So, the first chapter of Snow Crash?

The Deliverator rides again!

100%. My wife and I were perfectly fine with the old voice and "attitude" - the new "sassy" version really just grates on our nerves, and all her responses take 10-15s instead of the 1-2s they used to be. Just a complete downgrade.

My ADHD son can read a light novel or manga for hours. Once when I asked about the new Transformers movie, he gave a clear 1 hour dissertation level presentation on how Optimus Prime and Megatron used to be friends, and Megatron became a rebel leader fighting for good, only to eventually fall to the lust for power. Meanwhile Optimus Prime was the goody-two-shoes knight following the rules he knew was wrong. ETc etc etc. For a whole hour.

Don't tell me kids can't pay attention. They just can't pay attention to the pointless boring drivel teachers make them read.

On the flip side, reading long form is a skill, so maybe stop telling kids to not read light novels, comics or graphic novels, when they encourage remembering obscure story points dozens/hundreds of pages later...

3.49? You are complete fucking trash and don't deserve to even apply.

3.51? Come on in!

So yeah, fucking over students by hard-limiting A's is ridiculous faculty-brain bullshit. I bet they don't give a shit if a class gets a higher than average proportion of C's D's and F's because the professor is fucking clueless, right?

Could it be that Harvard is such a prestige school and the pool applying has gotten so large that the students are actually better? No, not that!

How about these jackasses start with a Student Bill of Rights first, and then they can talk about "grade inflation"? Guarantee that HW and exams are returned to students in 2 weeks fully graded. Require teachers to provide exam study materials that actually cover what's going to be in the exam. Shit like that, you know? Then they can discuss making the classes "harder" (as if that even fucking matters anyways).

after Anakin murders all the younglings?

Season 2, Episode 18 sure hits different now, doesn't it?

One thing I've noticed as the father of a college student in computer engineering is companies won't even bother looking at you unless your GPA is 3.5+. My recommendation to freshman is to ignore that bullshit "GPA doesn't matter" and protect that with your life. If you ever feel like you're not going to get an A, drop the class right away and try again later. Better to take 5-6 years to graduate instead of taking 18 credit hours your freshman year and destroying your GPA. Get an internship as soon as you can too, while your GPA is still high.

Germans have noticed a collapse in insect populations in biological reserves for a while.
https://www.science.org/content/article/germany-s-insects-are-disappearing

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations

Metabolic syndrome?
Type 2 diabetes?
Sperm counts in men?
Overall fertility?

Seems like the labcoats need to gather up some mice and see what happens when you feed half a microplastics-free American diet.

I think weed and other pesticides are the most likely cause. Round-up Ready crops get sprayed with tons of the stuff because they are resistant, but how much do they absorb and pass on to us?

Warning, some graphic images at the end
https://www.esi.utexas.edu/talk/silent-spring-ii/

Can't wait until the sky is darkened with 100s or thousands of penis shaped mylar balloons stolen from the hands of bachelorette parties everywhere.

https://www.gog.com/game/kerbal_space_program

Also, there are lots of Amateur Astronomers out there with good equipment, in the dark, and experience identifying things. And yet I haven't heard of any reputable sightings by them.

I've had my UAP moment myself, for about 10s, as a big bright light shined down on me when I had my telescope out one night. When it finally went overhead, I could only then hear the jet engines. The landing headlight and glide path aligned perfectly over my location that night so that the plane's wingtips were washed out, and the noise didn't reach me until the jet was really close.

I've frequently driven back from dark sky sights and watched as Venus rose/set. With her near the horizon she can eerily "follow" you as you drive around, and if there are light clouds, look like it is accelerating very quickly.

Amateur astronomers can take good images of ISS flying overhead, I'm sure if there was a UAP nearby they'd have dozens of high quality photos on astrobin within hours!

This whole Loeb debacle just kicks dirt in the face of every serious researcher, including SETI researchers like Jill Tarter (inspiration for the Contact movie). If Loeb does get funding, hopefully it isn't stolen from real scientists. I guess if he builds his telescope network, we'll at least have lots of cameras tracking more meteor fireballs. https://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/

Pickens was done by 2010? There was a few years of stagnation on wind power growth but since then it has steadily increased.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Texas

There's a reason his name is 1 letter off from IBM.