hansolo

It’s not even that.

The technology never, ever works as well as it’s hyped. It’s a sales ploy, not a feature.

The purpose is always data collection, and the data is always leaked.

Vulnerabilities and the progression of tech make these kinds of bells and whistles age out of practical use faster, costing the consumer more over the long run.

F this kind of noise in particular, this is not progress.

“Please update your credit card and subscription to access premium colors such as red!”

Just a civilian guess, but 2 or 3 Delta V or Falcon Heavy to put 1 payload into LEO with a command module and lander, then 1 booster with fuel. Short of using prototype lander, fabrication would take months at best. Then a Starship or SLS to get a crew, food, and water into orbit.

It’s supposed to be an emergency solution.

However, kilowatts of power generation isn’t exactly something that can be thrown together in a couple weeks. It can take months to stabilize a grid to the pint the ship can disengage.

Both in this context, and a wider, societal context, yes.

The Oracle at Delphi relied on mild asphyxiation and from natural gas coming up from a fissure in a cave, and then priests “interpreting” the babbling as a prophecy.

Same.

There’s a song by the Armenian band Ladaniva that’s just a few lines about a mountain home with a table that sits under a fig tree for the season. It’s relatively vague imagery with beautiful haunting vocals. Makes me ugly weep every time. No idea why. It’s the only song that has ever affected me like that. But there’s something about the idea of just a homey, simple life and how gar away that is that makes it seem all the more important.

If it’s a baby from Nigeria, it’s from a very small group on the border with Cameroon, one of the rarest gorilla subspecies there is. Returning it would be putting it back into possible poaching. Poachers likely killed its parents to get the baby.

shit ton

I see what you did there.

Regardless of the reality of what happened, the increased scrutiny and surveillance pushed a lot of people to distrust of institutions, just like you.

That sentiment was actually ramping up quite a bit in the 90s, and the way the factors that led to the mistrust never went away, but we were given a Faustian deal to ignore them or be labeled a traitor made it all worse.