Slashdot Mirror

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...

"Americans" includes inner city denizens giving their babies Pepsi in their bottles. And hordes of recent immigrants. (Oh dear, he said something true, smelling salts please!)

Comparing the dental condition of both lands within reasonably educated polite society ... well, I'll go with what my eyes have seen.

(BTW, that's hilarious illustrating the article with royalty)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...

There are contenders to the title: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/te...

I thought out-of-Africa was debunked?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sc...

For 2.5 years, Snapchat foolishly tried to take the high road versus Facebook...

Snapchat is the only social media provider I've found to be even LESS careful with private data than Facebook.

They've disclosed their encryption key in source code.

They store user data in cleartext.

They didn't deploy end to end encryption until 2019.

It is hard to stumble over such as low bar as Facebook's "security", but Snapchat has done it.

> That's a pretty priceless strawman, given that while Bill Gates may have a lot of micromanagement tendencies, he wasn't chiefly responsible for a lot of what made Windows, Excel, Word, etc.

*Facepalm*

1. Joel says otherwise

"I don't know, you guys," Bill said, "Is anyone really looking into all the details of how to do this? Like, all those date and time functions. Excel has so many date and time functions. Is Basic going to have the same functions? Will they all work the same way?"

"Yes," I said, "except for January and February, 1900."

"OK. Well, good work," said Bill. He took his marked up copy of the specand left.

:

  Bill Gates was amazingly technical. He understood Variants, and COM objects, and IDispatch and why Automation is different than vtables and why this might lead to dual interfaces. He worried about date functions. He didnâ(TM)t meddle in software if he trusted the people who were working on it, but you couldnâ(TM)t bullshit him for a minute because he was a programmer. A real, actual, programmer.

2. Bill Gates personally reviewed every line of code for the first 5 years

During Microsoft's early years, all employees had broad responsibility for the company's business. Gates oversaw the business details, but continued to write code as well. In the first five years, he personally reviewed every line of code the company shipped, and often rewrote parts of it as he saw fit.

:

He finally retired as chief software architect in June 2008,

Do you actually have ANY clue what a Chief Software Architect (also called CTO Chief Technical Officer) means?

3. Who co-founded and RAN MS again??? The buck started and stopped with him. He would make announcements of what MS was working on next and would announce when they were ready. While he may have only written a small percentage of the code in the later years he was either directly or indirectly responsible for everything MS did, especially buying software companies and slapping their own MS label on it. Gee, go figure. From the same article previously linked:

He met regularly with Microsoft's senior managers and program managers, and was reportedly verbally pugnacious, berating managers for perceived holes in their business strategies that placed the company's long-term interests at risk.

The point is Bill wasn't some clueless company president. He was VERY much hands on. Especially in the early years.

This has got to be a new low on /. I'm defending the guy and I hate his business practices! LOL.

The Clinton campaign did the same thing. The difference is, we've had 2 years of investigation into the Trump campaign and it was found to not be collusion. Shall we now do the same with the Clinton campaign and the DNC, who financed the dossier which was written by a foreigner, with Russian influences, to damage their opponent? Or is that not collusion?

Maybe you're right, this is more the CIA's job. Obviously you need contacts in Russia to get dirt on Russian business dealings. They can try to corroborate the information in the dossier and you know, exonerate Trump.

Corroborate the dossier! Corroborate the dossier!

The Clinton campaign did the same thing. The difference is, we've had 2 years of investigation into the Trump campaign and it was found to not be collusion. Shall we now do the same with the Clinton campaign and the DNC, who financed the dossier which was written by a foreigner, with Russian influences, to damage their opponent? Or is that not collusion?

Eh, no, It was the Republicans who commissioned the 'dossier', the Democrats just picked up where the Republican left off after they decoded Trump was their new god emperor.

The Clinton campaign did the same thing. The difference is, we've had 2 years of investigation into the Trump campaign and it was found to not be collusion. Shall we now do the same with the Clinton campaign and the DNC, who financed the dossier which was written by a foreigner, with Russian influences, to damage their opponent? Or is that not collusion?

Then why didn't they leak that dossier before the election? You know, when it would have actually been useful.

Funny how none of the Trumpists can never answer that iceberg sized plot hole.

The Clinton campaign did the same thing. The difference is, we've had 2 years of investigation into the Trump campaign and it was found to not be collusion. Shall we now do the same with the Clinton campaign and the DNC, who financed the dossier which was written by a foreigner, with Russian influences, to damage their opponent? Or is that not collusion?

