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Comment -10 degrees F (Score 0) 91

Yeah, tell me about that when the temperature since this past weekend has been between 0 and -10F with a wind chill of -20F. The global temperature has collectively been INCREASING since the last ice age. Heck, in the 70's, with all of the global pollution/smog etc there was talk of a new ice age. So, the globe got rid of most of the air pollution & what not, and now temperatures are rising. Then, you hear people like Bill "I know everything" Gates saying perhaps we should spray stuff in the upper atmosphere to block some of the sunlight to reduce the global temperatures. Just leave the Earth alone. It was here before humans and unless we blow it up, it will be here after humans are gone!

Comment Re:Should all gas stations have an array of these? (Score 5, Insightful) 122

No, unless and until they can produce a gallon of gasoline chaper than pumping oil out of the ground, refininging it, and shipping it to the gas station -- an economic miracle if you think about it

This makes sense for remote, off-the-grid locations where you have access to renewable power like solar that you don't pay for by the kilowatt hour. You could make enough gas from a modest setup to meet an inidvidual's needs.

Comment Its one or the other. Hybrid sucks (Score 2) 95

Look, there are pros and cons to working from office and working from home. Everyone knows what they are, so I am not going to rehash what is already widely known and understood. Neither of these models is perfect. Different ones will work for different companies depending on their size, stage of growth, what they do, and geographical location.

However, ONE OF THE TWO needs to be selected for any given company, because this whole "hybrid" model is what sucks FOR EVERYONE.

NO ONE wants to commute to an office to sit on Zoom calls - it is entirely counter productive and THE ABSOLUTE WORST combination of both models - however, this is EXACTLY where you end up with a "hybrid" workplace, because you can never guarantee who is exactly in the office and who is not so you are all on Zoom all the time regardless of where you are.

"Hybrid" is what truely needs to die.

Comment Re:This is rocket science (Score 1) 46

It's one thing to man-rate a *technology*; but the *production processes* and supply chain need to be equally robust. The Apollo Command Module was flown a half dozen times before any manned mission.

Apollo was a project that had economic scale. Many test objects were created and many beta units produced of critical components like the Command Module. While managing larger scale processes has its own challenges, the fact that the processes are *repeated* make them easier to debug.

The low pace of manned missions in the current era adds to their risk. You can man-rate the *technology*, but (a) it's minimally tested and (b) produced artisinally instead of industrially. There were, perhaps, 180 space suits of various types produced for Apollo (not all of which flew), which while below "industrial" production quantities was a lot of repeittion of the operations needed to make them. The astronauts on Artemis missions will be wearing suits produced at a rate of a handful over a decade.

While the hindsight and experience from sixty years of manned space flight reduce the technological risk, that is offset by the production quality risk from low cadence production. Assembly personnel and even vendors can turn over between production orders.

Comment Re:At least some of the actors are honest ... (Score 1) 105

I see this as a rich-get-richer scenario. Smart people, the ones who can outthink statistical parrot, will be able to use its speed at processing and digesting massive quantities of data to improve their productivity. People who can't outthink the things will have to use them *credulously*, and thus become functionally dumber than ever.

Comment My grandfather WW2 vet (Score 0) 83

Was a flame thrower with the 5th Marines in Iwo Jima. Nightmares for years after he returned according to my mother. Would wake up in the middle of the night screaming. When the Japanese started really importing cars after "the oil crisis", he told all six of his kids that if I ever catch you buying a Japanese car, I'll never talk to you again. Hey, I get it...considering what he went through. Shoot, today, you see more Japanese cars that you do American. Plus, I read a report that showed the percentage of domestic produced parts used in manufacturing vehicles built in America a couple weeks ago. Toyota, Honda were at the TOP of the list. At the bottom? Ford & GM.

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