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would you buy and carry [a tablet] around in addition to your phone, which you always carry

I did just that back when I carried a flip phone. For years, I chose a flip phone with a separate tablet over a smartphone because it made my cellular bill hundreds of dollars per year smaller. Only a few years ago did it become common for carriers in my home country not to cram data service onto a voice SIM inserted into a smartphone.

What I think would be perfect is something in the form factor of the Yoga Book

Try a Lenovo Yoga or a Dell Inspiron 11. The screen on these convertible laptops folds all the way around to become a tablet. A different convertible laptop geometry existed a decade ago with Lenovo's ThinkPad X61, whose screen turned around and folded over the keyboard.

Be careful, I wouldn't take that bet: Shawn Willden.

gee, what could possibly go wrong?

when you pry it from my cold, dead, absolutely fabulous hands.

I saw some sixtyish man in a Cheesecake Factory on Monday this week. He was wearing some gay looking, leather stovepipe hat and carrying a man purse/bag. That wasn't you by any chance was it? He had an older lady with him that I assumed was his fag hag.

when you pry it from my cold, dead, absolutely fabulous hands.

Oh, yeah, that's why there are literally tens of thousands of messages from Android users who disable Wi-Fi and cellular data and "enjoy" up to 35% battery drain overnight and this drain is not shown in Battery information.

Oh, wait, I've seen such messages even from Google Pixel owners. These phones must be perfect, right? Android straight from its creators.

So, you're right, I'm the geekest geek and people are making things up and Android battery management is perfect. Except it sucks.

You see I've owned close to a dozen Android devices and I have yet to see a single one where battery information is complete and self-explanatory and you're always in control of your battery discharge.

The US itself built its industry by stealing from others, massively. Without that, the US today would be just another Mexico.

This reply (Google Product Forums requires JavaScript) implies that Google locks an account in this manner if someone might have compromised it.

which are batshit crazy. But that said, solar is a completely different ballgame in a place like Az where you've got sun 90% of the time.

Global Warming is a problem that needs solving, but nuclear plants with their 10+ years time to start up aren't going to solve it anyway. Solar can be up and running in 16 weeks (ok, let's be honest , 32, but 8 months is better than 8 years). That's because you don't have to constantly watch every step and every screw. If you cut corners then it costs a bit more in maintenance. Do the same on a nuke plant and you've got a meltdown + dead zone.

And you haven't said what is going to replace those older plants. If it's the same type of plant that's cheaper to run unsafe than safe then Houston, we've got a problem.

Okay, be honest. How many people read those names as Sam and Dean?

Nope

People at IBM wear ties. To work.

Well, and tie-dye:

https://www.google.com/search?...

They don't even know neckbeards exist. They can't see them, even if their gaze accidentally passes over them.

"Can't see the neck, through the beard."

When I attempted sign-up, YouTube region blocked me based on my Google Account's billing address:

We see you live in
46808
Sorry, but YouTube TV is not available in your area just yet.

Is it cost-effective for prospective customers interested in YouTube TV to first move to one of the supported cities?

Because the USA itself built its industry by stealing from others, massively! Of course, according to American Exceptionalism, this is acceptable and its populace would not be surprised because their dark little historic secrets were rarely mentioned or taught to them. Do what I say, don't do what I did.

First off, it throws out obvious junk data. Secondly, that blue radius grows and shrinks more based on how recently it grabbed GPS data combined with its confidence with the algorithm rather than how strong the signal is. Google Maps also uses cell tower triangulation part of the time to keep up with position because it's cheaper battery-wise.

Anyway, just read Google's own patent application that explains how snapping to roads works and what the prior art is:
https://patents.google.com/pat...

Especially looking at where they use the accelerometer and gyroscope data.

the post above is what happens when a lefty rants with the kind of bitter rage usually reserved for the alt-right.

