I don't know much about firmware, so maybe somebody here can help me out. The capability is still in the CPU, but Dell and HP have disabled it. How long will it be until some bright star who understands these things writes a firmware revision to re-enable it?

I'm ancient...I recall when overclocking was an edgy, high risk activity. Not so much now. Can we look forward to a new generation of hackers who will find ways to make computer components work the way they were actually designed to?

I've plenty left over for that, but that's not quite as simple. Pure capitalism is pure poison. Properly managed (which is not the case in North America), it isn't a bad way to run an economy.

In any case, there's the human factor. A business owner can choose to be evil, or choose not to be. I knew a guy who left money on the table rather than compromise his ethics. His company was profitable, and he was respected in the local business community. He prospered, even though he refused to squeeze every nickel out of is staff, or illegally dump waste when he could easily have gotten away with it.

I've always been against the death penalty, but for the conscienceless monsters marketing this dangerous crap for children, I might be willing to reconsider.

Yea... I have long since forgotten most of my math. But I actually graduated with a minor in mathematics, basically because I only needed two more MA electives (Differential Equations 3, which, admittedly, was a beast and Advanced Number Theory, which was a "Why the heck is *this* a 400-level class?" class.) than I already had for my CS degree. A few years back, I ran across one of those "This is how kids are learning now under Common Core" articles. And DAMN!!! WTF sort of jobs do the people who came up with that garbage think they're preparing kids for? Counting out how many McNuggets to put in the little cardboard box? Because CC sure as shit isn't teaching them the math they need to be scientists or engineers.

On the plus side; the defective educations that kids were already getting at the primary level, combined with the current administration's war on higher education, means that my cohort of GenX, which is getting to be about the right age where it would otherwise be a concern, is going to have to worry a lot less about ageism than previous 40-somethings. So... yay for silver linings!

Yeah, but with RFK and "Doctor" Oz running the nation's health care, how can we even actually trust vaccines in the US at all anymore? If I'm going to get stuck with the needle, I want it to have an actual medication or vaccine in there; NOT colloidal silver or green coffee bean extract or essential oils or lysol or whatever other quackery has their attention at that moment in time.

Fortunately, I'm traveling overseas next spring. One of the things I'm going to get from my doctor at my next physical is a list of any boosters that are coming due any time soon. So I *WILL* be fully vaccinated because I will be getting my shots in a country with real medical leadership who practice and promote real science and medicine.

Stockton Rush is a rare example of a tech bro who didn't get to walk away from his monumental fuckup and leave the rest of us to clean up his mess. Fortunately for us, his collapsible submarine only murdered a few people, along with the "genius" himself. We're just lucky Rush didn't decide he liked reactors more than submarines. No doubt that deficiency in America's tech bro-volution will soon be rectified.

If I weren't an atheist, I'd say, "God help us all".

And there's the rub...the very idea of an art class is anathema to a lot of people who call the shots at all levels of education.

At first blush, this bill looks like just another Republican attempt to appeal to the base while at the same time distracting people from the real reasons why the US education system doesn't stack up well internationally. This is probably true, but there's something far more important at stake. Teaching children cursive writing at a young age develops fine motor skills, and that's something that can pay big benefits down the road.

No doubt you're right, but it would be lovely to see the people who squawk about subsidies for renewable energy held to the same standard they demand of everybody else, even just for a little while.

There's a much easier way. Cut all fossil fuel subsidies, direct and indirect, to zero. End corporate welfare. Let people pay the actual, unsubsidized price, and you'll see things change pretty quickly.

I love this idea! I've got friends and relatives of all ages who love board games, quizzes, murder mysteries and stuff like that. I can see these games, especially the Knives Out one, providing some really fun get-togethers.

Ummm... it's Ryanair. And the EU has been forcing US tech companies in general, and particularly Apple and Google, to demolish their security models, strip protections from mobile (and desktop and server) OSs, and give every fly-by-night outfit in the world unrestricted access to (In gates-speak) ring 0 or (to the rest of the world) the kernel. I mention microsoft and ring 0 in this context because it's another fine and recently notorious example of the EU's overreach screwing over people by demanding lax security. But "permissions" and "require"? Come on... this is Ryanair! They absolutely will harvest and sell every single byte that can get their filthy mitts on. I mean... google the name and read any site but their own. They really are just the worst.

And... again... it's Ryanair. So you KNOW their app won't be available on the legitimate App Store or Play Store. It will be on the EU-mandated Cydia Mark 2; which will inevitably degenerate into the same morass of spyware, malware, spamware, and all-around crapware that the original Cydia did back in the jailbreaking days. And with no app reviews, no sandboxing, no security checks, no memory or kernel protections? Damn skippy an outfit like Ryanair will trawl through you entire phone, and any account it is connected or logged in to, in order to spy on you and sell your data for every red cent they can extract from it.

Heh... I put off getting dear leader's dumbass "real ID" too. I mean... I have my passport, passport card, and global entry card, all of which actually benefit me. So why should I waste my time jumping through stupid and unnecessary hoops to appease dear leader?

In my neck of the woods though, the DMV simply forced the issue by no longer allowing online renewals; and now I have to actually go in to and renew my license in-person. So as long as I had to go through the hassle of the stupid and unnecessary hoops for my ID itself, I may as well jump through a couple more stupid and unnecessary hoops while I'm already stuck at the benighted place. And my California drivers license is now tainted with that mark of MAGA. Gross. Fuck MAGA. Fuck trump. Fuck ICE. And fuck realID.

The same thing will probably happen to you.

I was going to go into all the alternate uses of hydrocarbons. It took away from the main point, which is that mostly we're just burning them to get around and heat our homes (About 63 million US houses use natural gas heating and 5 million still use heating oil). I counted on people here being bright enough to know there are far better things to do with hydrocarbons than simply burning them.

Have you figured out yet that a major shift toward electric vehicles and electric heating would put a huge load on a grid that can't handle it?

Thanks for understanding the subtext, which the guy you're correcting clearly didn't. I was going to explicitly mention all the uses for hydrocarbons that don't involve just burning them, but it turned into a major digression, so I cut it out. I count on people here mostly being pretty well informed. Some are not.