At least it’s only a monopoly because everyone else is apparently idiots when it comes to long term planning. I’m dreading the day when they turn to the dark side. Long away may it be.

I remember there being a newspaper interview with an old lady. She was a child and saw one of the wright brothers first flights. She then got to see man land on the moon, at the other end of her life.

I was one of them. They proved my fears unfounded (so far). They’ve also managed to convert me to a fanboy at some point. I realised I was playing a co-op game brought off steam, on my steam deck, via a steam link to the TV, and the wife using a steam controller.

True, but they weren’t really used much as flying cars till later. I might be wrong on exactly when they moved from military to “rich transport to the race track”, however.

We’ve had flying cars since the 70s, they are called helicopters.

The issue with a flying car for general use, is one of maintenance and safety. If an older car breaks down, it causes a tailback. If a flying car breaks down, it could demolish a school. The higher standards required means higher costs. That means rich people only. The rich use helicopters in exactly that manner.

This is one of the biggest frustrations with nuclear power. The first power plants had issues (mostly due to them being bomb factory designs). We learnt from that, and designed better ones. They never got built. They were swamped in red tape and delays until they died.

Decades later, China comes in and just asks nicely. The designs work fine. China now leads the way, built on research we left to rot.

It’s also worth noting that there is a big difference between a fusion power plant and a fission one. China is doing active research on it, as is the west. There’s quite a friendly rivalry going on. We have also basically cracked fusion now. We just need to scale it up. The only big problem left is the tokamakite issue. The neutron radiation put off by the reaction transmutes the walls. Using radioactive materials as a buffer is an idea I’ve not heard of. I’m curious about the end products. A big selling point of fusion is the lack of long term waste. Putting a fission reaction in there too might lose that benefit.

That’s fairly close. The only proviso is there are some ways to affect the results. You can’t send actual information along the link, but you can prove they were in communication. That proof requires information from the sending end however. It’s only provable once that information is sent. Basically they communicate faster than light, but can’t send information faster than light. Entanglement is weird.

Once you hit quantum mechanics, you need to throw out a lot of your instinctive knowledge, and just follow the maths. How this maps back to our perception is patchy at best. Once you add science reporters, who don’t actually understand the core subject, and you get some… interesting results.

In hindsight, “quantum voodoo dolls” is a term I could easily see being used. There are a lot of poorly thought out Wats to try and describe quantum weirdness.

It was a bit of a joke. Entangled particles act a little like voodoo dolls, with “spooky action at a distance”.

Quantum voodoo dolls do. It’s annoyed more than a few scientists over the years.

You need to prep by sending the entangled particles (photons in this case). The spooky action is when you act on 1, you also act on the other. The useful bit is the uniqueness of the link. It cannot be intercepted without it being obvious and detectable.

Think of it like voodoo dolls. It works at a distance, but you need to make the voodoo doll using a bit of the target, then send/take it elsewhere to stab.

Most locks don’t really keep people out. They just keep honest people honest. At best, they slow an attacker down and/or make it more obvious.

I fully agree, but most locks aren’t in that state. 95% of the locks you might want to use this technique on would be in a reasonable condition.

I personally think it would hold up, so long as it wasn’t abused. 3D prints are weak and prone to breaking with in the inter layer structure. Intra layer, they are quite strong. Also when they fail, intra layer, they tend to deform, rather than snap.

Material matters however. PLA is relatively prone to breaking. PETG or nylon are far tougher.

It’s also worth noting the use case here. It’s either nefarious (breaking in) or one-off (unlocking a door where you no longer have the key available). Neither requires long term survivability.

It would work a couple of times. It’s just not a long term solution.

In fairness, the only thing many people will lack is water. It’s not an exclusive stash, but in addition to what’s in your cupboards.

You can get 10L or 25L quite cheaply. 1 should do per person, maybe with an extra for cooking. Or just grab some big bottles of water.

A hand cranked flashlight, candles and lighter are all a must anyhow, for a power cut. It might also be worth having a cheap camping stove tucked away.

Food wise. It’s just a big bag of pasta or rice, along with some cans/jars to make it pleasant to eat. Throw in some hiking snack bars and you’re sorted.

It lets your phone use the larger screen for satnav. It also reconfigures it to a better setup for driving (bigger buttons and reduced complexity). This also means your phone doesn’t need to be sat in the sun, with its screen lit up for a couple of hours, and so overheating.

My phone no longer even leaves my pocket. It wirelessly links to the entertainment system.

As someone who’s been there, for most people it’s transient and/or a call for help. If someone really wants to kill themselves, they will. These steps are for those who fail to control a momentary intrusive thought.

It’s also worth noting that an overdose on paracetamol or ibuprofen is an awful way to go. It likely won’t kill you quickly. You’ll recover initially, but die to liver failure. This can take weeks in hospital. Imagine the horror of watching a teenage daughter die slowly over 2 weeks. She doesn’t want to die, she never intended to. She just wanted mum and dad to pay attention to her about the bullying at school.

The purchase limit was entirely to stop suicide by overdose. It was amazingly effective. It turns out that the effort to go in and out of stores multiple times, to buy the drugs was more than most people could do.

It’s slightly annoying, but worth it.

Dog particularly pick up on our emotions. If you’re always worried and stressed when you go to the vet, your dog will pick up on that.

My dog had a few checkups, not that long after we got him. None were stressful either to him, or us. Since then, he LOVES the vets. He has lots of new people paying attention to him and lots of new smells!

A fear of the vets is a learned response. If your vet is that frightening to them, I would consider looking at other vets.

A good excuse for a quick visit is to weigh them. Most vets I’ve seen have a dog scale in the reception. If you mention you also want to make sure they are not afraid of a vets visit, most will have zero issues with it. It also lets you check they are growing at an appropriate rate.