Speaking of rage: I'd be a lot less better if I didn't have so many family members who've had the shit kicked out of them by our crap healthcare system because folks won't stop voting for the GOP when they keep telling you they're gonna end Obamacare with it's protection for preexisting conditions. Jeez, I wish I knew how to reach the electorate. 26% of Americans still believe the GOP is gonna save them even after 60 votes to repeal and Mitch McConnell going around saying he's gonna end social security and Medicare.

Here's the problem:

The moment the GOP actually tries or does end any of the programs you mentioned, the voters will simply hand them their ass and we'll return to Team Blue for X number of years until, they too, do something similar and the cycle repeats. Both sides like to induce hysteria on various issues ( 2nd Amendment, Immigration, Health Care, Terrorists, Russia, etc. etc. ) and folks just keep eating it up. Folks are so brainwashed by their " team " that they have never figured out there really isn't much difference between Team Red and Team Blue. In fact, they're so much alike they may as well just be Team Fucking Purple for all intents and purposes.

It's been this way forever and it's not likely to change as long as we have a two party system.

the post above is what happens when a lefty rants with the kind of bitter rage usually reserved for the alt-right.

Speaking of rage: I'd be a lot less better if I didn't have so many family members who've had the shit kicked out of them by our crap healthcare system because folks won't stop voting for the GOP when they keep telling you they're gonna end Obamacare with it's protection for preexisting conditions. Jeez, I wish I knew how to reach the electorate. 26% of Americans still believe the GOP is gonna save them even after 60 votes to repeal and Mitch McConnell going around saying he's gonna end social security and Medicare.

My favorite counterpoint to the benefits of notebooks.

bottled at the source

But seriously, air pollution sucks. My city had smog days 80% of the time over the summer. That's insane. My mom died of lung cancer from smoking. It's frustrating to think I might do the same even though I don't smoke.

Attacking the free press and encouraging and justifying violence is hilarious!

Would that be the same "free press" that deliberately buried mention of Barack Obama hanging out with Louis "I'm not anti-semitic, I'm anti-termite" Farrakhan?

Would that be the same "free press" that deliberately withheld the Khalidi video, purportedly of Barack Obama going full anti-semite?

Would that be the same press that routinely ignores violent vandalism of GOP sites? Florida. Illinois. New York. Nebraska. All in the past couple of days.

GFY

Attacking the free press and encouraging and justifying violence is hilarious!

Would that be the same "free press" that deliberately buried mention of Barack Obama hanging out with Louis "I'm not anti-semitic, I'm anti-termite" Farrakhan?

Would that be the same "free press" that deliberately withheld the Khalidi video, purportedly of Barack Obama going full anti-semite?

Would that be the same press that routinely ignores violent vandalism of GOP sites? Florida. Illinois. New York. Nebraska. All in the past couple of days.

GFY

Attacking the free press and encouraging and justifying violence is hilarious!

Would that be the same "free press" that deliberately buried mention of Barack Obama hanging out with Louis "I'm not anti-semitic, I'm anti-termite" Farrakhan?

Would that be the same "free press" that deliberately withheld the Khalidi video, purportedly of Barack Obama going full anti-semite?

Would that be the same press that routinely ignores violent vandalism of GOP sites? Florida. Illinois. New York. Nebraska. All in the past couple of days.

GFY

a well educated electorate doesn't necessarily vote the way you want them to.

Remember how before the printing press only the priesthood could read the bible? Internet is like that times 100.

I just checked......now the first search result links to spyware :)

the economic right wing own virtually everything. Talk radio is almost completely right of center (with NPR being a bit left on social issues but still centrist on the economy). Same with newspapers when it comes to money. Right of center.

What's more, America is not nearly as divided as the media tells you. 70% of us support medicare for all. You'll find similar numbers for marijuana legalization, infrastructure spending and putting a stop to our endless wars.

Americans are actually pretty well united. Our ruling class figured that out in the 50s. They used hot button wedge issues to motivate a fringe to vote against their interests and gerrymandering, voter suppression combined with our pseudo Democracy (e.g. Senate & Electoral College) to make sure the majority didn't get what they wanted.

