US parts prices are ... WOW ... There was a time when there were junkyards, guess there aren't so many as once.

Talking the talk is popular with these guys. They know it helps their image. In this case, it's gaslighting.

On the whole, car should be lighter (-engine & parts,-muffler,-fuel tank) ... depending on # batteries needed (+ holding structure + cables)(might lose the back seat). Same Transmission/drive train needs.

Here's a picture of it while it's still in the shop. https://inspenet.com/en/noticias/nasa-tests-solar-sail-in-solar-in-orbit/

Oh, for sure. Heat pumps are a-comin, dear Lisa.

Yeh, she was outstanding. That 'poor little deer' scene in that Brooklyn accent alone.

Yep, it's really a lot of fun. A little hard on some parts of both southern culture and NY culture, but just enough to make it even funnier. Not just Pesci as a lawyer and all the lawyer jokes; making a judge out of Fred Gwynne so he could make all those facial expressions he'd perfected was a casting winner. So was Marisa Tomei. And the characters that played witnesses ... to this day when I'm saying 'I guess' it always comes out with that drawl. Every scene in the film was comical first, and never let up. Masterpiece.

Other'n a couple others named? My Cousin Vinny.

(Some quotes to help my arguement: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104952/quotes/ )

Margaret Hamilton (witch) in a sci-fi Wizard of Oz remake. Oh hell, let's throw Burt Lahr (lion) in there too.

Haven't heard about the NASA design yet, but JAXA's 2010 IKAROS used "Eighty blocks of LCD panels are embedded in the sail, whose reflectance can be adjusted for attitude contro ".

by signing your name to it, you’re swearing that it’s all true.

Lawyers too use qualifiers like 'To the best of our knowledge' and 'in our studied opinion' to indicate that opinions may differ. That's why judges exist, and some of them are -so reasonable- that they will accept that people cannot be expected to decide whether a hospital's decision to operate -immediately- is not good enough.

These US 'insurance' companies are in the business of making money from people's health problems. In MOST OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD that's not how health-care works. We, the people of the US, let the system get rigged this way ... we have to fix that. Permanently.

Thanks for reminding me of a great film I saw in theatres long ago... I was at a con once and heard Barry (spouse and I both liked 'Enemy') and bought his Workshop book ... good to see he's still kicking ...

and thanks too for hooking me up with Feral Historian's stuff (like his style) which I might never have found otherwise..

Oops, good catch! (I even used to live by her... will fix that, thanks!)

The article points out that it's not a new idea ... it became fashionable back in the early 1800s. But it became completely -possible- by the time Sagan started talking about nuclear winter. That even inspired a couple of movies showing how much fun it would be.

So yeah, climate change would be a low slower. But have we been keeping our eyes on that Doomsday Clock? It reached 90 seconds to midnight 1-1/2 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock

Climate change wud be preferable ... it at least gives us a chance to change into warmer socks, and fix the boat.

True, of course. But housing FOR ALL has to include housing that's affordable TO ALL. Market rate has been manipulated so that not all can afford housing. New housing has to be created so that ALL have a shot at it to solve our biggest problems, right?

Totally agreed ... IF you plant a tree, and let it grow, then pellitize and transport it in a green way, then burning it won't release more hydrocarbons than it accumlated.

Take the thorn out of the lion's paw, and don't charge him $10,000.

Fire that consumes hydrocarbon fuels and oxygen liberates CO2. So yeah. Gasoline, diesel, natural gas, wood chips, all hydrocarbon fuels. NO SUCH THING as 'green' wood burning.

To see how well this works, we need to see how much each 'new' unit would cost to convert. Sometimes the cost per unit is insane ... numbers like $30 million for 100 units mean $300,000 per unit. How long is the payback for $1000 per month? 300 months = 25 years. Before deducting for maintenance and supervision.

I think NYT is correct in this sense: I haven't heard Harris herself say much about 'climate change' let alone 'global warming'.

We all get that. Candidates tend to stay away from talking about stuff that makes people feel bad because it sticks to them. But I've not heard her even address expanding renewables as rapidly as possible, or even heat pumps. No doubt that's the advice she's getting. One reason is that the cars we're driving are a major source of CO2. Nobody's touching that elephant.

This is the ongoing story of Microsoft since it started.

I questioned the methodology as soon as I learned that Seattle was even in the running.

Fine people here. But, smartest? mmmffff

How many times did people vote YES on a monorail? How many times did their votes get ignored?

The city doesn't care what people think. As with everything, the public argues about the options for 10 years. Then, after noone cares any more, it does whatever (someone we never see) wanted anyway.

I was in the tunnel, not the steam pipes running through the tunnel.

I have a browser extension for that. When I open a page and a 'subscribe' popup hides the text, I click on that button, and it shows me the URL it's going to block, and I click OK. The next time I get tricked into going to that page, it tells me it's blocked.

Pretty sure there are no 'monopolies are legal' clause in the Constitution. Whereas Congress has created several anti-monopoly Acts.

Why heck, darn it, they've even offered to sell a dozen or two of their lower-performing stores if that would clinch the deal.

The steam tunnel system under that big midwestern university. Once in, it led underneath most every building on the campus. There are many other mysteries hidden in the underground -everywhere-.

Wow. I can't believe it took me so long to learn about that. And no tour needed. Interesting, thanks!

That's a lot cheaper than the laughable $1 + 45 cents per minute Lime is charging for their bikes where I live... $28 for the first hour. HA HA

A geofence is an imaginary boundary around a location. If police get a 'geofence warrant', they can request a list of all phone#'s (and so their owners) that were in that area for a particular period of time. The court ruled this is too invasive for innocent people in that area.

It wasn't that long ago that the 'It Gets Better' movement showed up. (Dan Savage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IcVyvg2Qlo )

It's still out there! (More info here, e.g.: https://itgetsbetter.org/

Top left corner: Get Help )

Being also old, I decided only to be on the death lists of people that didn't just want something from me. So, it may go unnoticed.

Legislators this year already are trying to tackle the rising costs of electricity.

Considering CA's widespread use of the now-cheapest sources of electricity, it's more than ironic that costs to consumers are rising. Somebody needs to take a -very close- look at that.

Another question for CA: are data centers required to be carbon-neutral or else ? Will they thriving on the savings created by people driving EVs? Will their demands result in higher prices for everyone?

Hmmm. Where can a person learn the facts about this ... 'agenda' ?

For very long-time, high-probability safety, the surface of the Earth is constantly being re-shaped. Whole mountains can disappear in a few million years. Floods, earthquakes, ice, weather alone.

Because you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time ... and they've been at it for a very long time.

Svalbard's a 'seed vault' only, there must be something for extinct animal species. Another question I thought of: if stored on the moon, who among the finders will know enough to even know that they're looking at? let alone to make purposeful use of it?

Looks like a lousy bet.

"Hydrogen can be produced by several means. Most hydrogen produced today is gray hydrogen, made from natural gas through steam methane reforming (SMR). This process accounted for 1.8% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2021. Low-carbon hydrogen, which is made using SMR with carbon capture and storage (blue hydrogen), or through electrolysis of water using renewable power (green hydrogen), accounted for less than 1% of production. "Virtually all of the 100 million tonnes[5] of hydrogen produced each year is used in oil refining (43% in 2021) and industry (57%)"

... Wikiipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy

Once again, the impact of subsidized industries is accidentally underestimated.

"We made a promise we had no idea how we were going to keep. But it seemed like good PR at the time. And people kept flying in our planes."