And I have a rock that keeps away tigers......

Let me give you an anecdote. When I have to go into the office, I ride my bike. It's faster than driving, and faster than any public transport. So, do I win? EVERYONE should only be riding their bike. No busses, no cars. Do you see any holes in my argument?

Next, when there is a public transport strike, riding my bike into the office is so much faster than a car, it actually makes people that had to drive in cry.

Ok, try hard..... can you make any connections between public transport and travel times.... come on, I know you can..... could it possible be that, if the public transport didn't exist in large European cities, than travel times for cars might actually be worse?

So, if we followed your 'data', and your conclusion that public transport is slow, therefore bad and should not exist...... but direct experience shows that without public transport, travel times are worse...... oh no, what do we do? How can we hold two opposite thoughts in our brains and convince ourselves that both are true, as it's impossible.....

I know, let's pretend that public transport does not give any benefit, disregard any other evidence, and then we don't have to worry about cognitive dissonance.

My guess is that you're American, and you've never had to apply for a US visa?

The process is very costly and takes a large amount of time. To even get an appointment to visit the embassy, you have to pay a fee in advance. If you have all of the paperwork, then you can pay more for a visa. If you don't have what they deem necessary, then you have to pay for another visit at the embassy. Sometimes, paperwork appears to be decided not sufficient for no apparent reason.

After potentially multiple expensive embassy visits, over many weeks - since booking a visit is just saying you'll pop in next Tuesday - you can wait months to see if the visa is approved. This is why people prefer the cheaper, easier ESTA process.

And you know, the ESTA program only exists for countries that have similar arrangements for the US.

There must be something strange with the way math is taught where you are. I haven't had that problem with my kids, including up to helping my son with his math in 2nd year Engineering - after that, it's all just applied and he doesn't learn many new concepts.

I do have a BSc in maths and stats, so maybe I just don't notice the weird tricks.

Not saying that is wrong, but it's not fully correct and there is a precedent.

The Discovery was not the first shuttle there. It originally housed the Enterprise. I have photos of my kids, running from the SR71 in the hall in front, back down to the Enterprise in the separate hall behind. So, they were able to remove the Enterprise and replace it with the Discovery.

No, I don't remember seeing any shuttle sized doors, so they must have removed a wall. But, if they did it easily once, they can do it again.

I don't, for two reasons.

1. It would only be about 35 years to pull from.

2. The code I wrote 35 years ago isn't that good. Now, I do have a whole library of shell and perl scripts from over the last 20 years that I still use to this day, and scripts based of them are current running in production systems for a number of different companies.

Once site is still running my scripts after 15 years. After I created them, the IT manager said that he'd replace them the following year with something better - I was hired by finance and accounting, and so IT was resentful. Now, 15 years later, that IT manager has retired and my code is still running in production. My guess is that my code older than that has gone, as a few sites outsourced all of IT to Tata et al.

I don't know. I'm torn over this. This could well be the future - not fully coding by AI, but commonly using AI to assist.

I've built an arithmetic logic unit using NAND gates. I've programmed in assembler. I've programmed in-line assembler in C programs. Sure, I have a good appreciation on what happens at a low level, but is that really relevant today? What benefit does someone starting today have if they know this sort of stuff?

Everyone today uses frameworks, huge libraries of pre-built functions, IDE's that refactor and lots of other magic that back in the day, editing C code in vi, I couldn't even dream of. I remember using Borland C for the first time when it was new, and being amazed at what the IDE could do, and how it improved my productivity.

Progress happens, we have to move with the times. If someone can complete the task, and uses some wiz-bang IDE with AI integration - then as long as what they create is fit for purpose, does it really matter that they have never soldered a circuit board?

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.