ZombieNemesis comments

Drones the size of a human hand being flowing into very small spaces. Extremely limited wifi range requiring robotic relay devices. All in a highly radio active area. No easy task just to take a peek, not to mention the cleanup. Would just get harder with dead drones and robots to maneuver around.

Those who escaped this misfortune will take the coronavirus home to their families...ignorance

Israel is the most vaccinated country. If the vaccine works the way we all hope is does, COVID should not be an issue for this event. https://futurism.com/neoscope/most-vaccinated-country-on-earth-has-pretty-much-eradicated-covid

The worlds oceans are severely overfished. The worlds oceans are severely polluted by commercial fishing (and plenty of other causes). There appears to be no other option then to release the tritium laced water now, or let it leak out anyway in the future. Maybe one bad will help reverse the other. If enough people fear the fish are contaminated and stop eating fish, maybe this reduces fishing and the oceans and the fish in them have a chance to recover somewhat. Not saying releasing tritium into the ocean is good, just that there may be an upside.

What about the storage of Hydrogen. Doesn't the energy equivalent amount of Hydrogen require up to 10 times the storage volume as gasoline? Thats a much bigger potential bomb at all of our fuel stations. Imagine the gigantic storage containers of compressed or cooled liquid hydrogen being stored and transported. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=9991

No one knows for sure what the distant future holds, but we all love to guess. Only after monitoring/analyzing past and current conditions, can someone use mathematical probability to get close in predicting the near future. i.e.: predicting the weather.

Too much money, power and politics involved for honesty to remain. Even if told the truth, would the world believe it?

WOKE Nobel participation trophies. Now there's a novel idea. Why not, its still 2020.

Great race, excellent pass made by Takuma Sato to take the lead and keep the lead. Would fuel have been an issue? We shall never know.

Reviewing additional local news reports from 5 hours after the incident. They reported traffic cameras were analyzed and the driver was already on the interstate and did not drive around any barriers. Unclear if that means he was stopped somewhere waiting within the closed area. Additionally they are reporting he was on his horn for ~21 seconds.

Locally reported: Several of the protesters intervened and protected the driver from additional harm before the police arrived. They may have saved his life.

As straight as the freeway looks on a map. There is a curve leading up to the bridge. Its also sloped. High jersey wall running down the center. This section of the freeway has a speed limit of 55MPH. In both directions, it is 4 lanes wide leading up to the bridge and widens to 5 lanes with wide shoulders just before the bridge. It is massive. I drove over this bridge daily for 35 years going to from work. However unlikely it is, given the trucks elevated seating height, it is possible the truck driver did not see the crowd before he was right on them. It is illegal to walk on freeways here. Drivers don't expect to see pedestrians on the freeway. 

Its been locally reported (although unconfirmed) the truck driver did not drive around any road blocks to get on the freeway. If thats true, why wasn’t it blocked? How can that happen if the protesters were being allowed to assemble on the interstate.

Interesting fact about this bridge. In 2007 it collapsed into the river during rush hour. 13 people were killed and 145 injured.

@Silvafan

"White people loot all the time"

The rioting and looting in South Minneapolis is certainly being done by people of all races. Never ment to imply that some of the looters were not white or that they were all or even primarily black. What they were is primarily young. Average age likely early 20s. Likely bored, likely unemployed due to the COVID-19 shutdowns, likely stressed from the "Stay at home" orders. Its been a cruel series of events pushing people over the edge.

It may be fun to blame President Trump for these protests and riots. Its understandable if you want to blame the US President. This is certainly a breakdown in leadership. Minnesota’s Governor is a progressive liberal. The mayor of Minneapolis is a progressive liberal. The Minneapolis city council members are progressive. The Minneapolis police chief is a black man. The state and the city are lead by the people the citizens elected. They are the people they wanted to lead them. By law, the state governor and the mayors of the cities involved decide who and how to deploy forces within the state. If the governor wanted help from feds he could have asked. President Trump did not hire or train the police involved in the death of George Floyd. Minneapolis officials did. President Trump did not choose how to manage the protests, the Minnesota Governor and Minneapolis mayor did.

In Minneapolis where this all started. The local Mayor attempted to defuse the situation with pleads to the people to protest peacefully. Then attempted to control the massive crowds with local police who were exponentially outnumbered. The police used only non-lethal means and quickly lost control the first night. The second night was handled much the same way with the state and city leaders simply pleading with people to be civil. Local police were literally told to abandon their precinct, fleeing out the back. The police station fell with rioters marching out of the PD with police gear as trophies. Many blocks burned after business numbing in the hundreds were looted and vandalized. Being emboldened with their previous nights success the rioters grew in numbers. City leaders issued a curfew, which was ignored by the protestors. The city attempted to only protect fire teams during the night as they worked to extinguish the fires. Another massive night of looting and vandalism. Tonight it was completely different, day started out with very peaceful protests. Many of the protesters choose to stay past the curfew. But tonight with thousands of uniformed highly organized officers and armed National Guard, the protestors were out matched. Public transit shut down, freeways into the city closed. Very little of the protestors were allowed to turn into rioters. They were quickly pushed out and/or rounded up and arrested.

There were certainly outsiders involved, but don’t be fooled this was primarily Minnesotans doing this to their own communities. It only takes a small number to take the lead and turn protests into looting and vandalism. Good people can go bad quickly when shown there are no apparent consequences. Its obvious the vast majority in the community did not want this and are distraught over the destruction of most if not all of their community businesses. Going to take years to rebuild.

