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Comment Re:China is a totalitarian hell (Score 2) 124

These were people who worked in defence so anywhere behind the Iron Curtain was right out and I imagine Cuba would have been too. Even Austria was considered a risk, probably because so many spies would hang out there from both sides.

Or so they told me. I can't be entirely sure they weren't exagerrating.

Yes, certain destinations were off-limits to people who chose to work in defense, however that falls far shy of this "Exit Ban".

The US saying "If you travel to Cuba, you may face charges when you return" or even "You have been charged with a specific crime, so you cannot leave until the charges are resolved is significantly different from China saying "You are important to our plans, so you cannot leave the country at all, and neither can your immediate family", or forbidden a US citizen from leaving because of visa inconsistencies, much less the common situation where Chinese employers require staff to surrender their passports.

Yes, a judge can require the defendant to surrender their passport as a condition of bail, but the USA lacks effective exit controls, so that isn't actually a high barrier to exiting (but makes it tough to come back).

Comment Exit Bans (Score 2) 124

If, as the article suggests, this is an "Exit Ban" on certain individuals and extending to their family members, that's significantly more restrictive than anything the US has imposed on defense workers and top scientists other than during wartime.

Yes, people with sensitive jobs and a security clearance are strongly discouraged from visiting hostile nations, with a subset even being required to submit their travel plans before any foreign travel, but this is explained clearly when you accept employment directly with the US government, or start working under a government contract, and you're always free to not accept the job offer. And yes, all US citizens were for many years prohibited to travel to embargoed nations (Cuba). But this was nowhere near an "exit ban" on key personnel, much less on their family members!

When I held a clearance, I was never forbidden to leave the USA. I might not have a job when I get back, but that's not the same thing at all.

Comment Re:"reached orbit" is a misnomer (Score 1) 70

Exactly. You can test each component on the ground like NASA does but it's very expensive and very slow. I think the "test flight hardware by flying it" philosophy practiced by SpaceX is superior for actually producing results in a timely and cost-efficient manner.

One result of this is that a single SLS engine probably costs more than an entire Starship/Super Heavy stack. Even the ones that were taken off Space Shuttles and refurbished.

Yep, even the "expendable" version (the RS-25E) is hugely expensive. From wiki:

On 1 May 2020, NASA awarded a contract extension to manufacture 18 additional RS-25 engines, with associated services, for $1.79 billion

So these engines are costing the taxpayer 100 million EACH, the 4 of them needed for an SLS booster is 400 million. And this is for the less-capable expendable version, which was supposed to be cheaper than the original. All to just manufacture an engine that has already been designed and has been optimized for decades, no research and development required. Meanwhile SpaceX is producing hundreds of Raptor engines, which they had to develop from scratch, and doing it at a much lower cost. As a bonus, the Raptor is a reusable engine so they don't need to make a new set for each rocket they need to fly (presuming their reuse plans come to fruition).

Comment Isn't this already how it works? (Score 2) 149

When I try to go somewhere using Google Maps, it won't try to send me down the shortest route, it will try to send me down the *fastest* route. And what route is the fastest depends on traffic. This would naturally spread people out: as soon as the busy highway becomes congested, people automatically get sent down alternate routes instead of further congesting that highway.

Comment Re:Yes! Make cars expensive again! (Score 1) 504

Good timing. I bought my first BMW in 2007. I'm planning on a new M2 next year.

Sweet. You'll be able to look forward cool features such as forced ads on the in-car screens (https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/08/06/0414254/bmw-blasts-its-cars-internal-screens-with-aggressive-ads) and paying a subscription for heated seats (https://tech.slashdot.org/story/22/07/12/1616236/bmw-starts-selling-heated-seat-subscriptions-for-18-a-month). No idea why you would want to continue with a company that does stuff like that, but it's your money. I prefer car companies that don't nickle and dime me (or try to sell my attention to other companies) after I've already bought the car.

Comment Re:Brevard County has followed suit. (Score 1) 61

You're the one who misused the word, don't get all offended. Just for reference:

discrete: [dih-skreet] / dskrit /
adjective
1. apart or detached from others; separate; distinct.
six discrete parts.
Synonyms:
unconnected, individual, different
2. consisting of or characterized by distinct or individual parts; discontinuous.

Here's the word it appears you were trying to use:

discreet:[dih-skreet] / dskrit /
adjective
1. judicious in one's conduct or speech, especially with regard to respecting privacy or maintaining silence about something of a delicate nature; prudent; circumspect.

Homophones are HARD, right? /s

Comment Re:This didn't have to happen twice (Score 2) 162

It only applies to black men.

Per the statistics, police shoot and kill quite a few white men as well. Nobody gets worked up about those dudes.

OTOH, when you dig into the individual incidents, pretty much all of those dead white men were actively attacking the police, usually with a weapon (), so it's difficult to get to worked up about those deaths.

Comment Re:Wind and sunshine (Score 2) 76

Texas has installed more renewables than anywhere else in the world in the past few years

[citation needed]

For Texas, I'm finding 2024 numbers from the Texas Economic Development Corp. here and it touts adding 9,700 MW of solar in 2024. Meanwhile, China installed 277,000 MW of solar in 2024. I'm not readily finding numbers for wind, but I don't really need to -- you're the one making the outlandish claim, you need to provide the data.

Comment Re:Until they run out of defective processors (Score 1) 167

I checked Apple's website for the US, the Indigo 256GB model says "6-8 business days".
For Canada, where I am, the Indigo 256GB model says "August 6th".

The article you linked is from April, four months ago. Clearly the situation has changed. Neither the US nor Canada are seeing months of backlog.

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