Nonsense. They weren't fired because of iffy grants, they don't decide grants. They're the interface between the NSF and Congress. They advise both groups on what the national priorities should be, like whether to fund a billion dollar telescope vs a collider.

They were fired because they unanimously wrote a letter pushing back on Trumps request to significantly cut NSF's budget last year. A request that Congress pretty much ignored in a bipartisan manner.

No they were fired for having the gall to question Trump.

If a country does something to the US that kills thousands of civilians and cripples its economy do you think the US has a right to retaliate ? If the country continues to attempt to undermine the US does the US get to retaliate ?

If the answer is yes, then why is the reverse not true ?

Are you aware the roll the US played in terms of Iran's government, in the 1950s that directly led to 1979 ? I'm not saying anything Iran does is justified but I do think its critical to understand the history and understand *why* they are so pissed off at us (hint it originally had fuck all to do with Israel). What I do feel very confident in saying is given the history the events of the past few days won't resolve anything, if history is any judge it will ensure the problem continues for at least another 50 years.

I'm curious the extent of your knowledge of Jewish settlements in the area pre-formation of the actual state of Israel, what happened there from the early 1800s (post Napoleon) through the early 1900s and the roll the British and US played along with the Ottoman empire in settling European Jewish refuges back into the area, the atrocities that Jewish settlers performed etc etc etc.

I'm not taking sides in terms of Jewish settlers vs Palestinians, but hearing people talk about the region as if it started from scratch the day the nation was officially declared is just as tiring as hearing people talking about Iran without having a clue who Mossadegh was, the roll British Petroleum and the CIA played or why1979 happened and why this most recent attack is almost certainly not going to resolve the issue but ensure it continues for another 50 to 70 years.

That's not universally true. For instance OpenAI is pushing for a massive new AI system in New Mexico called Project Jupiter. They plan to use natural gas for power and want a waiver from the state so they *don't* have to abide by the states requirements for clean power that applies to metered natural gas power plants.

Quoting from: https://sourcenm.com/2025/12/0...

Each notice corresponds to a different “microgrid” natural gas generating station planned for the project. Combined, the notices say the gas plants will emit more than 14 million tons of greenhouse gases per year.

By comparison, Albuquerque and Las Cruces, the state’s two largest cities, emit a combined 6.7 million metric tons of greenhouse gases per year, according to both cities’ climate action plans. The defunct San Juan Generating Station near Farmington emitted 12 to 13 million metric tons per year and PNM’s entire system emits about 1.8 million metric tons

They've subsequently claimed their notices were incorrect and it's *only* 4 million metric tons. It would be a huge mistake to assume that just because some high profile systems have used solar or nuclear that all proposed systems will. AI data centers are focusing hard on building it as cheaply as possible, their choice of green power is driven by local mandates, not altruism.

No, no the experts didn't get it wrong. The low information reactionaries got it wrong. To them there is one kind of bee and any bee is that kind of bee.

The article references non-experts who gave well intentioned bad advice and quotes experts who gave the more accurate better advice. It's been pretty well known to anybody who actually paid non-superficial attention to the issue that it was native bees that were under threat.

What's amusing about it ? The threat of climate change hasn't changed. The severe negative impact looming in the distance is getting closer, and the AI build out is going to speed it up. What's amusing ?

Actually I was going to post that I wish I could mod whoever did it as '+1 Funny', because technically the topic is that Starlink is down so my post was literally off topic.

It's already back up, has been for 10 minutes or so.

WankerWeasel -> Mods. Mods - WankerWeasel

I'm assuming you've never met.

There's a semi-famous but probably misattributed quote involving Henry Ford, "If I'd asked my clients what they wanted they'd have said 'faster horses'".

Koomen is making the same point 100+ years later. The transformative AI solution will probably not be faster horses, or faster humans. It will be some new construct that goes well beyond what's currently possible in ways that we almost certainly haven't posited yet. We're still in the late 19th Century horseless carriage mode of AI design nobody has a clue about fuel injection, anti-lock brakes, air bags, automatic transmissions, etc type advancements yet.

It will be blindingly obvious what the ultimate winning design is but not till probably 3 or 5 or more years after the fact, claims until then are mostly marketing FUD.

She looks a hell of a lot like somebody you dated freshman year in college and then decades later you googled to see what happened to her and discovered she's married, has 2 kids and a professional career.

This sounds suspiciously like a plan to wait until the dust settles and then, whatever the result, state 'that was the plan all along', every step of the way so far I've heard folks like yourself cheer the first moves and explain why it's great and then cheer the back pedal and explain why it too is part of some great strategy and then cheer the re-instatement and the escalation. Literally anything he does is correct.

So quick question, your comment about 'lifelong history of exaggerated opening positions' implies you've bought into the whole 'Trump is a great negotiator' trope. Care to explain his near perfect failure record as a business owner and 6 bankruptcies ? Was that also part of a grand strategy ? When he bankrupts the US economy will that also be part of some grand strategy ?

Absolutely, if in turn you agree to admit you were the asshole when you discover everybody but Trump and his closest BJ givers are wrong and don't have the first damn clue how economies actually work.

When the US is in a recession coupled with inflation will you admit you and Trump are idiots or will you blame the democrats for somehow undermining his brilliance. Not sure if you were around for the 70s but economically they pretty much sucked.

I'm not entirely sure I agree with the sentiment about the average US Citizen being concerned about increased non-combatant incidents.

Just look at Gaza and Yemen, in many cases folks are either oblivious to the occurrences or feel its ok in an 'ends justify the means' sort of way.

As long as US soldiers aren't getting killed the citizenry is, for the most part, pretty ok with whatever.

No it didn't. Not sure what you're looking at but the DOW didn't hit it's pre-October 1929 peak until 1954, over 25 years later. The DOW reached it's bottom in 1932, it didn't *start* to recover till 1933 and it took nearly 20 years to recover to it's 1928 high.