Like most things, there was a kernel of truth about it. There was a biochemical pathway that the drug could have affected in the replication of the virus. This led to some actual scientific articles that called for further investigation. There were people that were against spending resources at that time into further work on it, as resources were limited and this was not be best line to suppress the virus.

As it turned out, the horse pills didn't help, as that biochemical pathway was not a major method of virus replication, the majority of the virus replicated in the nasal passages. Eating the pills was not effective. I didn't hear of anyone trying to shove the pills up their nose, maybe that would have worked better (that's a joke).

Dams straight. I've worked for the military-industrial complex. I know for sure that in a small way, I've contributed to wars, creation of weapons, etc. I might not have pulled any triggers, but I am just as responsible.

I can live with that, because as far as I can tell, we're the good guys, or at least that's what I tell myself.

I've also worked for big tech, who were as responsible as anyone else in society for keeping the military-industrial complex running. Just as responsible as the farmers that kept me fed.

Let's face it, we're all responsible for what is done in the name of our countries.

If something is being heavily pushed by multiple youtubers, then I avoid it.

More often than not, it's some sort of scam or ripoff.

Ultimately, it is all the Sun.

If it suddenly ceased to exist, among other things, the warming would cease and it would certainly be colder.... and a little bit darker, and our orbit would change a bit, but we wouldn't be worrying about global warming any more.

Funnily enough, I used to use a medium format camera, as I liked to develop and make my own B&W prints. On a holiday to Japan at a temple, they thought I was a professional and stopped me until they worked out that I was just a tourist and not taking commercial photos.

There are lots of jobs that don't involve being a member of the armed forces, but does involve at least indirect government employment, where you sign a piece of paper saying that you understand and agree to certain restrictions that must be maintained 24 hrs/day and remain in force after your employment ends..... and where you could end up in prison if you violate them.

If someone doesn't like the rules, then don't sign on and work somewhere else. If you don't agree with the rules, because you know they are pointless or useless, well bad luck. You can let people know they could be improved, but you're still not allowed to break them.

I know this is true for the nuclear industry, which I'm not part of, but I was considering working in some time ago. There was a special nuclear security clearance needed, but I didn't have it so I didn't follow up.

Radiation, emission of any unwanted or un-intended RF, is to be avoided at all times, for lots of reasons. Having said that....

What if there was a commie spy on board? He now has an unfiltered network where he can transmit all sorts of restricted information. Anything you can think of, screen shots of military procedures, crew details, pics of hardware, when the captain is off the bridge. If it's not public knowledge, then it should not be known. Pieces of information that by themselves may not appear to have intelligence value, but put together do.

Remember those wrist tracking devices people had for jogging? Turns out, you can map military bases with them, so they were all banned in all US military installations.

If I installed my own Wifi network, at where ever it is that I work, I would be immediately fired, lose my clearance, and could possible face criminal charges.

They are luck they were only demoted or had minor punishment, although, this will have torpedoed their careers as promotion will be drastically slowed down for them for now on. This will have a knock on effect for them later in life as the military pension is based on your leaving rank.

I think that there will be a lot of misinformation and lack of understanding on this issue. Please go and watch the videos from Dianna, Physics Girl.

https://www.youtube.com/@physicsgirl/

Previously, I had no idea myself about how it could affect someone. Dianna went from someone who was so full of life to someone that can't even get out of bed. No-one could accuse her of being lazy and not wanting to work before getting long Covid, and is now using it as an excuse to not work now.

I hope she recovers. It would be a bonus if she ever started to create videos again.

My son contributes to a number of open source projects, is the primary maintainer of a reasonably successful project that gets 1.5 million pull request per week and has been getting paid by picking up programming bounties for a few years.

He did a Java programming course at university as part of his degree. He knew more than his class tutor, and had more commercial experience than his lecturer in programming Java.

Sometimes, people who are teaching courses don't have a lot of experience. At high school level, I wouldn't blame them, it's probably a case of, "hey, you studied Math, you're the new Comp Sci teacher".

But people in other countries didn't react the same way to terrorist attacks. France and Belgium had attacks (and ongoing threats), but didn't bring in such repressive measures as the TSA and the no fly lists. The twin towers attack was the biggest single event than any Western country has faced, but the airport and a metro station in Belgium was blown up in a coordinated attack, and Belgium is a tiny country. France has had multiple attacks, including a truck running over people along a beach side road.

So for the USA, it didn't have to be this way. The TSA no fly lists are one of the most useless pre-crime infringements that should have no right to exist. Stronger cockpit doors and people no longer willing to be threatened has made more of a difference than stopping Ted Kennedy from flying.

Pity I don't have mod points, this is insightful.

I've seen many times that a previous techie built a custom support system (to maintain servers, ERP systems, development rollouts, patching systems, etc...) and once that person was gone, the whole thing was ripped out by the next person or I've been told to replace it.

This is usually because the previous techie didn't produce much for documentation and didn't pass on their knowledge. I've seen where the knowledge was not passed on, on purpose, in a misguided attempt to have job security.

This is why larger enterprises go for expensive solutions and need a lot of convincing to use and open source tool, even when the open source tool is better suited.

In Europe, banks already offer peer to peer payments. Open your banking apps, generate a QR code and then it is scanned by the other person with their banking app.

Secure, as it's something that occurs using your own back and you don't give any details to a third party.

Aren't the US banks going to introduce something like that? All of these third party apps that could be insecure wouldn't be needed.

has lot access to abortion, even when the woman's life can be shown to be in danger.

I wonder if Texans would ave preferred to have lost access to some porn sites instead.

This is so true, I saw this happen a lot.

Back around 2010, Tata sent over a young guy from India to be the team lead to learn from me and take over. He lacked experience, he had just above zero knowledge, but he was smart and a fast learner. At the end of the transition time, months later, he knew enough to be able to take over.

He also found out that I was getting paid 5 times what he was getting, was already contacting local contracting companies that would hire him and get him a work visa.