I continue to use burned DVDs for backing up the critical stuff. Not perfect, of course, but not electromechanically-failure prone like a hard disk drive, not "terms of service" failure prone like cloud storage, and not "the charge magically held in the gate leaked away" failure prone. I have optical discs over 25 years old which are still perfectly readable.

My sample size was small (just a couple), but it decided me not to trust SSDs for backup even though everyone on Slashdot said I should trust them. What I'm afraid is that portable USB drives will start being main with SSDs rather than spinning rust without bothering to tell me.

Not a good idea, but you could try paper tape.

Interesting statistic. I haven't tried the drug, so my response is due to the results I've read reported. I'm a bit surprised that it's as high as 1/4.

The most common side effect I've seen reported is nausea. Sometimes that can lead to vomiting, but it doesn't usually.

Why would he feel inadequate when, according to a trustworthy source, he's a better boxer than Mike Tyson, fitter than LeBron James, hotter than Tom Brady, one of the top minds in history with a near-Olympian physique, the world's best runway model, better at resurrection than Jesus, the world's best bottom (ahem) (cough) and the ultimate throat goat?

Sooner or later, we'll end up at the point where trying to maintain the ways of the past is a fruitless fight. Teachers' jobs are no longer going to be "to teach" - that that's inevitably getting taken over by AI (for economic reasons, but also because it's a one-on-one interaction with the student, with them having no fear of asking questions, and that at least at a pre-university level, it probably knows the material a lot better than the average teacher, who these days is often an ignorant gym coach or whatnot). Their jobs will be *to evaluate frequently* (how well does the student know things when they don't have access to AI tools?). The future of teachers - nostalgia aside - is as daily exam administrators, to make sure that students are actually doing their studies. Even if said exams were written by and will be graded by AI.

They're passenger (and freight) trains. The rails were built for travel, not for scenic display.
OTOH, the sure aren't high speed rail. Most of the lines were build over 50 years ago.

OTOH, the BART example was for a "high speed train", though I believe the speed is limited underground. But the rise is from perhaps two or three stories below ground to about 1 story above ground. That said, I believe that the rise is about 2-3 miles long, so it's not steep.

N.B.: I good system of automated taxis could do the job...but note "good system". Most places I've ever lived the taxis were both too expensive and to difficult to use to do the job.

A HSR network is really problematic without a really good local transit network. (One you can reasonably carry your baggage on.)

Sometimes using the highway ROW works, other times it doesn't. This partially depends on the design of the highways, and partially depends one whether they have the same destination. A train station under a section of elevated roadway can work well...but if you don't have that convenient elevated roadway things can get more difficult.

I can't even estimate costs, but they can get pretty high. (And sometimes it's easy.)

Since there are trains that go over the rocky mountains, I think that argument fails. (But it might succeed if you argue practicality rather than possibility.)

FWIW, The SFBay Area BART system has high speed trains that move from elevated to underground. It's not a steep grade, of course, but it's done. (IIRC "high speed" for the BART system is around 70 mph, and is only obtained on the long straight sections. Of course, my knowledge is multiple decades old.)

There are also real problems with sparsely available origin and destination points. And the cost of building the lines through developed areas.

If you build a good system, it will be more efficient for the areas that it serves. But rail transit has fixed routes. This makes it inflexible. And you really need to multi-track the rails, because breakdowns will occasionally happen.

FWIW, I feel that streetcars are much more plausible/effective/significant per unit cost than are high speed rails. High speed rail is useful AFTER you solve the local distribution problems.

Most geothermal heat plants aren't long term without repair for various different reasons. IIRC, internal fouling is one of the main reasons. This sounds like it might be a different approach, though of course you need a volcano to make it work.

Well, when you extract the heat from the rock it becomes less fluid.