Reasons vary. I know someone working in HR at a famous Japanese company. Rotating employees to offices around the world generally falls into 3 categories- 1. Giving experience, or rewarding good workers the company would like to develop into management. 2. Temporarily getting rid of useless or unliked employees without needing to fire them, which is very difficult in Japan. 3. Specialists for specific projects where hiring US citizens would be too much of a hassle. Employees in category 2 tend to be assigned to developing or undesirable countries, but some do come to the US too.

The truth varies slightly from the headlines. These companies paid huge sums for offshore leases. Trump is refunding those. Still a boneheaded move but the companies involved are definitely not profiting or happy about this outcome.

Geothermal developments are legit. Essentially, most of the US geothermal sites were built/drilled back in the 70s and 80s. Hydraulic fracturing and some of the other oil and gas drilling advancements of the past 30 years have yet to be applied to geothermal. There is room for a new player to tie these things together, especially if they can build turnkey plants or sell steam to existing sites on long term contracts (they plan for both). However, they aren't worth anywhere near $3B.

I've driven one of those box U-hauls before. It takes some getting used to. You have to be attentive. BE ATTENTIVE to what's behind you. And one time, I actually had to turn around because of a low railroad trestle. It was a bit embarrassing to have not planned my route properly and get forced to turn around in a small parking lot; but nowhere near as embarrassing as peeling the top off the truck.

The fundamental issue is that theaters need to generate a certain amount of revenue per square foot to be profitable. People "rent" small amounts of space for a couple hours then they leave. But theaters are massive buildings, the desirable time slots are finite, and even on a good day it's a struggle to pack a theater. Somebody has to pay for everything and it seemes to be a figure that requires high gross profits and extensive upselling to get to that number.

One of the lessons we've had as the Federal, multi-branch nature of the US governmennt has frustrated Trump is that the government may be fucking us over, but it's not doing it in *unison*. It's doing it piecemiel, on the initiative of many interests working against each other, just as the framers intended. The motto on the Great Seal notwithstanding, there are myriad roadblocks to consolidating power in the hands of a single individual. It takes time and repeated failures. This is why the second Trump Adminsitration is worse than the first; they've figured out ways around things like Congressional power of the purse, put more of their henchmen in the judiciary, and normalized Congress lying down and letting the president walk all over them. It's a serious situation, although fortunately Trump isn't long for this world.

Before anybody points this out, a gallon of bleach (the common size) is currently well over their weight limit. OTOH, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be thinking ahead to the possibility of hackers ordering risky combinations of materials that might ignite or release hazardous fumes if jostled. I don't know if Wing's drones drop cargo like other services I've seen either. The videos I've seen have drogue parachutes but things still come down a bit fast. Anyway, it's not a realistic concern *for now*, apparently; but hopefully it's being considered.

I'd like to send an order of bleach, ammonia and thumb tacks to 1000 of my closest friends, via drone.

While that's true, a responsible generation aims to boost the next generation to a *higher* level than the education they received. The world has become more complex and faster-paced, and even if that weren't true, the consequenes of aiming high and falling short are better than the consequences of aiming for the status quo and falling short.

So while I'm 100% onboard with skepticism that technology will magically make education better, I think the argument that "the education I got worked for me should be good for them" isn't a strong argument. What we need is a better ecducation that would have been a better education fifty years ago: stronger math, science, and language skills, general knowledge, and, I think critical thinking and media literacy. Possibly emotional intelligence -- it's kind of pointless to teach people critcial thinking skills if they are carried away by emotions.

There are no economic or security reasons to blockade Cuba, so that leaves *political*.

It used to be believed that bullies were low status individuals who are lashing out out of frustration. But research has shown that bullying is an effective strategy for achieving and maintaining social status. In other words it's a political winner. So the focus of research has shifted from the bully to the people around him who enable the bullying. The inner circle are the henchmen -- people without the charisma and daring to initiate the bullying, but join in when the bully gets things started. Around them are the audience, the people who wouldn't risk participating but enjoy the bullying vicariously. And around them are the much larger group of bystanders, who don't approve but are waiting for someone else to stop the bullying. Then off to the side are the defenders, who stand up to the bully.

Perhaps the least appreciated supporting factor in the phenomenon of the high-status bully is the silence of the bystanders, which is dependent upon the perception of widespread approval. Since you can't visibly see the the line between the approving audience and the apalled bystanders, the silence of the bytstanders is absolutely essential in sustaining the bullying.

Lot's of Americans are apalled at the idea of using military force to inflict suffering on the Cuban people. But that's only politically advantageous *because* of *them*. Tney are indistinguishable from the relatively small number of people who are thrilled when Trump announced he can do anything he wants wtih Cuba. The gap between actual approval and *perceived* approval is absolutely critical in establishign and maintaining any kind of authoritarianism. This is why would be authoritarian leaders are so focused on punishing and marginalizing any kind of expression of disapproval.

Cuba is bullied because the Cuban community in Miami is numerous and have a loud opinion to doing so. Florida is generally quite important in winning a presidential election.

Amazon has been making a lot of amateur mistakes too in recent months. I expect it will get worse before it gets better.

Thanks for your questions, Freenet caches data but it isn’t meant to be a long-term storage network. It’s better to think of it as a communication system. Data persists as long as at least one node remains subscribed to it. If nobody subscribes (including the author), it will eventually disappear from the network. So yes, if only your node subscribes then the data will only exist there and won’t be available when your machine is offline. But if other nodes subscribe it will be replicated automatically and remain available even if your node goes offline.

Not from 2023, the linked video is from last month. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...