20 years ago, the internet was a refuge from the real world. Now, the real world is a refuge from the internet.

Not quite. It's fans who attend a specific convention - WorldCon - or buy an affiliate membership for the specific purpose of participating in the nomination and voting process for Hugos.

Do you believe that 94% of speculative fiction is not written by straight white men? Because 94% of the Hugos go to non-straight-white-men.

Do you believe that only people who are not straight white men are capable of writing speculative fiction worthy of recognition? Perhaps you do. WorldCon membership clearly does. But not because of any quality to the writing.

Hugos are a fan award given by members of WorldCon, rather than an industry or peer award (that's the Nebulas). And they used to be fairly representative of the market overall - books that sold well got Hugos, and getting a Hugo would boost sales. But that time is long past. The WorldCon crowd is small, and increasingly insular, and representative only of themselves these days, and their view of the world is not mainstream. (Regardless of who writes books, the last decade or more, there's generally, at most, one or maybe two straight white men among the winners out of about 15.)

The Hugo used to be the most prestigious award in speculative fiction, even over a Nebula; a real feather in the author's cap. Now, it's just another niche award, largely irrelevant, sadly riding on past glories.

There will be costs for inside counsel, too, like filing fees, and the cost of printing out documents, stenographers, etc.

But they probably - literally - spend more on coffee for their corporate office.

What if a rain drop hits another rain drop? Wouldn't that make that second rain drop wet? And how can you really define which rain drop hit which rain drop, so really, each made the other wet.

Here's a news flash: And retentive booger eater is anal retentive while eating boogers.

In the United States, too.

Democrats in California are facing the reality that 40% of residents rent, and will have no realistic way to live - in a place where you can't hold down a job without a car - without a vehicle they can't reliably charge.

They knew this when they enacted the future ban to being with. It was virtue signaling for for the base, because those campaign war chests won't fill themselves and California voters are drooling idiots.

And Republicans cooperated on this because it's virtue signaling for their base, as well.

There's no difference between the two parties. Red Kool-Aid or blue Kool-Aid, its still tastes like almonds.

Pro (and I believe Enterprise) have a trick during setup, where you tell it you're going to join a domain (which lets you finish setup with a local account), then never join the domain.

Nagging to sign into a MS account, however, seems to be eternal.

And generally, a much less secure one, being, usually, 4 or 6 digits, often numbers only.

I can't imagine that it won't. I really can't.

Like 23andme, there's no business model there that doesn't involve selling that data to third parties, so they either do so regardless of what they promise, or go bankrupt, and the buyer does.

Like 23andme.

I can be used to produce it by mixing the U-238 into the coolant. Which is exactly how the thorium is turned into uranium. The exact same process. Different chemical process to separate it out, but the transmutation is the same.

Lots of things have been done once. Sometimes, once is enough to prove it's not the right direction.

Aside form more difficult, it's also more expensive, and the US was in the process of making thousand of nuclear bombs, so cost was a factor.

India tried U-233 bombs, and went to U-235. Yes, it can be done, but it's not optimum. And plutonium is far better, and that's what the US wanted.

Trust me, they are. I'm sure they maneuvered to get it to happen.