Also, to preempt any pedantic response, yes, I'm aware that Cray computers are still very much a thing. But, using the phrase "Cray computers" as the epitome of computing power is very much a thing of the 1990s and before.

Hah, now see, I left some keywords in my last post you would have picked up on if had done national security work (at least connected to one of the bigger players).

That Wikipedia page is severely out of date. For instance, it quotes Hayden as NSA director talking about "Cray" computers. Hayden hasn't held a position in maybe 20 years, and his last position was as DCIA! US Intel is very, very aware of the computational and hacking abilities of China, North Korea, and others.

We pay you to pay us, we're now doing Trillions!

So surely companies are going to line up and donate right . . . . right?

It always sounds like a lot of money to the bean counters until you explain to them the station probably spent tens of millions of dollars producing that content, and all it takes is a corporate meltdown or technical SNAFU and all of it is gone.

lol, do you not know how public broadcasting works?

> Indeed. The Chinese also know that publishing a story about a found backdoor in their software would be a great exploit for the US and hence they know that the US is looking. Strangely, nothing has been found so far. Or rather very obviously, nothing has been found and the whole thing is nothing but lies.

Or maybe, just maybe, when the Chinese AND the Americans IC agencies find exploits and backdoors in the other's countries, they keep them quiet and monitor, save for later, watch other people exploit, etc.

Maybe, when 3-letter agencies in McClean and elsewhere catch incursions, they monitor them closely, analyze their tactics and techniques, and contain. It's a pretty Byzantine system, but that's modern spycraft.

It's not a remotely level playing field. One soldier who took part in the Venezuela raid basically had orders in hand when he placed multiple bets on the timing of the raid, netting a ton of money. There have been many other examples of inside information being used to stack the odds.

This is absolutely not true. There are plenty of people in the financial side of a business that have information that is material but non-public, and trading based on that knowledge is illegal, including sudden cuts in spending, audit results prior to publication, and more. HR will be aware of major layoffs. Facilities might be aware of impending site closures before they're announced. All these things can be used for insider trading.

Lower-level people aren't usually pursued because they're small enough to fly under the radar. But that doesn't mean it's not illegal, and it doesn't mean it never happens.

Yes, but has your main account ever been suspend before or banned on a sub?

Family member who lives there is a Environmental Studies professor. He uses his own trash/garbage pickup as a case study for students to calculate vehicle wear+tear, ROAD wear+tear, impact on traffic through the area, transportation-related CO2 emissions, and so forth.

Not that it's a shocker, but yeah, tl;dr, privatizing garbage is a ridiculously bad idea.

Hah--funny! No, needless to say, they do not. I have had a sticker put on my rolling recycle bin before saying that it was picked for a random inspection to make sure we're only putting recyclables in there, and threatening fines and penalties, but that's it.

I also read up on my city's solid waste quarterly reports, and the vast majority of what goes in recycle bins ends up going to a landful. It's a pitiful fraction, especially for plastics. So, I just through those away. I do dispose of some kinds of batteries and other ewaste specially.

Single stream recycling is about 90% performative theater. Other kids of recycling are like 80% performative.

It's very common outside of suburban and urban areas. I like in a large suburban/urban area and I have to go to the dump for certain kinds of waste (batteries, UPSes, eWaste, etc). We have municipal compost/recycling/yard waste/trash.

Also pretty common in mountainous areas to take your waste either to a transfer station or a dump.

I have relatives in Minnesota, in the Twin Cities. They have to buy private trash and recycling service. The end result is every week 3-4 different "brands" of recycling trucks go rumbling down their small area, and 3-4 trash trucks do the same.

Oh, I thought you were just using this as another excuse to rant about Apple and Trump and your usual list of things. Forgive my confusion.

If you find that confusing, that's totally fine with me! It's a nice service to have around, either way.

"VPN for normies" -- as I said, in iCloud Private Relay word, Safari is a special citizen with hiding IPs and using its own DNS, etc. It's a "VPN for normies" who don't have a full VPN.