Kinda…. Different areas are probably different, and no part of this should be construed as defending the insanity around AI, but in my area, data centers are typically part of load-shedding agreements with the local power utility, and they’re likely to simply switch to backup generators to help mitigate demand peaks. In some cases they may back-feed their excess generator power to the grid on a short term basis. Typically speaking there are financial incentives, fees, or offsets that they receive as compensation.

So yes, they’re probably on at full blast, but they’re probably powering it themselves so it’s not a direct impact on grid health.

As a point of fact, the winner of the X Prize wasn’t actually SpaceX… it was Scaled Composites with their jet-launched rocket-powered space plane.

The problem is that nobody really needs to go to space… there isn’t much money in it… On the other hand, people will pay millions to get the ORBIT. Going to space is just a matter of getting high enough, but orbit is all about getting fast as hell. In most cases, as far as we have learned, that means getting out of the atmosphere by the shortest means possible. The savings from launching higher from a jet don’t tend to offset the dramatically reduced payload and increased complexity.

This is right wing Idaho… many of these folks haven’t sat in a school for a day in their life. They were “home schooled” or went to a cultist religious school. The government distrust runs so deep that a bunch of them likely were born in their own home, never saw a doctor, never had a vaccination, and don’t legally exist on paper.

I’m not saying they don’t have any responsibility for their actions… but if you consider the environment they have been immersed in… they don’t really stand a chance.

Obviously Lance is never going to maximize the cars potential, but I don’t see how it’s his fault that a Newey/Honda designed car can’t finish a race. These are engineering teams with a recent winning history that have utterly failed at preparing for 2026. Papa Stroll spent big money assembling what should be an all star team around his mediocre son, but clearly something is not coming together.

Hell, Apple themselves usually sell Apple products at the student price to non-students, as long as you nod and wink when you click the Checkout button.

Hi, poll worker here and this is absolutely accurate. If you stand in or near our polling place we will absolutely have you removed.

However… observing polls is a core part of a functional democracy and I strongly encourage you to do so. Each county is a bit different, but essentially every single one of them have some sort of process that you can register as an observer and you’ll be legally protected while observing and documenting what you see. If you’re affiliated with a political party, contact your local officials and they can help facilitate, as most observers are party affiliated.

Well no, but short of a rewire, a gfci with sticker is the code-compliant way to plug in three pin plugs to an ungrounded receptacle.

A rewire is the right solution but utterly impractical for many. Just silently swapping in new receptacles and leaving the ground unconnected is easy but not compliant. This is the middle ground.

Nomenclature of upper middle class aside, the wild thing here is that $40m means she’s closer to being homeless than she is to the billionaire wealthy.

She’s clearly wealthy compared to the average, but her financial concerns actually vaguely resemble that of normal people. She may not care about how much dinner costs, but she is probably acutely aware of her major expenses like housing and medical. $40m is not even close to “fuck you money”.

The first felt really fresh at the time. FPS was dominated by various milsim shooters and Halo, and the irreverence and clever cell shading style worked well.

Two dialed things up in scope and scale and added some nice environmental variety.

But the rest? The presequel? The 3rd? I just couldn’t. It was more of the same, tired, repetitive, the jokes started really scraping the bottom of the barrel. I had fun early on, but I’m out.

No idea what they’re trying to claim. I can’t see any dimension in which this was “larger” than the typical WWII era firebombing. There were more planes, more bombs by weight, more casualties, more of everything.

I very much like the sentiment, but I’d mostly advocate for a data backup that doesn’t require any particular effort or memory to preserve in an emergency.

Obviously everyone’s personal situation varies, but as a simple default I usually recommend that friends and family simply use whichever cloud drive service is available from the device manufacturer that stores their photos (ie, google Drive, Microsoft one drive, or Apple iCloud). Photos are almost always the most irreplaceable digital asset, storage is typically just a few bucks a month, and using the “default” provider usually requires zero skill, effort, or recurring action. Other than making sure you can afford the auto-debit each month, your backs are mostly foolproof.

Cons include a dependency on a cloud service, which has a recurring charge and a privacy impact. The charge is typically minor vs the cost of a NAS or similar, and most services have some privacy assurances that may be enough to ease your concern. Nobody will ever care as much about your backups as you, but in aggregate a team of skilled full time FAANG engineers is often a more robust administrator than a solo customer.

If you have the desire and resources, you could and should do both backups, or as many as you reasonably can manage in as many places as possible.

I can’t speak directly to your location, but you may consider flying inspects in your design, either via screens, fans, inspect repellent or otherwise. The grills and ovens are generally fine, but the work area could attract insects while you cook.