I am one of those singing the praises of solar + battery. And the reason is different that what maybe most people think. It's not that the battery makes the difference, but the fact that I can keep producing energy from my PV panels to consume internally. Without the battery setup the inverter shuts down the panels, so all the energy coming down from the sun goes to waste, and my office is without energy. Here in my city (in the center of Mexico) for some reason, most of the times there is a problem with the utility supply, it's on the day. So having the battery doesn't really help us a lot, as all of our consumption is covererd by the PV. The battery probably would last us an hour or two without the panels, but that has only happened once since we put the battery setup on our installation. Not to mention that we have been paying just the interconnection rate (which amouts to about 1.5 dollars per month) in the last 10 years since we put the PV setup as we produce slighty more than we consume.

This would be the nail on the coffin for the theater experience for me. I suffer enough right now with a few (usually) people having their cellphone out during the movie (I've seen people scrolling instagram, facebook, whatever... not just answering ocasionally a text or checking a notification), if that is the whole idea of the movie, to have everyone with their cell out... then that's a movie I am not going to see. And probably that will extend to streaming services, just to vote with my wallet. Not to mention that this will probably make movies even dumber. Right now a lot of people can keep track of a semi-complicated plot or something like that, because, surprise, you have to be present and paying attention to the movie. If you have a chatbot telling you whatever stupid thing somebody decided would be nice to know at that moment, then much less attention is going to be in the movie itself. So, sure, you now know that the actress had an apple smoothie while filming that scene. Sorry, what scene? What was the movie about?

I just watched the first episode and really liked it. I read the first book last year. I can't say it got to me as several other SciFi books. I am a big SciFi fan and had very high hopes for those books. Since I don't ready Chinese, I bought the books first in Spanish. But the printed edition was full of errors and typos and it made very difficult to enjoy, even follow in some parts, so I switched to the an english edition. I have no problem reading english but somewhat I just couldn't get "in the zone" to read the book as I usually get for this kind of novels... I finished the book, started the second one but haven't continued. I hope to finish the TV adaptation and give the books another change, as, as several others have said, there are a lot of great and interesting ideas.

In México at least, most of the solar water heaters have a water deposit attached to them. And that tank keeps the water hot, *very hot*, for a very long time. At least from the moment when you want to use it (as you say in your example, the morning or the evening) to the next moment where the water will be able to be heated by the sun. I actually don't think you can really use them as "instant" heaters, at least not this kind of models I know. They took their time to heat the water, but then you have hot water in storage for at least a day. And that of course depends on the size of the heater/tank you put. Mine is not even big. I have seen ones twice the size, that could probably store 4 times as much water. It is a very simple and reliable tech. I have turned on my gas water heater maybe 6 times total in the past 2-3 years. This last week, for instance, it's been turned on because we have had a lot of clouds, rain and cold. But other than this time and maybe some 4 days some weeks ago, the whole Winter has gone without needing the gas furnace. It is anything but crazy...

I wonder how are they intending to implement this. Somewhere I read about using unpatched vulnerabilities, but then it's just a game of cat and mouse, as I guess Apple/Android would be very proactive in patching this security holes. And those security holes probably depend on being able to install some software like Pegasus or so, then you need to have your phone... borrowed.... by the police for them to be able to install such software on the phone, before they need that...

It's not like the classic wiretaps where they would position themselves on the carrier network, so only have to convince them/force them to let you plug into the network. This sounds like the lawmakers don't really know what they are talking about, like when they ask for secure encryption that the police can bypass, and stuff like that...

Or I am too naive?

The son from the wealthy guy was 19.

Totally agree. I hate having to use BT or similar to hear my music, which I already pay for, when driving a car. Not to mention that at the end one gets used to the map app of your choice.

I rented a Tesla some weeks ago and even if I knew there is no CarPlay available and was somewhat ready for it, I "hated" that. Not being able to use Apple Music (which I already pay) directly (the BT was very very laggy, not sure if that's always or just with the Teslas) sucked, and being the first time I drove a Tesla, I had a hard time following the navigation. Even if behind the scenes they are probably using Google, the instructions were much less clear than what the Maps app on my iPhone was telling me. And this was on NY/NJ, so not some obscure zone of the planet...

This probably wouldn't be for me a reason not to buy a Tesla, but the fact that it even crosses my mind is... worriesome. I know the last time I bought a car (2015) one of the reasons to get the modem I got was precisely that it DID have CarPlay and some other models did not at the time. Unfortunately I am sure CarPlay will never be an option for Teslas...

You can't use Firefox with the security keys to login into Apple sites... I can use my Yubikeys in Firefox on my Mac without problems in other sites... but Apple says that browser is not supported. Hopefully they will fix this soon.... Chrome works, so it's not that they are forcing Safari for this feature to work... I haven't tried from a PC.

Ok, so they won't be able to automatically benefit from this new features. They would have to license this again, if it even makes sense... as they have their own design for ML and that kind of stuff.

This is my ignorance speaking... but: aren't Apple's ARM chips just designs over the ARM "core" ? Or they license some parts but develop their own other parts of the CPU? Or what's the deal there? I have no real idea on how the ARM licensing deal and the different designs based on ARM relate to each other...

Here they did that before, when I started going. But I don't know what happened that they started delivering the orders once the movie started, and well into the movie itself. At the beginning I remember clearly I could order outside, directly on the counter, and have my order delivered there. Or, if they had more orders before, have it delivered to my seat. But the last time I went they did not want to take my order outside even... I haven't tried VIP theaters in other cities, so I am not sure if that's something specific to my city ot the big chain they belong to (Cinepolis, which, btw, has a complete monopoly of movie theaters in Mexico).

I forgot to add another big reason I don't go any more: they started screening more and more dubbed movies (last time I checked probably 80% or more of the slots were for dubbed movies), and if all the other reasons for not going were not enough, having a dubbed movie for me is simply a no-go.

I did that for more or less a year. Here in my city there is one cinema with the VIP option, and is more or less exactly as you say. Less seats = less people so, at least in theory, less assholes to share the movie with.
That was ok.
Except the theater has this kind of waitress to take and deliver orders, usually at the beginning... but that makes the whole "less assholes" even worse: people asking for popcorn at the middle of the movie, the waitress not even trying to speak in a low volume, nor the patrons. Waitress entering and exit all the time, not closing the doors (so the noise and light from outside gets in)... anyway... it was just paying more for, at the end, a worse experience, so I stopped doing that.
I barely go to the movies now. There were years were I went probably 4 times a month, and in the last 3 years I have probably gone 12 times total. Can't wait to have the direct-to-streaming option for all movies. I do have a decent setup at home, as others have said, so for me it's very little what I loose by not going to the cinema, except for the size of the screen; even if my 55" OLED is really superb, a 75" or so would be great. Just too damn expensive.

I seriously doubt this team is working *for* this kind of prices. The team is, per the summary, a group of academics that most likely are being paid in their universities or institutions to do research. So this money is actually extra money for them. That FB could pay 10+ times this without even noticing it? Yes, totally agree.

In México, at least, RF spectrum is government property. They are, as you say, licensed to the operator (be it a radiostation, a telco or whatever) but they are not their property. So I would think that it is more similar than a government-owned roads than not.

I'm on the exact same boat. I already cancelled the subscription to HBO GO. Not going to pay for their non-service.