According to Statista 53.76 million Americans traveled internationally in 2024. That's 15 percent of the population. Besides the pure numbers, business travel matters to our economic prosperity. Isolation is bad for business.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.statista.com%2Fstati...

They don't need anyone to watch it. Just to talk about it.

Mission accomplished

According to the page linked below, the annual cost of work-zone accidents is estimated to be $38.9 billion, so on big projects it's probably worth the money to protect workers. But yes, it seems like this could be done cheaper. The bumper truck just has to roll down the road at low speed in a pretty much straight line. It seems like all you need is a large electric vehicle operated by remote controls. The full autonomous technology seems like overkill especially since even this expensive solution has to be monitored by a technician. OTOH, if someone can do the task cheaper you'd think they would have tried.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.workzonebarriers.com%2Fwork-zone-crash-facts.html

Maybe that would work for California, but not on the east coast. Here in Eastern North Carolina the fire is in the crawlspace. A lot of wetlands have been drained, sometimes just to harvest the peat. Our peat deposits have built up over millions of years, long enough to hold massive amounts of fuel but not long enough to turn that fuel into oil. Once peat is drained it's vulnerable to catching fire. A peat fire can smoulder deep underground for months and even years, slowly releasing vast quantities of carbon into the atmosphere.

What your wife experiences is different from those of us with a chronic sinus infection. Saline rinses only flush out the passages between the nose and the mouth. They don't reach the tear ducts or the sub-mandibular glands. For people like your wife, saline rinses are very effective. What I have is a latent infection that cannot fully heal. It's not the same thing.

I've had sinus infections for 30 years. When my sinuses are inflamed all the drainage passages close off. For about 20 years my sinuses flared up approximately every 7 days, with a 3 day recovery for each flare. After having surgery on my sinuses I got it down to every two weeks.

I now have a routine involving moist heat, regular cleaning of the ears and gargling twice a day with Listerine (original, not the sweet stuff). If everything is stable, the Listerine gargle creates suction that draws out fluid. When my sinuses do get inflamed, I have one last resort. That's when I use a straw to drip Listerine directly into my nose. It hurts like hell but also causes all the glands in the head to release at once, flushing out what a saline rinse can't.

Let me be clear about this. This is what I do, and it is not medical advice. Every doctor I've talked to has looked at me flabbergasted when I tell them about this. There are serious and valid concerns about accidentally ingesting a form of alcohol that is not intended for human consumption. On the other hand, the doctors don't have a treatment that can fix the problem.

We'll be lucky if they don't run it again tomorrow.

That the Trump administration intends to launch a mass deportation that will involve concentration camps isn't hyperbole. It's his stated agenda. If you think otherwise it's you who needs to pay better attention.

The question is not whether Trump will try to do these things, it's whether he will succeed. Moderates who might once have resisted have been pushed out of the Republican Party. The GOP will have majority control of both houses of Congress and a compliant Supreme Court.

I'm somewhat hopeful that when Trump starts his trade war the economic consequences will be so evident that the Trump administration will step back from the edge. But, there is very little standing in Trump's way except his own incompetence and the GOP's lack of discipline.

Go easy on them. They're suffering from brain-rot.

I never used Lotus, but LibreOffice does not need to be more like today's Excel. It is, and should be, more like Excel from 20 years ago. The pre-ribbon MS-Office interface was developed based on extensive user accessibility research. Every function had a menu item labeled with corresponding keyboard shortcuts and icons. If you found the icon in the menu you could then find a corresponding button in the toolbars. LibreOffice still uses this proven and effective user interface. Modern MS-Office has buttons for everything buried in disappearing ribbons that you have to hover over to find out what they do.

Incidentally, it is possible to set LibreOffice to use a ribbon-style interface. It is not possible to do the reverse with MS-Office.

What does this tell you? Is it that nobody is teaching GIMP because it's inferior, or that people find it difficult because they haven't been taught how to use it? Introduction to Computers at a community college will typically teach students how to use Windows, Microsoft Office, and a few other proprietary software tools. A semester long course exposes students to every ribbon and button in the Microsoft Office interface. LibreOffice has a much simpler interface, and has a stable and capable application set, but at best they might mention it exists. GIMP is undeniably complex and difficult to learn, but it has been under active development for many years and it has a sizable user base. Maybe the problem isn't the software itself but the failure to educate students on a broad set of tools.

Autocorrect changed Indonesia to India four times and you didn't notice?

I'm not opposed to building up American industry, but we also need to maintain a network of allies. We should encourage trade with countries that uphold civil rights.

I suppose you could call it a shakedown, but it's not corruption. The law is not targeted at a single company and it isn't extracting a bribe. Indonesia has a long history of outsiders stripping its resources and leaving its population impoverished. This internal investment policy has been a part of Indonesia's economic development strategy since it achieved independence.

I don't think they are even thinking about clicks and eyeballs, just getting a certain number of articles posted each day.

They actually published a story about a story that wasn't worth publishing. I miss the days when Slashdot had editors.