The petition website has data of the signatures by county (the "Get petition data (json format)" link). I downloaded that file just before writing this comment and I see that are currently 123 signatures marked as coming from Russia. According to this 2015 news article, there are (were?) 1688 British expats living in Russia.

Of course, we're all technical people here. We know that foreigners could be using VPNs or botnets (so all the requests wouldn't obviously be coming from the same VPN endpoint) to proxy their requests so they appear to be coming from inside the UK.

Since it's a petition, not a poll, there's an actual list of names (i.e. not just IPs or whatever) associated with it. You could do QA on the data by simply sampling the names, confirming they're real people, contacting them, and asking them if they really did sign the petition at the timestamp on their signature. (Needless to say, doing this for all 4+ million would be a lot of effort, but a statistically, you should be able to get fairly high confidence on your measure of accuracy with a properly designed random sample of thousands.)

Last, we have a good proxy for how many signatures we expect: there's a protest today and we can count the crowd. It's on the order of a million (the group organizing the protest says slightly over a million, BBC says "hundreds of thousands"). If a quarter of the people who signed the petition showed up for the march, that would be incredibly high turnout for the march; if anything, given that information, we should be surprised the petition signature count isn't higher (probably best explained by it having started very recently) not looking for reasons the real count should be lower.

Who modded that comment to 5? It is all crap

Yours is better? Where does this 50/50 come from?
Airbus is only 18.6% in the US (Boeing 43). And in the rest of the world, that you probably didn't visit much, it's not "Airbus, Airbus, and Airbus". It's roughly 50/50.

"...The reasons, he said, were climate change and population growth...."
Really? Climate change means there's less water now?

Because JUST LAST YEAR I saw everyone complaining that Climate Change had caused TOO MUCH water and heavy rainfall/flooding generally, consistently, and broadly across the UK.

"...new Met Office report, based on figures stretching back 100 years to 1910- shows that rainfall has actually gone up by 8 percent. ...The annual State of the UK Climate Report also revealed UK summers have been notably wetter over the last decade from 2008 to 2017, with 20 per cent more rainfall compared to 1961-1990...."

https://www.express.co.uk/news...

Oh, also, since they're focusing on the South and East of England, also last year:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne... ...also predicted heavier and more frequent rain across southern England.

So which is it? Climate change means the UK is running out of water, OR climate change means the UK is flooding with water. You really can't assert both.

someone who knows very little about Russia besides a few western-liberal headlines

Or maybe I live in this country and know a little bit more than you could imagine by reading God knows what. Have you ever been to Russia, mr. guacamole? I really doubt that. Maybe you can understand the Russian language? Also unlikely. Maybe you've got a first person account of the state of corruption, lawlessness (to be precise we have law but it mostly serve the very rich and the members of the distinct dacha housing cooperative), decay in the country? I presume no. So, what do you really know about Russia? I'm quite sure nothing really aside from what you chose to believe in.

Have you ever watched the disclosures in regard to the inner Putin circle?

I'll just leave you with this.

I likk yerr bot hole in da heeted pewl

Here ya go...

Well, no heat, but wait until summer.

Waymo seems to have the strongest story, and I think they're still 15-20 years away from a coast to coast drive without intervention.

Well a trip coast-to-coast is 2500-3000 miles and for last year Waymo reported one disengagement per 11017 miles driven. Granted, that might not be the same roads but considering that coast-to-coast highway trips have been done 95-99% autonomous by much simpler systems and done entirely by moderately advanced systems statistically my money would be on the Waymo getting there by itself way more often than not. Basically there's three situations:

1) It's driving okay
2) It's confused and knows it's confused
3) It's oblivious and/or utterly wrong

Nobody really cares about 2), sure once every thousands of miles you might have to give it a nudge through a construction area or whatnot. It's 3) that's keeping engineers awake at night, what are all the exceptional things that could happen either outside the car or to the car's systems and how serious/deadly would the consequences be? There's a reason most industrial robots are in safety cages. A self-driving car is not. Heck sometimes I think it's crazy we let people drive a ton of metal at 50+ mph a feet or two away from others...

IIRC the Chinese bought and refurbished a Boeing for the Chinese president to use once. Then they found it was littered with bugs planted by US agents.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...

