The claims aren’t colored by propaganda and misinformation

They sure are. A great example would be the videos making the rounds recently about the Israeli drones supposedly making “crying baby noises” to lure people out. This is a classic propaganda technique, the videos are literally just a black screen with some background sound, the Israeli government could kill those people far more easily without such tactics, and anyone who has spent time around drones regularly knows it’s extremely implausible at best.

It’s a blatantly obvious piece of propaganda that was widely accepted because people can’t pause for five seconds to apply a bit of critical thinking to their conclusions.

Just because they’re capable of doing genocide “better” doesn’t mean they aren’t doing it.

It means exactly this. “Genocide” implies a certain intent and this is a very strong argument of the absence of the requisite intent.

Also, quit implying that my comments are right wing or Russian just because they have opinions that don’t align with yours. That’s such a tired trope. I could imply the same of you, but I’m choosing to engage in good faith.

Well maybe you shouldn’t be pushing an agenda that benefits the Russians and far-right at the expense of the Palestinian people?

Honestly, you’re either a badly intentioned troll, lacking in some basic critical thinking skill, or simply willing to see far more Palestinians die for your ideals while you sit back in safety and watch it happen.

The claims of genocide are colored by propaganda and misinformation. Academic researchers are split on the issue, at best. The fact of the matter is that Israel could swiftly end all life in Gaza through overwhelming military force if that was their goal, and this has not happened.

I’d agree that Israel’s actions in Gaza are unethical but there is a stark difference between acting without regard for civilian casualties and outright ethnic cleansing. The evidence doesn’t seem to support the latter.

A good president would divest and sanction Israel

A good president would prioritize what’s best for America, which means preserving the favorable relationship America has with Israel. Meanwhile, a good president would provide humanitarian aid for Palestine and help negotiate for peace.

That’s exactly what Biden is doing and refusing to vote for him harms almost every party involved, including Palestine. Really, the only groups who would benefit are the far right and Russia… makes you wonder where comments like this come from, doesn’t it?

Biden isn’t “committing genocide” and saying he is amounts to simple propaganda.

The conservatives want to take aid away from Ukraine to deliver it to Israel. If Trump wins, far more weapons will be going to Israel than they are now. Repeating propaganda like this is not helpful for the Palestinian people.

Lastly, Israel is an important ally from a strategic perspective. Not only are they our closest ally in the Middle East, but they have a number of important resources like intel semiconductor facilities. Cutting ties with Israel would be bad for America, and the role of the US government is to put America first. It’s more complex than simply supporting one side or the other and Biden is attempting to balance aid for Palestine with preserving our relationship with Israel. That’s exactly what a good president should be doing.

The fact of the matter is that people will happily pay for content if it is made available in a convenient and affordable way. Hell, many people will voluntarily pay artists for content that is available completely for free. That’s how patreon works, and there are self published authors approaching $1M/year in income due to readers choosing to support the author for their hard work.

People have no issue paying content creators.

Piracy rose to prominence in the 2000s because a few executives were funneling massive amounts of money into their pockets by the sale of CDs and cable services that were simultaneously expensive and inconvenient. The studios attacked pirates directly to little effect because you simply can’t stop the free dissemination of information among the public.

Piracy almost completely died when streaming made the alternatives affordable, user friendly and convenient. In a world where the proliferation of streaming services is making content just as expensive and inconvenient as in the old days of cable, it’s only natural that piracy will once again rise to prominence.

If they want to get paid, they simply need to stop fucking with the customer and offer a service people want to pay for.

It certainly has the potential to be. Remember most of the costs related to fission are safety measures, plant decommissioning, and waste disposal. If we merely had to operate the reactor without concern for those issues, fission would be incredibly cheap. The fuel costs and basic technical requirements to operate a reactor are trivial in comparison.

Fusion produced 4x more energy per mass of fuel compared to fission, isn’t at risk of meltdown, and has the potential to produce negligible radioactive byproducts. In addition, it outputs helium which is an important and finite strategic resource.

Even if the cost of fuel goes up dramatically compared to uranium reactors, it might still outperform nuclear in a big way. However, sourcing He-3 from the moon might be a lot cheaper than you think. My day job is related to space resource utilization. Transporting resources off the surface of the moon could be quite economical once we reach a sufficient level of development.

The usual joke is that fusion is always “30 years away”, not 10. The reason is that fusion projects have historically faced an issue where funding is chronically below predictions

However, this past decade is seeing a number of promising changes that make fusion seem much closer than it ever has. Lawrence Livermore managed to produce net energy gain in a fusion reaction for the first time. Fusion startups are receiving historical levels of VC funding. ITER is expected to produce as much as ten times as much energy as used to start the reaction. The rise of private space infrastructure is making helium-3 mining on the moon more possible than ever before.

Even that is meaningless because the vehicle you put a battery in is as important or moreso than the battery.

Aptera has a claimed 1,000+ mile range with a 100 kWh lithium battery. Meanwhile, the Rivian R1S has a claimed 270 mile range when equipped with a 106 kWh battery.

The main difference is that the Aptera is a light and aerodynamic car built for maximum efficiency instead of a 6,000 lb pickup truck. Any battery can boast amazing numbers if you are flexible enough with the use case.

