The military implications are obvious. Think Ukraine. If you suspect the enemy is trying to infiltrate on a dark night along several kilometers of frontline, you light up the scene while launching a bunch of low-cost FPV drones, and those infiltrators are about to have a bad day.

You *can* spot infiltrators in the dark with IR cameras, but it requires much more expensive drones and isn't usually as effective, hence the preference for night operations. Plus, there's IR camouflage, with varying degrees of success. But it usually makes you stand out like a sore thumb under illumination (you're basically wearing a tent).

This is a small prototype, not a full-scale mirror.

Also, ignoring that, pretending light brighter than the full moon is useless is... silly? For generating power, sure, but for illumination, it absolutely is not.

The endless scroll is predatory at every moment.

It even reloads when you stop for a while. Switch to a different tab, do something else for five minutes, come back - it reloads and refreshes everything. Why? Because that activates a primal fear in your brain that you're losing something, missing something that might've been important, so your instinct is to NOT divert your attention elsewhere.

In theory I would agree, but the issue here is that social media platforms intentionally compromise your ability to make decisions. That's what the addictive pattern is all about. You could at any moment decide to stop scrolling and get back to work or life - but everything in there is designed so that the decision is made for you and bypasses any critical thinking paths in your brain.

And while I'm the first to agree the politicians are sleazebags and are the first ones that need much tougher regulation and laws, it's a fact that laws in this area actually do work. Anti-smoking laws have reduced smoking, for example.

Someone hasn't flown in a while.

I don't click the cheapest price. What happened is that the major airlines have copied some (not all) of the budget airline shit. Luggage used to be included, now it's an extra - which causes people to bring carry-on to the max instead, which leads to the overhead compartments always being full.

Yeah, good point. No, wait, that's complete bullshit.

I've taken a number of trips on business class in the past years. What you get in business class today is what you got in economy class 20, 25 years ago.

You know what, you may actually be right if you compare multi-thousand halfway-around-the-world intercontinental flights. I've never flown to Australia, so I can't compare that. I'm talking about shorter flights (a few hours) which I do frequently and where I can compare. We might both be right.

The $5K a year just gives you a $300 per person per visit discount. So pays itself back in 15 visits or so.

The detachment you describe is fleeting, at best, in this example.

Sure, they arrive at a separate terminal, they enjoy a shorter TSA line, and they can spend some time in a more private, less crowded area UNTIL they need to board their commercial flight - then they board a shuttle, travel across the runways, then disembark and walk the regular terminal to get to the gate where they wait to board their commercial flight just like everyone else.

This terminal is targeted at the traveling salesman that can expense the $5K/year membership - this is not a service for billionaires (they fly private) or celebrities, this is for guys with expense accounts.

Even if you paid the $5K for this terminal, you wouldn't avoid any of the things you complain about - you board the plane from the same gate as everyone else, and you are still flying commercial - you just have a nicer place to wait and a shorter TSA line. Oh, and maybe snacks.

This terminal is nothing more than a perk SFO can offer that traveling salesmen based in SF can expense - this is not a rarified community of billionaires avoiding the less-affluent - at the end of the day they are taken from this membership lounge to the terminal where they can walk to their gate and wait in line to board the plane just like they did before the new subscription terminal was built.

This idea stopped making sense as soon as they said the premium terminal they are proposing will be on the other side of the runways from the existing terminal - I have to board a shuttle to get to my gate for my commercial flight? No thanks, I'll just get a PreCheck or whatever they call it and spend less time at TSA. Rather than spend $5K on a membership I'll go to the over-priced bar and wait for my flight...

What are you talking about - this private terminal is for folks that can't/don't fly private - this isn't the billionaire class, this is the "I convinced my boss to buy me this perk because I travel out of SF so often" class, wage slaves, not masters of industry.

It's $5K/year to have a separate TSA line, a smaller, more comfortable waiting area, then a shuttle service to take them to the very gate they paid $5K/year to avoid.

While the private TSA line may be a time saver, I suspect the shuttle across the tarmac to the terminal to make your flight removes any illusion of "saving time" or being more convenient.

You do realize this terminal services commercial flights, not private planes, right?

You get to avoid long TSA lines, you wait in a premium lounge, but then you hop on a shuttle and get taken to the gate for your commercial flights, where you wait to board along with everyone else... seems like more hassle than convenience, a real premium to avoid long TSA lines...

So... ordinary airport before enshitification ?

Air travel used to be pretty cool. Now absolutely every part of it is annoying. Especially the booking and its 25 upsale offers.

A few years more of this and you'll have to book business just to get a seat and fresh air.

Plenty of us nerds can afford this and want to see news about this.

That is NOT my experience.

It is not the case that more than half ("most people") run Linux on non-Apple laptops, at least not anywhere I see large groups of people with laptops.

Of course, I am gainfully employed outside the conventional IT industry, so my interactions with others doesn't skew towards "code monkey" working "in the valley" which is a bit different than my experience in corporate America in flu-over country.