I'm amused by those who imagine that the laws of physics can be defied merely by looking the other way. It makes me ponder how unbelievably moronic humanity is, how pathetic, and how deserving of what it is come.

When Isaacman was originally nominated, the whole space community was like, "oh, that's an interesting pick." Yes, he's a rich guy and pays for private missions via SpaceX, but his credentials are pretty solid, and he really is a believer in the ideals of space exploration. He also sees the value in public/private partnerships. Nobody thinks NASA is doing anything close to what SpaceX is accomplishing. Trump reportedly yanked the original nomination because someone told him that Isaacman had some history of donations to democrats, and he didn't like that. Which is why Isaacman has since make some donations to MAGA stuff as well. I assume that was part of the deal. But really, take a look at this guy before you dismiss him out of hand. This isn't a JFK Jr. type of pick.

Indeed. Replacing half a century of collective experience with a new language in an entirely different and far less tested environment to write low level code, where all the memory safety features have to be disabled at all the same failure points where C and assembly have been used... for reasons.

So, in other words, it really isn't any better at bare metal development than C/C++. If you have to direct memory and hardware manipulation in unsafe blocks, then really, it's just the same thing as doing it in C.

Ah yes, let's ignore a huge part of the last half-century's history and pretend that prior conflicts don't translate into current detente. The ongoing size and strength of the US military contributes to the relative stability in the region because it is well understood that disruption could lead to intervention.

Oil prices are low and stable because of constant, unending, ever-threatened intervention by the USA.

Sure, just as soon as the taxpayers stop subsidizing petroleum companies. I'm okay with that solution. Let's see what the market decides when the government isn't gifting free land in protected wildlife areas and cleaning up abandoned wells and waging wars to protect oil interests in the middle east. Let's go.

100%, glad we agree on that. :)

I wonder what will happen with their other BEV. By most accounts, it's a competent vehicle, and from my research, it's currently the most affordable used non-Tesla BEV. You can pick one up for around $25k Canadian. Not cheap, but half price? Will they keep it just to keep their toe in the water?

PBS is primarily (85%) privately funded. It will continue to produce shows like Masterpiece, Nova, Frontline, and Sesame Street and people in places like Boston or Philadelphia will continue to benefit from them.

What public funding does is give viewers in poorer, more rural areas access to the same information that wealthy cities enjoy. It pays for access for people who don't have it.

By opting out, Arkansas public broadcasting saves 2.5 million dollars in dues, sure. But it loses access to about $300 million dollars in privately funded programming annually.

Guess I am using a different Reddit.

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Seriously, the idea that we know all the practically important physics there is is the kind of thing only somebody who's never done science or engineering would believe.

Industrial R&D is important, but it is in a distrant third place with respect to importance to US scientific leadership after (1) Universities operating with federal grants and (2) Federal research institutions.

It's hard to convince politicians with a zero sum mentality that the kind of public research that benefits humanity also benefits US competitiveness. The mindset shows in launching a new citizenship program for anyone who pays a million bucks while at the same time discouraging foreign graduate students from attending universtiy in the US or even continuing their university careers here. On average each talented graduate student admitted to the US to attend and elite university does way more than someone who could just buy their way in.

Reddit is not social media; it's a message board. Nothing so similar to 1980s UseNet can be considered social media, which debuted in the mid-2000s with MySpace (though the term "social media" wasn't even coined until the launch of the second such example, which was Facebook).

The difference between Reddit and social media? The latter puts profile and pictures at the core, whereas they are incidental in the former -- both used only to support the primary purpose which is text-based discussion.

I just don't think many people want to watch an awards show where there's a bunch of angry people trying to push a political agenda. I mean, I support their right to free speech, and I've always felt like the games industry abused developers, but you're in the business of entertainment, and hearing people complain about their industry (an industry that I support with multiple game purchases per year) isn't what I'd call entertainment. At most I'd watch it to hear what the big games are, and maybe to see someone get some recognition for their hard work on a particularly well made title.

Republicans equate being pro-market with being pro-big-business-agenda. The assumption is that anything that is good for big business is good for the market and therefore good for consumers.

So in the Republican framing, anti-trust, since is interferes with what big business wants to do, is *necessarily* anti-market and bad for consumers, which if you accept their axioms would have to be true, even though what big business wants to do is use its economic scale and political clout to consolidate, evade competition, and lock in consumers.

That isn't economics. It's religion. And when religious dogmas are challenge, you call the people challenging them the devil -- or in current political lingo, "terrorists". A "terrorist" in that sense doesn't have to commit any actual act of terrorism. He just has to be a heathen.