In the late 90s I saw a piece demonstrating an optical 3d storage system that had a capacity about an order of magnitude greater than the at the time brand new HD DVD and Bluray discs. I assumed this clearly superior format that already had a working demo would obviously kill other optical media. Turns out nobody could figure out how to manufacture one at a price anybody was willing to spend.

Entirely not the point.

Be careful with this statement, there's two very different ways this could be interpreted. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you're alluding to the end of WWII and how Hitler chose to leave it, but it could also be interpreted to refer to the start of WWII.

Churches need to lose the blanket tax exempt status. If they want to be tax exempt they should file as a non-profit like all the other tax exempt non-profits. Of course they would never do that because it would mean actually functioning as a non-profit.

The problem is it doesn't have anything to do with how strong or weak the federal government is right now. Trump literally does not care what he's "allowed" to do as part of the federal government, he just does what he wants and then dares anybody to stop him and so far everyone else has blinked. Half the things he's done he's not actually legally allowed to, so removing even more powers from the federal government won't stop him and it will just further empower the bad actors at the state level.

The primary argument for state vs. federal isn't about someone having "too much power", it's about having the option to experiment with different ideas. If there's no clear consensus about something and a bunch of different ways you can go about handling it that all seem equally valid that's a pretty good argument for leaving it up to the states to hammer out. If it's something basic that everyone should be on board with like basic human rights, that's a good argument for federal control.

I guess the flip side of that though is that you could feasibly have one hell of a guerilla war since a decent chunk of the population would help you. It would really come down to how willing the US military would be to bomb their own citizens. This would be one of the few situations where the lack of clear sides in the US would actually be somewhat beneficial (unlike the previous civil war where there was a fairly stark North/South divide, the split this time tends to fall along rural/urban with suburbs being fairly evenly mixed).

Pretty much just embarrassment, although it could also be to prevent having to testify. He of course knew the kinds of things he and his goons (many of whom coincidentally also work or worked for Trump) got up to and in an impeachment a lot of that would potentially become public. He was likely done either way and at least this way nobody would ever know exactly how bad it really was.

There have been three distinct turning points for the Republican party. The first was Nixon which marked the point at which Republicans stopped trying to compete on good policy and started trying to weaponize hate and fear as well as went all in on dirty tricks. The second turning point was Reagan which was when they cemented their messaging around trickle down economics (formerly known as horse and sparrow theory) and really began pushing hard for late stage capitalism. The third was the election of Trump which is when the party abandoned all pretense of decorum and went full mask off on their greed and corruption.

Seems like no matter what country you're talking about the rich would rather do anything but address the underlying problem as that would mean a less extreme wealth gap.

Sounds like it's about equivalent to Intel's latest GPU. Both are running about a little over a generation behind AMD and Nvidia. Meanwhile Nvidia is busy trying to kill their consumer GPU division to free up more fab space for data center GPUs chasing that AI bubble. AMD meanwhile has indicated they're not bothering to even try to compete with Nvidia on the high end but rather are trying to land solidly in the middle of Nvidia's lineup. More competition is good but it seems like the two big players currently are busy trying to not compete as best they can, with everyone else fighting for their scraps. The next year or two in the PC market are shaping up to be a real shit show.

I don't know that that's related to WFH, I've been waiting a month now for someone to provision a new server and I'm in office twice a week. If someone isn't doing what they need to it seems they're just as capable of not doing so in office as they are from home.

Bernie once again demonstrating that he's the only adult in a room full of children. It's got to be frustrating as hell to be surrounded by these morons constantly.

This next election is going to be an absolute shitshow. I guarantee they'll refuse to certify the election, and they'll try to hijack the electoral college (again).