“Why did the Americans attack us?”

I’ll refer you to the image of Peter Griffin next to a color coded piece of paper.

Congrats on the dumbest thing I’ve read today, and I’ve read quotes from Trump today!

“Based on where you are born, you can’t be a good person.” That’s literally what you are saying.

You: “Being Chinese and a good driver is contradictory.”

You: “Being African and a smart student is contradictory.”

Good.

It’s wild how much literal children are spending on cosmetics these days, and how much insecurity they are feeling because of it. I don’t have kids, but my family has a ton. I’m sitting there hearing a 14 year old talking about needing anti-aging cream and wrinkle smoother whatever. My aunt complains that all her girl grandkids want to do is go to Sephora. I go in the store with my wife and half the people are under 16. 12 year old girls are scrolling Tiktok for beauty advice.

I’m not a prude who thinks kids shouldn’t wear makeup, but the level of insecurity in today’s kids is scary.

Mission Accomplished!

I definitely want that on my tombstone when I die.

Destroying the ecosystem to make sure we have access to… checks notes… fish oil capsules and pink fish.

Yeah, India imports more gold than any other country in the G20. China did ramp up for a bit, but they have backed off.

Are you asking what Hiroshima is?

Wow, that’s actually a really big deal.

You are talking about Sea Launch, a subsidiary of Boeing (I think). They repurposed an old oil rig to launch rockets from the equator and had a cruise ship to take rockets and crew to the launch site and back to mainland.

The issue was the logistics of getting everything/everyone out to the oil rig. It isn’t enough to just launch from the equator; you also have to launch far away enough from land that any mishaps won’t rain debris all over people. So you have to put that floating pad REALLY far away from land (plus however far your host country is from the equator). Additionally, rockets require a bunch of consumables to even get ready to fly. Liquid Helium, Nitrogen, Oxygen, fuel, etc. Those have to be shipped out to replenish them, and they can’t be easily replenished if you have too many launch scrubs. Plus the cost of paying/feeding the crew being on a cruise ship for weeks on end.

It’s not necessary, just cheaper. It also depends on what orbit you want the satellite to go to and what direction the coast is facing. The extra speed you get from spinning slightly faster at the equator than at 45 deg latitude is not significant (500mph vs 25,000mph). Inclination of the orbit is way more important, since Inclination changes are VERY VERY expensive. So if you are launching geostationary satellites, like DirecTV or some other regional capability, then you want very close to the equator. If you are launching an inclined orbit, like GPS or LEO satellites like Starlink, then you can choose a location that is close in latitude to the inclination you want to hit. Or you can choose a location that has a coastal direction that allows you to aim your rocket over water at the inclination angle you want to hit.