But this created a problem. It was now too obvious America wasn't a Democracy anymore. So they bought up the media and started pushing a narrative that we're divided. We're not. Not on the issues anyway. We have a classic tyranny of the minority.

Isn't the demonstrated fact that if you eat organic = you are likely to have that outcome enough? If people did eat organic as a result of a study, (laughable!), but if they did they would be defacto in a healthier subset, as demonstrated.

Exactly "why" that is requires a lot more study, and certainly if Monsanto's only very recent exposure as a ubiquitous carcinogen demonstrates, there is MAJOR funding behind this vector of toxic chemicals in our food remaining unexposed. So whether or not this particular study explains why, it does show that by removing some 900+ pesticides from your diet as able "probably" does lead to better life outcomes, for whatever reason that individually is being represented in the mean. Only a fool would try to say this is insignificant by virtue of being not fully explained to their satisfaction, in any case.

and not median income. You're mixing in a few high earners who skew the results.

You can't target the working poor. The right wing will put in so many exceptions that your attempts to will fail. In Missouri they just put a work requirement in place for Medicaid. They didn't raise the income threshold before you get kicked off Medicaid. You can probably guess where this is going...

There's an easy way to see how badly off min wage workers are: even with all the attempts to deny them access to gov't help they still get $6 billion/yr in help, which is a $6 billion dollar subsidy for companies that pay minimum wage, paid for by you and me.

https://www.google.com/search?...

September 2009 (Seattle's peak)
Seattle unemployment 8.7%
Portland unemployment 10.4%

May 2018
Seattle unemployment 3.0%
Portland unemployment 3.1%

Portland Minimum wage 11.25
Seattle Minimum wage 15.45
Looks like Portland with a lower minimum wage had a larger and faster recovery especially since portland had a peak unemployment rate of 11.4% in Jun of 09

Odds are if Seattle hadn't raised its minimum wage it would have hit full employment faster, and would have reached the point where lack of labor supply was driving up wages anyway especially with all the Amazon development

Children aren't developmentally ready for that sort of abstract form focused thinking until high school.

It's certainly not impossible:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/world/german-teen-solves-300-year-old-mathematical-riddle-posed-by-sir-isaac-newton.amp

I think TNG meant to imply that what is exceptional today may be commonplace by the 24th century.

> What experience is sub par?

Gee, soldering the RAM and SSD to the MBP mobo ISN'T a dick move???

Stockholm Syndrome much?

Sorry, no.

It is a RELIABILITY move, especially when, as other posters have pointed out, a vanishingly small percentage of laptop users upgrade their hardware, even when they HAVE the opportunity. Proof positive is the fact that some other laptop OEMs do the same thing. Are they all Dicks, too? Why no Slashdot hand-wringing about THEM???

I love my MBP and iPhone 7+ too but let's cut the bullshit of Apple's anti-right-to-repair shenanigans.

Their gimping of the Mac Mini also isn't winning any fans.

IMHO, the reason they originally went from a 4 core to 2 core CPU in the 2014 Mac mini was issues with Thermal Dissapation. I realize that they could have updated the mini in late 2016, along with the original TB MBPs, and gone back to a Quad-Core CPU (and updated Ports); but I honestly think they were contemplating a bigger change for the mini.

We will know about that in about 4 days from now:

https://www.apple.com/apple-ev...

Instead of embracing Vulkan (or OpenGL) they have NIH syndrome with Metal.

That's already neatly taken care-of:

https://moltengl.com/

The above also includes MoltenVK; which is Vulkan under Metal 2.

And, BTW, Metal 2 is actually far better than OpenGL and Vulkan. And, as far as "Not Invented Here", it is important to point out that Metal Development was started BEFORE Vulkan; so, it is rather disingenuous to say that Metal is some kind of "Interloper":

"As for the direct comparison, first of all we have to mention that Apple started developing Metal and implementing it way before Vulkan was even proposed or dreamed, with the release of Metal being in 2014. I think that Apple would have never thought about developing Metal if the industry itself moved to a low-overhead API sooner. Anyway, as far as we know Metal provides a 10 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,0 while Vulkan provides a 3,5 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,1."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Andro...

