Watergate is perhaps a bad example - the actual conspiracy was against Nixon, but your point stands and there are many other examples. The killing of OSS/CIA banker Nicholas Deak by a mind-controlled assassin is perhaps the most direct route down the rabbit hole.
"I'm more worried about ocean acidification than climate"
Did you cover buffered solutions in your chemistry class?
You get a maximum of 6 hrs./day equivalent nameplate capacity per day in the Mojave desert, =25%. Any time there are clouds, it's much less. Anyplace other than deep desert, it's more like 4 hrs./day over the course of a year, or worse for high latitudes. It's due to geometry, the angle of the sun, and there won't ever be a fix for ground-based solar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The United States detonated an experimental device in the 1955 Operation Teapot "MET" test which used a plutonium/U-233 composite pit; its design was based on the plutonium/U-235 pit from the TX-7E, a prototype Mark 7 nuclear bomb design used in the 1951 Operation Buster-Jangle "Easy" test. Although not an outright fizzle, MET's actual yield of 22 kilotons was sufficiently below the predicted 33 kt that the information gathered was of limited value.[9][10]
The Soviet Union detonated its first hydrogen bomb the same year, the RDS-37, which contained a fissile core of U-235 and U-233.[11]
In 1998, as part of its Pokhran-II tests, India detonated an experimental U-233 device of low-yield (0.2 kt) called Shakti V.[12][13]
Agree - I was excited about the Pi and active on its forum up until I saw the initial board layout with connectors scattered hither and yon, which negative impression was only reinforced by the undocumented Broadcom chip and weird boot process.
Thanks for the recommendation of the ESP8266, it looks like it has pretty useful assortment ofdev boards, though for motor control looks like it might not be as well adapted as something like the BeagleBone Blue, which though it runs Linux on ARM has two additional "real-time unit" processors and can control 4 DC motors + 8 servos, plus it has a 9axis IMU + baro.&temp.. (Servos are incredibly cheap and good these days, $2.50 &up, less than $10 for 11 kg-cm torque(strong), 0.16s/60deg. (fast) check out HobbyKing)
"You mean those immigrants from Mexico that have a far higher vaccination rate than the US?"
Because vaccination often wears off and isn't 100% effective, many measles cases are among vaccinated people. The far more serious Ukraine measles epidemic, with ~20x the cases in 1/7th the population, directly followed a measles vaccination campaign where the 2nd-dose vaccinated proportion of 6-year-olds tripled in a year, from 31% to 95% 2016-2017. The MMR vaccination was not only ineffective, it quite likely caused the epidemic.
"It has been proven over and over..."
Liar. It's not just illegal immigrants, to be sure - legal immigrants are also spreading epidemics.
Summary of CDC report: "2018: The U.S. experienced 17 outbreaks in 2018. Three outbreaks in New York state. New York City, and New Jersey, respectively, contributed to most of the cases. Cases in New York and New Jersey occurred primarily among unvaccinated people in Orthodox Jewish communities. These outbreaks were associated with travelers who brought measles back from Israel, where a large outbreak is occurring. Eighty-two people brought measles to the U.S. from other countries in 2018."
The current outbreaks are in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Washington. These are all high immigration states, legal and illegal. 2014 had 3x the cases of any other year from 2010-2017, and the source of the outbreak was the Philippines. 75 of 2017's 120 cases came from a single outbreak among Somalis.
Immigrants to the US from 3rd world countries spread epidemic disease beyond doubt, no epidemiologist will deny it - in fact they are the main source, travelers being the other and far less frequent origin of epidemics.
"One (inefficient) way to represent any 3D volume would be as a union of spheres..."
Representing 3-D models as spheres can be quite efficient using Conformal Geometric Algebra, which also uses the same representation for points (0-radius sphere) and planes (infinite-radius spheres). It also has point pairs (1-d spheres), flat points (flat point : point pair
This technology applied by the British company Geomerics and incorporated in game engines enabled real-time radiosity lighting in games, for instance letting arbitrarily-placed fireballs light up the scene. Some of the best papers on Geometric Algebra are by the Cambridge professor founders of Geomerics such as Chris Doran. See University of Cambridge Geometric Algebra Resources
Only asexual reproduction such as cuttings - not reproduction by seed - is eligible for plant patent in the US. (There are 3 types of patents in the US: Utility, Design, and Plant. Utility patents are what we think of as real patents, protecting against copying functional aspects of a machine or process. Design patents cover appearance only.) Only in the 1980s did the US start granting utility patents for bioengineered plants and animals, and that was done by the PTO without new law from Congress. Since then the Congress has acquiesced, but hasn't made the law as clear as for plant patents. There needs to be a new fourth category of patent added or the existing plant patent type needs to be completely overhauled to deal with DNA engineering explicitly and sensibly.
