One year my school had a 3.5 inch floppy disk as part of the school supplies we were supposed to get. Mine was orange and you can tell a kid not to use it as a fidget toy, but they’re absolutely gonna use it as a fidget toy. I don’t think a single disk survived that year.

I also remember when my school got a fancy new “computer lab” that had all the colorful iMacs. There were still a few of the beige machines that read off of 7 inch floppies kicking around also.

Congrats! Check hop water if you haven’t already!

Thousands of military drones have been remotely piloted for decades. This news isn’t as ground breaking as it might seem. Some of these drones are large: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_RQ-4_Global_Hawk

I know a military drone isn’t the same as a passenger carrying airplane, but for cargo I think the only reason this isn’t already a thing is because drones are military tech and most governments don’t want that falling into the wrong hands.

Ah, for some reason I thought you were referring to a Roku stick/box, not a smart TV, my mistake 👍.

How does it stream things/what’s the point of a Roku if it’s not connected to the Internet?

I like this sentiment, but giving the US intelligence apparatus what amounts to a veto for elected/appointed officials feels like a recipe for disaster.

The only way I see that being workable is if the clearance grantors are transparently beholden to elected officials or the people directly. Which are essentially what elections and the congressional confirmation process are supposed to be. But both of those processes feel like they’ve been subverted. (Elections by the two-party system and the fact that half the population seems intent on electing a dictator, and the other by the senators/representatives that come out of that electoral system).

Not trying to defend Jeff here, but generally these kind of space megaprojects rely on manufacturing materials in space. I.e. capture an asteroid and use its material as the radiation shielding. Not that that’s currently anywhere near feasible ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Panera stopped being good when it stopped being bread co

In 2021 there was some planning/writing done for a prequel, but I don’t think anything came of it.

That film is having a bit of a cultural comeback, so there’s still hope.

The Grand Canyon! Must seem even grander to an ant

Is “research chemicals” a euphemism or are you literally referring to chemical substances/precursors purchased and used by laboratories that are also available to the public?

Power cut

I used to work for a startup that laid claim to all “ideas” that I had, in or out of working hours, during my period of employment with them.

This article is worth reading if only for this line:

However, though drug companies have had some success targeting the Death Receptor-5, no Fas agonists have made it into clinical trials.

Yeah, I think the argument is that you shouldn’t need the cars to get people where they need to go. This can be addressed two ways: either we don’t use cars or we don’t need to go (as far).

People should be able to travel with other modes that require less salt to deice, and cities could be built to not require cars for most trips. Salting sidewalks and bus lanes is better than salting those things plus roads and highways.

It’s also worth considering that yes, people should be able to just stay home. People shouldn’t be at risk of losing their job/home because they couldn’t safely make it into work. Parents shouldn’t have to rely on school as daycare.

I’d be curious to see if urban heat Island affects salt use. Maybe if we build dense enough, we don’t even really need salt to cover 99% of the population.

I wish the US had better passenger rail infrastructure so people traveling long distance didn’t need to road trip.

I’m lucky to be in a position where I can ride a train to the two closest cities so I’m picking up an EV. Anything longer distance and I’ll either fly or rent an ICE.

Corporations are not people, therefore do not have a right to free speech.

IDF can probably find entrances that are in use, but probably can’t easily detect how those entrances connect to each other, or what is actually in the tunnels (a weapons cache? Communications bunker? Hostages? Nothing?) Not to mention emergency exits or booby traps. If IDF seals an entrance, how do they know there isn’t a back door that nobody uses regularly? How do they know they aren’t sealing hostages inside too?

I used to work in a brewery and we used hot caustic followed by acid for cleaning most things but some pneumatic (spent) grain systems got pigged in freezing weather to avoid the wet grain freezing into a plug.

Depending on what you’re cleaning and the nature of the pipe (is it smooth or does it contain sharp bends?) you could consider pigging.