I'm looking at this thing, and honestly I can't see what the point is. An external keyboard with macros? How does that have anything to do with sound? Why does it take inputs and outputs for sound even? I don't get it. Why would I buy this thing for $400 when I can just plug my speakers into my PC and be done with it? There are plenty of software tools to reroute sound around from different sources to different output devices. Why would I need this cluttering up my desk?

1) Decades? I suppose if you mean around 18 decades. Mercury amalgam was invented in the 1800s

2) It's not. The mercury is coming from the fallout of coal burning. This is a poor attempt at diversion.

3) yes.

See, I don't get it. Just change your business hours - it's not hard.

Time to short LOGI.

Zulu Africa would seem a good spot to me...

No matter how much or how little you make, you will always feel as though you are an inch away from poverty.

What you are really saying is that you don't want to make any sacrifices for your own family.

The thing with kids and finances is to just do it - it will work out in the end. It always does.

Get married young.
Have 3 kids by 30.
Don't worry about the money. It will come.

Do something the robots can't do - raise a family.

Rule 1 of politics: Accuse the other side of what you yourself are in fact doing.

Nah. It's pretty easy. Truth is Truth, no matter what. Now the other side, I can totally see how that would be mentally exhausting. You need to hold two mutually conflicting ideas in your mind at the same time and believe both are true -- on so many issues.

I stopped reading new releases because it's all propaganda. The publishing houses are very tightly controlling what makes it to press, and if it doesn't conform to a certain set of opinions, it never sees the light of day. So, since I refuse to be propagandized, I just won't read their stuff. Same goes with movies and television.

The current book I'm reading Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson, was published in 1907. Amazing how much good stuff is in the public domain now.

Eh, the buggy whip makers went to work for Ford.

There will be more productive activity to be done so long as there are people willing to work. Once wants and needs are met by AI, people will get sick of them and want and need things that can't be made by AI. It's human nature - we always want what we can't have.

Neil Stephenson's Diamond Age predicted this but with nanotech. All goods became commodities when the nanotech replicators became ubiquitous, destroying the need for labor to produce them - what became truly valuable was hand crafted stuff like furniture that required human input.

There's certainly going to be some pain as we transition more productive workload over to AI (or more accurately, perform existing workload much more efficiently using AI), but it will shake out. People will find productive work.

NASA was the public arm of the ICBM program. It's always been a DOD program first, which is why once the shuttle retired, they did shit - because only the civilian stuff was left.

Right! Just like Spacex! ... wait. Just like the transcontinental railroad! ... umm, wait, that was private industry too. Just like the cellular telephone! ... oh, that was private industry too. The Unix operating system! ... again.

I'm sure there are SOME government programs that caused a leap in engineering. The B2 bomber! The ICBM! Nukes! There we go. The aircraft carrier! Now we're talking. We need more engineers for those kind of government programs, right?

The last major project I can think of that was a successful government run thing was the interstate highway system, and maybe some feats of the Army Corps of Engineers like the reversal of the Chicago river and the levee systems of the Mississippi. Aside from that, even the subway systems in major cities like Chicago were private industry that was taken over (and run into the ground) by government.

And while we're at it, let's go back to glass deposit/return bottles for sodas.

Sounds like you understand my point