HTF am I supposed to charge AND listen to my wired headphones on the iPhone now? Oh that's right buy your shitty overpriced Beats headphone garbage. NOT. Fuck this "courage" nonsense.

.5 secs on Amazon found these solutions (among many) :

https://www.amazon.com/HIOTECH...

https://www.amazon.com/Lightni...

Or, if you want a "Y-Cable" type:

https://www.amazon.com/Jackiey...

Or, if you need "Calling" (headset, not just headphone) use:

https://www.amazon.com/Certifi...

Apple has lost their way. All they care about is branding and making money. The _also_ used to care about technology at one time.

Right.

Recent things like adding eGPU support to macOS, releasing an iOS version which IMPROVES performance on older hardware, multi person FaceTime, Metal 2, SmartWatch with FDA-Approved ECG built-in, brand new COW FileSystem, vastly improving LogicProX and FCPX, etc. etc. None of those are "branding and making money" Projects.

Think about it. He's big, orange and has really small hands relative to his body size. He's the God Emperor.

> What experience is sub par?

Gee, soldering the RAM and SSD to the MBP mobo ISN'T a dick move???

Stockholm Syndrome much?

I love my MBP and iPhone 7+ too but let's cut the bullshit of Apple's anti-right-to-repair shenanigans.

Their gimping of the Mac Mini also isn't winning any fans.

Instead of embracing Vulkan (or OpenGL) they have NIH syndrome with Metal.

HTF am I supposed to charge AND listen to my wired headphones on the iPhone now? Oh that's right buy your shitty overpriced Beats headphone garbage. NOT. Fuck this "courage" nonsense.

Apple has lost their way. All they care about is branding and making money. The _also_ used to care about technology at one time.

No, it is not. The far-right in America is represented by the 30% who watch fox news and attend Trump rallies.

You're making the two-fold common mistake of (1) assuming everyone on the other side of the divide are all the same and (2) assuming everyone on the other side holds the most extreme views. The reality is far closer to a bell curve - on either end you have a tiny portion of wackos, while a huge majority clusters around the middle.

Less than 1% of the US watches Fox News (https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/the-top-basic-cable-networks-for-july-2018-are/372335 vs https://www.google.com/search?...).

I don't know how big Trump rallies get, but in a quick search I couldn't find any with more than a few thousand, but even if you're generous and assume an average attendance of 10k, about one tenth of 1% of the US attends Trump rallies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_post-election_Donald_Trump_rallies - 50-ish rallies in 2018 * 10k/rally).

Further, attending a rally or watching Fox News are not things I'd do, but they don't make someone be "far right" any more than watching CNN/MSNBC and/or attending a Clinton rally make you "far left".

The far-left by your notion believes in radical ideas like balanced budgets and providing a social safety net which prevents Americans from victimized by the wealthy.

Really? I told you that? When?

No, the far-left by my notion supports antifa, worships at the altar of identity politics and safe spaces, preaches tolerance of any view that matches their own and harsh intolerance of everything else, and disincentivizes every form of honest work (either through the most extreme guaranteed safety nets or blatantly unfair progressive 90%+ tax rates).

But guess what? I don't believe everyone left of center holds the most extreme views. Everyone left of center is not an antifa nutjob. But the same is also true of those right of center - there is a short distance of opinion between the vast majority of the people in this country.

Just because moderates are on the opposite side of the spectrum that the current American right, does not in any way may the far left.

You're deluding yourself, but if you can provide some citations, go for it.

But above all, you're missing the larger point, which is that lumping together everyone on the other side of the line, whether they be just a shade over or the most extreme, is a really terrible political strategy (doesn't matter if you lean left or right). It all but guarantees that nothing gets done. If you want to win elections and steer the country, then a far better strategy is to move from "you voted for candidate X? You are by definition evil/stupid! There is nothing more to say!" to "wow, the extremes are nutty! Forget 'left'and 'right', let's form a coalition made up of even-keeled people".

