Damn. You're right. That article doesn't say it, and I didn't find the one I originally read, which was about bacteria living deep in the earth where the radiation generated ionization states that they used. IIRC it was about bacteria living in a granite based low-level uranium source. And they were living a lot deeper than previously detected bacteria. (This was about 3-4 decades ago, so it's not surprising that I can't find that article. I think it was in Science News, but possibly it was in New Scientist. In any case, what I read was a magazine article. And it was rather explicit...though of course not detailed.)

>"If we are adding in FreeBSD, Android etc, might as well also add in MacOS. They are all quite similar from a user point of view and all based off one or the other NIXes"

Not really. It isn't free, much of it isn't open, doesn't use X11 or Wayland, doesn't use any of the Linux desktop environments, and it really only runs on Apple hardware. Very different in many ways from Linux or BSD.

Although I think that throwing "unknown" and "BSD" into the Linux count is not valid.

Here's one reference, though not the orginal one I read.
https://academic.oup.com/ismej...

Note that this is not DIRECTLY eating radiation, but that's still its energy source, as that's where the H molecule comes from. So to simplify, saying it eats radiation is not wrong.

I understamd how Americans fall for this nonsense, but Europe has a well developed railroad system and efficient short distance flights.

Why would the Europeans fall for this inefficient, ineffective, economically insane, dangerous, unproven, ridiculous scam?

EU has around 1 billion people, ruzzia jas maybe 100 million, EU has 10 times the population. The only issue is that if Ukraine falls, putin will use force to make sure his army now includes Ukrainians conquered in Ukraine, just like he did with the residents of Donbass region. He will then take on the rest of Europe and given what ruzzians and Ukrainians have learned in thia war, the Europeans will find themselves in a really tough place Will the Europeans even fight at all? Polish, Lytovian, Finnish, they will fight, what about the rest? Given the experience and the size of the militaries, Europe stands no chance. Its best deffense is to help Ukraine with everything, instead European countries are busy with their internal problems.

And got rewarded with a rather large body count for his troubles, if memory serves.

Even Sharon pulled settlers out of Gaza at the point of a gun. And that didn't turn out the way the idealists imagined, did it?

>"to justify to insurance companies why you are using a free open source project as a main tool."

This assumes that MS-Office is somehow less prone to bugs, errors, issues. Just because more people use it, or that it is closed source, or that it isn't free, or that it is from Microsoft, doesn't mean it is safe (or "safer"). It also doesn't necessarily mean there is any liability that can be shifted. Most commercial software requires you to sign away liability (or greatly/specifically limit it, perhaps to only the cost of the software) in the terms of service.

It's quite plausible that it eats radiation. There are bacteria that live inside rocks and eat radiation. That it would be a shield is, however, very implausible.

Sure we could. We just don't want to. It would be far too violent for our present sensibilities. Gaza is about 5 to 10 dB less than what it would actually take to force Hamas to accept peace. Another 5 dB of violence on top of that is the minimum to disabuse the rest of the Palestinians of the "here junior, put on this backpack and ride the bus" mentality.

>"So a very tiny amount. Europe pays the vast majority..."

Europe is not a country. And not all of Europe is in NATO. Even the concept of "Europe" isn't perfectly well-defined.... some would say Russia is also in Europe. The NATO protection is, primarily, of European nations. Yes, it helps everywhere else, too, to keep NATO's "enemies" in check. But the USA is 1 of 32 members and yet pays more than five times 1/32nd.

>"I don't have an issue with Donnie hammering on those, I just wished he would have made clear that this was about overall defense spending."

He is often unclear, unfortunately.

>"Of course by abandoning Ukraine he now gives EU[...]"

I am not aware of him ever vetoing any support legislation, or threatening to do so (I could be wrong on that). He was confident he could work out a deal and quickly. Apparently Putin is not so cooperative.

>"It was Putin who succeeded in getting these countries to up their budgets."

Keep in mind the big invasion didn't occur until 2022, years after Trump left office the first time (which is when he was calling for them to live up to their obligations). Of course, Putin was already hostile before that and had already invaded during Oboma admin, but that apparently didn't motivate them.

Part of the treaty is to keep up their own military/defenses and they were not doing so (and for a long time and getting worse). Member states were expected to pay at least 2% of their GDP into defense/readiness, annually. "Donnie" wanted to make sure that the countries were ready and able to defend themselves and come to the aid of other member states, instead of immediately relying on other member's resources when it is too late. That is not an unreasonable expectation.

There are also direct contributions to NATO, itself, to cover its operating and management costs. "The total budget for these common funds is approximately â4.6 billion for 2025. Contributions are based on a cost-sharing formula that considers each country's gross national income." And the USA covers 16% of that operating budget, more than any other member.

>"And then you look at Europe, with their two years of maternity leave, and worker protections, and way more paid holidays, and universal healthcare, and they all like to look down their noses at Americans, while they benefit from a massive security umbrella that the US provides, which frees up the funds to spend on social programs."

While simultaneously NOT PAYING THEIR AGREED OBLIGATIONS TO NATO, leaving the USA to absorb that as well. I will now get downvoted by reminding people that it was Trump that demanded they start paying their obligations, and succeeded. https://www.usatoday.com/story...

"Rutte then nodded along as Trump recalled demanding that NATO nations pay up their fair share during his first term as president. [...] very few were paying, and if they were, they weren't paying their fair share, [...] After making it clear that U.S. wouldn't support NATO if member states didn't step up, the money started pouring in, [...] The U.S. contributes 3.4% of its GDP and about 16% of NATO's annual budget. [...] By 2024, all non-U.S. NATO allies spent the 2% target on average for the first time."