Agreed on that. Though in the scale of the UK there aren’t that many cases. The ones there are however, are (deliberately) high profile. It has a chilling effect on the population, without needing to use it much.

They also hamstring the bobbies via the budget assignments. I know a lot of forces would love to get rid of some of the more overtly racist/sexist/other-ist officers. Their budget limits wages however, which limits the selection of replacements. They end up having to try and weed out the ringleaders (to fire or retire) and split the followers up.

The long and the short, most of the police are working class and do the job to try and make our country better. Some are even trying to counter the bullshit rolling down from on high.

So are a lot of scientists.

The UK force has its problems, but it functions fairly well. It also has a lot of people in it who honestly want to do a good job.

The problem is the rules and mandates coming down from the government. (And the political upper management level of the police)

America has “police by intimidation” as its default response. Most of Europe seems to have “police by consent” as the default.

It leads to a different mentality. They might still roll out the whole cavalry, but it will more likely be led by a polite knock at the door, and an initial attempt to de-escalate.

I thought it was mostly a jamming type effect. The memories are often still here, but become progressively less accessible. They then degrade from lack of use.

It might well be that a lot of memories still exist for longer than it seems. Even if not, stopping the degradation, and allowing new memories to form would allow people to remain cognitive and functional for a LOT longer.

Counselling can be useful for undoing, or avoiding maladaptive behaviours (behaviours that are intended to help one problem, but cause other, often more severe problems elsewhere). It’s mostly covering the emotional results but the line is quite blurry.

If your tinnitus is bad enough for it to be offered, your likely experiencing emotional based stress from it’s fallout. Unpicking that, can avoid developing worse behaviours e.g. using alcohol to get drunk each night, to help fall asleep.

I would guess, with tinnitus, you would also want more specialist help. Tinnitus itself is in the brain, it’s very often caused by physical problems in the inner ear. It’s possible to reprogram the brain to ignore the rogue signals (ghost or real). That would likely fall under the CBT umbrella, if not something even more specialised.

A lot of the big building companies, in Europe, treat solar panels as a premium option and so charge a larger profit margin on them. Installing solar, while constructing the house is a LOT cheaper and easier than retrofitting them later.

The panels have gotten cheap enough that it’s no longer a real cost burden, Vs the cost of the house.

A friend had an excellent (but evil) one.

His son had found some more… interesting areas of the internet (aka porn). He collected a selection of his browsing history and sat him down. They then went, video by video, having an open and honest discussion about it. Dad had FAR more tolerance for mortifying embarrassment than his son did. He learnt to clear the history at least.

The 2nd discussion, 6 months later, used the router logs instead.

I’m not sure I would use this particular method. However, it was apparently highly effective at making his kids think things through (for better or for worse!).

Similar mentality here.

I’ve got some basic parental controls in place. They are intended at emergency buffers, rather than to stop a concerted effort however.

The best method is to teach and train. No security is going to be invincible, without being very problematic to work within. Children also learn fast, when motivated.

This would definitely be mine too. Particularly if it was still jailbroken, as in the book.

In story, it could even cope with a lot of future sight powers. It was only the apex level ones that were on an even field with it.

The only downside is the erosion of your free will. It’s hard to make your own choices when this power is available to make them all for you.

Based on the books you need an exact sense of the place. Not just sight, but smell and feel. The place needs to absolutely unique, in your mind. The photos are primarily an aid to recall.

The tags don’t have GPS. They are basically a Bluetooth beacon. If a compatible phone is within range, it notes it’s existence and reports back to a central server.

Basically, if you took one out into the middle of nowhere, without a phone nearby it would be completely useless. They are only useful when in a crowded place.

My wedding hit full population inversion. It was quite funny watching the few neurotypicals slowly realise the whole dynamic was wrong/unusual. Most of them adapted quickly to join the rest of us weirdos. The few that didn’t were quite out of sorts.

Oh, and my wife didn’t get diagnosed until well after I was. Nothing was wrong. She was no weirder than her friends… Half of them are now diagnosed in various ways!

Part of the issue is that the category of “ebike” is quite large. It really needs to be split into multiple subcategories for regulation.

For bikes intended to mix with pedestrians, you definitely need to limit speed and weight. Europe’s 250W, 25kph rules seem reasonable for this.

The problem most places have is the grey area between ebike and moped, particularly for cargo bikes. They are fast/heavy enough to be a risk to pedestrians, but not enough to be classed as motorbikes. They need some restrictions/licencing to keep pedestrian areas safe, but not so much that they get lumped in with cars.

No problem at all!

I know several people who wouldn’t still be around without the NHS. A diamond is understating it!

There are some limits to it, and ways around it for the rich (as per usual ☹️).

The cost still mostly scales with your income, rather than how much care you need.

UK.

There were complications when my wife gave birth. 2 weeks in hospital, some surgery, and nurses and midwives on call 24/7. The biggest cost was me stress buying snacks for my wife (until she told me to stop!). Even parking was reduced to £11/week, since she was in for multiple nights.

Another occasion. I had a benign lump in an annoying place. It took 14 months to get through to get it removed. It’s only when I went in I realised it was not a 5 minute snip. Around an hour for a plastic surgeon to properly remove and stitch it up.

The NHS has its problems. Mostly caused by previous governments trying to starve it (to let their mates sell us for profit healthcare). The system and staff are absolutely awesome.

If I’m asked to point out what makes me proud to be British, the NHS is the prize jewel in that particular crown.

Cost wise, we pay national insurance, a fixed percentage of income. (“Payment by ability, treatment by requirement.”) Prescriptions are £9.90 each, or £120/year. They also wave the fee for a lot of groups who might have problems with it. It’s massively more cost effective than the American system.

It could be useful in a dynamic situation. You could launch it into an area you know the enemy are in. As they approach, you can use other methods to get exact locations (e.g. spotters, or a flyover). An update can be sent out for an exact target to hit, based on where it is now, not where it was at launch time.

You don’t need to know exactly where the drone is with this, so long as it does internally. A dead reckoning estimate is good enough.

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.