Nobody can be excited for anything. Whether or not it's possible in even the next century or two, I still think it's awesome that there are dreamers out there trying to make at least a solid theoretical plan on how to accomplish stuff like this. I also think people are discounting the exponential rate of knowledge we accumulate every generation. It might be awhile, but unless society collapses, I wouldn't be surprised if we have interstellar propulsion like this in the next couple centuries. Hell, I expect to see a thriving commercial space industry in the next 50-some-odd years within our solar system.

For some reason, I was expecting some shittymorph-esque switcheroo or something at the end of your comment. Interesting stuff, though! Can this happen with other meats or is it specific to pork?

That would be Russia, is my guess:

The memoranda, signed in Patria Hall at the Budapest Convention Center with US Ambassador Donald M. Blinken amongst others in attendance, prohibited Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, "except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations." As a result of other agreements and the memorandum, between 1993 and 1996, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons.

It's true that you're often playing the lottery with them, that's why I just buy a few at a time. Like right now in the US, you can buy 16GB USBs for $4. The last three I've bought have lasted over 5 years each, thankfully. But I've had ones that have been bad right out of the package. That's why I just buy from places that have at least 30-day return policies.

Pen drives are cheap as dirt nowadays, especially small ones that are like 16GB. I'd just buy a new one.

The US still has an enormous manufacturing footprint. Yes, a lot was moved overseas, but hardly all of them.

Isn't that a Black Mirror episode?

What if it's tied to your new identity? But idk, starting your whole library over from scratch... Better hope that insurance payout is nice.

That's such a good point I hadn't considered. This stuff would've absolutely fucked up the plumbing in most places. Not to mention the sewage treatment facility's filters having to deal with all that debris.

Isn't windows 11 doing that now? I only use it at work and I think only Home Editions are affected.

Twitter integration was incredibly ubiquitous in all social based tech for some reason. I'm assuming its API was originally very friendly and unintrusive and now it's probably the exact opposite. I think X is now also charging money, which is likely the primary reason Sony and Nintendo are dropping it.

Oh damn, I didn't realize this was out of EA. I impulse purchased it a couple years ago and it felt pretty lackluster, but I recognized it had a lot of potential so I shelved it rather than refund. Looks like they've added a ton of content and gameplay changes, so I'll definitely check it out again. Hopefully they implement native controller support, as it seems like a perfect candidate for Steam Deck (yes, I know about Steam Input configs, but those are sometimes pretty hacky and don't feel all that great in a lot of games).

Our SSDs just have to be wiped but we still have to document and provide proof they were wiped and turned in. HDDs and tapes are a different story and a pain in the ass, though.

I'm super jealous. Whenever we decom servers at work, we're required to fill out paperwork and provide proof that all HDDs and SSDs were properly destroyed (i.e. rendered completely unusable and wiped) and turned in to our disposal department. The servers themselves also have to be handed over to them. I'm not sure what they do with the servers, but I'm guessing they either repurpose them as emergency replacements for other sites that have hardware failures or they bulk sell them at auctions or something.

I'd add that local charities will know their communities far better than outside organizations. The locals will likely trust them to a much higher degree versus foreigners. As a result, there's likely to be less waste as communities will be less likely (obviously not a given) to steal/hoard from themselves versus simply taking resources from outsiders who they have no connection/relationship with.

Of course there are exceptions, particularly for those communities that have been so damaged and are so desperate that this approach isn't likely to succeed. I'm not a international aid expert though, just my two cents.

You underestimate the PRC's capabilities. There's a reason their cyber warfare capabilities are considered to be among the best if not the best in the world. They did the same thing to the US's Office of Personnel Management databases back in the early 2010s. It's pretty ingenious, as it allows them to know who everyone works for, how much they get paid, and other useful intel. Additionally, if you ever waged a war, hacking the government's finance office so soldiers aren't getting paid would be incredibly effective at demoralizing troops and hurting their effectiveness (e.g. soldiers are stressed/distracted about family at home losing their house, not being able to buy food/pay other bills, etc).

That's a deep rabbit hole (no pun intended). I know it's blasphemy to mention the other site around here, but check out the r/locallama subreddit. It covers more models than just LLaMA. There are literally thousands of variations at this point, so preferences are quite subjective based on your use case and your best bet is just to begin researching on your own for your intended purposes and available resources. Huggingface is the main model repository, as well.

Yeah, the pirate could easily be the lynchpin that brought them together.

You'd be surprised. Just Google it, there are tons of pop magazines and websites that discuss it and how it was trending on TikTok for awhile after the movie came out. And just to add, most fads begin with celebrities/influencers starting them across the various age demographics.

It's partly because of Top Gun and some other recent pop culture occurrence I can't recall off the top of my head. But yeah, I know several people at work who recently started doing it as well, and one of them mentioned that as their inspiration. I'm guessing a few started bc of that and more followed suit, because why not or something.