Smart Slab, a lightweight concrete slab with 3D-printed sand formwork that's less than half the weight of a conventional concrete slab

Typically cutting corners like that ends like this.

But... but... they're 3D printing it this time!!!1

In order to qualify for the Oscars, Netflix does release its movies in cinemas (which disqualifies them for Emmy consideration). Spielberg's argument is disingenuous. It has nothing to do with preserving the "cinema experience" and everything to do with preserving the Hollywood studio system and it's arcane release windows. It's a system that encourages big budget blockbusters (the kind of movies Spielberg makes) and hurts low budget niche films (the kind that Netflix makes).

rsilvergun opined:

Chavez took the oil money and used it to modernize his country instead of pocketing it all for himself. That's up there with George Washington turning down the position of King of America for WTF moments in the history of leadership. And yeah, I'm sure Chavez did a lot of awful things to get in and stay in his position. Venezuela was a hell hole before the oil money, but the fact that he didn't just keep it all for himself and his cronies (they way the Sauds do) deserves praise.

I think comparing Hugo Chavez with George Washington is just a little off the mark.

And to say he "modernized" Venezuela is equally wrong. (The Telegraph article I linked to mentions in passing that the streets of the town in which Chavez was born are still paved with dirt, for instance.) What he did do is to subsidize he country's poor - especially their costs for food and fuel - using state oil revenues, which won him their love and undying support. It's probably fair to claim that he was less corrupt than the House of Saud, but, then again, that's not really saying much.

Chavez was a very clever authoritatian. Maduro is simply a thug - and a particularly dimwitted thug, at that ...

...not just more profits for robber barons and vulture capitalists.

German workers win right to 28-hour working week

German metal workers have won the right to a 28-hour working week in a landmark deal between employers and Europe's biggest union.

Under the deal, workers will be allowed to reduce their working week to just 28 hours for a temporary period of up to two years. Employers will not be able to block individual workers from taking up the offer.

Are you that ignorant?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...

Your feudal overlords sure do appreciate your keeping their boots clean pro-bono.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/f...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...

No, nor did they bother to immediately disclose this even to their users. That would interfere with the effectiveness of the spying. Most people learned about this from Ed Snowden's disclosures (three cheers for Snowden!). So when Apple tells you "What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone" there's no reason to believe them. After all, I'll bet people running iTunes thought they were getting a media player, not opening a remotely-exploitable hole despite Apple knowing about this problem for years and licensing iTunes such that nobody else was allowed to fix it and distribute an improved version of the software. The power of proprietary software (non-free software, user-subjugating software) is what makes this entire story indistinguishable from one spy agency telling other competing spies to buzz off—on Apple's turf the users are exclusively Apple's to exploit.

with the progress in the Koreas

You know NK hasn't stopped nuclear testing right?

- The missile launches have stopped.
- The industrial grade loudspeakers spewing propaganda have stopped AND have been torn down. Stopping the propaganda would have been something. Tearing down the loudspeakers and the 30' platforms they were on is next level sh!t.
- Bodies were exhumed in the 100s (if not 1000s now) and returned to SK and the US. DNA tests shows that these are not simply "bodies"
- Mine shafts leading to underground testing sites have been blocked up and the railroad tracks leading there have been ripped up.
- Mine fields are being dug up on both sides of the border.
- NK artillery piece were moved away from the border. The first time in close to 70 years.
- The Koreas are talking - and beginning development of shared commuter railroad lines. (This is amazing.)

But yeah. Nothing is happening.

First soldiers identified from remains returned by North Korea - BBC ...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world...
Sep 21, 2018 - The US Army has identified the first of the remains believed to be US troops killed during the Korean War and returned by Pyongyang, officials ...

North and South Korea begin removing landmines along fortified DMZ
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ News
Oct 1, 2018 - Troops from North and South Korea began removing some landmines along their heavily fortified border on Monday, the South's defence ...

North and South Korea Hope to Link the Peninsula Through Railways ...
fortune.com Briefing Korean peninsula
Dec 26, 2018 - North and South Korean officials try to connect a railroad during a groundbreaking ceremony for a project to modernize access the heavily ...

Also, to be blunt, women do better academically than men. The reason's really simple: girls calm down and start studying and an earlier age than boys so they get an extra year or two of education.

