They made the decision that would save the most lives, which is their job.

But they lied to the public, which undermines trust; IMHO this was a myopic decision.

As for the people doing what’s best for society, that’s antithetical to American individualism

Can’t speak for everyone, but Flex Alerts in California do indeed work (it’s when we’re asked to reduce energy consumption).

your faith was proven wrong with both masks and toilet paper being bought for resale at predatory prices, or just to maintain personal supplies at the expense of everyone else.

That’s a fallacy/faulty generalization — I’m not saying everyone behaves well, but from my experience, the vast majority do. The pandemic for me was a time where I really felt like we looked out for our fellow people, at least locally.

In 2020 they recommended against face masks for non-healthcare workers. My understanding is that they did this to conserve masks for healthcare workers, as did the WHO. IMHO that was a really shitty thing for them to have done. Presenting all the facts and pleading with the public would, I think, have resulted in higher trust in them as an institution, ultimately saving lives, but that’s just my opinion I guess.

But yeah, completely agree that even then it was more or less well meaning, as opposed to now.

https://www.superbowl-ads.com/1997-tabasco-mosquito/

Best ad ever IMHO (sorry for funky link, YouTube if you prefer).

No dialog, no rampant consumerism (hot sauce is a necessary food), no sex/sexism, no emotional manipulation.

Also, 1.21GW is famously used in Back to the Future.

From link:

NOTE: The script is broken, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE THE SCRIPT NOW. Attempting to run it may get your account flagged stopping you from trying face verification either temporarily or permanently, forcing you to use your ID.

pr: https://github.com/xyzeva/k-id-age-verifier/pull/12

Given that they specified “caffeinated tea” as also conferring benefit, I would guess it’s the caffeine that’s the active substance here.

Where energy efficiency isn’t a concern (maybe a blender or a toaster) this sounds nice, but otherwise…well…lots of wasted energy.

(Of course, it all has to be balanced against the cost of manufacturing/disposing.)

Heat pumps want low temperature differences, so I’m not sure you’re going to have much luck getting a heat pump oven to 475F/~250C.

Or, malicious compliance by someone with a moral compass. Best is to somehow leak documents wholesale. But if that’s not possible, I think the next best way to all but guarantee that the information gets out is to do a lousy job censoring, and let “The Internet” do the rest. It also makes the administration look even more stupid, especially in the eyes of technically minded folks.

But yeah, not the best and brightest, that’s certainly a possibility.

Give turnips a shot! Make sure to add a beet so they get that almost neon purple color (ok, really “argon purple”) like you find in middle eastern restaurants.

If Gentoo can be both Chad and Schizo, Slack should definitely be in the Chad category too.

I mean, it’s Torvalds’ distro of choice iirc, which should count for something.

The history of the smallpox vaccine is fascinating iirc — milk maids, orphans-as-storage+transportation, really crazy stuff.

And after reading about it, one thing that’s neat is that it makes sense. You don’t need to talk about homeopathic “water memory” or whatever, and you don’t even need a solid understanding of biology — the whole thing just kinda…makes sense.

And yet, here we are…

The model certainly works for other things — municipal broadband in the USA is often very well regarded.

OP needs to stop Chase-ing up votes.

They say “everything’s bigger in Texas,” but maybe that’s just because California hasn’t whipped it out until now…

But I thought they smelled bad on the outside?

Gosh I wonder why they’re against mail-in ballots.

Any voter in CA is eligible, and honestly, with the number of propositions and local stuff on the ballot it’s essential to do research ahead of time regardless of your political preferences. So much easier to fill it out over a few weeks IMHO.

Beware though, there may be new rules about needing it received rather than postmarked by the election date (which is obviously bullshit).

I had an…interesting…take home exam in college. The max score was 100, but the test had 200 points. So, if confident, you could answer half the exam and still get the highest score; if not confident in answers, you could answer more questions and rely on partial credit

It was a week long take home, “open everything” (book/Internet, but no discussions online or IRL). In some ways the hardest exam I ever took, but I learned a lot, and some of the questions were specifically meant to introduce new subjects.

I would probably add “transmit power” in there somewhere, but I guess if you’re assuming regulatory limits then it’s not a big variable.