I don't remember that rule about not discussing politics. Sure, at dinner, or specifically at Thanksgiving dinner, but we used to discuss politics in the office face-to-face all the time, and just kind of agree to disagree. But we both came away with a better understanding of how the other person was thinking, and in most cases there were also areas on which we agreed. Nobody every tried to get someone fired for their viewpoint. That's what changed.

This is a good step, if it's really a thing. But what I wonder about is if we can somehow get people from the political non-extremes talking to each other again (face to face). I was in Kentucky on a business trip a few years ago, and we were going out to lunch with the client there. We asked if this other guy wanted to come with us, and they said, "No, he won't come... he's a democrat." So? I used to work in Michigan from 2000 to 2006 and we'd go out to lunch all the time, and there was a mix of people who were democrats and republicans. Sure, there were lightly heated discussions, but everybody went back to the office and worked on stuff together. People understood each other's point of view a lot better back then. And they were polite. I wonder how to encourage more of that these days.

Yes, because all the communist countries over the past 100 years were utopias devoid of greed and suffering. *Editor's note: they were not.* Communist regimes are just as eager to exploit natural resources and conquer territory as any other nation. Do you think communism stopped China from emitting so much CO2?

My experience with these kinds of decisions is that cloud connectivity is useful for two reasons: 1) it allows data collection, which can be another revenue stream, and 2) it's easier for the end user to setup than any kind of local direct connection. As long as both devices can get to the web, it'll work, but some routers, e.g., won't necessarily let devices on the same network talk to each other by default, and their IP address can randomly change due to DHCP, etc.

I'm not American, but I get tired of the "everything American is bad" mantra. We should be using evidence-based decision making, not our feelings.

Sorry, but the USA is nowhere near the top when it comes to over-prescribing antibiotics. Iran tops the list, where "more than half of outpatient antibiotic prescriptions... lacked medical justification." Heck, I was on a vacation in Mexico a few years ago and my kid got an eye infection (we first noticed it when getting on the plane to go there). The doctor at the resort prescribed antibiotic eye drops, an oral antibiotic, *and* an immediate antibiotic injection. I admit that it cleared up pretty fast, but holy crap I've never seen a doctor do that before.

Literally a "hot seat"

As a control systems engineer, putting the control loop through the cloud is absolutely ridiculous. Sure, make it so you can change the setting from your phone, assuming you know how to setup secure communication, but the control loop needs to be local. This is just dumb engineering.

Okay, Ivan.

SLS is super-successful, just not at putting people on the moon. The real goal of the program was to give federal money handouts to all the former space industry suppliers spread all over the country from the space shuttle years. That's why it was built right into the funding legislation that the SLS had to be created from space shuttle technology, like the main engines and the (upgraded) solid rocket boosters. It's an absurd example of pork barrel politics, especially now that SpaceX is proving you can do it all with far lower cost per kg to orbit, and true re-usability (at least for the first stage).

My neighbor works at the facility that's being shut down. After investing ~$2 billion to re-tool the plant for "state of the art" EV production, it's pretty sad to see all these jobs just go up in smoke, with no alternative production slated. It's so wasteful of resources.

Well, you have to question the morals of a Hamas supporter, don't you? I mean if you're chanting things like "from the river to the sea", how are you not advocating for genocide yourself? It's not like the Palestinians wouldn't wipe all the Jewish people off the map if they had the chance.

The wikipedia page has a pretty good summary of what it means.

Did you even do any searching yourself? The wikipedia page lists several cities that tried it to various degrees.

All joking aside, a few years ago defunding the police was a policy that was seriously pushed in many cities throughout the US. A few actually tried it. Not only did it have the rather obvious effect of increasing crime rates, but it invariably hurt the communities it was intended to help the most. It just pays to keep a skeptical attitude about all new policy initiatives, no matter who is putting them forward. Most of the policies we currently have, though imperfect, were created for some kind of reason. It's not stupid to demand change, but it's stupid to demand change when you have no idea what problem the current policies were created to solve. I'm not sure why we have to keep learning this lesson the hard way.