Memes rot your brain, and this is excellent proof thereof.

There is definitely some potential in this.
As I recall, nuclear fission power plants have a small percentage of hydrogen in the air, because the fission does split some amount of water into hydrogen and oxygen.
This would make the air somewhat safer, and provide a small amount of power.
Perhaps use it to create ammonia and store for emergencies or black start-up.

Some bacteria used in making cheese also give off hydrogen, so this could make some cheeses become much cheaper to produce.

These are Xeon series CPUs we're talking about. They will be generally unavailable for private enthusiasts, and the unlocking of features will be software-only, probably protected by the EFI and heavy encryption.
Meaning; whatever code some program will send to the motherboard to unlock a feature, I imagine it will be quite unique, and will probably only work once for the specific CPUs installed, and only for a limited time.
I can certainly also imagine Intel going above and beyond, so any wrong codes sent will lock up the board for some time.

Hmm, so the whole out-sourcing to China could have been a convenient diversion, to make automation taking away jobs less obvious?

Oh, hah! I thought "cat feeder" referred to some kind of entrepreneurial equipment.
That's a bit less worrisome.

Yeah, but polyethylene, once polymerized from ethylene, there's nothing about it that would make it specifically depolymerize into ethylene again, so it's a very important question.
I would also not expect it to be broken down into ethylene again, but rather ethanol, propanol, butanol, butanediol, or some other slightly oxidized carbonhydride.

In 2021, a method for extracting lithium cheaply from sea water was invented:

A membrane of lithium lanthanum titanium oxide (LLTO) allows only lithium ions to cross it.
By performing electrolysis across a LLTO membrane, lithium ions are forced through the membrane, and become concentrated on one side.

The method does need a series of these membranes and electrolysis, to achieve a high enough concentration, but the gases produced more than pays for the electricity used, so the lithium is essentially free (or a few dollars per kilogram and with free hydrogen and chlorine gases as byproduct, depending on how you look at it).

Give it a few years, and mining lithium won't make sense economically any more.

The urgency might be an upcoming extinction-level event.
Earth has a history of having those.

Being able to get a few million people along with rebuild-tech off-planet during it, would make for a fairly quick recovery afterwards, and practically ensure becoming the dominant and/or most advanced civilization soon after.

That all assumes, that the brain is the "house" or "seat" of the mind (and your memories).
If instead the mind is part of your spirit, an immaterial energy body similar to, but overlaid with your physical body (and resonant with your DNA), and the brain is "just" an interface between your physical and energy body, swapping brain cells becomes meaningless.

I noticed you didn't mention our history.
There seems to have been an advanced civilization here thousands of years ago - the pyramids and many other ancient structures across the planet attest to that.
They may have been visiting and/or may be keeping an eye on Earth, and could inform us about our lost history, which would be a very good reason to contact them.

This seems to be heading into Iraqi information minister territory.

Loved that guy, btw.

If you happen to breaking hard as the tire passes over it, the shear force should easily rip such a beetle apart.

It's going to be SO awkward, when this prize has to be revoked.

The object at the center of a galaxy is basically a self-sustaining Faraday generator in plasma.

Very well put. Now write some congress critters, proposing a bill which prohibits companies such as Apple from contractually requiring that a company *destroys* their hardware, enabling said company to refurbish and re-use functional hardware as they see fit.

The same bill could also require companies producing large amounts of electronic consumer devices to let said devices remain functional for no less than 10 years, and are not allowed to destroy said devices or parts thereof unless at least 10 years after production date.
This would push companies such as Apple to either refurbish old devices, or put them in storage until 10 years old to destroy them for the rare elements.
The bill could furthermore put a penalty on storing (as in; not having them up for sale) functional or refurbishable devices/parts longer than say 3 months.This would entail some form of disclosure of Apple's database of parts and devices, as they put a unique identifier in each. Some parts/devices could be chosen randomly and investigated for whereabouts and current use.
Of course, wilfully trying to circumvent disclosure should be a felony.

No, the over-use of OOP in C++ was due to being taught to do so in the educational institutions.
And staying in that habit after, and continuing working that way, because habit.
At least, that how I experienced it.

We really are creatures of habit.