Before AI I replaced my flagship Android phone once every 2 or 3 years. Now I am not sure, how can I replace my phone if I do not want AI functionality in it at all?

The real question is whether SEGA or Phil Collins's label will sue first.

Much of the DOGE commission's responsibility had been moved to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for the past several months. See "DOGE 'cut muscle, not fat'; 26K experts rehired after brutal cuts" by Ashley Belanger

It doesn't. What it means is cutting through a lot of big parcels whose owners have big money, so they can be big impediments. There has to be a happier medium than this between respect for individual private property ownership and the needs of the many, but we are clearly uninterested in finding it in this country.

The greater good...for who?

I mean, in an example....high speed rail from NYC to LA.

I don't know exactly which states they'd pass through, but let's just pick Iowa for shits and giggles.

Now...to keep things "high speed" that means you're NOT going to be stopping much at all between the two end points.

So, this would benefit people in CA and NY, but it gives NO benefit to people in Iowa who would have cities, farmland,all sorts of private properly they'd have to give up for the system.

Why the fuck would anyone in Iowa vote to give things up for this rail system they do not benefit from and actually gain hassle from...?

I wonder if HSR could be placed on parts of the existing interstate highway system to save costs and time.

You're going to just piss off the majority of people that currently use those to drive....those people are also known as "constituents" and can get a politician fired pronto.

Why does everything have to be profitable?

Well, if you want private industry to build it, they need incentive and "profit" is usually the driving motive historically.

Our current US railways were built by private industry.

The govt would just fuck it up and end up being massively expensive with everyone trying to get their cut of it.....especially if it were Federal.

Most roads, water, utilities...that are public...are LOCAL....city, state funded....

As the OP pointed out, the problem is political and social, not technical.

And well...that's PLENTY enough to derail any efforts in the US.

You start mass eminent domain cases taking land from people and cities and well, you're gonna easily have 50+ years alone before the majority of those are settled one way or another.

Also, unless you get long straight shots of track...you're not going to have true High Speed Rail....and part of the obsticals for that is having to stop many times in many cities, turning to go to each one of those.....and if you don't do that and don't have service to many spots along the way.....those cities and states and localities aren't going to go out of their way to help take away land just to have something go speeding by them and be of no use to them there...

And if you can't really get true High Speed rail in.....most of the US will do "so, why bother? We already have highways, cars and planes to travel long distances fast...why do through the huge expense, litigation and hassle of doing rail?

There would be little perceived ROI to the average US citizen.

I mean, why would someone in Iowa give a flying fuck if someone in NYC could ride a fast train to LA?

The US has no excuse. The only reason the US can't do it is corruption and/or incompetence.

Does it not ever occur to you that we in the US might actually LIKE/ENJOY the transportation system we have?

If we wanted all public transport....we'd get it. If we all wanted to live in extreme urban cities stacked on top of each other like rats and sharing walls....we'd do that.

We simply prefer our way of life....with individual transportation.

It also is likely part of a culture difference....that those in the EU never seem to be able to comprehends...in the US we prioritize the individual....whereas ya'll prioritize collectivism....the masses.

You prioritize the 'state'. And we prioritize the person.

And you act as if you way is the only true and "right" way to live.

Why not step back and think that some free people might want to live differently than you do....?

I also very much doubt you will find any blue haired teachers.

I see PLENTY of them, blue and other neon like hair colors on YouTube and TikTok......tons of them teaching kids and ranting far left ideals....

yes, actually yes. I would do it differently though, I would use sodium and burn it in water to create the particulate matter, this would accomplish more than one goal, it would block a percentage point of the Solar energy and would percipitate into the ocean water deacidifying it. If done xorrectly, maybe as NaK alloy it can also be used to generate power while burning in water.

no, the goal is keeping power and gaining glory by restoring the old ussr back and then some. The fact that it is done by using the criminal element as well as the regular army just shows how unprepared the dictator is.

... and can say that the question, "how does the luminosity of type Ia supernovae depend on redshift?" is a very, very complex one. The number of factors which come into play is large (metallicity, age of the binary system, extinction in the local environment, extinction in the intergalactic environment, corrections for photometric calibration as a function of redshift, etc.), and it's easy to fall into the trap of finding one correlation that seems to explain everything.

I'll add that it's particularly easy, in my opinion, for theorists to fall into this trap.

if they can generate most of their electricity by wind, why is their electricity so expensive? you would think with so many energy sources, competition would be fierce and they would get cheaper energy

the Germans occupied Ukraine, actually occupied the house of one of my grandfather. What is your stupid point?

No, he chose war in Europe, this is the next step for putin. You didn't really think the ruzzian murderers that make up their armed forces will be allowed to return back to the motherland alive, did you? The next target is Estonia or Latvia, then Poland and the rest will follow. Regardless what anyone thinks, ruzzia has learned to fight the next type of war and nobody is ready for this except for one nation, that is holding the orcs - Ukraine.