I don't necessarily disagree with where you're going here, but can you elaborate on this:

I've worked at government contractors that had real air-gaps for things like their databases, but that does not seem to be the norm for the rest of the world. How would ordinary businesses make use of their databases if they are not network accessible under any circumstances, printed reports? Some sort of unidirectional transmission? What sort of data ingress are they using?

I ask this because I have been involved in the transfer of data in highly regulated, air-gapped systems, and they are incredibly expensive. Are you really indicating that true air-gap databases will be ubiquitous (or at least commonplace) in the forseeable future?

It's a cool idea and they stand for a lot of great ideals, but laptops are incredibly hard to get right, drivers are hard to get right, and they are a small team trying to support a large number of possible configurations. Hardware gets more complicated by the year: forget the CPU and various GPUs, just look at how many other devices in a modern computer have a full-on processor, e.g. fancy touchbars, displays, even hard drives! Hell, your CPU probably has its own secondary general-purpose processors for things like security, and our CPUs themselves get firmware updates now to change how their instructions function. They are doing great work, but the deck is so stacked against them that it's not funny.

Most space launch companies are inefficient and ineffective. SpaceX has the margin to pay these taxes, those unfortunates don't. If you want to kill competition in an industry, tax it enough that only the large corporations can survive the loss, and add some complicated regulations in for extra effect. No one else has anything close to what Starship may become, and further reduction in margins will ensure that SpaceX will have a defacto monopoly on non-military space launches while their competitors are strangled paying for FAA services that is disproportionately benefit owners of private jets and charter flights for the rich.

The idea that software not signed by some entity in the country that they represent is installed any high-level official's phone is absurd. How did the world get this way?

So it's essentially a radar distance-following system with a very accurate (you hope) map.

This is just unbelievably lame.

A Tesla can do those things - even without the self-driving option - but can do it on ANY road.

Add in the self-driving option, and it'll stop at stop lights and stop signs, handle lane changing to pass slow vehicles and to get into the right lane for turning and to avoid roadworks, adjust it's speed if the adjoining lane is going slowly,

My Tesla drove 3,600 miles across the USA and back - pretty much all by itself.

These map-following/distance-maintaining systems are obsolete by at least a decade...time to start pointing this out and not keep telling people that they are amazing new futuristic things.

With SpaceX claiming that they'll shortly be able to launch 100 to 150 tonne payloads into orbit for $2 million - it's time for astronomers to build more space telescopes. With a 9m diameter cargo bay - and with most of the world's greatest telescopes having between 8 and 10m optics - it's clear that a fully capable, fully modern scope could be put into orbit for comparable construction cost to a similar device stuck on a mountain-top in the Atacarma desert (or whatever). They'll soon be able to do that without the need to fold the mirror (a'la James Webb) and without any compromises on mirror diameter. Furthermore, having high bandwidth satellite data streams from the very systems that the astronomers are complaining about - they'll be able to get better use from these machines. No light pollution, no seismic vibration issues, no dust on your optics, no atmospheric twinkling, etc, etc.

Just imagine a version of Hubble with a 9m mirror instead of it's present 2.4m...about ten times the light capturing ability.

Do that - and allow the very low Earth orbit to be used for the greater good of mankind.

This can easily become a win/win proposition...it's just a matter of the interested parties on both sides of the issue getting together to cooperate rather than fighting each other.

So the air is unbreathable and would kill you. The pressure will kill you. The concentrated acid rain will kill you. There's no food or water. The day/night lengths are unbearable - and that, combined with the cloud cover, makes solar power useless... ...and you're worried about a few immensely active volcanoes?

MYTH: Bitcoin is anonymous.

It certainly isn't - it's fairly easy to watch the IP addresses in the block chain - and you can (by design) follow the long chain of transactions leading to any particular money transfer.

Anyone with enough computer resources and the right software can determine who is paying who what.

We're pretty much a "cashless society" now - I haven't had actual cash in my wallet for more than two years. This is all very convenient - and drives online sales and so forth. But the GIGANTIC problem is that we're now (though higher prices) paying those credit card companies at least a few percent of everything we earn.

For doing what? Moving some numbers around inside a computer. That's an egregious amount of the economy - for doing something that's ridiculously easy.

So it makes sense to have the issuer of "money" (the treasury) handle the shuffling of numbers as a non-profit...and have people only use credit cards when they ACTUALLY need credit.

So it makes sense to have the government (or the treasury) set up a system of digital currency that's not providing "credit" but is cheap (or perhaps even free) for use when you're only shuffling money around.

This would also eliminate the business of cryptocurrency mining - money could be created in just the same was that coins and banknotes are...without all of the egregious amounts of power consumption, etc.

Done with care and with serious attention to security - this could be a very good thing.

So if you have your own solar panels - and you are "grid-tied" as most people are... Then your excess generating capacity is fed to the utility company to pay down your bills, So now you're a renewable energy provider...do you become liable to under this law?

And in other news: multiplying by ten is preferred over tenth-roots.

I've been using this site for over twenty years, and it's a been most of a decade since I've commented. This is the best thing I've seen on here since then. Whatever you do, keep drumming up the fight against ignorance and propaganda, and the people who've fallen victims of it. I don't want to get personal, but lets just say that I know from intimate experience what brainwashing does to a person, and the tremendous cost of clawing one's way out of it. Division in modern society is inevitable--and we must fight against those who seek to destroy rational thought!--but without empathy for those infected by bad ideas, shortchanged by their personal experiences, we'll end up punishing and alientating those victimized by bad actors exploiting cognitive vulnerabilities that every one of us has, we will push them out of sheer self-defense into voting in the people who will undo us.

So...you grab your two kiddie car seats and one booster seat - and you call you RoboTaxi. You fart around for 10 minutes installing the car seats - you ride five minutes to the child care place - remove the car seats again - drop your kids off, then carry two car seats and a booster seat and call another RoboTaxi. Now you have to go to work...well, I guess you can stuff the car seats under your desk while you work...then, on the way home, more car seat installing and uninstalling. If you want to stop at the store and pick up diapers- where do you put the car seats while you go around the store?

Honestly - this can't work for a very large percentage of the population.

When you think about the REALITY of taking a cab everywhere - it can get VERY challenging.

In truth, the very concept of "source code" ceases to exist with AI. You have a blank AI - just a billion 0.5 weights...then you train the crap out of it and you have a billion random-looking numbers. That's it...that's all you have, There simply isn't any source code to share.

5 is already true for Cruise - it can only self-drive on US freeways & tollways.

9 is edging towards truth with Tesla where "One pedal driving" takes some getting used to - and "Cruise Control" is entirely different. Even worse, you sometimes need to re-learn after a software update!