There are many reasons, but let me point out a couple of glaring ones:
1) There are plenty of "for women" scholarships and numerous women only programs, even though it is at least 55% girls vs 45% boys in colleges (and growing)
2) Strong gender bias among teachers who happen, hold on a second, be mostly women (it gets hilarious at times and she isn't even fired, by the way)
3) Education concept of "listen, remember and do what I say" not well suited for boys and men
4) When girls fall behind, system is being changed to address it vs no fucks given when boys are disadvantaged

The first time "but what about boys" was asked, was nearly 3 decades ago, an equity feminist (rare type), Christina Sommers wrote "The War Against Boys" book calling out lies in mainstream "myth of shortchanged girls".. She predicted the gap will only widen, and, hey, look, we are soon to hit 60% vs 40% "more equality". (UN for Women sounds alarm when there is 5% gap in boys favor (it still happens in crazy places like Sudan).

An alarming new line of research suggests poor sleep may increase the risk of Alzheimer’s, as even a single night of sleep deprivation boosts brain levels of the proteins that form toxic clumps in Alzheimer’s patients ... even modest sleep reductions are linked to increased feelings of social isolation and loneliness.

Sleep problems have long been recognized as a symptom of psychiatric and neurological disorders

Sounds important. Let's check with the man that has his finger on the nuclear and twitter button....(reference, and here)

During a wide-ranging interview with Fox News's Bill O'Reilly this week, Donald Trump revealed that he is sleeping four to five hours a night in his new life as the US top dog. "I'm working long hours, long hours, right up til 12 o'clock, 1 in the morning." What time does he get up? "Five."

Alzheimers huh? Well that does explain a few things.

See also, regarding the causality direction of the temperature / CO2 correlation:

"Ice cores show CO2 increases lag behind temperature rises, disproving the link to global warming"

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11659-climate-myths-ice-cores-show-co2-increases-lag-behind-temperature-rises-disproving-the-link-to-global-warming/

And a bit of history on this topic in case you missed it:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html

[PS: I"m getting the timer now on AC posting...]

Hmmmm... they may still choose to prosecute, leaving a stain on your record. These are of older folks, but they were really taking the piss:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...

*Jonathan Burrows*
Millionaire city executive Jonathan Burrows was labelled the biggest fare dodger in history after agreeing to pay £43,000 to Southeastern trains in an out-of-court settlement.

He lost his job at asset manager BlackRock and was banned from working in the City for life when the five-year scam came to light, although he avoided prosecution. He insists that the true value of the fares he avoided runs to hundreds, not thousands, of pounds.

*Dr Peter Barnett*
International lawyer Dr Peter Barnett received a 16-week suspended sentence after admitting to a two-year scam in which he tapped-out his Oyster card at London’s Marylebone station, without having tapped-in, thereby incurring the maximum London Underground fare, rather than the true cost of commuting from his Oxfordshire home.

Chiltern Railways said that he had avoided £20,000 in fares, but the solicitor successfully argued that the true cost was only £6,000, which he paid back in full.

*Simon King*
City banker Simon King admitted an £8,000 two-year fraud in which he returned his annual season ticket for a refund, but not before he had photocopied it.

He then used the crude forgery to commute from his West Sussex home to London Bridge station, only being caught after a member of staff told him to insert the fake ticket into an electronic barrier. He received a community punishment.

And this information is from ... ?

US collected moon rocks were sent all over the world for research and as gifts - so far no country complained, including USSR (former Russia), which was at the time in cold war with US, which was able to monitor all the communication - yes, EM waves from the Moon can be received by anybody, and in 1970s there was no digital communication - all analog.

Not to mention that there are photos of the landings.

There is no discrepancies between USSR and US moon rocks - you're lying (in case you want to prove otherwise, please keep in mind that here everybody knows how much efforts it take to create any website with any lie, so any reference would had to be legitimate).

Some technical knowledge would let someone check, that Saturn V was capable of sending payload to the Moon, considering it's size and burning times.

There are instruments left on the Moon, and the laser reflector is used till this day to measure the distance, with proper equipment might be done by an amateur.

conspiracy theories debunked

No, the police admitted that some of the drones may have been police drones. That's very different from "the police admitted that there may not have been a drone originally". It's just the way the headlines were written. Take the Torygraph, for example, and then compare the 1st paragraph of the actual article.

