Agreed; and it will become more of a problem as water becomes less predictable. Problem is, for most atomic generators, that also holds true.

Investment in research is definitely needed, but building existing systems isn’t going to solve the issues either.

When does Jones realize that no matter what happens, it doesn’t end well for him?

Already seen it multiple times in Africa. First thing China does is sets up a local Chinese enclave to run the port. The enclave has its own security. If the victim nation tries to do anything about it, the port shuts down until they relent. If they try to take the port by force, it gets seized and held by the security forces, and may refuse to do any local shipping until the nation caves.

Does anyone actually see Russia joining? The only belt and road candidate I can imagine from BRICS is South Africa.

However. There’s quite a few second-tier BRICS hangers on (Indonesia, Myanmar, Kazakhstan, Sudan, etc) that I can imagine could be quite excited about belt and road, at least in the short term.

Why not? It gives Russia 20 years to subsume Ukraine, so they’ll be fine with it, and Ukraine will be given the choice of “take it or be cut off from all further funding.”

Maybe they watch it as a comedy or an instructional video?

So… you’re telling him not to communicate? Are you the embodiment of critical theory?

So… internment camps and deportations to keep foreigners off US soil, and tariffs to keep foreigners from working remotely.

Have fun having to do ALL the jobs….

As the days go by….

Oh, it has… just not in the ways anyone would desire to be considered exceptional.

I don’t get it. Current nuclear power solutions take longer to set up, have an effectively permanently harmful byproduct, have the (relatively small) potential to catastrophically fail, almost always depend on an abundant supply of fresh water, and are really expensive to build, maintain and decommission.

If someone ever comes up with a functional fusion reactor, I could see the allure; in all other cases, a mix of wind, wave, geothermal, hydro and solar, alongside energy storage solutions, will continually outperform fission.

I suspect that the reason some countries like nuclear energy is that it also puts them in a position of nuclear power on the political stage.

Are those nine year olds also allowed to vote?

As someone who pre-dates the public Internet and spent a lot of time dialling in to BBSes when most people thought personal computers were for nerds…

The Internet will fracture, but not break down. What would happen is balkanization of the Internet, with physical areas running their own networks, and a bunch of poor “dark” areas. Some of those networks would likely have low bandwidth interconnections, such that digest data could still spread, much like the early days of usenet and fidonet.

Local culture and tribalism would increase, and information would skyrocket in value. The rich would still have access to, and control, the information. The poor would be left out completely.

Agreed; after using various running and other gloves, I settled on a set of work gloves that are thin nylon weave on the back and dipped in nitrile on the front, similar to gardening gloves.

They let the steam out while keeping my hands from getting too cold in -10 weather, AND I can use my phone with them on (although I don’t recommend doing that below freezing).

I do 3 hour trail runs through the winter and they’ve worked better than my running gloves or my merino wool cutoffs. And they’re $3 a pair.

Who says that was me?

Here’s one: where do you put things like The Long Earth where it’s not time you step through per-se, but all the possible futures starting from the beginning of the universe?

I really want to see someone make that series into a movie.

I try to blend in and avoid posting my main privacy activities in public.

Despite what they say, while obfuscation may not be secure, it sure helps with privacy.

https://birdsarentreal.com/

The US already does that :D

One part of this is history.

Canada and the US were British colonies; Mexico was a Spanish colony.

When some of the British colonies declared independence, they still had to trade with the colonies that hadn’t. People had relatives on both sides, the postal systems were integrated, indigenous people were mistreated in the same manner, and the list goes on. Culturally, the two remained very similar while the political systems differed.

Stuff coming from England often ended up in Toronto or New York; both of these cities became hubs of publication.

This is the way the relationship stayed pretty much up until NAFTA in the 1990s; books had already had over a century of being published in Toronto and New York for distribution across English North America.

Mexico had a different history, and a different relationship with California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Instead of Mexico being a route for culture and European goods to enter the US, it was a source of cheap labor once slavery was abolished.

Unlike Canada where the most influential Canadians lived right along the border, in Mexico the influential Mexicans lived further south, with itinerant workers living along the border.

NAFTA changed the balance of trade somewhat, but it didn’t change the already established cultural norms or the places people lived.

One clarification: carrier towers can still find a phone; GPS is passive; your phone locates itself in relation to the GPS satellites.

Most phones are also broadcasting WiFi MAC IDs and Bluetooth MACs, plus hardware and capability strings over Bluetooth. And then any apps you’ve got loaded may also be calling home with your location unless you have that disabled and rotate your ad ID regularly.

[edit] also worth pointing out that even if you turn a smartphone “off” it still pings the local cell towers with its IMEI regularly. Surprised me the first time I witnessed that.