Diminished maybe, but not all that much.

I think we can reasonably assume that if there's a huge blackout, it won't last forever. A lot of smart people will work hard on getting things up and running again. A few years ago in the USA it lasted for a bit longer, what was it, a week or two? Recently in Spain it lasted a few days. But all those power stations and power grid operators don't just shrug and go home. So getting through those days is probably all it takes for any reasonably realistic scenario.

And you can build things up piecewise. I've got my solar now. The next thing will be a battery. Once I have that, I can think about an electric car.

I've recently started looking at my power consumption on a 15-minute graph, and it turns out that power usage isn't all that much less during the night. In fact, at times it is higher because all the lights are turned up. But even at night, there's the fridge and freezer, the house electronics, security cameras, etc.

Turns out the stuff I need for work - a notebook and an external screen - barely register.

Yes, and different inverters. I've got a very small solar array, and the micro-inverter on it doesn't even work if it can't find the main power grid to sync to.

A battery will get you over some power grid outage, but not totally off-grid.

You are totally wrong.

I've installed a really small solar array and on sunny days I produce more electricity than I use. I'm sure it'll be a lot less in winter. BUT - I have a wood-burning heater which needs only a bit of electrical power for its control system. I'm pretty sure I can produce enough of that even in winter. So in theory, with the addition of a battery to cover the night, I could survive even if the power grid went down for an extended time.

Solar as a provider of independence doesn't mean everything needs to run on solar. Sometimes, it's just an enabler for another system.

So, in a nutshell, AI runs the risk of creating unrealistic relationship expectations and simulate perfection? No way. That's a completely new thing in the world. Romance novels, movies, gold diggers or marriage swindlers or just, frankly, a whole lot of ordinary people into "presenting themselves" in order to "score" a good catch, rather than being authentic and looking for a good match - I'm sure all of these things are hypothetical, don't already do essentially the same thing just with a lot less processing power, and cause the same issues.

But hey, this one has "AI" in it, so hype!

This. I've started with solar. Now that in good weather I produce more than I consume, I'm thinking about adding storage next. Once you have solar power with storage, an EV or at least a plug-in hybrid becomes a logical next step.

That's not necessarily a given.

Developing countries have the advantage of not having an established base. For example, mobile phones took Africa by storm and were available in many places where landlines were not. And with smartphones, for a while Africa was leading in mobile payment systems - exactly because it didn't have the established base the developed world has.

With solar power and batteries dropping in price, solar is an obvious choice for people in developing countries where the power grid is unreliable. Once you have solar power and storage anyways, an EV means independence from oil prices and not having to drive to a petrol station to refill.

EVs are coming down in price rapidly. They might soon be an actual alternative outside the developed world.

Uh... it even has its own Wikipedia page: women, life, freedom.

It was pretty much all over western media for a while. Before some B-stars affair, divorce or whatever became more important

According to some sources. Other sources say the opposite. I guess we need to wait and see.

Afraid that the Iranian people finally rise up against the Mullah regime? Control of communications is high on the dictatorship 101 list.

The show fell off a cliff with Jodie Whittaker and not at all because of her. The first three or so episodes I watched she put on a reasonably good performance. But the material they gave her to work with was just atrocious. Utter crap. Stuff they must've dug out of the very bottom of the "rejected ideas" bin.

The ensemble cast didn't work, like at all. I never cared for any of them even the tiniest bit. The Doctor, the most feared creature in the universe, a being able to rip reality apart and put it back together, someone who can start or end wars with a few words. The Doctor who literally said to the Aliens of the universe assembled above Earth as he announced he'll stand in their way and he has neither a plan nor any weapons, to "do the smart thing. Let somebody else try first." - and they all decided to fuck off instead.

So THAT Doctor suddenly became a bumbling idiot who succeeded only through luck and plot convenience.

So maybe going back to Rose is a chance of a restart. After all, she _was_ Bad Wolf. Though I fear they'll just cheap out with some "oh, I just picked a familiar face at random" bullshit.

I wish, but nah, this is pure SciFi.

Why? Because it's not all in the brain. The brain is connected to the entire nervous system. The "mind-body duality" doesn't exist. You're not a mind that has a body, you're a body that has a mind. We know that the body can survive without the mind (coma patients, some extreme cases of mental or debilitating illness, etc.) - but there isn't one case of a mind without a body.

Even if you could upload yourself to a supercomputer with the same processing power as your brain, I'm pretty sure the first dozens or hundreds of such experiments will go the SpaceX Starship way - lots of fireworks for every tiny bit of ground gained.

I personally think that we should do work on replicating less complex parts of the nervous system first. One, we'll need it if we want to do full mind digitalisation. Two, it can help people today (amputees, etc.). Three, there is already some work with great progress going on.

I double-checked and it's not April 1st.

WTF?

Capitalism is now packaging wage-slavery as a product and SELLING it to us?

I hope the AIs evolve quickly to take over. My hope for humanity is melting faster than the ice caps.

Yeah. Never, ever, do that. I've run a few online communities. Back when your own forum was still a thing and you could survive without being a group on Facebook, a subreddit or a Stackoverflow.

Your most active users aren't always your best users, and they almost always are NOT the ones you want to have as moderators.

If I could do all that again, I would give mod rights to the people who contribute just a bit, but consistently over a long time, and who read more than they write.

Yes, but for that you've gotta do something suspicious first. And that's the point - visiting a Star Wars fan site is not suspicious. Getting e-mails from someone@cia.gov is.