This is a winning strategy, but will always be beyond your reach as long as you continue with your present mode of thinking.

of an early prototype

Starting with iOS 4, Apple included a âoedata protectionâ feature to encrypt all data stored a device. But unlike Android, Apple doesn't use the full-disk encryption paradigm. Instead, they employ a file-based encryption approach that individually encrypts each file on the device.Nov 24, 2016

https://www.google.com/search?...

Yep, that's an option in APFS, which iOS uses.

Oh great, just what civilization needed: Uber drones dropping burritos from the sky!

If nothing else, it will give Peter Thiel a new way to lament the state of technological progress: "We wanted flying cars, instead we got parachute pizzas"

repost

My boss slaps a folded-over InfoWorld magazine onto my desk, thick enough to kill a rat with in those days. He says with obvious glee, "How bout dem apples?"

It is Steve Gibson's INFOWORLD column of March 8 and Gibson (with obvious glee) has caught a manufacturer of Hercules graphics cards red-handed. The standard WinBench program had conducted a series of tests --- and in one particular test of text display, in which the phrase "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back then sat on a tack" is continuously painted on the screen --- the card performed oddly spectacularly. It was that one score that when combined with the others, ranked the card above the competition. Suspicious, Gibson changed a single letter in the test phrase and the card's score dropped to a reasonable range. The card was apparently recognizing that a test was in progress and 'cheating' by failing to actually over-write this static text repeatedly.

I love the comment by the manufacturer when Gibson contacted them (read it!) but what intrigued the industry the most was that the cheat was not to be found in the Windows driver code, it had been embedded into the firmware of the accelerator chip. In the next Winbench version the test phrase jumped around the lazy screen's back during the test, rendering the cheat obsolete.

Facebook banning The Daily Stormer has absolutely nothing to do with the First Amendment. Not even in the most remote, tangential way. Nothing at all.

Both are free speech issues. The first amendment legally protects you from the US government silencing you. (They can still silence you, but you can, in theory, sue them afterwards). The ideals of free speech are supposed to protect you from others silencing you. The ideals are a moral issue rather than a legal one, but the two are related.

people who are trying to stop nazis will never be as bad as the nazis.

uuuuuhhhhh.... Stalin and Mao? Like... did you just pull a brain-fart on all history past operation barbossa when Hitler attacked Russia in June 1941?

Regardless of history, that sort of blind hatred and unwillingness to consider alternatives puts you in the running for bigotry. Please, look at the definition and then look at your stance on Nazis.

Your biggest worry should be that the Bear Jew is going to bring his 36" Hank Greenberg model Louisville slugger into sudden contact with your head and that you will fill your briefs with shit.

That sounds like a death-threat. But a silly one because you're assuming by Joe_Dragon is a Nazi. Come on dude, Inglorious Bastards is a good movie because the bad guys are promoting a rampantly violent one-sided propaganda film. (the in-movie one with the sniper. The one Hitler is applauding when the bomb goes off.) And it casts negative moral judgement on them for that. They are bad guys doing bad things, and this is most certainly a bad thing. Now consider that Tarantino made a rampantly violent one-sided propaganda film where a group go assassinate Hitler. ...Do you see the parallels? Is this too deep for you? I thought this was going to be a great movie for promoting introspection, but no, too many people failed to see the satire and bought into the film's face-value. I think it's like the Starship Troopers movie. A disturbing number of people don't realize it's satire.

What's your definition source? I ask because here are six that don't require direct conquest.

https://www.merriam-webster.co...
https://dictionary.cambridge.o...
https://www.google.com/search?... (no idea where google gets its definitions but there it is)
https://www.collinsdictionary....
https://www.britannica.com/top...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.oxforddictionaries....

I use mostly, but rarely, Google Chrome on Android to eventual "normal browsing" (I have FF configured to use SOCKS5 proxy, generated by https://play.google.com/store/..., to access remote addresses, or addresses filtered in some places WiFi, and with https://noscript.net/ [to access some paywalled content :P] - Google Chrome is a "dumb user" browser, I think...)

