I don't think that's really accurate. We can't produce a Saturn V and Apollo Lander for the same reason Chevrolet can't produce a 1969 Camaro: it would require going back and reproducing entire supply chains that no longer exist and doing so based on obsolete standards. It's not that it can't be done with current tech, but that it makes absolutely zero sense to produce a car (or rocket) in 2026 the same way we did in 1969. Imagine how silly it would be to attempt to rebuild the Apollo guidance computer the same way it was first built in 1966 when your watch has many orders of magnitude more computing power.

The delays in going back to the moon have largely been political rather than anything to do with engineering. Congress mandated a wildly inefficient process for a heavy launch vehicle (SLS) by mandating that many firms/components be recycled from the Space Shuttle. Then, because a simple replication of Apollo isn't that exciting, they chose a far more technically ambitious solution that a tiny lander that they could barely cram 2 people in. The Apollo Lander had a dry mass of about 5 tons (similar to a small commercial truck). The Starship HLS is expected to have a dry mass of around 100 tons. We are trying to get 20x the mass to the moon that we did in 1969, and we are doing it with a tiny fraction of the budget (in terms of percentage of GDP devoted to the project).

The Chinese manned landing program includes a lander with just a bit more mass than Apollo. The U.S. plan includes a 100+ft tall Starship-based lander. It's a huge amount of mass to get to the moon and far beyond what any earth-launched rocket could get to trans-lunar orbit without refueling. Hence, the U.S. program being dependent on multiple in-orbit refuelings. They'll need to launch at least half a dozen rockets from earth to get anything to the moon, while the Chinese only need one.

Given that the Starship is still nowhere close to its planned 200T to low-earth orbit (v3 is supposedly capable of 100T, but V2 was only 30T), the U.S. concept is still a long way from being ready. Meanwhile, the fairly conventional Chinese launch vehicle (Long March 10) has already launched and is gearing up for its first orbital test next month. To be fair, Starship has flown too and is also gearing up for an orbital launch, but they still don't have the payload, refuel, and heat shields fully figured out. Unlike the Starship, they aren't trying to make the Long March 10 reuseable.

I'm 20 years out of undergrad with two graduate degrees, and when I switched jobs late last year the company wanted my undergrad GPA. I doubt the actual decisionmakers looked at it or cared though.

The problem is that the vast majority of legitimate businesses stopped using unsolicited calls a long time ago. The callers that are left are mostly scam centers in places like SE Asia that use spoofed numbers and some combination, robodialers, AI, and slave labor. Since the calls are typically already scams of various nature, the callers already face criminal penalties. A theoretical fine they will never pay isn't going to change behavior at all.

The thing that can help is better call filtering at the OS level. iOS already has AP-enabled call answering, but there's still no way to do a rules-based filtering criteria besides a whitelist only method. An AI agent that could be set up to answer and automatically classify the message as spam and delete before the user is notified could go a long way. Also, carriers need to get better about security. It's still way too easy to spoof phone numbers.

I don't think you can just blame this on being 17. I did a hike of slightly longer distance/elevation in late fall/early winter at 18. This was pre smartphone, but post internet. Knowing I'd be going 26 miles and 8,000 vert, I brought 3 liters of water and roughly 5,000 calories of food (with a known resupply point at the 1/4 point and halfway). I started at 5am knowing I'd be in for a VERY long day (ended up finishing at 8pm by headlamp). At no point did I ever think I could do an 18 mile hike in 5 hours on 1/2 liter of water.

It's hit or miss. It can be helpful in finding bike paths or official bike routes and ways to connect them in some locations. But it will also occasionally route through roads that would be quite dangerous to ride on due to heavy traffic. Additionally, it will sometimes route on gravel roads/paths without asking whether unpaved is ok. Gravel roads may be fine on some bikes and some roads, but deep gravel may be unrideable on road bikes. If you aren't careful and didn't check the route, you could end up walking your bike for miles (particularly bad in hard-sole road bike shoes) or do a lot of extra miles to route around you weren't expecting.

If I'm planning a ride, I will use the google maps bike directions as a starting point but use satellite/street view to review/revise the route.

