Fark has no significant redeeming qualities, so I guess... OK, thanks for the update, dustbin of history is just on your left.

AliExpress and Amazon are both cesspools, where thousands of sellers sell identical or nearly identical products under different brand names with different markup. And most of the products are trash.

Case in point, I bought a bunch of metric bolts and nuts at Amazon, and they wouldn't screw onto each other. They would get to some random point and the nuts would stop turning. Sometimes it was half an inch up, sometimes it was two inches up, but the failure rate was something like 40% and I budgeted for 20%. I ended up buying a tap and die set and rethreading all the bolts. It actually would have been cheaper to buy the bolts in 5-packs from Lowe's. (On the other hand, if it happens again, I don't have to buy the tap and die set again, so I guess that's a "win".)

I've reached a point where about one in five Amazon products results in a return, because the quality is so poor, the descriptions are inadequate, etc. I buy enough stuff that they tolerate my return rate, but it's a huge hassle that I wish I didn't have to deal with. If I want a high risk of fixer-upper hardware, I'd rather buy from AliExpress for half the price and wait a week. :-/

Oh, thanks. I misread per hour as per day. But at 5 miles per hour, you won't get 40 miles per day. IIRC, the full-sun-equivalent hours in the U.S. varies from about 2.5 to about 6 or so. You won't get the equivalent of eight hours of sun unless you're smack in the middle of the Mojave desert with no mountains nearby on a dry day. So depending on where you are, you will get anywhere from 12.5 miles per day to 30 miles per day.

Wait 'till they hear about what's being stored at 2300 Empire Ave.

Though it's pretty clear that Hollywood is in self-destruct mode at this point so it's hard to blame the property owners when the economy is headed towards only making weapons and lattes.

Too bad The Message has shifted the business climate towards death merchants.

By time October comes around there may be new demand for the microwave pyrolysis methods of reducing plastics to petroleum feedstocks.

If the editors here are to be believed California has so much solar power and plastic waste that they don't know what to do with and gasoline is already approaching $8 there due to the foolish wars and foolish taxation.

IIRC the heavy plastic chains could help with the disastrous heavy crude shortage, especially. Chemical engineers, please correct.

...the article shouldn't mention the woes of someone who worked for Meta.

When you work for a particularly evil company, you know what you're signing up for - screwing everyone over else for a buck. I'm not going to cry for you when you find out the company doesn't see a big difference between you and me.

I've worked on police systems that are connected to home alarms. The false alarms got problematic, so police agencies started a 'one false alarm, then you get billed' policy.

Very shortly thereafter, there were multiple vendors offering tracking and billing solutions that would integrate with police call taker / incident tracking systems.

It seems like this would work exceptionally well for robotaxies - give them an economic incentive to find a way to confirm someone is in actual distress prior to calling 911. Like maybe a remotely activated just-below-hearing-damage alarm in the car if you're not moving within 2 minutes of the car pulling up at your destination.

But then there's another fancy option - the car could drive towards the nearest hospital ER or EMS station during the 911 call, with the service's agent reporting location and redirecting or stopping the car if so instructed by the 911 operator.

The average American drives 37 miles per day. Adding 5 miles per day of range means barely an eighth of the power gets replaced every day. And that 5 miles per day of charging adds weight; chances are, it doesn't break even for the extra weight. There's a good reason nobody else puts solar panels on cars. If it were a good idea, or even a not-complete-harebrained idea, Tesla would have done it years ago.

Yup, there's also the time factor.

There's an important study of boys at age six being diagnosed with ADHD.

At 6 yrs 1 month the odds are 50% higher than at 6 yrs 11 months.

Because they're both "age 6" but in boys that year is huge in development and all metrics are against the age-appropriate standard.

If you're on WoW or Roblox all your waking hours you will have retarded development vs. somebody who is in the world.

So you'll be more ADHD for a 15 yr old if you mostly miss age 14.

"Trust the experts" and sheet.

Nobody is that "stupid" in those departments.

The question should be what was the quid pro quo?

We can imagine what the PLA got out of it but what favor did Microsoft get?

And how high up the chain did it go? Who specifically approved the arrangement?

At least Microsoft probably has Windows 11 "backups" of the hard drives of anyone who might think of bringing charges.

Not sure if that strategy can be called stupid. Lots of other words apply.

"One Nation Under Blackmail" is a popular phrase.

Writes age it, so the best method is to write once, then plug it in for a while every few years to let it do whatever automatic maintenance can or must be done. And honestly, I'm not sure whether that's baked into the hardware or if you need some software process to check the thing. Not my area of expertise.

In theory you can throw one in a drawer and it'll be fine a decade later... but you can't trust that it will be.

Cool story bro time.

I developed finger-based calculation independently as a 10 year old. Freaked the teacher right out, she didn't understand what the hell I was doing.

Probably not as complex or effective (I have never heard of Chisanbop, but I assume it's well-developed), but my method definitely helped me rapidly finish math tests without the more traditional intermediary steps of pencil and paper or a calculator.

Please keep in mind that a flash drive is next to useless for long term storage. It will randomize over a surprisingly short time if it doesn't have power for data maintenance.

Your typical CD is better but still not good enough - under perfect conditions it will outlast you, but the way most people store them you might be really disappointed when you try to read it a decade from now. You're also going to run into the issue that even 20 years from now there may not be a consumer 'CD reader' available.

For music, your best bet remains a carefully stored vinyl collection. For now you should grab a USB vinyl ripper with a laser pickup and listen to your digital copies on whatever media you like, knowing that there will probably always be a traditional record player to fall back on if you look hard enough.

>What's next, making them learn how an abacus works? Yeah, real good use of time there.

I shall don my fedora for a moment and say, 'ecktually...'

There's value in teaching kids how to use an abacus. I doubt anybody benefits much anymore from learning to use one like an expert, but for basic counting, place value, and addition / subtraction I'd consider it an excellent tool for starting kids down the road to mathematical literacy.

Manual transmissions in a world where we're heading to EVs? Not so much. The ability to drive stick is more a hobby thing, and soon a historical curiosity for niche enthusiasts.

Yeah, so if this is the cover story what other heat signatures might they be looking for?

It's not immediately obvious to me but something we should understand.

Detecting Zizians would help prevent these forest fires but it would be quite hard for a satellite to do that.