My kids school “boxes” phones if you’re caught using them or they interrupt class. They lock them inside a clear plastic case and let you carry that.

This avoids liability because the kid still has possession of their phone and can still see an emergency text or call. The can’t interact with the phone but can get a teacher to unlock if there’s a visible emergency text

Depending on state, healthcare applies to spouses but may not for long term partners. You can’t do that with a will or trust

You also get tax benefits

Getting married should only be expensive if you want it to be, although too many people fall for the peer pressure.

• For me I was overwhelmingly in love, ready to declare it to the world and willing to pay anything for the one big party of my life. That may not have entirely worked out, but was how I felt at the time
• My best friend just got married for reasonable cost. Still had a big party, but it was 40 people in a park, and we went to a restaurant after.
• Another friend got married inexpensively, maybe. Was it the $100 actual cost, or do you count the week in Vegas?

I don’t care if he’s the Capo di tutti i capi of whatever cartel they all “are members of”, until there’s a fair trial with evidence. And even then when the government goes this far to violate human rights, it invalidates their whole case

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It doesn’t even have to be a derailed boom, but simply

• a maturity transition where the dilettantes fall out, concentrating on the biggest players
• more efficiency. There’s been a ton of research on efficiency and that’s a great profit multiplier so will be rapidly taken up

Aside from the obvious questions everyone else is posting …. How is this even relevant? Saudi Arabia mainly exports oil, but US uses almost no oil products for generating electricity. Unless data centers start installing their own generators (please no) for full time power, it’s a non-starter. What electrical utility does s going to build an oil burning generator plant?

History we’ve used a lot of coal and natural gas, so that’s the most likely fossil fuels to increase. And those are fuels the US has tons of

Imagine politics as a way to get something done, for the citizens, not has some hate and lie fueled toxic race to the bottom decimating public services, standing in the world, and the economy

Now that cigarettes are finally going away, it was nice to breathe fresh air for a bit, but it’s getting worse again. There are so many cannabis options that don’t ruin other people’s enjoyment of the outdoors, can’t smoking just go away entirely?

There’s this one bench area on our town common that permanently reeks of pot smoking. It’s outside, no one around, yet it still stinks. And it stinks enough that walking g by on the sidewalk is unpleasant.

Or that riverwalk, where we can enjoy brief experiences of nature in between all the islands of pot smoke.

Another reason to look forward to electric vehicles! Imagine a world 20 years from now where the noise is vanishing, the gasoline/deisel smell is only for the diehards going to that one remaining service station that still sells it, no more visible emissions from cars or rolling coal!

My state has free school lunch for all kids. However it’s typical school lunch quality and quantity

My kid’s high school wants to install a fingerprint system to keep hungry kids from cheating by using the code of someone who brings lunch. You want to install an expensive system to collect biometrics n kids to save like $2 per instance, or whatever pittance goes into school lunches?

That’s not very encouraging: I’m battling those now. Ive been constrained by kids and a dog so I haven’t want to use sprays…… yesterday, I sprayed the exterior with ant spray, and the interior where they’ve been with clove oil,so we’ll see. This morning there are fewer fwiw

Serious, yes. Tax fraud, no.

Tax fraud may be serious to the govt, and the punishment may be serious, but you’re not hurting an individual, you’re not putting anyone out if business or out of a job, you’re not committing treason, you’re not even displaying sociopathic tendencies. Maybe if it were on the scale of Trump’s tax fraud …

IT guy who essentially did all the buying of equipment got arrested for selling some of it on eBay

Half of security is just making them be noisy enough to get worried someone will check

A lot of choices don’t seem to be available in the US - Hyundai/kia seems best of what else is available in a lot of ways. I originally hoped the legacy American manufacturers were getting their shit together but it looks like they’re crawling back under their rocks.

I guess my biggest hope is that Lucid or Rivian are able to break out into mass production of their next generation

Yeah, it’s unfortunate. I bought mine when we could still ignore the red flags and it’s still my favorite car feature wise, there are still so many things it does better than any car, still so many features not available on other vehicles for any price. The comparisons with Apple are apt - I could have been a lifelong customer. But wtf mental illness happened here? For the first time ever I’m embarrassed by what I drive. I don’t know what I’ll do next time I need a car, but it won’t be a Tesla without radical changes in leadership - and that Nazi is only the start. Every board member and executive who thinks that’s ok has to go

If only people saying that were aware of their logic flaw of also cutting funding to fusion research

It’s probably as simple as we already have something successful. Why spend time and effort overcoming the challenges to create new reactor technology with many of the same benefits and shortcomings as we already have?

I know the arguments for thorium and can see that being a huge benefit to places without a mature nuclear industry and without developed fuel sources.

Sure it would be somewhat better for us as well, but the biggest limitations will be the same. You’re still impeded by fears of radioactivity even if it is less. You still have radioactive waste to handle even if it’s less and less long lasting. You still have legal and regulatory challenges driving costs and timelines through the roof. Thorium hasn’t won the war of public perception, so is no better in the things that actually impede its use

“Burner” phones are becoming more common in tv and movies, including the Jason Bourne movies. A phone line is mostly secure if no one knows to listen to it or who owns it.

Even assuming the NSA records everything for pattern analysis and data mining, they won’t care about most of us and can’t legally share that data with cops…. and still may not be able to identify the owner of a burner phone

Two sided dice, for binary decisions in DnD? Sure, I’ve flipped a coin