Think of VR like a concept car or Haute Coture.

Cutting-edge implementations with new ideas don't ALL get adopted, but parts might, and those parts do enrich what we're doing.

Just think of all the UI improvements and 'distant concept' frameworks since HTML 1.0 and UIUC Mosaic. I've got county charts/maps overlaid with GIS data, dashboard widgets in workplace apps, virtualized management interfaces for ICS/SCADA systems. Zoom is becoming a click-to-videochat function on user service portals and retail, and virtualized walkthroughs of museums, virtual concerts, etc. Fam is looking at houses 1000 miles away, and I have a hierarchy of which realtors I like, based on whether they do 3d imagery or walkthroughs vs just photos. That said, I've been staring at VRML and broadcast protocols and their descendants for about 28 years and hoping.

Yeah, that made me laugh. Still, if we keep the exponents small enough, it might accidentally be true: $$ to the 1.009th power, the 1.081th, and so on...

You do realize that Banksy hides their identity, so options are limited to the above sorts of measures, right?

Reminds me of the atheism quote... Basically, you and I agree that we should be protected from data-mining, except for one detail: I just add one more country.

Daftest thing I've read today.

Let's see, you've suggested not utilizing: COTS, software libraries, OSX, Linux, Win, API functionality, commodity hardware, connectivity, **THE INTERNET**, videoconferencing (camera/mic). Tell me how a typical day's work for governmental/clerical staff will occur, by all means. Who'll write this code? Who'll keep anyone from pen-testing your fever-dream of government-proprietary apps once they're distributed to hundreds of thousands of staff systems?

And you admit to having been unsuccessful in blocking ransomware. Hmm.

Buyer didn't buy copyright. They bought a non-fungible token (NFT). Fungible is when an object can be replaced with another thing... any dollar works as good as any other dollar. A sixpack of beer is fungible. Lots and Lots of things are pretty fungible. But art and collectibles can have intrinsic, unique value.

You know how anyone can have a copy of the Mona Lisa, but there's just the one actual Mona Lisa? That's this idea.
You know how an artist can make and sign 250 limited edition prints? And how organizations authenticate them with COAs? That's this idea.
You know how celebs can partner with vendors and a COA authority to create signed memorabilia, and limit them (signed, numbered, COA)? Again, that's this idea.

This time around, the "proof" that the object is unique is the blockchain stuff.

Thank you. Perfect balance of snark and logic.

Um... Millenial doesn't start with Y. Gen X came after Boomer. There's literally NOTHING about any of this that says the gens are an alphabetic sequence once a name sticks. GenX. Got. Skipped.

Yes, although I'd challenge the word 'anymore'. Most people suck at balancing risk factors, and always have.

Granted, we collectively/as-nations suck more right now than 50-90 years ago, thanks to loud voices politicizing anti-science rhetoric for partisan gain. And lest anyone think I'm bashing the right, calls for banning Roundup herbicide don't fit any research results (yet).

^^^ This.

We can know the facts of XYZ, and possess the engineering skill for a problem, but be incapable of sustainably keeping a life-sustaining space going for decades in hard vacuum. Say that again for 'economically incapable'. Say that again for getting there and failing on arrival (cargo cult, insurvivable planets, etc).

Decades or centuries in deep space are big 'unknown unknowns', to steal a line from Rumsfeld.

I count puzzles 0 through 10 as 11. The inventory also miscounts the number of .jpg puzzles (2), so I suspect they're counting the key for puzzle 9 as the 12th item.

My favorite comment is the one that says they've solved #12, with a little trouble. Ouija board difficulty, I'm guessing.

(yeah, I know. Nobody reads the article. )

> Furthermore, bluntly: If having and recovering from COVID-19 does not confer immunity, then the COVID-19 vaccines are worthless.

Maybe. Maybe not. They're slightly different things. The coronavirus strains which have bypassed antibodies seem to do so via coronavirus' surface of different protein spikes confounding antibodies. Antibodies fail on matching their target enough to let the virus proliferate. (Note: I haven't seen evidence of this for COVID-19). This is a subtly different mechanism than whether the vaccine's generation of protein spikes will confer immunity.

Personally, my impression from the reported research and a billion infections matches all of your description except that 'if A then B is worthless'. Reinfection is too seldom. The vaccines work. Immunity is the norm for both infection or vaccine.

AltHistories I now want to watch: Dinosaur Space Program.

Ahh, that explains. I would agree with prev commenter on never having needing a brake fluid service, but I live in the desert.

> Can you run Doom on it?

Yes, as in 'while sitting atop the system, with any device that runs doom'.