https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyonic_antitelephone

Basically, an “instant” communication device can create paradoxes.

E.g.

Earth sends mars a instant message. Mars the relay’s it via normal radio to a passing ship/probe moving at 0.99C. That probe then sends an “Instant” message to Earth.

The final message will (depending on alignments etc) arrive before the original was sent. If the message the voids the reason for the original message to be sent then a paradox happens.

You can make similar things happen with any form of FTL communication. C isn’t technically the speed of light, it is the speed of information. It just happens that light has no other speed limiting, and so moves at maximum speed.

I’d argue they didn’t, they just changed.

There are 2 groups worth noting. Government and private.

Government assassination is still a thing. Israel has used it aggressively over the last few decades. There are also signs that china has too. That’s just off the top of my head. It’s also worth noting that drone strikes etc can fill the same roll as an assassin.

Private has definitely changed. I suspect the high profile assassinations have stopped. Low level ones just had to get a lot better at not looking like assassinations. The ever classic boating accident being a good example.

The change is mostly from improvements in policing. You can no longer just move to another city to escape the law.

It’s also worth noting that a lot of society has changed. It used to be that a country pivoted on its leader. Now, it’s a lot more reliant on formal structures. Taking out a leader doesn’t have the same, devastating effect it used to. Iran being a good example.

So are a lot of scientists.

Just did a conversion. I pay £1.90/litre over here. That works out at $9.80/gallon. You’re still only 2/3 the cost of our fuel, if that.

It was £1.30 before Epstein Fury started.

I’ve also got a steam deck. Unfortunately it just doesn’t cut it for games like satisfactory or factorio.

Luggables are quite common for gamers who travel a lot. I can’t take a tower into hotels easily, but most of my free gaming time is on the road. I know quite a few people with portable gaming systems.

My current laptop is rocking a 4080, with a water cooling loop. It has to fall back to internal graphics when on battery. The batteries just can’t provide the current required.

I’ve got a ulefone 27T pro. It carries a lot of weird functions, despite being a modern phone.

It’s frustrating. My phone is fairly new, but also has the IR emitter. In a perfect world, I would set it up as a “TVbGone” type setup. Unfortunately all the apps have disappeared from the play store. Also, all the GitHub repositories are so old they don’t work with modern android.

Have you found an app that still works with an IR blaster? My phone has one, but none of the apps work anymore.

I live in the UK. At this point, most of the polite smokers have moved over to vapes. Those left are almost entirely rude wankers who don’t care where their smoke goes and who it affects. The smoking ban came in because 1 smoker can affect dozens of unwilling people.

I have zero issues with vapes. The effect on others is quite minor, outside a few fog machines disguised as vapes.

Most home storage is Lifepo4, rather than lithium ion.

It’s a bit more expensive, and only has 80% of the capacity. In tradeoff, it gains 3-5x the lifespan, and an inability to burst into flames.

Bigger brands tend to be more reliable in capacity and lifespan. Cheap ones are more hit and miss. It might be fine, it might fail after 3 years, rather than 10.

He just really likes pressure.

Assuming 1MW of transfer, and a 10m diameter beam, your looking at 12.5kW/m^2 . Not instant vaporisation, but dangerous in seconds to humans. The penetration was also mean the energy is delivered internally, where it’s harder to deal with (short term).

Any viable power transfer beam also, inherently, makes a good anti personnel weapon.

While the maths is slightly better for short range transfers, like drones, it would still definitely not be something you want hitting your body.

Imagine you have a paper balloon setup. It randomly takes hits from a high powered rifle. In theory, you could harvest the energy. However, it’s delivered in such powerful, random bursts that capturing it is difficult.

Gamma rays punch straight through the structure of the craft. The actual energy is small (around 1/1,000,000 of a joule), but it’s so focused that it damages anything it hits. If it hits the atoms in a transistor, that transistor gets ripped up at an atomic level.

Plenty. Unfortunately it’s mostly the nasty damaging kind, rather than the sort that can be turned into power. It also doesn’t take much damage to add up, when you’re dealing with large millennia time scales.

The sleep deprivation of early parenthood does a lot to break you of social norms.

The UK is still a lot more multi party at the lower levels of government, compared to the US. Unfortunately it’s erring towards the US system, rather than away from it.

We are in a media bubble. Basically all our media is owned by a few rich arseholes and they bury a lot of anti right messages.

The BBC used to be remarkably honest and independent from government. The conservatives getting their claws into it was the beginning of the real problems. Even worse, the BBC’s impartiality has been so sacrosanct that a lot of older people just believe it.

A mild bit of light. The green party seems to also be making significant advances. Labour have often played the “don’t split the left vote” card on them. Now it looks like green is overtaking them in some areas. It just doesn’t show up well in a FPTP voting system.

The Brexit crowd have gone conspicuously silent about it. Their lack of crowing says a lot about it.

Even before Brexit, the tide had turned, and that’s only gotten stronger. Unfortunately, the government had their vote and hammered it through. (The fact there was an EU rule change, on tax transparency, the next day, and would have embarrassed a lot of rich UK toffs had NOTHING to do with the timing)

Unfortunately, the reform party is far too strong, and trying to drag us to the extreme right. Our “left wing” primary party (Labour) is now further right than the conservatives (center right party) traditionally sit.

It’s… frustrating.