None of this matters for the case at hand in India, other than US influence on India's laws via international treaties.
Even if they can make their patent claim stick, PepsiCo shouldn't be allowed to make the farmers into their peons by forcing to farmers to grow only the patented crop if they grow any of it at all. They shouldn't be allowed to impose any conditions other than payment for their seed, in particular, they shouldn't be allowed to force the farmers to sell their whole crops only to PepsiCo. That puts the farmers completely at the mercy of the corporation, far more than being an employee, while the corporation has far less obligation than to an employee. It is peonage, bondage.
All debts are obligations (to pay), but not all obligations are debts. You may be obliged by contract, law, or court order to do things other than pay money.
They're in violation of 31 U.S. Code  5103 , which reads in full: "Legal tender: United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts."
The key term there is "public charges", which includes the charge for getting a government-issued ID.
You can set "destination mode" where (in theory) the rides are only going your way. This can only be done for two destinations in a day, each of which only count if you actually get a ride. They tried allowing 6 per day, but drivers used it to get some control over where they would be heading.
Also, for several months now trips over 45 minutes are marked before the driver accepts the trip. Nevertheless, drivers still have no idea at all what the destination will be before actually starting the ride after reaching the pickup location.
States can't make any thing other than gold or silver coin a tender in payment of debts. The legal dodge is that the states aren't the Fed or the Treasury, so it isn't they that are making the requirement of transacting in fiat Federal Reserve Note dollars, so the constitutional restriction does not apply. This dodge fails if a state decides to accept something else as a tax debt payment.
Arguably a necessary characteristic of money is being able to pay your taxes in it, for instance the success of Worgl stampscript (negative interest currency) experiment of the '30s came largely from the local government accepting it as tax payment. The local government also issued it, which gave them the reason to accept it. The negative-interest aspect (had to buy stamps to affix to keep a currency note current) led to a huge increase in the velocity of money as people wished to avoid paying the stamps, and also a huge move toward long-term investment as negative interest rates turned the present-value calculation upside down, making money worth more the further in the future it would be taken out, rather than future returns being discounted.
A small addition of seaweed to cow diets virtually eliminates methane:
The crucial research, by Robert Kinley of CSIRO and Rocky De Nys, professor of aquaculture at Australiaâ(TM)s James Cook University, and colleagues, involved testing some 20 different species of seaweed in artificial cow stomachsâ"that is, a mix of rumen and microbes that mimics the behavior of a cow stomach in a bottle. When grass or feed is added to this in vitro tummy, fermentation takes place and the scientists are able to measure the resulting methane output. In the presence of Asparagopsis taxiformisâ"described by De Nys as âoea real stand-outâ among the tested seaweedsâ" methane production was cut by 99 percent. Experiments in sheep showed that if dried Asparagopsis taxiformis seaweed made up just 2 percent of total feed, methane emissions drop by 70 percent. It can be added as a sprinkle, De Nys says, just as you might add a smattering of herbs to roast chicken.
Asparagopsis is so effective because it contains a chemical called bromoform (CHBr3) that interferes with the microbial digestive enzymes responsible for methane manufacture.
... Seaweed experiments in Canada were inspired by observations that seaside cattle, who periodically chowed down on storm-tossed seaweed, were both heftier and healthier than their inland relatives. Less belched-out methane, in other words, makes for more on-the-hoof meat.
Cattle's methant emissions are estimated to be about 10% of GHG emissions, and it would take 30,000 sq . km of seaweed growing to eliminate that, or 2,000 sq. km for the US.
The next time you need a tiny magnetometer that only works in a unique and temperamental two-story agglomeration of exotic technology, anyway.
Also, how do short-sellers even have standing to sue? They aren't shareholders. Musk has no duty to them. On the contrary, Musk actually has a legal duty to make them lose money.
He didn't say the deal was going to happen, either, he said he was "considering" it. "Funding secured" in that context means nothing more than he has reason to be confident he can get the money to do the deal _if_ he decides to. Perhaps he should have phrased the latter a bit more cautiously, but the message was clear on its face that the deal wasn't even definitely _intended_, let alone done.
The shorts don't have a leg to stand on in court and should not make it past summary judgement.
If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist.
