I saw a bit of the briefing and Duffy talked a bunch about Congress needing to appropriate them more money so "Trump can build" a more modern network, before he leaves office, 'cause the current system is old and this is a "National Security issue" (sound familiar), etc. He's not wrong about some of that, but ... [puts on tin-foil hat] ... maybe this was just a manufactured "crisis" to get more funding, or someone actually hacked into the system ... [takes off tin-foil hat] Extreme conspiracy thinking, I know, but I wouldn't put things like that past this administration, one known to lie, obfuscate or just be incompetent. [takes off backup tin-foil hat] :-)

Or they all just want a chance to sleep with him, as their boss, too. ;-)

Well, for all of those who gloried in the 50ly Traveller 2300 XYZ map of known space, spending days manually entering the data into MacSpin just to get a cool (useless for game play) 3d view of local space, this data should give them something to spend a fair amount of time plotting.

About 1900 square degrees. It's a very rough measure but I find it easier to visualize.
41000 sq degrees in a sphere.

It's almost adorable when you find someone who believes one side is less corruptible than the other.
It's like saying the banker who embezzled your retirement is less icky than the the guy who stole your car.

From TFA:

Good for you, now let's re-check your federal funding and access to the White House Press Pool ... /s

Nobody held accountable is par for the course in this U.S. Administration. Hopefully both of those will change in about 2 years.

Made me think if this exchange from South Park, "Make Love, Not Warcraft" (S10E08) between Randy, the president of Blizzard Entertainment and their Board members:

Just a hypocrite. Like, honestly, most "green" advocates.

So CCC Meetings with Whiteboards and Sheets?
Good thing Claude isn't spelled with a "K".

:-)

"reality has a well-known liberal bias"
As we both know, reality has no bias; but Colbert's comment is so delightfully self-affirming that narcissist progressives can't stop repeating it as fact.

Personally, I think any society needs both liberals and conservatives to be healthy. Lately, progressives seem to delight in actually killing conservatives. (shrug)

Liberals cheerfully explore the world, and while many fall off cliffs, get eaten by bears, and eat berries that kill them, the ones that survive make progress possible. Without them we wouldn't have found wonderful new places better than where we were, animals to domesticate, and delicious berries that are good for us. Confident, naive liberals die in droves but pull civilization forward.

OTOH, conservatives are insurance for survival. They DON'T explore where stronger, dangerous hostile tribes may lurk to be led back to our village to enslave/kill/eat us. They don't eat those lovely red berries because the blue berries our ancestors have eaten have kept us healthy and well for centuries and are good enough, thank you. They do not accept strangers because if someone was a decent good person, why would he have been driven out of HIS village and come here?

Which is more important, survival of our tribe, or advancement for our tribe?
Trick question: both. The tension between sides is fine, rational, and normal; both should be encouraged. In a healthy society, our educational system would put out both.

What's odious to me is certainty. (To be clear, I find the same sort of certainty among Evangelicals and it is equally if not more repellent. And I consider myself a person of some Faith, maybe that's why?)

I get it; as a liberal you *have* to be confident that whatever whacky bullshit you're following today MUST be right, it MUST be better, or you wouldn't chase after it like an OCD squirrel. What's ironic is that most of the values leftists insist are core humanist values - even humanism itself - was born in the hearts of deeply religious men like Luther, Erasmus, and Scottish Presbyters.

Nationalize the discussion all you like but the US government itself isn't secure if it depends on Starlink, Microsoft, Google, or Amazon, either. To assume assume that these each have a nationalist bias is one thing, to assert that it is automagically in line with the policies and goals of the US government (or the party in power, if you will) is provably absurd.

The internet has become a major strategic context (resource? arena? theater?). Any country that maintains its sovereignty MUST insist that they control their own destiny there. OTOH only China can really say that national/corporate interests align reliably; it takes a level of central planning and control that most* would say is odious to western democratic humanism. In the west, I believe it's farcical to think that a government could possibly keep up with megacorps in this realm; it just demands too much nimbleness. So we have governments which MUST depend on corporate actors to stay in the race.
It's a puzzle which is only being repeated in AI.

*honestly, I'm not even sure what passes for western democratic values any more. Free speech? Free thought? Free religion? Secret ballots? Informed electorate?

Yup, can't wait to not be able to go/park somewhere because I don't have an Uber Parking account. /s