Pointing a finger at a foreign gov for attacks on US personnel, with *that* person about to be sworn in, could lead to a major incident, possibly way, with a near-peer adversary. Agencies really have to be careful when the most powerful part of their audience may not be very stable.

I recall seeing a documentary, or posting, that a tower built by the ancient Greeks in an area subject to earthquakes lasted quite a long time, due to lead being used between layers to provide some give. I doubt we have enough lead, at low enough price for that to be practical, not to mention health hazards, but perhaps materials research could find some substitute?

Given the dry nature of the areas in question, I wonder if adobe would be feasible? Add a spray-on waterproof layer in case of occasional rain and should be good to go?

I wonder why houses in such areas aren't being made exclusively of brick, stone, or maybe adobe with a waterproof covering sprayed on? Enough clay in the adobe, maybe a fire turns walls into ceramic?

Now THAT's a contract termination clause!

UPVOTE!!! Damn, why couldn't this have come out when I had active mod points??

Did it not say "dependent" children? That would be needed to prevent parents, who control the funds, from laundering everything through their kids. Once the children grow up, no longer dependents, they can make their own investments.

I think our current collapse can be linked back to when broadcast news changed from being a required public service that lost money, to a profit center. That change meant that ratings started to matter, and that has in turn twisted coverage to whatever got the most people watching.

And it's not 'soliciting a bribe' if you just send an itemized bill for 'services rendered' afterward.

From a link in the original article: https://abcnews.go.com/Technol... Trees have their own circulatory system of sorts, just below the bark. If low frequency noise at the right frequency and volume is constantly hitting that, maybe the same effect as 'ringing' the tree?

So far as I know, all cell towers have battery backup good for several hours. Provided that there is access, key ones will have generators deployed to them during emergencies. Some may well have an on-site generator as part of the installation, or access to backup power from the site itself.

I wonder if NC's new anti-abortion law has anything to do with Apple slowing construction down. I'd imagine Apple has at least a few female R&D folk.

Our intel agencies have tapped underwater data cables before. They've partnered with corporations to do 'big stuff', ie Glomar Explorer, ostensibly launched to gather ore nodes on the seabed, but actually an intelligence op. I wonder whether this project had some DoD funding, with an eye towards attaching one of these to a submarine data cable, and looking for stuff of interest to send on via however those earlier taps worked.

"Returning" to Earth on the Soyuz... Earth, probably; the USA? -- good luck with that one. They flew over classified Russian stuff while in orbit, yes? SPY!!!

That sounds like part of the problem. As more and more of flying is automated, the crew is likely to be paying less and less attention, especially if any malfunctions are only announced by way of a small blinking light somewhere.