> saying they found 'signs' of alien life, and it never is.

Until we get samples back to Earth labs, we can't really tell. It's just speculation at this point.

The arguments over the meteorite AH-84001 are certainly interesting, but we need "fresher" samples.

since the 1970's Viking missions. Nobody will really know until we get samples back on Earth. (I hope we have immunity if a lab leak.)

The Viking landers detected what look like circadian rhythms, where organisms have an internal clock to optimize metabolism to fit daily temperature swings. The pattern of the rhythm fading over time when kept a constant temperature, and after being baked fit the pattern of certain Earth microbes. But "funny chemistry" can't be ruled out. Mars is a tease.

> Large cars, have been around for a long damn time

The big 70's-and-earlier cars were mostly sedans. While it was hard to see short people directly in front, the side-angle view was better than the SUV boats because sedans are lower to the ground. I used to drive a big sedan (not by choice). Thus, not really comparable.

I think you mean Detroit & Big Oil lobbied & bribed the gov't to make fuel rules that favor building big vehicles to keep foreign SUV competition out.

It's called "crony capitalism".

My 4-cylinder SUV has a big blind-spot at the edges of the front window, almost a foot wide. I realize it needs a thick roll-bar there, but such a bar shouldn't be any wider than say 3 inches, 3.5 with a cover over it. Part of the clutter is devoted to the side mirrors, but many cars put the stem lower than the mirror itself; not this car. Dumb design.

As far as tall hoods, it's probably a macho esthetics thing. People are dying for male vanity. 'Murica!

The advantage of small reactors is that (in theory) you could build a plant with 20 or so of them. This would make them less expensive because they would all share the support infrastructure. The reason this would be less expensive than a single big reactor is that they can be individually shut down for maintenance, so a SMR that only works 50% of the time is useful, while a big reactor has to work 99.9% of the time. Obviously as you stated they also have to make SMRs work at all and at a price that is less than 1/20 of a big reactor, which has not been proven yet.

The fantasy that towns would put a single SMR in their town square or a data center will put it in their basement are just that, fantasies. But clusters could be a deal changer for nuclear.

Trump = "Undemocratic Socialist"

It's transaction fees that are the problem with credit cards.

"Now that same mob has blocked me for trying to bring an intellectually diverse group of thinkers and editors to the site," Translation: "That mob blocked my mob!!!!". Sorry he lost me there, I was sympathetic earlier, but he blew it with that.

Big-Brother-NIMBYism: "Spy on those other people*, not ME!"

* Who have less political bribing power

After the buses return to the depot, the transportation authority would archive the regular video footage on a local server for up to five years.

Why the hell five years?

It's not mutually exclusive. They fluff each other.

and die for Bibi

lets the other side control when to turn it off. If they flake or go rogue, you are left holding the bag.

...Like their opinion is supposed to control our democracy?