"In order to conserve the probes' remaining energy"

Small nitpick here is that you cannot really conserve the nuclear batteries, they simply offer less power over time as the plutonium continues to be lost to decay, and the probe just has lower and lower amounts of power it can make use of.

It makes me wonder if the rated 60 years of battery life is really the floor, or if the probe can operate beyond that time with significantly reduced power from the batteries.

I found some interesting calculations on RTG battery decay here, which notes that Voyager batteries are decaying at a fixed rate of 1.7% per year, and are currently at 67% of the initial power provided. So how much longer can the Voyager's systems live as the power drops...

Sure, you may or may not get experimental treatment under universal healthcare, but you're more likely to get it in a system that isn't motivated by profit.

No, you are more likely to be put into a free suicide pod, lots cheaper.

In scenarios in which you ignore the actual decommissioning cost, yeah.

Since the decommissioning happens after around 100 years or more, the cost of decommissioning is less than a rounding error to the cost of electricity the plat produces over that time.

I think Japan knows a wee bit more about the actual financial aspects of nuclear than you.

Oh no, a major pandemic! We can't possibly transfer power to Trump now, time to impose marital law!

Instead of replacing the battery they want you to buy another new phone

But that's not really what happens. I know many. many people that get batteries replaced in phones. You only have to do that every few years, and it does not cost much, so a LOT of people do it already.

The ability to change out the battery in a phone (or laptop) is just plain dead, because it's worse in all possible ways.

instead of adding a memory card they want you to buy another phone with more memory.

Again it's just a worse way. It's an easy vector for malware, it confuses the user as to where something really lives, and the performance of cheap memory cards can be absolute crap but the user will ALWAYS blame the phone maker.

In the end it's just easier now for people to send or receive data from the Cloud than to use a sketchy memory card. Even if you offered that feature 99% of the people would not use it, so why do the expense to build that in?

The days of products catering to consumers are mostly gone.

That notion is totally wrong. The reason why products are the way they are today is BECAUSE it is what most people want - something that is better sealed against water, that lasts for years without touching it, that is more convenient and less prone to failure. No phone today is worse than the phones that allowed you to change out batteries and add a memory card.

I would much rather have:

1) User removable / replaceable battery
2) User removable storage ( via micro SD )
3) Give me back the headphone jack

That's pretty much just you though.

If people wanted any of those things, lots of phones would offer them. Instead virtually none do.

I'd be willing to bet that if Apple added a couple of millimeters to iPhone thickness dedicated entirely to more battery, people would love it.

Apple phone battery life is already really good, so making them larger and more chunky for a slight improvement I don't think would be welcome at all.

It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes

Hopefully not true, as if so it means you have basically built a terminal for a timeshare system.

Which means as other worlds in the multiverse also build the same quantum computation, it will slow down our quantum computers - possibly even causing contention over shared resources

You can imagine that as some point a galactic IT worker is going to come through a portal and demand we pay up for stolen resources.

No, as they get closer they see the lights turn off... it's not "long gone'.

However that does tell us something, that probably someone is controlling them from the ground able to see when aircraft get close and then disable the lights (and probably also leave).

Maybe in that video it's a jet. But there are threads with people showing what are obviously drones and not planes, where the people taking the video are out with police, and using apps to tell them what registered flights are around - and none are where the drones are. Furthermore they no not move like planes, and also when police try to get close with helicopters the objects go lights out.

There are obviously a pretty large number of these mystery drones doing something.

If they were doing something nefarious, Iâ(TM)m pretty sure they would be a whole lot stealthier.

The police have said when they use helicopters to go look, the devices turn lights off.

Does that sound non-nefarious to you?

Some people seem to find this "chilling" but why?

Lots of people already have doorbell cameras, this is just an extension to cover other areas you cant see as well.

And then on top of that, drones with searchlights are a fantastic idea to scare off intruders with zero violence. Isn't this a lot better than them getting shot, or the occupants having to endanger themselves to stop people from breaking in?

Just being nailed by a searchlight would probably make 99% of burglars run, so would even work well while you were away from the house so it also protects your pets or kids from being hurt.

And even if someone did break in you have fantastically detailed footage to show police which would help find and convict them.

I had been thinking for a while about trying to rig up something similar, drones directed by a computer links to a set of outdoor cameras that had a light and told someone to leave if they were not wanted. The drone part would only be for night, cameras along during the day that you could get alerted for people outside would be good enough during the day.

Great point, I had not considered that angle.

Still, it is more credible that conspiracy theories.

There were a LOT of scientific studies done that pointed to the virus being artificial. There s no "conspiracy theory" to hard scientific fact like some features of the spike proteins appearing artificial. Read this if you want to know both sides, but obviously there are many counterarguments there with scientific studies done so you are simply not being serious if you claim all thoughts it came from a lab are "conspiracy theories", you are spreading misinformation.

If it was artificial just where else did it come from then?

Here we just have the word of one Chinese scientist examining a probably scrubbed lab. Even IF she were honest, how do you know the samples she studied didn't have anything removed that would point to them being guilty?

You have to be the most gullible person on the planet to believe this report.

Reading through the blog link and looking at the 2017 version, I have to say this is better - though as the blog says not as good as the dinosaur.

Looking at teh new one, I kind of like teh flag but not with the text.

However! Since retro stuff is always popular, why not back to the dinosaur? Especially in an age where once again Godzilla is really popular. Lean into the roots!