No, it's the same face recognition that Americans have to "suffer" when going to the EU.

Compared to the face on the passport and also fingerprints.

Traveling with 5 passports or claiming you 'lost' the one with the stamps, won't work anymore, your face has only access to 90 days, no matter which passport you use.

Or laundering.

My point is that it will need a LOT of money and time to catch up, all the while everybody using Space-Karen's launch vehicles because they are way cheaper.

I don't remember that rule about not discussing politics. Sure, at dinner, or specifically at Thanksgiving dinner, but we used to discuss politics in the office face-to-face all the time, and just kind of agree to disagree. But we both came away with a better understanding of how the other person was thinking, and in most cases there were also areas on which we agreed. Nobody every tried to get someone fired for their viewpoint. That's what changed.

This is a good step, if it's really a thing. But what I wonder about is if we can somehow get people from the political non-extremes talking to each other again (face to face). I was in Kentucky on a business trip a few years ago, and we were going out to lunch with the client there. We asked if this other guy wanted to come with us, and they said, "No, he won't come... he's a democrat." So? I used to work in Michigan from 2000 to 2006 and we'd go out to lunch all the time, and there was a mix of people who were democrats and republicans. Sure, there were lightly heated discussions, but everybody went back to the office and worked on stuff together. People understood each other's point of view a lot better back then. And they were polite. I wonder how to encourage more of that these days.

The pathetic guy had 130 rocket launches this year ALONE and it's only October and 10,000 satellites are now up.

Good luck catching up for the competition.

I'm not American, but I know there already is an asteroid defence programme. I was listening to people involved in it on a podcast, Science Friday, the other week. Interesting stuff.

On the 2.5Bn years bit - yes, but don't start don't finish. We have no idea how long it will take to develop the techniques required for this, and there will always be a good reason to put it off until tomorrow. Needs to start and just become so embedded over time that future generations don't even question why we're doing it - it's just patently obvious to them. Won't happen in my lifetime, but then a lot of things won't happen in my lifetime that are getting worked on today and that's fine.

There's often a "we should fix problems on earth before looking to space" theme. We can be as equal, progressive and fair as we like and an asteroid still wouldn't give a damn and wipe us out anyway. Should we survive asteroid attacks, the sun will expand and burn the planet dry anyway.

We have to do both. Defence of the Earth (dramatic phrase, but see subject above...) has to be studied, funded and run. Along side that a long, probably multigenerationally long, programme of "how do we survive when the Earth is uninhabitable" including the ability to leave Earth and live elsewhere. These programmes are fundamental to long term survival of the human race.

I think one of the problems is that it all sounds very dramatic, big and sci-fi. But it isn't - we have direct evidence that the risk already materialised once and wiped out most life. We also have evidence of the expansion of the sun. All these things are certain, so we have to look at them as reality and not fiction.

Japan clung to 8-inch floppies far longer than most countries. The most famous holdout was the Japanese Ministry of Defense, which—until 2022—still used 8-inch floppy disks for certain administrative data transfers. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry had similar legacy systems too.

Depends on WHERE in Japan, there are a few places that even Japanese people use waldos, if you remember.:-)

Indeed, I remember a company that had a mini-computer sitting in a broom cabinet, nobody knew what it did, so the new manager pulled the plug and found out it ran the company.
Nobody knew how to restart it.
I ran as soon as they told me.

So, JUST LIKE in Myanmar, the article is about?

They appear at dawn, wearing linen and the scent of boiling nettles.
With solemn faces, they explain that science is fine, but their aunt once cured a migraine by humming at rosemary.

They call coffee “bean infusion” and water “structured.”

Every sentence begins with “as an empath,” and ends with “raise your vibration.”

Their kitchens look like witch covens sponsored by Whole Foods.

They speak of detoxing — as if their intestines were a 1980s swimming pool.

Hand them aspirin, and they’ll frown; hand them a tincture of moon-blessed kale, and they’ll nod gravely, as though the cosmos just approved the dosage.

Yes, because all the communist countries over the past 100 years were utopias devoid of greed and suffering. *Editor's note: they were not.* Communist regimes are just as eager to exploit natural resources and conquer territory as any other nation. Do you think communism stopped China from emitting so much CO2?

My experience with these kinds of decisions is that cloud connectivity is useful for two reasons: 1) it allows data collection, which can be another revenue stream, and 2) it's easier for the end user to setup than any kind of local direct connection. As long as both devices can get to the web, it'll work, but some routers, e.g., won't necessarily let devices on the same network talk to each other by default, and their IP address can randomly change due to DHCP, etc.