Sadly most of the great maritime powers have signed onto the 1856 Declaration of Paris where they agreed to give up privateering as a weapon of war. The United States has not signed on, but has also not issued a letter of marque since that period. During the civil war, the confederates experimented briefly with privateering, but the Union declared that it would not.

In 2025, The Cartel Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act of 2025 was introduced in Congress. This bill would authorize privateering against “cartels” (apparently any cartel, like OPEC or the American Medical Association).

The compilation step should only be happening on reboot after updates. Of course, that may be the only time you reboot your device.

Non-Euclidean geometry was developed by pure mathematicians who were trying to prove the parallel line postulate as a theorem. They realized that all of the classic geometry theorems are all different if you start changing that postulate.

This led to Riemannian geometry in 1854, which back then was a pure math exercise.

Some 60 years later, in 1915, Albert Einstein published the theory of general relativity, of which the core mathematics is all Riemannian geometry.

I’m pretty sure that the military understands in general that the bunker busters don’t really work all that well.

I think the more relevant factors in this calculation are (1) B2 is a technology from the 1980s, (2) B2 still looks fricken cool, (3) Tomahawk was also a big deal in the 1980s, (4) Israel already did all of the work suppressing air defenses, and finally (5) the big parade the week before kinda sucked.

Yeah. With this option, he still has to endure the death animation, which usually looks pretty painful.

This is it. The old Huy Fong is completely gone now, unless you have a connection to someone who’s been hoarding.

There’s a different sauce brand now that is produced by Huy Fong’s old pepper farm using the same peppers. But I’ve been told that’s not exactly the same either.

Olive oil, although it’s not really 1-5 extra where I am. There’s a lot of advice to buy cheap oil for cooking, but that’s not really true. The truth is that a lot of ‘extra virgin’ oil is sold in an old, rancid state, and you have to upgrade into the mid tiers to get away from that.

Buy the best olive oil you’re willing to spend money on, even for cooking.

At Waffle House, that’s over medium, or just an “order”. Over easy / “order lite” has some runny white.

The source character set is implementation defined.

You could even choose the name this.

In 1953, the top bracket marginal income tax rate was 92%. And of course Europe and Asia were reeling from the loss and wealth destruction of the Second Thirty Years’ War. But let’s just not talk about that.

I had a relative who once had a serious emergent heart problem (not a heart attack) in Italy. Ambulance to the ER, admitted to hospital for several days, ran a gazillion tests and procedures; huge workup. Was billed because no national insurance.

Grand total: €200. Not even worth trying to claim on American insurance.

On the director’s commentary, he states that the ultimate cause of Granger’s illness is deliberately left vague and unexplained. That’s kind of like a plot hole, sort of. Or maybe it’s mystery box, and not a plot hole.

The Ocean.

Matlab’s syntax for matrices actually derives from Fortran. There’s a lot of flexibility in Fortran’s array features for

• multidimensional arrays
• arrays of indeterminate and flexible length
• vectorized operations on arrays without explicitly writing loops.

Because Fortran does not have a pointer in the sense of C, the Fortran compiler is free to make several optimization that a C compiler can’t. Compiled Fortran is often faster than C code that does the same thing.

Could be money laundering

I am not a lawyer, and I am not your lawyer.

Off the top of my head, I can’t really see where or how this is illegal in most US jurisdictions. In “at will” states you can be hired or fired at any time for any reason* or no reason. And likewise you can quit at any time for any reason or no reason. If you can be hired or fired based on this scam, you can be promoted or held back based on it.

Having said that, this is really scammy, and I would not want to work there.

*except discrimination based on: race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age (>40), or genetics. Likewise, retaliation for unlawful sexual harassment.

Seizing a private dwelling for military use… That’s an act that’s so heinous it has its very own amendment. It seems like we’re speedrunning to get all 27.

I work in engineering, sometimes with startup types that want to develop a “product”. I’m also a coinventor on some patent applications. This response will be based on US perspective and economics.

1. First before all, do a patent search. This is to find out if someone already patented your ideas. If so, you either need to pay them royalties to license the patent(s) or rework your product to avoid the patents. Google Patents is highly accessible for this.
2. Then, if you think you have original, patentable ideas, engage a patent attorney to do a “real” search and to work on filings. This will take money (at least 10s of thousands US) for the initial work. All the major legal jurisdictions are “first to file,” so it no longer helps to mail your notebooks to yourself for proof of date of invention. You have to at least file a provisional application to get a patent priority date. Keep everything top secret until you have that application. Execute non disclosure agreements (NDAs) with any outside firm or individual you talk with. 2b. As an aside, software is not generally patentable any more, on the grounds that math formulas are also not patentable. There may still be some ability to patent software-oriented ideas as business methods or the like. Just because the patent office issued a software patent doesn’t mean it’s enforceable. Courts hold patents to be invalid all the time.
3. I want to impress upon you some view of the real costs of prototype design and what is known as “nonrecurring engineering” (NRE) in the biz. You don’t say, but it sounds like you want some amount of custom electronics coupled with some backend software. Costs can vary considerably depending on circumstance, but I would typically see 100k-300k USD in design and prototype build costs to get initial prototypes with some limited functionality for these components. It could very well take 1 million USD or more to get a more complete product design. This also depends a lot on how you engage engineering talent: turnkey consultants can be the most expensive, or you could save a bunch of up front labor cost by offering equity to a key designer. 3b. I don’t know how complicated this app is, but it’s not unusual for software engineering costs to overshadow the hardware engineering costs, and sometimes by a lot. This might be something to keep in mind if you’re contemplating app development up front paired with virtual hardware plans.
4. A “virtual design” for hardware that is just drawings could be done for cheaper than the prototype quote I gave. I see common prices for that kind of work at least 10k and up to 50k depending on how much initial design work you want or need done (and how the talent is engaged, etc, etc).
5. Manufacturing. Depends of course on what is going into your gadget and how many units you plan to build.
   5a. Custom PCBs can commonly be run in low volumes for relatively cheap. It’s more expensive to solder the components on than just to etch the boards. There are many board houses that let you turn in your design files and get a quote online. 5b. For startup that wants a low volume (~100) of some gadget, you might want to look into contract manufacturers. These will assemble your product per drawings, typically in a non-automated or low-automation fashion. For example, they might have pick and place machines and expensive wave flow solder machines to assemble PCBs, but then the boards are screwed into enclosures by hand. These places might run double or triple the per unit cost of a more automated setup, but it can still be the best option for low numbers of units. 5c. Overseas manufacturing can cut costs through reduced labor bills. The traditional hurdles in the startup environment are long shipping lead times (particularly by sea, 10-12 weeks not uncommon) and the added hassle and complexity of international business dealings. In the US particularly, the recent tariff situation is throwing a monkey wrench right in the middle of this, and I will not attempt to analyze the impact. 5d. A commonly surprising manufacturing cost: if using injection molded plastic for enclosures or the like, the custom molds can cost several 10s of thousands to build and store. This is a fixed cost, so it doesn’t impact the per unit for large volumes, but it is often an expensive hurdle in the total manufacturing process for small startups.
6. Regulatory. It’s highly likely that any consumer facing gadget will need at least some regulatory testing, probably from a dedicated contract test house For example in the US, Underwriters Laboratory (UL) demands safety testing, and the FCC can require “part 15” testing and separate testing if you have a radio (such as WiFi or Bluetooth). As an exercise you could try looking up all of the various logos on the bottom of your favorite gizmo or in the fine print in the manual.

Someday the concepts will come and fix all of this. It has been foretold.