Yes, a lot of work went in, but ultimately, all of the *significant* genetic material came from two parents. Passing on your mitochondrial DNA doesn't do anything to really shape your offspring (unless your mitochondrial DNA is just *really* messed up). Now if the donor egg somehow had defective Mitocondrial DNA, ok, this is at least somewhat useful.

But pretending this offspring has three equally biological parents is disingenuous.

Rather than local, I meant remote, but same house.

At least with emby, local rips are instant. I had a bear of a time with Plex Media server performance, so I migrated. That was a long time ago though.

No, it is rent-seeking. Music in the past was sold in terms of public performance and perhaps sheet music - nothing about which I have a beef with. Now they want to get paid for cost-free audio recording duplication without doing any of the work associated with it - they literally charge the costs back to the performer! It's pretty much the definition of rent-seeking.

Here's why. None of it matters.

Let's talk about analogies. Remember the Manhattan Project? Probably the most significant intervention of geeks in all history. Started off with some busybody physicists and a letter from Einstein. They were convinced that they were doing a good for all mankind by contributing to the destruction of the Nazi state.

The problem was, Hitler was defeated before their bomb came to fruition. Then, some people started getting cold feet about the use of the device. Regretting their intervention in the first place, even.

General Groves' and Oppenheimer's recollections of the project talk quite a bit about prima donna scientists. What should be obvious is that they put up with the geeks for about as long as it took to get what they wanted, and then told them to go fuck themselves.

Leo Szliard found out that his opinion was worthless, as was the opinion of every one of the geeks. The politicians and military had firm control and weren't interested in power sharing or criticism. And the bombs got dropped on civilians.

The takeaway from this is that on climate change, the only time the geeks get listened to is when the politicians have a good reason to make common cause with them...mostly when the goals are congruent. The moment the congruence ends, the geeks get told to go fuck themselves. This mostly means election year pandering with no action. So, therefore, arguing about this is moot. Nothing is going to happen.

Over supplementation of Vitamin D (particularly D2) is known to cause oxalate stones. I have a metabolic disorder characterized by low D levels, and my endocrinologist had me supplement heavily. The end result was that I was taking powdered kidney stone pills, essentially.

Just FYI

Mine was a 8x7mm stone, not huge but large enough to block the ureter. The pain was excruciating. It's like nothing else - i've had women who went through multiple labors grade the kidney stone as worse. Dilaudid touched it nicely during the 4 days in the hospital, but I required dosing every few hours and I wouldn't have been able to do anything but sleep on that. When they tried percocet, it was taking 20mg every 4 hours and that wasn't touching it. I would arch my back above a bed because resting on the surface hurt.

Since the pain is caused by the blocked ureter, the solution for me was a urinary stent shoved up my urethra and then manipulated into the ureter. It keeps the urine flowing and instantly relieves the pain. But, you have a stick inside you, and you know it every time you urinate (or move). More uncomfortable than anything else. Also, if you have never pissed blood, it's very unsettling - every time they would mess with the stent or do a lithotripsy i'd piss blood for a day or two.

I required four lithotripsies (going under each time...my memory was for shit that summer) before the stone finally broke up and passed.

Do not recommend kidney stones.

A few facts:

1) The rent-seeking media licensing authorities aren't going to stop with their attempts to use their financial resources to defend their rents via litigation and buying politicians.
2) Geeks aren't going to stop writing tools that facilitate freedom in using media as people see fit
3) Ergo, the path of least resistance is to put such services that are ripe targets for litigation in countries where the licensing authorities do not have reach - ie. Eastern Europe, Asia, some parts of Africa.

Why a company would host a service that would become a target for litigation in Germany is beyond me.

Eventually, I can see a world where the services that the media rent-seekers hate are located in just the places they can't reach - we already see this in terms of torrent sites, and the rest will follow. Since they are very small potatoes in terms of the larger economy, I can't see anything like a war or even meaningful negotiation about the point. So, basically, I can't see any end result but the ultimate eclipse of the rent seekers.

We seem to have electrified railways going between cities in Europe, and they seem to be cost effective. We even have an electric train that crosses the English channel.

Rubbish. The A319neo has a fuel efficiency of roughly 2L/100km per passenger seat (about the equivalent to 115 US mpg). The airlines that operate them get about a 90% load factor, so the passenger seat figure you quote is off by orders of magnitude.

I would take the train just to avoid the mini-hell that is Stansted airport.

Not so fast.

Passenger air travel is becoming ever more fuel efficient. Airlines are keenly interested in the lowest fuel used per passenger seats, especially the low cost airlines. EasyJet's fleet (a low cost European airline) is almost brand new, same with RyanAir (who are notorious for making everything as cheap as possible). Not only do the airlines want efficient planes, but they want them as full as possible. EasyJet's load factor is 90% for example (meaning on average at least 90% of the seats are filled).

EasyJet's A319-neo aircraft have an average fuel burn (no wind) of about 2L/100km per passenger seat (about 115 mpg (US)). Adjusting with a 90% load factor about 103mpg per passenger flown. This is roughly equivalent to a reasonably efficient mid-size car carrying 3 people (note: most cars most of the time only carry 1 person), but remember the plane is doing 500+ mph while getting this efficiency, whereas the car will only be doing about 60mph to get that efficiency per seat.

A well-loaded electric train can better this of course, but airline travel isn't as absurdly fuel thirsty as you presume - there have been very impressive efficiency gains over time.

We have perfectly good helicopters today, but you don't want one on your street. Just a few basic physical problems that won't be solved without antigravity.