The only way this can be stopped without loss of life, or use of lethal rounds is with a massive Police presence at the start. Other cities in the US must not allow the protests to turn into riots and by all means do not allow them to get the upper hand.

Pompeo, with direct access to US CDC, is likely more informed with facts about this virus than any of us normal folks.

@Kaerimashita

This is a good source for official numbers. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

At the moment they can test a maximum of 300 people a day but hope eventually to be able to expand this to 1,000 people a day.

Curious to know why only 300? Is it simply a mater of limited test kits? Does this expose one of the many weaknesses in our ability to test, manage and treat this when it becomes a pandemic?

More curious to know how Wuhan is able to test 50x, 100x that many. How many in China are going untested? Does it raise questions on the total infected numbers we are being provided by China?

George Lucas chose to make his films relatable.

Disney (Kathleen Kennedy) chose to make their films relevant, relevant to the current US political climate.

"Space opera isn't really something Chinese people related to,"

Really? Then why did The Wandering Earth gross $690,994,017 in China?

Star Wars is a hero’s journey, just like many other epic films. Any new Star Wars doesn’t need to be about or related to existing characters. It shouldn’t tramp down its predecessors. It simply needs to be a good story. An over powered Rey running through the movies in God mode is not a hero’s story, or even a remotely interesting story.

People who have casually viewed the previous films may enjoy this one. Those who have grown up on numerous viewings and a great love for the original trilogy, probably not as much. The title of this one is wrong. It’s actually the Fall of Skywalker, Rise of Palpatine. Disney has truly ended the Skywalker saga … by destroying it.

The vast majority of people who disliking the Rise of Skywalker and the Last Jedi have no issues with what race or gender a character is. Its all about the story and what this new story did to George’s story. That original story that made people fans of Star Wars.

The Skywalker family has been killed. Their victory over Palpatine negated. The real Skywalkers have been rendered irrelevant by this abomination, through appropriation. Everyone should see that Ep 9 is actually the Rise of Palpatine.

At about ¥350 for 200 grams here in Japan, 450 grams of butter (as pictured) would cost 2.25 x ¥350 = ¥788 or about $7.33.

Thats likely what it would cost for butter in Minnesota if the dairy subsidies were removed. Since 1995 the US government (US Taxpayers) have provided the dairy industry over six billion dollars.

One of the reasons why Coke-Cola is so cheap, and the American diet is arguably bad. $114 billion in total corn subsidies since 1995 makes some pretty cheap high fructose corn syrup.

Nearly $17 billion in rice subsidies in that same time period.

The tax payer is on on the hook to artificially lower the price of a product to save an industry from cheaper foreign products, then that industry complains again when it can't sell their artificially price reduced product overseas without tariffs. Seems crazy messed up to me.

Its easy to just look at the trade deficit between two countries. Or just look at the direct consumer price of a product. But there is so much more to it.

My vote is to buy local products where the same or similar exists locally.

The box of Land-O-Lakes butter in that photo sells for $4.50 here in Minnesota where its made. As I understand it, butter along with other dairy is subsidized in the US and that is the reason the price seems low. Not sure what is takes in fossil fuels to ship butter around the world, but it would seem butter is better sourced locally.

I get that nearly all current social systems rely on an ever increasing population to support them. Populations around the world have grown basically forever. But pyramid schemes are bad, they all fail at some point.

Japan has a population of 337/sq km. Thats actually pretty high by comparison to other countries. The US has 1/10 that amount. What is the sustainable human carrying capacity of the land that is Japan? It could be argued its overpopulated from that point of view.

As a world population, we the living in the richest nations, are stealing from the future. Many of us consume resources faster than they can be replenished.

The way I see it, Japan, Russia and Germany are volentarilly doing their part to help curb world overpopulation. The solution isn't more people, its figuring out a new social system that solves the problems we face in the failing economic pyramids around the world.

@Dan Lewis "Lucas should have lost sleep over Episode 7" Lucas was not involved with Episode 7. After he sold Lucasfilm to Disney he promptly moved on.

One of the problems with movie making today, and more specifically digital effects, is that the movie makers view the scene so many times they become numb to it. Its not possible for them to see it the way we do the first time.

I've found a lot of films with uncomfortable scenes, like the feeling of uncanny valley with these digital resurrections, fad with future viewings. The same thing likely happens with the digital effects people until they finally say that looks good, after the 100th time they see it.

It felt off to me the first time I saw the film, but I knew Mr. Cushing had passed away and that Ms. Fisher was no longer 19. Interesting one of the people I watch the movie with had no idea either character was digitally created. So is it uncanny valley that took us out of the movie, or the knowledge that what we were seeing wasn't possible.

This picture was taken at 5:54AM on Sunday morning.

Movies come out in Japan so late in the last few years, this is already out on blu-ray and DVD overseas.

This may be true for most, but not all. The American made movie Resident Evil: The Final Chapter has already played in Japan. We don't get to see it in the US until Jan 27.

Its good to see Japan and the US acknowledge our past. Its even greater to see where we are now, peaceful, friendly allies for 75 years.

The photo looks like it was taken right out of the 1982 movie Blade Runner. But 2017 is a bit too early, clear rain coats won't be fashion until 2019 when the movie took place.

Suzuka is one of the best race tracks in the world, great fans too. Hope its a fun race with lots of passing.