I find it funny this comment got upvoted more than mine. I am a guidance engineer that worked at NASA on lunar lander programs, it’s literally my job to be an expert in this stuff. Modern computing has reduced propellant usage a bit and improved targeting accuracy, but we have had usable solutions to this problem since the 60s.

Atmosphere makes the problem MUCH harder because the dynamics are far more complicated and the uncertainties are higher.

Yes but a moon landing is fundamentally easier in most respects, while using substantially similar technology, than landing a rocket booster on earth or a rover on mars.

Landing on the moon is, as far as it can be, trivial for a group like NASA. It’s much more challenging for a small private company like Intuitive that has never built a lander before.

Sounds like they should let the kids choose whether they want to you outside or stay in based on whether or not they feel cold

Forcing kids to bring coats is weird to me

Maybe it’s different elsewhere, but I was born into a relatively cold+wet climate and moved to San Diego in elementary school. I didn’t bring a coat because it made me hot, I was acclimated to colder weather, and I didn’t want to carry it around.

They refused to let me go outside for recess for weeks because I didn’t bring a coat and refused to wear one from the lost and found. Finally, one day, they sent me to the principal’s office and called my mom in for a chat to discuss my misbehaving.

My mom’s response was, “You called me in from work for THIS?! If he’s not cold, he’s not cold! He has warm clothing at home. He’s capable of deciding whether or not he would be more comfortable with a jacket on. Let him go outside and leave me alone”

Blue Origin has been around longer than SpaceX and still has yet to get anything to orbit, while smaller companies than either have popped up and managed to in the meantime.

You hear this a lot and it’s pretty misleading. Blue didn’t begin working on an orbital rocket in earnest until ~2019 and in the 2015-2020 era the headcount was on the order of hundreds instead of thousands. That headcount was spread across multiple big ticket space infrastructure projects.

In addition, New Glenn has been held back by the unexpectedly difficult qualification process to deliver engines to ULA, who is contractually entitled to the first flight articles. I’m of the opinion that bidding to be the Vulcan engine provider was a mistake, but the point remains that it’s not at all a fair comparison between SpaceX, the various smallsat launch companies, and Blue. The landscape is very different.

I don’t think I’d try to contract them for launching a satellite either if I had one, one would be stuck waiting for development on an unproven launcher when ones with a reliable track record are already available.

To be clear, something like half of the planned Kuiper launches are already contracted to go on New Glenn. The only real competitor on price/kg and turnaround time is SpaceX, whose products are a direct competitor to Kuiper. It’s not a mystery as to why they’d prefer alternate launch providers in that context.

Bezos owning both companies has little to no impact on where the contracts go due to shareholder obligations. The two companies are run as discrete entities. For example, Dave Limp, the new CEO replacing Bob Smith, comes from Amazon and is firewalled from any non-public information about Blue until he is fully transitioned to his new role.

Do you not understand how ads work? It’s about making sure that IBM is the first company that comes to mind when you think about potential suppliers for an upcoming project.

It’s no different than ads for Coca Cola. You know what Coke tastes like. An ad isn’t going to materially influence whether you like it or not. However, it attempts to keep the name present in your mind so the first thing that pops into your head on a hot day is a nice cold Coke.

Ohh, so gay people hide their homosexuality when same sex relationships are shunned by their friends and family? What a shocker.

LGBT isn’t a choice and covering their eyes won’t change their sexual orientation.

But, besides that point, how the fuck is it okay to insulate your kid from other cultures? That’s not healthy at all. Eating ramen wasn’t part of my family’s culture growing up, either, but I don’t go around trying to prevent children from learning about Japanese food.

The onion did a bit about ten years ago on the Palestine-Israel conflict, reporting:

“Israeli and Palestine leaders have shown they see eye to eye in nearly every facet of the proposed solution, including such provisions as: seizing all territory, watching the opposition burn in righteous fire, and building a unified nation on the corpses of their enemy. Yet, they still haven’t come any closer to putting a stop to the conflict”

Kind of sums it up.

They take your license just for running a red light? In many parts of America that would leave you unable to satisfy basic necessities like getting to work and buying groceries. It’s frankly ridiculous.

Guess I’m glad I live in the good ole USA

The difference is that those cities are denser, better laid out for walkability, and have tremendously better public transport.

I mean, that’s a large part of why it’s illegal to ride a bike on the sidewalk and every major bicycle safety advocacy group says to take to the road. It’s pretty well understood that riding on the sidewalk is incredibly dangerous because it’s very difficult to see a fast moving bike when it’s off the road.

If it wasn’t a turn on red it would have been someone turning right into a driveway eventually.

The alternative would be to share the actual lane with cars in the highway, with no room for the bike. There was no bike lane.

Yes this is exactly what you should be doing as a cyclist if you want to be safe and seen. If there isn’t a bike lane you take the entire lane like a car. I have ridden many thousands of miles like this. Even when there is a bike lane it’s often the safest option if the bike lane is in poor condition.

The reason I advocate so hard for dedicated infrastructure is because I want to see more people biking and many people have a hard time feeling comfortable riding in the street. I get that. But in this case it’s the fault of the cyclist for failing to follow the rules of the road.