While neat, this is not self-sustaining — it’s taking more energy to power it than you’re getting out of it. (You can build a fusion device on your garage if you’re so inclined, though obviously this is much neater than that!)

One viewpoint is that we’ll never get clean energy from these devices, not because they won’t work, but because you get a lot of neutrons out of these devices. And what do we do with neutrons? We either bash them into lead and heat stuff up (boring and not a lot of energy), or we use them to breed fissile material, which is a lot more energetically favorable. So basically, the economically sound thing to do is to use your fusion reactor to power your relatively conventional fission reactor. Which is still way better than fossil fuels IMHO, so that’s something.

awk(1)ward

FTFY

One thing to keep in mind — the US is huge, both geographically and culturally. Flying from Los Angeles to Boston is further than London to Baghdad.

And likewise, the cultural “distance” between, say, New England or the Pacific Northwest and the deep south is extreme.

Of course there are things that affect (nearly) all Americans, but some context is important.

But this applies to the UK, Ireland, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and…well…much of the world, if these data are to be trusted.

good enough simulations that you can’t tell the difference.

This requires us having actual conversations with those dead people to compare against, which we obviously can’t do.

There is simply not enough information to train a model on of a dead person to create a comprehensive model of how they would respond in arbitrary conversations. You may be able to train with some depth in their field of expertise, but the whole point is to talk about things which they have no experience with, or at least, things which weren’t known then.

So sure, maybe we get a model that makes you think you’re talking to them, but that’s no different than just having a dream or an acid trip where you’re chatting with Einstein.

Isn’t universally funny.

Many, many (most?) commercial ham radios are powered by ~12VDC, and can be run directly off of a car battery in many cases (always use a fuse, kids!).

Pick your favorite tech company, pick a small team with a “nerdy” engineering mandate, and I’m confident you’ll find the academic, geeky science and engineering types you’re talking about.

They probably aren’t very vocal though, because 1) there’s a huge PR/marketing budget which is responsible for being the face of the company, and 2) well…these are nerdy STEM folks who probably like their job because they get very well compensated to be nerdy STEM types, and not because they’re fanboys/girls.

Verizon will tell you to fuck right off and will never unlock your device.

Will never unlock their device.

hopefully someone will appreciate it 😋

Not sure if wholesome, or wants there to be a car crash…

(I know what you mean, I just found it humorous.)

Our experience is that basically the only really expensive thing is childcare. Are you eligible for subsidized, or free, care (or have trustworthy and willing relatives)?

As for gear, babies don’t need much. But for what they do need, reach out to friends, neighbors, and family! We’re fortunate that we could have afforded everything new, but we really only bought a few things because friends and randos alike gave us so much free kid stuff (we bought a nice stroller, a baby basket, and an IKEA crib — basically everything else was a hand-me-down). Join local “buy nothing” groups, or parent groups (sadly they’re usually WhatsApp, but whatever). Most people hate throwing away stuff, and would rather it go to a good home.

Look at programs for subsidized/free necessities like diapers. There are lots of resources out there, especially in cities.

As everyone else said, no one feels ready. We certainly didn’t!

Take numbers with a grain of salt, e.g., this link says a 7200RPM 160GB SATA drive from 2004 is $107, or about $0.67/GB, instead of the $5 claimed in post.

Aviation is also mentioned, which (to me) is a bigger deal here. The only viable alternative to burning jet fuel is to get from A to B much, much more slowly. Which is great and something we should be doing! But realistically…not gonna happen anytime soon.

UPS and American companies in general

But this is USPS, which isn’t an American company, it’s a US independent agency.

Their mandate isn’t (AFAIK…) to make a profit, but rather to serve the mail requirements of a very large country.

Personally, my experiences with USPS have been generally positive, from passports for infants to free change-of-address forwarding service to tracking down quasi-scam products from Amazon. YMMV though.

Not on Netflix in my region :(

The network gear I manage is only accessible via VPN, or from a trusted internal network…

…and by the gear I manage, I mean my home network (a router and a few managed switches and access points). If a doofus like me can set it up for my home, I’d think that actual companies would be able to figure it out, too.

I’m holding out for Aperture Science, if for no other reason than that their AI has a dry, dark sense of humor.

I would be very surprised if such a fork would diverge from Linux. I would guess that this would be little more than a branch with (most likely) support for Russian hardware. Just my hunch.

A legitimate hard fork doesn’t seem particularly smart to me, but what do I know…

Perhaps microwaving for significantly longer, at a low power level, would be safer and result in higher success/yield?

I think it has a lot to do with disposition and convenience. I’m lazy, and I don’t like to drive if I can help it. But I live near enough to public transportation that we’ll spontaneously decide to hop on the subway and grab dinner on the waterfront.

It’s not the money that’s preventing us from hopping in the car to go to some new beach for dinner, it’s the convenience.