worth to spend a little more money to avoid the tasks.

On a salary, the money keeps rolling in on a regular basis. If I squander a bit of it, I'll get more with the next paycheck. If I squander my time, it's gone for ever.