People who complain about the federal tax credits for EVs seem to forget that the oil companies are highly subsidized by the federal government with tax credits. Take away the tax credits and your gasoline would cost a more than it does now.

Take away both the oil tax credits and the EV credits and see how it plays out.

I graduated from High School in 1969, so nobody's going to stop me from using ChatGPT for nefarious purposes. Today, I asked ChatGPT to write a 3-way dialog between Yoda, Dobby the House Elf and Gollum.

.

Dobby: Master, Dobby has come to serve you!

Gollum: Serve us, serve us, my precious!

Yoda: Serve you, Dobby should not. Balance, there must be.

Dobby: But Master, it is Dobby's job to serve!

Gollum: Serve us, serve us! We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious.

Yoda: Precious, hmm? Only lead to suffering, it does.

Dobby: Dobby does not understand, Master Yoda.

Gollum: Understands nothing, does it? Stupid elf.

Yoda: Angry, Gollum is. Fear and suffering, he carries.

Dobby: Oh dear, Master Gollum seems upset. Can Dobby get you anything? A nice fish perhaps?

Gollum: Fish! Give us the fish!

Yoda: Patience, Gollum. Patience is key.

Gollum: Patience, yes. We must have patience. But the fish, the fish! Cannot wait for the fish.

Dobby: Very well, Master Gollum. Dobby will go catch you a fish.

Yoda: No, Dobby. Fish for Gollum, catch not. Enough suffering, there has been.

Gollum: No fish! No fish! The elf tricked us!

Dobby: Oh no, Master Gollum! Dobby would never trick you. Perhaps some hobbit bread instead?

Yoda: Peace, there is. Sharing, there should be.

Gollum: Sharing! Yes, the precious can be shared. But the fish, the fish! That is ours, all ours.

Dobby: Oh dear, it seems we have a misunderstanding. Dobby is sorry.

Yoda: Apologize, not necessary. Learn, we all must.

Gollum: Yes, learn. But the fish, the fish! We wants it, we needs it.

Yoda: Enough, Gollum. Enough of the fish.

Gollum: But the fish!

Yoda: Control, Gollum. Control your obsession.

Gollum: Control, yes. We must have control. The precious, it is ours.

Dobby: Dobby is so sorry for the trouble, Masters. Dobby will leave now and let you two wise beings continue your discussion.

Yoda: Go in peace, Dobby. And remember, serve not for reward. Serve for the greater good.

Dobby: Thank you, Master Yoda. Dobby will remember.

Gollum: The fish, the fish! We must have it!

Yoda: Control, Gollum. Control.

systemd is a solution in search of a problem

I think it's very funny that on one hand we have people ranting on and on about how much better vinyl records are than digital recordings, and then we have people saying that Bluetooth is fine and doesn't degrade the sound. Lossy is lossy. Something is missing by definition. On the other hand, if what you're listening on is ear buds of any brand, or even those Bluetooth connected speakers from Apple, Sonos, Amazon or even Google, then you really aren't going to hear the difference. And that's not counting your choice of listening material either.

The thing you're hoping to hear better in higher quality audio are acoustic instruments and voices. Material that is electronic in origin - electric guitars, synthesizers, beat boxes, etc, have no reference against which to listen. Go to a live performance with such instruments and what you're hearing is the PA system, however it is engineered by the soundman through whatever PA gear he's stuck working with. The nuanced differences between Bluetooth and full rez Redbook will never be heard over earbuds or any Bluetooth loudspeaker if this is the material you're listening to.

People vote their wallets. *IF* the plant based "meat" were really close and it was significantly less costly, it would sell. You can't sell a fake meat product and charge more for it. If ground beef is $10/pound, then the plant stuff should be $6/pound, or less. Make it cheap enough and people will buy it.

Code ain't quite right.

$ goo='He sed'; echo -e $goo ; sed -e 's/He/She/g' $goo
He sed
sed: can't read He: No such file or directory
sed: can't read sed: No such file or directory

Perhaps you wanted to do this instead:

goo='He sed' ; echo -e $goo ; echo -e $goo | sed -e 's/He/She/g'

$ goo='He sed' ; echo -e $goo ; echo -e $goo | sed -e 's/He/She/g' He sed She sed

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Great statement. I like to phrase it as:

Belief is faith without evidence.

Essentially the same thing.

All of the Abrahamic religions present God as one who moves the levers, controlling everything at will and whim, rewarding the righteous and punishing the wicked. Theirs is a blood thirsty god as well. Just remember what happened in Jericho when the walls came a tumblin' down...

But that isn't the only possible notion of what God might be. Hinduism speaks of God as being infinite and unknowable. Buddhism steadfastly refuses to even discuss God. Many practitioners will tell you there is no God, but in truth, Buddhism in its original form simply refuses to discuss it, thus making the question to be irrelevant.

Taoism only speaks of The Tao - The Way, which is that everything has its own way in Nature. You might call The Tao as that ordering principle by which the universe is run. But then the Tao te Ching says that the Tao that can be named is not the true Tao, which brings us back to infinite and unknowable. The physical laws of the universe could be construed as being intrinsic to The Tao. There is much wisdom in the Tao te Ching that anyone, atheist, agnostic, or otherwise will find useful and practical, without having to accept any notion of God. It is essentially that the best path is to accept the world as it is, and allow yourself to be at peace.

That's what I've been hearing too. For the last 50 years...

For me the point of getting updates is to get all of the security patches. I couldn't care less about new features. I just want the damn thing to be fully patched to the latest rev for security reasons.

Yeah. I'm a boomer myself and remember the old hippie fear BS. Heck. I grew up in San Francisco and the Summer of Love was between my sophomore and junior years in high school. I was there when it was new. I remember the time when they were still being called "beatniks" before the label "hippie" came about.

But don't worry. Fusion reactors are less than 10 years away!

Regardless of the reactor design at Fukushima, the whole installation is a system composed of site designers, operators and location. You can't blow off the problem saying it was just human error. There's always going to be human error, negligence, neglect and corruption. Happens in every government, every company, every sports team. It's all part of the equation.

The thing that the hippie folks were rightly concerned with is that any serious failure is enormous. Both Chernobyl and Fukushima have made a mess that will take generations to clean up. Humans are part of the equation.

We can do better. We have to.

I'm not so sure that burying at sea is a great idea. I think the original notion of burying in geologically stable Nevada salt caverns was much better.

Bury at sea and what's to keep it from leaking into the ocean?

I think that fear is a driving emotion in humans and that we each get our own personal collection. The hippie left of the 60's etc, had their back to nature thing and fear of technology, nuclear in particular. There have been enough major accidents - Fukushima, Three MIle Island, Chernobyl - to warrant some of that fear.

I agree that the new designs bear promise and should be pursued. For me, the big question is getting some resolution to waste disposal because there is no agreed upon course of action yet. Technically we know what to do. Politically we don't and that's an issue.

I saw a Netflix special on Bill Gates and he spoke about new reactor designs such as you describe. For me the only caveat regarding nuclear power is that there is not yet a clearly defined way of disposing of the waste. NIMBY issues need to be settled. It's GOT to go SOMEWHERE.

I worked on the project back in the early 80's when I was at PG&E. What was unknown at the time of the plant siting, was that there was an earthquake fault just a mile or so off shore. The original design called for withstanding an 8.0 earthquake on the San Andreas fault, which was 30 miles away. It did need to be upgraded, but you're right about the cost of endless delay.