Source: Gatwick Airport drone sightings may have been of police equipment, chief constable admits

Some of the drone sightings which kept Gatwick Airport on lockdown for 36 hours may have been reports of Sussex Police's own aircraft

Like you say however, it'd be very easy to build a drone that uses a single nitro engine and collective pitch, controlled via a 3g card with programmed "random" 3d flying for maximum unpredictability and disruption, and is capable of returning to a predefined landing zone (extra points if it randomly selects which zone and notifies the operator).

Apparently some (but not all) government workers are pulling out of talks and other events as well due to the shutdown, CES included - Pai was apparently only the start of it, although I suspect, like Pai, some are probably just using the shutdown as an excuse. YMMV as to whether anything of value has been lost, naturally.

Only Apple's bosses determine what "Apple's purpose" is. We come to know what Google's main line of business is (spying) because what now know that they have been doing (spying). Now that we know more about what Apple, Microsoft, and other proprietors do we can retroactively say what they've been doing. Snowden and others have provided irrefutable proof that software proprietors don't care about one's privacy and the structure of proprietary software was a long-time clue to those who understand the power of software non-freedom over the user regarding what is possible. Certainly keeping secrets from the user and putting in general-purpose holes into systems for future exploitation are the most practical means by which to do many things against the user's interests including but not limited to not looking out for their privacy. If Apple gets a pass amongst technocrats it's because some technically skilled users are easily distracted by details and not repeatedly taught to look at the bigger picture (software non-freedom is the root of virtually all of these abuses). Here are some more specific examples of these points:

• Apple iTunes flaw went unfixed for years and allowed remote access which enables spying and a lot more. There was also news of a hidden backdoor API in OS X for years which granted root privileges. This too could have enabled spying and a lot more.
• Apple has blocked Telegram from upgrading its app for a month. This evidently has to do with Russia's command to Apple to block Telegram in Russia. The Telegram client is free software on other platforms, but no apps are free on an iThing.
• As of 2015, Apple systematically bans apps that endorse abortion rights or would help women find abortions. This particular political slant affects other Apple services.
• There are many more vulnerabilites listed here and here which could be turned into privacy violations depending on how these vulnerabilities or backdoors are used.

Team Obama? I think you mean the CIA.

No it was Team Obama.

It is like you know nothing Mashiki.

Knowing nothing would be making the assumption with no evidence that it started in 2002. Evidence on the other hand with leaked documents however show that it started in 2010, and Obama agreed to it and approved it. Ah yes...the wonders of knowing nothing, you sure did a bang up job on that one.

Come on buddy, you can do better than a complete non-sequitur into an Obama attack.

Facts are an attack on Obama? But hey, what's that? Oh it was the media playing that exact angle as to the reason Obama did it.

Actually, it appears the wind turbines wear out sooner than the expected lifespans. Now that study was in the UK, and maybe it's related to the great legacy of Lucas wiring systems, but if it's correct - typical turbines will need to be replaced every 12-15 years.

Wind turbines are wearing out a lot faster than anticipated. Both on-and-off shore turbines.

Precisely. Nameplate capacity is irrelevant; generation is everything. And with wind turbine lifespans at half of original claims, that means the installed base needs to be doubled beyond their original estimates. Battery storage won't get you there, pumped storage MAY do it (but that's a big no-no for most environmentalists as well)... Nuclear really is the only realistic solution for power generation outside of fossil fuels.

No, cost is everything and both wind and solar are cheaper than nuclear in N-Europe for example. In southern Europe Solar is also way more competitive. The problem with nuclear is and always will be the same, it is very expensive and extremely unpopular. Oh, and your source is a 6 year old article in a Tory newspaper? ... Really? At least pick some kind of tech publication next time.

Precisely. Nameplate capacity is irrelevant; generation is everything. And with wind turbine lifespans at half of original claims, that means the installed base needs to be doubled beyond their original estimates. Battery storage won't get you there, pumped storage MAY do it (but that's a big no-no for most environmentalists as well)... Nuclear really is the only realistic solution for power generation outside of fossil fuels.

I "rediscovered" that proof as a teenager, ... Then I found it was actually discovered 2000+ years ago.

But did Euclid bother to register it with the corresponding Copyright/Patent Offices? No? Then IT'S STILL UP FOR GRABS, DO IT NOW. Add "ON A COMPUTER" and you're golden.

Or just say you identify as Euclid today and don't even bother. It didn't work for this guy but he was arguing about age, which is math. And we all know that "Math Is Hard" from that great sage: Barbie.

