Depends somewhat on the area in question, but many apartment buildings/complexes have large parking lots which could have large solar canopies installed strategically throughout them to both provide shade, weather protection and power. That said solar/wind/batteries are only a part of the solution to our energy needs, these kinds of microgrids will NEED other sources to cover lulls in solar/wind production such as hydro, fossil, hydrogen, nuclear, etc (either local or national grid based) baring some kind of amazing breakthrough in battery technology.

"Actually, criminalizing homelessness makes the problem worse."

And so does doing nothing about it (at least after attempting low level fixes). As you noted there are a myriad of measures that should be taken such as BASIC housing, mental health programs, etc but eventually if all of that fails you need something at the end to deal with the individuals who are unwilling/unable utilize those programs, such as incarceration/institutionalization. The main problem is that many have a misconception that the homeless are that way due to a lack of money/opportunities, when more often it is due to deeply ingrained mental health/drug/general behaviour problems. If you simply gave a normal home to an average homeless person it would be destroyed within a month with a pile of dirty dishes a plugged toilet, holes in the walls and broken/sold appliances. It is unfortunately often a long and difficult process to bring them back into society, though a worthy one at least where possible. But where it isn't long term incarceration/institutionalization needs to be an option.

"Will Tech Layoffs Trigger a Wave of Unionization?"

Only if those unions are planning to not exist, along with their host business, in a few years. Unions CAN have a positive effect under limited circumstances. Such as when a strong business is exploiting its position (usually a monopoly / duopoly) to unfairly suppress the labour market. However when it is a struggling business, either due to business/industry specific issues or an overall economic downturn, the only thing unionization does is hasten the collapse of the business.

I tried to grab some random "midsize sedan" numbers in both EV and ICE categories, I can't remember the exact ones I used but I think I tried to give the EV category the a little handycap (the numbers were trending towards 5000 but I knocked it down to 4500). If you want some harder numbers the F150 Lightning (6500/4700: 3.6) Silverado (8000/5000: 6.5) Fiat 500 (3100/2400: 2.78) and MINI (3900/3000: 2.8) all come in EV and ICE versions that can be directly compared. You might want to look into your own bias if you are getting a number as unbelievably low as 1.2.

https://www.greencarreports.co...
https://www.axios.com/2023/04/...

I didn't say that EV cars are heavier than ICE Trucks, I said that EVs are heavier than ICEs, obviously intending to compare them to their equivalents (Sedan EV to Sedan ICE, SUV EV to SUV ICE). That is what the numbers I noted are roughly based on. While it is correct that that heavy trucks (semi truck) don't pay an equivalent to their road wear, they are providing a vital function. They're transporting vast amounts of the materials (food, goods, parts, etc) that keep society functioning. They're also paying far higher insurance, fuel costs (and thus fuel taxes) & registration fees (it seems to be thousands of dollars on average). Given that society would grind to a halt and people would starve without them I think they can be given a break on at least their road wear.

Your $100 doesn't take into account that EVs are substantially heavier than ICE vehicles and thus do significantly more damage to the roads. Using the road damage formula ((W1/W2)^4) the average EV does 3.4 times the damage vs the average ICE vehicle ((4,500/3,300)^4). By that metric the Texas fee seems rather reasonable.

It has been a pretty common argument by people on the left in the past to demand SUV/Truck owners get higher fees due to them be heavier and thus damaging the roads more. Tesla cars (4.5k-5.1k lbs) for example are practically the same weight as a sizable truck/suv (4k-5.7k lbs). And the damage done to roads isn't linear, its cubed so a little more weight does a lot more damage. Comparing a sedan to a semi for example (from below link) having a vehicle that is only 5 times the weight per axle does 625 times the damage per axle (2500 times in total due to more axles).

https://www.insidescience.org/...
https://www.sfchronicle.com/ca...

To be fair it is widely believed that NASA always wanted two landers, as evidenced by the Commercial Cargo and Commercial Crew contracts both choosing two contractors. Its just that Congress didn't give them the money for two so they were "forced" to go with the most capable of them (Lunar Starship). Though as you say, after the cabal of defence contractors wasn't chosen, Congress suddenly came up with the money. I would also suggest that it is more likely that Bezos is the one using the defence contractors as a hood ornament in an attempt to guarantee wining the contract, and if that is the case in a way it succeeded though not as decisively as desired (they did have to trim a few billion from their bid).

