While I think this is pretty amazing science stuff, the writing is terrible. Here is the progression of the story as written:

They made butter from carbon…

Well, it’s actually made from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen…

OK, it’s actually made from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen, and methane…

Well, no, it’s actually made from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen, methane, and glycerol…

Wait, hang on, it’s actually made from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen, methane, glycerol, natural flavor, and lecithin…

Now, the source of glycerol is in question, because they say this butter is both animal and plant-free. Glycerol can be made synthetically, but it’s WAY more expensive to do it. Also, I’m not seeing any way to create lecithin without plants. They never say what the “natural flavor” is.

I’ve boycotted Amazon completely for 25 years, ever since their 1 click patent bullshit. It’s not that hard to do, but people are lazy and cheap.

The only thing that Intel leadership is a threat to is Intel.

Your assessment is spot on.

If so, you’re not gonna have a lot of friends, which is a pretty shitty way to live.

Or you choose friends who will stay your friends even if you miss a concert???

Is this the same Maury Blackman who violently beat a woman less than half his age? I’m not sure, which is why I’m asking a question.

Are you insane or just fucking stupid? Serious question here. Not trying to be insulting.

This entire topic of conversation is about this bill: https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-sheehy-introduce-bipartisan-bill-to-guarantee-military-right-to-repair-its-equipment

None of the stuff you posted about or linked about in 80pt font is in the bill everyone else is talking about. The stuff you are ranting about is in the Big Beautiful Bill, which is a different legislative bill that Senator Warren (and every other Democrat) voted against.

None of those things are involved in this bill. Everything you mentioned is all about the reconciliation budget.

Please say what could have been done on this bill, which is completely separate legislation.

OK, take that Fresnel lens that you were using to melt pennies and then focus it on a PV cell that is also made of metal. What might be the expected response? The science in this case is making PV cells that can handle the intense heat.

It isn’t that. They have been talking about Fresnel lenses on PV for decades. It’s solving the heat issue and the size issue. A Fresnel lens gathers a large area of light and focuses it down, including focusing the heat. Normal PV cells cannot handle that amount of heat.

OK, what should they have done in this case? Please give concrete steps what they should have done.

I agree with you they should have been doing a lot more to deny a functioning government for the last 6 months, but in this case the very best they could have done was not co-sponsor the bill and then vote Yes on it. Because, again, this bill is a GOOD THING. It isn’t the best thing, but it is a good thing.

Got it. Since what they did wasn’t 100% perfect and a fix to everything, they are tone deaf and terrible politicians. It’s a really good thing what they did, but since it doesn’t help you personally, then it is a terrible thing. They recognized something that needed fixing that will save billions of taxpayer dollars and hurts large corporations, but since they didn’t fix the thing that impacts you then it is bad.

Also, this is the OPPOSITE of sending the message that corporate interests are more valuable. This is saying that corporations that are making billions off taxpayer funded contracts will no longer be able to bilk us (as much).

Yes, they should absolutely go after the right to repair for everyone, but maybe (and I’m just spitballing here) Warren knows that she couldn’t get the Republican majority to vote yes on a full package and went for the win she could get instead of blocking something that does do good. You do realize, right, that the Democrats do not have a majority anywhere in the federal government?

While this isn’t as far as I’d like them to go, this is extremely big news. The amount of money spent on absolute bullshit fees by defense contractors is bonkers. Us taxpayers are shelling out billions of dollars to buy a single jet that we then have to spend millions of dollars per year to maintain, simply because we aren’t allowed to maintain it ourselves.

What is tone deaf about this?

The writing in this story is not accurate. Iran isn’t turning it off for the country. They are talking about switching government services to use receivers that use Beidou as primary source of timing and maybe selectively turn off using GPS on those devices.

They can’t jam GPS in the entire country. That kind of jamming is very localized to strategic sites. Country-wide jamming would be wildly expensive. They could (and probably already do) jam it at military bases and nuclear facilities, though.

They can’t shut down the satellites over Iran. That’s not how GPS works. They aren’t geostationary with tight beams like comm satellites. Every GPS satellite goes around the earth twice a day and has a beam that covers the entire earth plus something like 10 degrees on the sides out into space (circular, not actually side to side). While the US can turn off broadcasting while directly over very large swaths at a time (like, say, China and Russia), it isn’t actually turned off on the ground because there will still be satellites over Europe or northern Africa that will be on and sending data at a higher angle to that large swath. It will be lower powered in that region because the signal power is lower at the edges, but it isn’t off. Also, Iran is in the same region as US allies and US military bases: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc; so the US would be unlikely to want to lower GPS power in that region.

Starlink is very different in how it sends signals to the earth, which is why it can shut off services to areas.

“Have any of you realized how much money we spent on this?!”

No. The answer is only no.