And all that it takes to turn seawater into potable freshwater is energy.

We don't have a water problem. We have an energy problem.

For all of LA County, it would take 500–750 MW each year to use seawater for all our freshwater needs.

Or put another, with a single nuclear power plant, we would solve all LA's freshwater needs -- forever.

I don't know that I've been brainwashed, but living most of my life in Chicago & Los Angeles, I've seen a lot of bloat, corruption, & massive inefficiency.

Many of friends lost their homes in the Palisades & Altadena fires. If it weren't tragic, it would be laughable the challenges they've faced in rebuilding. Several have kids about to enter high school. A dilemma they face is should they both building a house for their teenage children or assume they'll be off to college -- knowing it could be 3+ years until they're have a permanent home again.

In Chicago, I watched the mayor sell of all the parking meters for a fraction of their value. In Los Angeles, I'm watching them struggle to complete the people mover at LAX, a project years later & billions over budget.

This doesn't make me anti-government.

I see the need for it & I want it work well.

But comments like this make me frustrated that people would rather close their eyes & try to gaslight people, rather than acknowledge the problems & talk about how we fix them.

I feel our country is split between one side that doesn't want the government to do anything, even when it works, and another side that wants the government to do everything, even when it fails.

It's not clear to me where someone in the middle goes.

That does sound taxing. Is it volunteer or do people get paid?

It's pretty convoluted logic to blame Israel for Iran attacking the UAE.

Not really. You just weren't paying attention before. To wit, countries (including Germany!) have been questioning the safety of storing gold in the United State long before the Trump administration.

Examples 2012: Venezuela Receives Last Shipment of Repatriated Gold Bars https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-01-31/venezuela...

2013: Bundesbank to retrieve $200bn of gold reserves (Bundesbank is Germany’s independent central bank) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/15/bundesbank-ret...

2014: Netherlands moves 122.5 from New York https://www.dutchnews.nl/2016/02/85796-2/

There's obviously more, but that gives you a sense of it.

This matches exactly what they said.

That kid is lucky it was a Waymo & not a human driven car.

What about China? India?

But not everyone was on dial-up. A lot were in dorms w/ (for the time) high speed connections or workplaces with it.

Remember at the time it wasn't clear that search was going to be the dominate pattern for how people found information on the web. It seems crazy now, but in the early days of the web, the space was small enough that a directory-style approach worked pretty well. It was Yahoo's directory that made it initially popular, not its search.

And so there was a fair bit of debate on which was better -- something like a directory + search (a la Yahoo!) vs just search.

It took a bit of time before search proved if it was done really well, you didn't need a directory.

It depends on how you define "suck."

When Google first launched it's homepage, its emptiness (just a logo & search box) was a stark contrast to the portal pages popular, which were loaded with content.

Some thought the Google homepage "sucked" whereas other liked it. (I was in the latter.)

Likewise, the interface for Gmail. Or the interface for Google Maps. Or the interface for Chrome.

Why can't anything simply be "disliked" anymore?

I get you don't like it.

But abused?

Because there's a slide-in?

On a site run by volunteers?

For open source software you get for free?

That you freely choose to visit?

Calling that abuse seems... off. I have no concerns with people saying the don't like something. But the current nature to be hyperbolic is off-putting to me.

* Extreme poverty is at its lowest level in human history, down by over a billion people since 1990.

* More humans can read, write, and attend school than ever before, especially girls in lower-income countries.

* Global life expectancy has more than doubled compared to 1900

* Most countries continue to rise on human-development measures (health, education, income)

Yes, there's more room to keep improving, but the world keeps getting better & better.

"Reliance on documentation is the hallmark of a novice & a coward."

And having worked in digital advertising for 20+ years, I'd be shocked if they are anywhere as effective as often claimed.

It's mostly clickbait/outrage for the sake of headlines & clicks.