Right, what I said is counter-intuitive based on anecdotal popular media 'stories'. Smoking is a wonderful stimulant, especially in low doses, aids concentration, help relaxation...

But, over an extended period of consistent use, months to years - nicotine suppresses thyroid function. If your thyroid is a rock-star, you'll never notice before you die from cardiovascular disease or a stroke.

If.

If your thyroid has other undiagnosed issues, is a little weak, you have a rather common auto-immune condition that attacks the thyroid called Hashimotos, which is often coupled with undiagnosed gluten-based food allergies (also common)... then smoking is going to make these issues seemingly appear out of nowhere, eventually, and with likely much more severity than they would have otherwise.

Another problem with heavy smoking: stopping suddenly often leads to a rapid negative effect on thyroid function, which further increases the weight gain and throws the adrenal glands into a panic, leading to adrenal failure, anxiety and sleep problems... the heavy use of sleep aids such as Ambien or alcohol masks these issues, poorly. For people that experience this, they were likely already experiencing suppressed thyroid function (not necessarily only from smoking!) and were already overweight (like over 50% of Americans), so stopping smoking suddenly just makes an unknown underlying problem worse. This is definitely not a reason to keep smoking. The addiction to nicotine, the apparent relaxation it brings, aid in clarity and focus... often mask underlying problems that further contribute to this negative feedback loop.

Low thyroid hormone levels, T3 & T4, lead to not only weight gain, but also varying levels of depression, reduced memory and ability to concentrate, and a general feeling of 'malaise', i.e. guys become curmudgeons and 'perform' poorly, thus the market for little blue pills, women become bitchy and, um, 'cold', leading to unhappy men and an increase in the world's oldest profession. If you smoke, or are a little older, a full thyroid panel should be part of an annual check-up. If you smoke heavily and stop smoking, then you should monitor thyroid function closely for months while you stop smoking, then monitor at least annually or semi-annually. This monitoring doesn't even take a doctor, you can order these blood tests online yourself for $50 or less. Amazon sells test kits as well, although probably not as accurate as a blood draw and a lab analysis. Then you might face the daunting task of dealing with marginally competent MDs who simply throw T4-only treatments at people - a different rant, also with various alternatives. Overall, the lack of comprehensive insurance and healthcare in the US is a tragedy, yet another rant.

Nicotine was designed by plants to mess with insects to repel them, so it shouldn't be surprising that it also messes with humans in interesting ways. Do your own reading and research, and hopefully, don't smoke or ingest enhanced levels of nicotine from any source. It's just stupid.

https://www.google.com/search?...

to prevent informed people from voting. This is why older folks are such a valuable demographic.

I've told this story before. Where I am the local power company wanted to end the practice of paying solar power users for their extra power. Only thing is, that was very, very popular. Their law didn't have a chance of passing.

Well pass it did. How you ask? They ran these ads see. There were a bunch of older folks sitting around a table talking about something. Something scary. At no time during the advert did anyone say what it was. At the end was an impassioned plea to vote yes and proposition such-and-such. It passed with room to spare, and the power companies no longer had to pay for the free solar.

Those are your "informed" voter. Meanwhile you need only spend a bit of time on google to see how bad voter suppression is in this country.

It's harder for the left because we _don't_ have propaganda. We've got no Rush Limbaugh. No Fox News. No CNN pretending to be middle of the road and then pushing trickle down economics on the sly. We've got no Sinclair media buying out all the stations.

Again, I don't think I can reach you. You've got the talking points from your right wing think tanks too down pat. You were ready to go with a rebuttal because they've given you all the answers. It's tough for me to compete with a multi-billion dollar right wing propaganda machine. And again, maybe I'll get to a few you're trying to mislead. Maybe even some day you'll follow that google search above and figure out Rush is lying to you. Or maybe the American empire will just carry on it's slow, Romanesque decline...

