A few minutes of inconvenience? Most people don't live inside an airport -- I live 90 minutes (longer during commute hours) from the nearest major airport where I can schedule an interview, so it takes most of the day to drive out there and home again (with cushion to allow for traffic delays)

How did you come to this conclusion? What's the *actual* value of having the in-person interviews? Are there any studies showing the value?

Why should most Americans be forced to buy software or pay someone to file their taxes at all when the government already knows how much they owe?

Only 15% 13 1040EZ, 29% file 1040A. The rest file 1040 long form and I'd bet that nearly all of them pay for software or a preparer.

Don't forget about Global Entry too -- I don't see the value in having to make an appointment to go to the airport and have 5 minute in-person interview with an agent. Why can't it be a zoom interview. It's not even clear why they do an interview at all rather than just relying on the background check - do they think that I've managed to hide my felony conviction in my records, but will slip up and admit to a felony conviction during the interview? Seems more like a job-creation program for federal border agents.

"We have no idea how to build a stable power grid for Texas, but hey, cryptocurrency should do it - blockchain is the answer to everything!"

It's a stretch to call Qualcomm a supplier since they are completely fabless, they can't make a single chip themselves -- they don't make money from 5 or 10 year old proven designs, they make money from new cutting edge designs, so of course that's what they want to push carmakers to.

Since this is supposedly a rare problem, I'm surprised that LG hasn't come up with a way to nondestructively check for the problem. Even if it means trucking a portable X-ray machines to dealers around the country to scan battery packs to look for the problem, that's gotta be cheaper than replacing them all. Though I guess they could use the recovered batteries for grid storage solutions with appropriate fire isolation.

If you wait until the hospitals fill up to wear a mask, then it's too late and a lot of people will die because they couldn't get a bed, at that point even a full lockdown will take weeks to slow the the infections.

I have never once infected someone with a gunshot by not wearing a bulletproof vest. My doctor even claims it's impossible (if you're one of the sheep that believes in doctors), bullets don't just spontaneous burst from someone's chest the way viral particles are spread by infected people.

What studies? I tried to find them and I can't.

I don't wear a mask to keep myself out of the hospital, I wear a mask so if I *do* become infected, I don't spread it to someone who hasn't been vaccinated or they didn't develop an immune response to the vaccine, or to someone who was vaccinated and has a breakthrough infection that turns out to be one of the rare serious breakthrough cases.

But, then I also put my shopping cart in the cart area.

Surgical masks are not N95 masks and are cheap and readily available. They didn't include N95 respirators in their tests.

I don't know what 3rd world country you live in, but there's no shortage of surgical masks in the USA, in a 10 second google search, I found a half dozen vendors selling ASTM/FDA certified surgical masks -- You can buy them by the thousand and get them overnighted if you want to.

Surgical masks do not need to be changed every 2 hours.

You do realize that some workers have to wear a mask all day long and somehow they survive? I think you can spend an hour at the mall with a mask. Those people that have to wear a mask include health care workers to have to help COVID patients die more comfortably because much of the country is unwilling to undergo the minor inconvenience or wearing a mask or take a vaccine that hundreds of millions of other people have already taken.

You've clearly never been to a Jimmy Buffet concert

Depends how many layers of fabric you're breathing through, but single layer bandanas have performed very poorly in tests:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/1...

Surgical masks are readily available now (even genuine FDA approved ones), so wear one of those under your bandana for better protection -- or better, wear an N95 mask.