Presumably, Google would at least have gotten the distance correct. Even most non-hikers understand that 18 miles a fairly serious distance to travel on foot in a day. Plus, half a liter of water for 5 hours as your only liquids is questionable even if you were just sitting on the beach. I wouldn't take that little water on a flat 18 mile mountain bike ride, let alone a mountainous hike. I've done single day hikes of that distance/gain, but a hike/climb like that is something you get up before dawn and have a serious plan for.

Hikers with no plans or poor plans happened before the internet too. Now, they can just try to blame the internet for their lack of planning. At least the internet means the real information is available. I'm sure their intended route was discussed on one of the many websites like all trails, not to mention appropriate gear and preparation for a hike of that length. The one benefit of tech is it means they were able to be rescued. 30 years ago they might have just disappeared without a trace or found in much more serious condition much later.

These questions seem to reflect fundamental misunderstandings about free speech and the first amendment.

"Should a journalist be able to walk into a church during service and interrupt the proceedings, and not be held accountable because he's a journalist? "

Interrupting proceedings in this nature would potentially be trespassing, and could be sanctioned as such. That isn't a free speech issue. What WOULD be a free speech issue is if the government tells a journalist they can't report what they've seen or their opinion of what they've seen.

" Should a major news outlet be able to report something without at least a cursory check to see if it's accurate?"

Absolutely, at least as far as the GOVERNMENT is concerned. It's not the government's job to decide if a media outlet was good enough with its fact checking. However, slander/libel law may be allow a private party to sanction a media outlet reporting falsehoods (though the bar is quite high if concerning a public figure).

"Should an interview answer be swapped with the answer from a different question?"

Is that ethical journalism? No. But again, it's not the GOVERNMENT'S job to enforce journalistic standards. Because once you make that the government's job, then low journalistic standards become those of any outlet saying something the government doesn't like.

I think a lot of people are consuming "influencer" content without even realizing it. Suppose you are thinking of going on vacation so you search for [location] on Youtube. You find a video talking about the hotels and attractions of the region. That travel vlog you found is influencer content.

Ditto for any hobby or interest you can think of. The interest in the hobby of the influencer is probably genuine, but they are often paid to shill for some product or another.

This planet is "nearby" only in the mindblowingly vast context of space. Voyager has been traveling for almost 50 years and is just now approaching one light *DAY* away from earth. If it were pointed in the right direction, a probe like Voyager would need 876,000 years to reach this planet. You aren't getting much faster than Voyager with a chemical rocket. A technology that could accelerate a spacecraft to a substantial fraction of the speed of light wouldn't get a human there in a normal lifespan. Even meaningful two-way radio communications at light speed wouldn't be possible within the span of a human lifetime.

Until you've mastered faster than light travel (or at least communications), 48 light years might as well be 4,800 light years. But if you've done that, you've also figured out time travel and/or the ability to bend spacetime to your will (i.e. developed the ability form wormholes between arbitrary points in the universe without somehow violating causality).

I'm talking about stuff like battery preconditioning based on selected chargers and also charger-based route-finding on the internal infotainment. Tesla has been pretty good about updating their cars, but I could see features breaking on many models. Heck, many cars from mid 2010s and earlier have had all connectivity break a few years ago when the cell carriers shut down 3g networks.

Software support is going to be the main issue. Unlike an ICEV, software does need to be updated because most EVs use connected car features and software for DC fast charging. Your EV may work fine in 15 years, but it may not support certain DC fast chargers.

Based on what? Motors often last 20 years despite typical warranties in the 5-7 year range.

I recently saw a 20 year old Rav4 EV listed for sale that was fully working. There are original Tesla Roadsters coming up on that milestone (though those did have a replacement program in the mid 2010s).

Most of them are safer than new due to better avionics (things like GPS, storm scopes, etc.). The only things that typically haven't been redone are airframes, which are inspected on a regular basis.

A huge portion Cessnas in the sky today (probably the majority) are 40 years old or more. Keep in mind that they have basically been completely rebuilt several times over by that age.