You're overthinking things. You don't care about the riff-raff who hang out in the Lil' Ale'inn. You make it seem like it's easy to get a janitorial job at the facility and monitor the heck out of those who apply. Also any government workers whom seem over-eager to get their hands on documentation coming out of the site, which is all, also, disinformation, so who cares if any other country gets it.

"UFO" balloons aren't to monitor aircraft. They are to test air defense radar. How good an enemy's radar is at picking up specific signatures, say roughly cruise-missile-like, is much more useful information than aircraft capability.

I'm confusing what you want and don't want to be upwind/downwind of :)

I think it has less to do with that, and more to do with using UFOs as a disinformation campaign.

Want a cheap way to flush out spies? Leak that we have alien technology, say it's in a warehouse in the desert, and wait to see who starts poking around.

Want a cheap way to test air defense radar? Make a weirdly shaped mylar balloon that has been profiled using your own radar. Fill it up with helium and launch it downstream from a sensitive military site. Wait to see how long it takes for them to scramble fighters to check it out. All you need is a balloon, a tank of helium, and a radio you can buy online for $50.

The best analogy I can come up with, is the producers think if you like eating a small plate of chili cheese fries, you are going to love eating an entire chafing tray full of them. Sometimes you only want a bit of something. Then maybe a nice salad, or a baked potato. Then you go back to chili cheese fries later.

Is kinda goofy.

1998- MSN Everything!
2002 - XP Everything!
2005 - Live Everything!
2012 - Metro Everything!
2016 - XBox Everything!
2023 - Copilot Everything!

Not everything needs to be one thing.

Only a few manufacturers can, and some states have laws saying you must sell through a dealership.

As for buying through the manufacturer's website, it depends on what you are doing. You can configure a car and see if there is one in stock by you, in which case you can haggle with the dealership over price. If you order a custom build from the manufacturer, they will probably charge you full price, and you'll still have to pick it up from a dealership and have all those fees tacked on.

Deals from the dealership usually come from them trying to offload specific models, trims, or colors that aren't selling well. Sometimes car companies will pay dealerships to get them off of their lots to make room for more profitable or better selling vehicles. You can get some of that cash, but the dealership will try to keep as much of it as they can. If they are offering $500 off, ask for $1000, for example, because they are probably getting $1500 from the manufacturer.

ZoneAlarm used to be the go-to for this. Kinda like the NoScript browser extension for internet connections. Everything is blocked until you explicitly allow it. It used to be pretty comprehensive, but I don't know how much of the network it can control, as I know Microsoft has been disallowing easy network control access to 3rd parties since Windows 10.

Whom is pumping bitcoin? The New York Times? The journalist? Do they have significant positions in bitcoin?

What is the purpose of these articles? We think so-and-so is Satoshi. They deny it. Now what? I guess the NYT gets some clicks, but I don't see what useful information there is here.

My Kindle 3rd gen can read mobi, prc, azw, and PDFs you load in via the USB cable.

Because the US government doesn't make operating systems? They've taken Apple to court to get unfettered access to iPhones and have lost. It's far from perfect, but there is still a system of checks and balances happening.

Besides that, you can post a photo of yourself holding the bloody severed head of Trump, and the worst that happens to you is loosing a gig at CNN and a squatty potty endorsement job. If you call president Xi a silly name, you disappear.

There's an interesting story out of Detroit roughly related.

A long time ago a Detroit-based millionaire donated a big chunk of land and a bunch of money to start the Detroit Zoo, and to build an adjacent golf course. When Detroit was going bankrupt, the city tried to sell off the golf course to make some money, as it is in an expensive subdivision now, and would have raked in hundreds of millions of dollars. However, in the deed, the millionaire put in a clause saying if the city tried to do anything other than maintain a zoo or golf course on the property, the ownership of ALL the property would revert to his descendants. A couple of his great-grandchildren showed up in court, and the deal was tanked.

Novas were 16-bit machines. I know because there are 16 select toggles on the front of mine :)

Soul of a New Machine was about the development of the MV line, which was the 32-bit extension of the Eclipse line, which was an extension (virtual memory, multitasking, etc.) of the Nova line. Similar to how VAXes were based on the PDP-11 architecture.

What do you mean? The main Hobbits are usually portrayed by younger actors. Gandalf should be portrayed by an older actor. Elves should be somewhere in between. If everyone is young it looks dumb.

The headline threw me, then I saw his son, whom is a screenwriter, is attached as well. Then I looked up his son's credits on IMDB. He was a production assistant on one of Colbert's shows and.... that's it.

I hope it will be good, but it's not looking that way.