So mount new radars on the most distant wind turbines. Then they'll get an even earlier warning on the incoming Belgian drones.

The Windows 10 partition on my laptop doesn't "work" anymore like the Linux partition does (and Windows 11 won't work at all). If I ever do boot into Windows on that machine again, I'm going to have to airgap it (no, I'm not going to jump through their increasingly silly hoops to "extend" support).

I guess the average Joe would just keep running that unpatched OS as usual indefinitely, since ignorance is bliss.

Most states have what are called "wiretapping" laws which are different than 4th amendment protections and vary from state to state.

That is not how privacy and recording/wiretapping laws work. Otherwise anyone could post a sign in a bathroom and record you doing your business.

I thought that the point of automation was to free us up from tedious tasks so that we have more time to do fun things like shopping for stuff.

If AI ends up taking over for *all* our mental activities, then what are we supposed to do with our atrophied brains? Maybe it's all a nefarious plot to turn us into H. G. Well's Eloi.

Abandon hope, all ye who press enter here.

Now, yes, there are predictions that you could get a supermassive black hole launched into space, especially during a galaxy merger if the velocity of the smaller black hole exceeds the escape velocity of the combined galaxy.

But I'd be wary of assuming that it's a launched black hole, unless we can find the merger it comes from. There may be ways for such a black hole to form that cause the stars to be launched away rather than the black hole being flung, and if a galaxy isn't rotating fast enough to be stable, one could imagine that a sufficiently small galaxy was simply consumed by its central black hole. Both of these would seem to produce exactly the same outcome, if all we have is the black hole itself and a velocity.

I'm not going to say either of these is likely in this case, or that astronomers haven't examine them (they almost certainly have), but rather that we should be cautious until we've a clearer idea of what the astronomers have actually been able to determine or rule out.

No, the executive tells the civil service what it needs to do, but the civil service is wholly independent.

Yes. Each team gets exactly three bananas to drop in "banana mode" for each race. However, banana mode can only be activated if the car is at least 2.17 seconds ahead of the nearest trailing car, unless that trailing car is outside an 18 degree cone whose vertex is at the nose of the lead car. Banana mode cannot be used if a driver has more than 16.5 MJ of energy in the liquid fuel tank, or less than 3.27 MJ of energy in the hybrid battery, nor can it be used if there are less than 37.3km of travel on the current set of tires. Both the lead and trailing car must have a velocity of at least 82.3m/s for banana mode to be active. At most one banana can be dropped between any two pit stops.

You do not appear to understand what a republic or a democracy is, so I'll ignore the last sentence.

"Independent" does not mean unaccountable to the people. The President is independent of Congress, and vice versa, but both are accountable to the people. Well, the current president doesn't seem to think so, but legally he is.

The civil service is not a part of the executive but is a co-equal branch.

You are correct. In principle, presidents have no authority whatsoever to dictate how an agency runs. The executive branch should have zero authority over the civil service, which is intended to constitute a fourth co-equal branch of government.

In the US, in principle, the status of the civil service as co-equal to, and independent of, the executive should be added to the Constitution and enshrined in law for good measure. Not that that would help much with the current SCOTUS, but a Constitutional change might possibly persuade the current government that absolute authoritatian control is not as popular as Trump thinks.

That is the idea that, in Britain, entities like the NHS and the BBC have operated under. Charters specify the responsibilties and duties, and guarantee the funding needed to provide these, but the organisation is (supposed) to carry these out wholly independently of the government of the day.

It actually worked quite well for some time, but has been under increasing pressure and subject to increasing government sabotage over the past 20-25 years.

It's also the idea behind science/engineering research funding bodies the world over. These should direct funding for grant proposals not on political whim or popularity but on the basis of what is actually needed. Again, though, it does get sabotaged a fair bit.

Exactly how you'd mitigate this is unclear, many governments have - after all - the leading talent in manipulation, corruption, and kickbacks. But presumably, strategies can be devised to weaken political influence.

I rarely use semicolons; decades ago my teachers always used a red pen to replace them with a period and capitalize the next word. I eventually just gave up and complied with their grammar regime.

230 prevents sites from being prosecuted. So, right now, they do b all moderation of any kind (except to eliminate speech for the other side).

Remove 230 and sites become liable for most of the abuses. Those sites don't have anything like the pockets of those abusing them. The sites have two options - risk a lot of lawsuits (as they're softer targets) or become "private" (which avoids any liability as nobody who would be bothered would be bothered spending money on them). Both of these deal with the issue - the first by getting rid of the abusers, the second by getting rid of the easily-swayed.