adewinter

You're welcome to care about as many things as you desire, at the same time, friend. It's a question of perspective and relative importance. The reply didn't comment about A and B and C, only A - implying A was the most important thing to consider and discuss.

Should your concern lie with individuals transcribing their own conversations, or with mass surveillance and wiretapping actively being executed by a broad range of official and corporate entities without your consent?

Kinetic energy scales with velocity squared (0.5mv^2), so this result makes sense. Brakes dissipate constant energy, but the amount of energy it needs to disapate is going up much faster.

Make up a code phrase/word for emergencies, share it with your family, then use it for these types of situations.

In addition you're attempting to recycle space junk ("bullets") when you're quite literally standing on planet packed to rafters with junk. The energy required to harvest the material in orbit makes it extremely hard to make a case that it is economical.

I'm sorry, "harvest space junk"? How on earth could that possibly be profitable? There is zero mystery why any VC, Midwest or otherwise, would not be interested in that business model.

Is that understanding based on any evidence or is it a personal theory?

I would take a citation on literally any single one of your statements

What kind of chair is that?

No, you definitely could not do it 20 years ago with hobbyist grade parts. The software basically did not exist and whatever tech there was was strictly hidden behind government arms control restrictions (ITAR) because of fears that the tech could be used in ballistic missiles.

>> I find it a bit strange that the author leads with the example of wanting to "blind cancel", and then suggests that maturity and communication is the real answer to that scenario.

I don't think that's the _only_ solution the author is suggesting. She also goes on to mention "...self-knowledge: Will you be in the mood next week?". In other words, don't make plans if you're not confident you won't break them. Similar to the idea of "hell yes or no" as a response to social requests. If you don't have a strong sense for stuff you like/don't like doing and how you'll feel about social situations in the future that's going to be tough.

I generally agree with your sentiment but do also think there is value in some degree of flexibility and recognizing some plans have more significance than other.

E.g. if the friend bailed on a coffee break instead of a weeks-in-advance-vacation-plan it would be much less of a big deal (maybe not even worth nuking the friendship over?). Either way, situations like that do call for evaluating how important that person is in your life and (down)ranking them accordingly. Everyone has some fair-weather friends.

Sure, if you're operating under the assumption that a) he understands geo-politics and global defense better than the leadership of his country and b) he has better and more real-time information (than the leadership) about the situation on the ground in Iraq/Afghanistan at the time.

If he thought what they were doing over there in 2007 was morally/ethically indefensible and decided to join up anyway then, yes, judge away.

Probably more straightforward to lay the blame squarely where it's due, at those who made the high level decisions to engage in the war in the first place, especially in the context of the outcomes of said war.