Don is an addict. No matter how much money, women or success he gets, it will never be enough. He’ll chase that next high to the end of the earth.

The solar panel technology has evolved in leaps and bounds in the past 20 years. Current panels are more efficient and resilient than old ones. I’d recommend saving for a new installation if you can.

In some places you can get a loan against your house equity for things like a solar panel installation if you install it on the roof. The thinking there bejng that the value of the house increases as a result. There may also be subsidies you can access.

That being said, you can test an used solar panel with a decent multimeter, by measuring the voltage (DC volts), short circuit current (DC ampers) and operating current if you can (this one is easier with a clamp meter, but you have to measure it on a live installation). As long as the values are reasonably close to the panel spec, you should be fine. There are tutorials out there on how to actually do it without blowing the fuse on your tools.

They: “I don’t even.”

You:“… lift, bro?”

I should care less.

Perfect human beings don’t exist. Apparently there’s a religion positing there was one perfect human, but we nailed him to a cross for interfering with business.

Here’s a thought. If you were able to get away with Almost Anything ™ and were surrounded by people praising your genius, dashing good looks and boundless generosity towards their persons, how long would it take for you to lose your moral compass, you think? You would pretty soon lose your frame of reference to the normal people, and your empathy would follow. And that’s assuming you’re not 2nd or 3rd generation ultra rich, in which case you never had it to begin with.

Succession is a very good TV series exploring the mindset of such people, if you want to see it in action. Otherwise, history is full of examples - such as Nero, the greatest poet to ever set fire to Rome.

I know there are exceptions, like everywhere else in life. But those tend to cultivate humility as a habit, like other people go to the gym.

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi was made for this, I swear. His latest books also read a lot like movie scripts are contained therein.

Charles Stross’ Laundry series has a ton of potential too, if less Chtullu is required, I wouldn’t mind a Merchant Princes series either.

I heard rumours about Forever War being optioned at some point, but nothing came of it.

Thanks for the reality check. Still a huge result if it translates well into mass production.

Agree on the silliness. Still loved Darwi Odrade as a character.

And Brian’s best work doesn’t come close to Heretics, which for me was the weakest of all of Frank’s books. It’s like a cargo cult construction, all cardboard and no substance.

I really loved Romero’s work. And who knows, maybe this will be great. But then again, it might be like Brian Herbert’s Dune novels - a shameless, mediocre cash grab built on top of his father’s estate.

Either way, I stand by what I said: enough with the torch passing. This ain’t a family business.

Yet another blatant Hollywood money grab. Romero = zombies, that’s sure to sell big. It’s in the genes, man!

Enough with the torches. Go do your own thing.

Alan Rickman was a treasure. RIP

Nevermind hackers. Look up “corporation in the middle” attacks, which is a prime example of subverting secure channels at scale.

If you don’t own the hardware, nothing you do on it is truly private. Ditto if someone else has admin access to your hardware (eg BYOD scenarios) . Inserting a root certificate into the OS is trivial in both cases.

FDA vs. Alliance for Hypocritic Medicine.

“Paul was swell, I was cheering for him all the way!”

– Elric of Melniboné, probably

Don’t get me wrong, Dune is my absolute favourite book, I must have read the whole series ten times already, but heroes in that world are in short supply. The guy that comes closest for my money is Duncan Idaho, especially later in the series (God Emperor and beyond).

I was thinking about the future. Think of a cornered Hitler with access to hydrogen bombs.

Wow that’s even scarier than what I had in mind. Good intentions all the way down.

The fucked up thing about humanity is that we invented our own destruction, put a shiny red button on top and wrote on it “do not touch”. As if there would ever be a scenario where pressing it would make sense. And seeing the rethoric coming out of Russia these days, I can’t help but wonder. Damn, I guess this is what my parents lived with at the height of the Cold War?

Wrong guess.

Harvesting this ice is not carbon neutral.
A ship filled with ice will burn more fuel compared to an empty ship. A refrigerated ship even more so. An ice cube paid with petrodollars to travel a few thousand miles just for some asshole bragging rights, I mean, I can’t even… Why is there a demand for this in the first place?

The gall of claiming this a low carbon business is perplexing. Low compared to what, exactly? If I make solar powered freezers in UAE and freeze distilled water, I’m pretty sure I would get the same results at a mere fraction of the total cost. But hey, no bragging rights.

When the world starts burning, these guys will be selling marshmallows on the side. Fuck everything about this, from the bottom of my heart.

BG3 player here. Can confirm (tested on rats).