I said older, not elderly. Besides, I know from experience that not all of them sag. Finally, that's not what I'm interested in anyway.

What you need is a "friend with benefits". Someone you could hook up with and engage in mutual satisfaction. This is different than a one night stand. In the FWB world, you know the person and know their lifestyle. There are many fewer health risks.

And now some advice from experience. Since you appear to be a 44 year-old male, may I suggest looking into older women. Post menopausal, recently widowed or divorced ladies are LOADS of fun. You don't have to worry about babies, they usually have their own place and money, and wants to boogie. Downsides? A few. You'll get some strange looks if you go out (but less now than it was AND the point of all of this is to do something you don't go outside for anywa). You got to get over the "she's so much older" thing (remember the idea she has to be younger is mostly related to fertility). And (how to say this politely here) they tend to be old-school with personal grooming. You got to like playing on the carpet instead of a hardwood floor.

That's why, when I buy some sort of media, I have a physical copy of it somewhere that Amazon doesn't know about. MP3 file on my hard disk, vinyl record on the shelf, DVD, CD, paper book. Then it doesn't matter if Amazon loses its license to carry it, I will still have it. I can watch it as many times as I want, jump up-and-down on it, use it as a coaster, give it to my friend, all because I actually purchased it.

Sometimes I'll rent things. Some show I only want to see once or something that doesn't make sense to see again. And if you think about it, movie tickets are rentals. You rent a chair for a specific amount of time to watch TV commercials on the big movie screen :-)

We have long since left behind the idea that we do science because it is good to do science. There are only two reasons we do science. Short term profit, or to find better and more efficient ways to kill people. That's the only science government (and most companies) will fund. Discovering the secrets of the CMB in no way furthers the two goals above, so it was cancelled. Apollo was a development program for an ICBM. If you can get a man on the moon, you can drop a bomb down the Kremlin's chimney. The Hubble telescope was a spy telescope turned toward the heavens instead of the Earth.

As for the brain drain mentioned elsewhere; Let them go. Let those other countries pay for the useless research while we spend OUR money on stuff that makes MONEY or makes better war (and nothing makes a profit like a good war).

For those who are thinking of flaming me; I'm just being Machiavellian. This is not what should be, but what "IS".

I wonder if this wood would be good for making musical instruments? A lot of the sound of a violin is in the hardness of the wood and the ring structure. It is speculated that part of the special sound of a Stradivarius violin is due to the fact it was made from trees that grew very slowly so the growth rings were very tight. But even if that is not so, it could replace teak or ironwood in places like fingerboards.

Beijing these days. My wife is from there.

All I use Siri for is a translation service. My wife is Chinese, and she learned English from a book and a British English teacher. Even after 30-odd years, she sometimes runs into words that are not in her vocabulary. When we were first married this was a problem. Her Chinese-English dictionary was censored and didn't include words that newlywed couples might want to use. Now we have Siri... "What is the Mandarin Chinese word for " and it tells her. This really speeds up conversations on new topics.

Ummm, no. Honda correctly saw that EV's were not generally loved except in Liberal havens. For most of the USA they are stupid. The distances are too large. It would take me 2 days to go visit my parents while in a gas car it takes 4 hours. Now, what they need to make more of IMHO is Hybirds. The efficiency of an EV without the range anxiety or figuring out how to put a charger in a house built in 1920.

You know what they USED to do in Oklahoma (and maybe still do) is in the fall they send crews around with a truck full of hot, liquid tar, a hose and a nozzle, and they drive slowly down the streets and fill in every crack with hot tar. It seems to work. I don't live there now so I don't know if it is still done. I know up here in Northern KY they would much rather wait for the pothole to get 3 feet deep before trying to fill it.

Elon Musk, with the backing of his Trumpness, is in a position to give Europe and their fact-checking and censorship laws the big middle finger. The richest man on earth can say "don't like what I'm doing? Fine, I'll close your country and put it out of business". Take away FB and X and your country (and ours) devolves to pen-and-paper of the 1930's.

My son (a Millionaire Ivy-League MBA) has done this. At the time he had 2 kids. Flew from California to visit grandma in Kentucky. Bought 2 car seats and had them shipped to Grandma. Used them for a week, then took them back for a refund. When grandma complained that wasn't moral, he said "Oh Grandma, EVERYBODY is doing this. Those who are "honest" as you say are STUPID!". THIS is why the returns are drying up. BTW: he did the same with emotional support animals to get his dog to fly for free. These kids have absolutely no sense of right or wrong, just profit and loss (and I raised him right; the young man that left home at 18 would have never done this). Now that boy wouldn't piss on me if I were on fire.

Flight Data Recorder, not Franklin Delano Roosevelt. OK OK I got the joke but some readers might not.

After Jan 21st, the EPA will be gone or toothless, so they aren't a factor. And as for California emissions, an Executive Order could fix this. OR pull all government business out of California and into more business friendly states. I'd advocate for a fortified corridor (fortified with a wall guarded by the army with guns) from another business-friendly state to the big ports where all those Electric Truck rules don't apply, and California would have to pay a tariff to get goods from the United States. Something like the road to Berlin during the cold war.

Get in, get a degree, get out, and get a job. "College Degree" is the automatic entry barrier to a good paying job. You even had to have a college degree to be a manager at Radio Shack, for minimum wage.

As part of my business degree in the 80's, I was required to endure a class in "business ethics". What an oxymoron! This was when Chainsaw Al Dunlap was worshiped and they were building Enron. This class was taught by a flower child who wore sandals and sat cross-legged on her desk. Most of the students were like me; in it because it was a requirement. But there was one young man, with pink hair and nothing else to do who just asked ENDLESS questions on finer points. When the teacher tried to limit him, he went to the administration. Finally somebody got in his face and told him to shut up, and I agreed. Then he turns to me and says "If you aren't interested in these questions, why are you here?" To which I said "I have to pay for this class out of my own pocket. I'm here to learn what the professor wants me to know, regurgitate it on a test, get a good grade and OUT of here so I can go get a paying job!". To which he said "What a common ruffian you are".

I wasn't a vote for Trump, it was a vote against liberalism. I doubt that most Trump voters would let him date their daughter.

To cut it way down, Harris said, "We want to make the country just like California", the country said, "We don't want to be like California". Things like people with male parts and beards declaring themselves to be female and playing on women's teams. People in flyover country are appalled by this sort of thing, and they just pushed the big-red stop button.