One things for sure: I definitely pushed your buttons. Somewhere in the back of your mind you know something wrong with that propaganda you've been spoon fed. I guess I'll chalk that up as a win.

ask "Should the Baker be FORCED" then you'll get a lot of 'No's'.

ask "Should the Baker be allowed to refuse service" and you'll get a lot of 'No's'

The end result is the same. LGBTQs are denied access to a public resource (in this case a publicly available bake shop).

Me? I just replace the word "LGBTQ" with "White Male Christian" and if I would say "that shouldn't be allowed" then there's my answer. Once you can use religion to discriminate you can do damn near anything. It'll start with baking cakes and end with riots and apartheid.

with 30 minutes on google. It's not hard at all if you just focus on issues. As for removing polls from campus, google.

I said this elsewhere in this thread but, well, nothing I say is going to convince you. You've already decided that some people shouldn't be allowed to vote and that it's acceptable to place barriers in their way to prevent them from voting. You're in favor of Voter Suppression. That's such an extreme and negative position that I don't know how to shake you from it.

The best we can hope for is that you're in the minority and that as more folks become aware of Voter Suppression it will be ended. And maybe someday you'll come around on your own.

Not really that new of a scam, actually:

https://www.google.com/search?...

Whatever you believe about crowdfunding, Triton and Fontus were straight-up scams from the start, backed by fancy kickstarter videos.

Anymore, the more polished a kickstarter video looks, the less likely I am to trust that the product is real.

you're made at the barely-more-than-min-wage drone that runs the computers. You should be mad at the Aristocracy that is abusing you through those computers.

I should also add that your misplace anger is not an accident

We actually live in a federal constitutional republic:

1) Federal: Federated, consisting of several parts functioning as one.
2) Constitutional: Based on a constitution as the foundation of the law.
3) Republic: We elect representatives who vote on the issues of government.

Occasionally states will put issues to referendum, and that is an instance of pure democracy. But our form of government is not pure democracy.

We actually live in a federal constitutional republic:

1) Federal: Federated, consisting of several parts functioning as one.
2) Constitutional: Based on a constitution as the foundation of the law.
3) Republic: We elect representatives who vote on the issues of government.

Occasionally states will put issues to referendum, and that is an instance of pure democracy. But our form of government is not pure democracy.

see here.

There's still some theoretical exploits. They require incredibly precise timing and are unlikely to ever be used. Maybe if I was in a high security environment I'd worry about it. I'm playing video games. If the KGB or the CIA decides they want access to my Street Fighter V profile I'm pretty sure they'll find a way to get it with or without spectre/meltdown. Jokes on them, I suck.

The funny thing about a Landis habitat on Venus ( = transparent envelope, oxygen / nitrogen lifting gas, people live inside the lift envelope) is that even for a relatively small crew, it's large enough that you could skydive indoors. Perfect place for extreme sports.

Of course, the real "extreme sport" would be going to the surface. Which actually is perfectly achievable with modern technology. It requires hard suits, not soft suits (more akin to the NASA AX-series, or more accurately, akin to atmospheric diving suits used in ocean exploration), along with heavy insulation, and either a phase-change heat absorbing material (such as used by the Venera probes) or a heat pump. Not only would you be exploring a very alien world (where high altitude frosts and snows are made of metals and/or semiconductors), but you could fly up with a small bellows on your back and glide around with small winglets. Ascent back to habitat height requires a two-stage balloon system.

The funny thing about a Landis habitat on Venus ( = transparent envelope, oxygen / nitrogen lifting gas, people live inside the lift envelope) is that even for a relatively small crew, it's large enough that you could skydive indoors. Perfect place for extreme sports.

Of course, the real "extreme sport" would be going to the surface. Which actually is perfectly achievable with modern technology. It requires hard suits, not soft suits (more akin to the NASA AX-series, or more accurately, akin to atmospheric diving suits used in ocean exploration), along with heavy insulation, and either a phase-change heat absorbing material (such as used by the Venera probes) or a heat pump. Not only would you be exploring a very alien world (where high altitude frosts and snows are made of metals and/or semiconductors), but you could fly up with a small bellows on your back and glide around with small winglets. Ascent back to habitat height requires a two-stage balloon system.