I must be missing something, where are the engines on Blue Origins lander? Given the screeching about how dangerous starship would be with its engines kicking up regolith they can't be at the bottom can they? I don't even know if you could fit some appropriate rocket engines in the sliver of space between the crew cabin and the surface. On the plus side its nice that they brought down their price to something more reasonable and the design does have crew surface access that is easier compared to starship. However it still has FAR less capabilities than starship. The claim that they'll be landing a prototype of one on the moon next year is also rather laughable coming from a company that has yet to even attempt an orbital launch.

I thought one of the selling points of solar was that it is so cheap that it didn't make sense to run/build anything other generation source anymore? And the summary mentions that many of these areas ALREADY HAVE POWER in the form of gasoline generators, SO WHY THE FUCK WOULD THEY SWITCH? Oh, because some activist groups gave them away (or heavily subsidized them anyway). That's great for now, but what happens in 5-10 years when the activists/donors loose interest and the battery packs fail. I may be crazy, but I'd prefer a solution that the villagers themselves can maintain (financially and/or technically) rather than one dependent on a constant flow of cash/equipment from activists whose whims/standards could change in a matter of months.

"Hawaii and New Zealand are developed countries"

That's my point.... If more developed remote areas with median incomes +14 times higher than Indonesia can't/won't utilize solar for their primary electrical generation how is a remote Indonesian fishing village going to. As I pointed out in my other two examples I'm not even suggesting that a non-renewable source (coal/gas/oil) should be used but another renewable source (wind/hydro) as they are a much more cost effective and potentially utilize cheaper local resources (elevation) instead of expensive internationally sourced materials (batteries). In both cases you'll need some components from more developed areas but some alternators/pipes/turbine blades/impellers are a LOT cheaper than batteries/charge controllers/inverters/solar panels per watt generated.

If solar was such a good solution why aren't Hawaii (80% fossil), New Zealand (55% Hydroelectric), Haiti (70% fossil) and other island regions running mostly on it already? The solar panels themselves may be cheap but storing the power for them for nighttime usage is far from. You are much better with wind/hydroelectric and keeping generators as backup. Depending on your topography you MAY be able to do a solar/pumped storage combination but again, even regions with the topography haven't rushed to do so suggesting that there are issues with it. I look forward to the day when I can put up a bunch of solar panels and tell my utility to take a hike, but the costs are in the tens of thousands of dollars for a relatively modest setup for a single residence. How is a small community in a remote area coming up with that kind of money not only for the initial setup but for the battery replacements (the most expensive part) every 10-20 years?

I think Bigelow is done at this point, and while the pandemic may have helped their demise I doubt it was the primary thing that brought them down. They seemed to be having trouble before it and while they managed to launch some interesting hardware (two partial test articles and a small demonstrator for the ISS) they weren't getting much actual traction (contracts). Even with all of the testing/hardware they've had other companies are developing their own inflatable modules instead of buying them off of Bigelow which suggests to me there are either design or cost issues with Bigelows modules.

Because they don't even show as a rounding error on emissions statistics. Even picking the largest rocket in existence (starship) and assuming a worst case scenario (failure on the pad) it's methane emissions would only be 0.005% of the global emissions per year. Nineteen of them would have to FAIL on the pad every year to even reach 0.1% of global emissions. If successful their direct emissions are water, oxygen, CO2 and negligible amounts of Nitrous oxide. Other rockets produce nastier stuff to be sure, but they are also much smaller so their emissions are even less significant.

This has to be a drop in the bucket compared to virtually every other source (Clothing 35%, Tires 28%, Cities 24%, Road Markings 7%, Marine Coatings 4%, Personal Care 2%, etc ), and unlike those widely distributed sources these fairly centralized sources are probably very solvable. Even if filtering isn't totally effective a closed/nearly closed system should be possible where "wastewater" from the plant is eliminated/minimized. Namely by an onsite treatment plant that removes removes most of the contaminants from the water which then can be put back into the recycling plant. I think an industrial park in my area does the something like that with the water used in machining equipment.