Ire aside, Mr. AC kindof proved my point for me. He went in with a chainsaw and got a working Twitter with 80% less staff. Twitter is, after all, just a website in the end - what do you need a huge amount of staff for?

In any case, Musk had the assumption, that most people have, that there must be huge amounts of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in government - because, well, because everyone just believes that. Without evidence. Which led directly to his wild claims about how much money he could save.

But in the end - and not for a lack of trying! - he couldn't come up with more than a pittance. And most of that highly contested.

I stand by my conclusion. Thank you AC for helping me prove it! I forgot about his gutting Twitter. Which is still functioning today, BTW.

Funny you should bring up DOGE. Musk, love him or hate him, you have to admit is effective. Moves fast and breaks things. Gets. Stuff. Done. Turned loose with a chainsaw (literally) to find and root out government fraud, waste, and abuse. With a team of unpaid (??) minions and unfettered access to quite literally everything, he spent weeks on end tearing everything apart to find inefficiencies.

And published his results. Many of which are debatable, a few maybe outright fabrication, some legit. BUT - giving him the benefit of the doubt - taking EVERY SINGLE PENNY of savings he claimed as true. In full. All of it. Given all that, it amounts to less than 1% of the government expenditures.

He singlehandedly proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the US government is AT LEAST 99% free of Fraud. 99%+ free of Waste. 99%+ free of abuse.

All I can say to that is... Thank you sir!

OK. They *were* encoded into the ledger - and now show as burned. Those 300T were absolutely NOT tied to any assets. Say someone - oh how about George Soros - buys 100 million in this stablecoin. What's to prevent the company that owns the ledger from being pressured or *ordered* by, oh, say, the Government, to "burn" George's coins. Only his. Poof! 100M gone.

Until they are regulated as strictly as a bank - or more strictly - and have legal options to push back against something like the above - I wouldn't trust them with a single dollar. Ever.

Yeah I called BS when I first read this too. Then, thinking about it some more I went to fetch my 1:1000 topological map of the pacific basin with all the underwater telecommunications cable routes overlaid..... Dang it! I *hate* when I misplace that thing.

Anyway, it is *possible* that 95% of the international traffic crossing the pacific runs through that on cable - assuming it has the bandwidth capacity for that - as the shortest hop across the pacific. Without it all that traffic is now routed around the edges of the pacific, or high over it (via satellite) instead. Perhaps with significant network delays.

I sport an iPhone 12 Mini - if these thieves steal my phone I may just get it back. They'll just probably toss it in a dumpster.

If I had to borrow a friend's car, and had a bad cold or the flu, I'd wear a mask while driving it. Just to be considerate. Or even MY OWN CAR if my wife or kids use it too.

What do you mean it didn't translate anything? The Rosetta Stone was a tablet with the identical passage carved into multiple languages. A direct translation of the same set of 'words'. Sure as heck fits my definition of a translation.

So tech that translates quantum oscillations (which digital computers can't do anything with) to "clean digital-like discrete states" (which digital computers are all over) sounds like a pretty close analogy to me.

Mr Wombat, you forgot to add "*across the ENTIRETY of the federal government of 1 million+ workers*"

Proof positive that any and all outlandish claims of waste and fraud in the federal government are utterly false.

When one of the most ruthless and successful businessmen in history (regardless of how you may feel about him personally, you got to give him that) can't make more than a 0.1% dent in the federal government expenditures [and not from lack of trying, that's for sure!] then the only conclusion a rational person can make is that the federal budget is screwed down pretty damn well.

Yeah, but they never let me practice! I've asked! They just say "No!".

Absolutely! "Feed Stock" is an important part of our multi-layered insurance vs. famine. That we have food that has a "plan B" helps make sure that, no matter what, we can feed all the people. If things go bad, or worse, livestock may suffer, or may be culled sooner than before, but it helps make sure we have enough for people to eat (here AND abroad). So I heartily approve of "cattle feed" grain. As should you.

I bet you can *easily* tow a boat 300+ miles with an EV - at 20-25 mph.

No and No. It's like "He waited his whole darn life to take that flight, and as the plane crashed down he thought - "Well, isn't this nice?""

Ironically, that may be the only irony in the whole song.

How does one use a single atom as a "slit"? Isn't this just bouncing single photons off of single atoms? Or "grazing" them? How does that relate to a double slit in any way? Or generate diffraction gradients?

Pounding it into the collective psyche, and going the extra mile for metric accuracy!

I don't see that at all - it was an iron-clad guarantee that the US would step in.... by bringing motions to the UN Security Council. I have not doubt whatsoever that the US ambassador to the UN made a vigorous resolution to aid Ukraine when it was invaded. Exactly what we said we would do! And nothing more.

And, since it was Russia that invaded, they Vetoed any and all resolutions brought before the UN. After the Korean war Russia will NEVER boycott or not attend a UN Security Council meeting again.