It's looking to me like researchers have been able to dissolve plaques in the brain as well but that patients didn't benefit. I agree that the mechanical stimulation from ultrasound could be a potential game changer, but I'll still keep my hopes low. Here's some information about a drug called Verubecestat. The second link unfortunately requires an account to be able to read it.

"The Phase 1 trial, reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine, recruited just 32 patients and was chiefly concerned with dosage and safety. However the trial showed that amyloid was reduced nearly entirely in some cases, and the effect increased with higher doses."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sc...

"In their article, Michael Egan, MD, of Merck Research Laboratories, and colleagues note that despite a 'near-maximal' reduction in amyloid-beta (A) in cerebrospinal fluid and a 'modest' reduction in brain amyloid load after 78 weeks of treatment with verubecestat, the drug was not effective in slowing the clinical progression of mild to moderate AD.
'This suggests that once dementia is present, disease progression may be independent of A production or, alternatively, that the amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease may not be correct,' they offer."
https://www.medscape.com/viewa...

It appears they already have.

Why would China not just start trumping up charges to arrest Americans?

It's easier, or perhaps less provocative, for them to start arresting Canadians instead. China does have a bit of a history, when it comes to their international relations, of intimidating small nations and soft-soaping the large ones. Hopefully, from China's perspective, Canada blinks first and releases Ms. Meng, leaving Canada to face the ire of the US and further deflecting attention from China.

Can't help feeling a little bit sorry for Canada in this situation.

No, it's not. I've worked on aircraft, and I've experienced emergencies both on the ground and in the air. By no stretch of the imagination is an airplane with a burning engine "working as designed".

Clearly the engine is not working as designed, but that's produced by a different contractor than the airplane itself. If the engine catches on fire and the plane doesn't explode due to the fire spreading to a fuel tank, then the plane is working as designed. Unless you think that safety features happen by accident, you have to acknowledge that they are design features. Keeping the fire from spreading is working as designed.

Even a fucking child looking at it would be able to say "nope, that's not supposed to happen", so I'm flabbergasted why an adult would fail to understand this.

An adult can understand that the world is a lumpy place where bad things happen to good products and bad products alike. An engine can be set on fire because it ingests something offensive, like a large bird. The engine may not have been designed to destructively deflagrate, but it wasn't designed to run on a mixture of jet fuel and waterfowl either.

Things are "designed" in multiple different ways. Failure modes are designed in. That means that something can be working as designed even while it's failing to work as designed in other ways. This has been your English lesson for the day. Spend more time reading, it's good for your brain.

Remote control over drones can ALWAYS be eliminated or hijacked by radio frequency interference.

Technology ALWAYS has failures, like those at Three Mile Island, Fukushima Daiichi, and Chernobyl.

Amazon drone delivery: nine ways it could go horribly wrong (March 26, 2015)

I don't want drones near where I live. Will drones be allowed near where Jeff Bezos lives?

(Part of a comment I posted 18 months ago.)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/me...

And last but not least, It probably costs more to send a small ship to or (theoretically) from Mars than the combined cost of all activity on the North pole throughout human history. Prove me wrong.

Wrong.

Russia sends a nuclear-powered ice breaker to the North Pole five times every summer, bashing through the sea ice all the way to the pole. It costs £22,470 for a single cabin (2017 price). The ship has 64 cabins and has made the trip over 100 times. The price has been as high as $45,000 per person. Split the difference and call it $30,000 per person. The activity of that ship alone has cost ~$384 million. A Falcon Heavy launch, which can send a payload to Mars, is $90 million.

Counting military activity, counting the first expeditions inflation-adjusted, counting scientific activity, expeditions to or near the North Pole have totaled well into the billions. SpaceX will launch several BFSs to Mars before they match the expenditure on the North Pole.

OT, but a friend brought me a bunch of CPAP machines from a tech junkyard. They're pretty nice little air supply devices for forced air cooling in my lab...quiet and powerful, and not all that hard to reprogram for that use.

The only box left that would change things is the ammo box. Sure you want to go there?
The parties have made it impossible for a 3rd party to compete. When orange man slipped by the usual selection process, they and their MSM lackeys went nuts. Wouldn't matter even if orange man was actually good. "It's the principle of the thing" when those in power see it slipping away. The attempt to control the narrative is becoming a desperate failure. Citations:
https://phys.org/news/2011-10-... - please note the date on this one.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...