There are plenty of companies that will sell your name, email addresses, phone numbers, street addresses, marital status, and relative’s names. They obtain the information from publicly sold databases. I had access to one that had all that, plus the registration info for the car I drive, my estimated income, my military record, my driving record, my political party preference, and pictures of my home that had been on the realtor’s website.

The scary one was when a phone center employee in the Philippines stole my wife’s debit card number and then did two big Western Union MoneyGram transfers to a couple of Filipino men. That means bad actors have access to the credit companies’ databases from which Western Union draws their proof of identity questions, like who holds your mortgage, where you lived when you were 10, and the make/model of your first vehicle.

If you’re well-off enough to be a financial fraud target, paying a company for identity theft protection is probably well worth it. Put fraud alerts in with all the major credit bureaus too. That usually stops identity thieves from accessing your credit. If you use 2FA with your phone, make sure your telecom provider will not transfer your number to a new device without in-person authorization and authentication.

Absentee ballot. Always worked for me in the Navy.

When you shop for a place to live, do you buy/rent nothing because nothing is “perfect”? Or do you weigh the benefits and detriments of each available option and choose the best one?

There’s a clear choice, and if you need to see what voter apathy gets you, look at Venezuela. We got a second chance because the Jan 6 attempt failed. If you don’t vote, the usurper might win.

Totally agree. Iran can see incoming aircraft and missiles on their radar. There would have been widespread social media reports of the missile flying over the city. These things did not happen. Where’s the missile debris? That would have been the lead story on local TV news. Iranian leadership would love to tie the attack back to a missile provided by the US. That would have been their first claim if it really was due to a missile. This story sounds more like Iran belatedly trying to change the narrative.

How do earth-sheltered homes comply? I’ve seen a few, and they have no windows in most of the rooms, including bedrooms. And there’s a few who’ve taken to living in caves, old mines, and decommissioned missile silos. There must be an exception to this code.

Not recommended for lycra or spandex suits, or any suit that has elastic closures, particularly during the summer months. They will rapidly degrade in the heat of the car. My wife left hers in the car after a vacation (never used it). It was tucked in the trunk. Found it a month later and it disintegrated in the wash.

Every time I do a search, the bot usually provides enough info. The problem is that I don’t trust the bot because it’s been wrong before. So I still need to continue the search to find an authoritative answer.

That’s the problem with bots. If you trust their answers and they’re wrong, it can be a real problem. There was a story a while ago about an Air Canada customer service bot that was giving out bad info about bereavement travel. When a customer tried to get the promised refund, the airline admitted the advice was wrong, but claimed the bot was a separate legal entity, therefore they were not responsible for the advice it gave.

No gold. It’s what they charge us privileged Californians.

It’s $210 a month plus $30 in taxes and fees for 400 mbit internet with a 1.2 TB usage cap and a mid-tier programming package renting one cable box (required) and one cablecard for the Tivo box. Some months I exceed my internet cap and have to pay $10 for every 50 GB over the limit. Welcome to California living.

You mean like the way sweeping swiping figures out the words? And what do you do when trying to type out a password? Does it revert to a normal keyboard or function like T9 keyboard with multiple presses to select the right character?

Remember when TV used to be free, except that you had to watch commercials? I pay $2800 a year to this company for Internet and TV - and I still have to watch commercials. What’s wrong with this picture?

I really miss the pre-internet days when I’d buy a game, never worrying that the company’s server would be offline, that they’d sunset support rendering the game unplayable, harvest my data, or engineer the game to coerce me into buying extras.

Have a machine dedicated to gaming, no Internet access, with a swappable SSD. Make a clean OS install. Clone it to an external backup drive, then disconnect the backup. Install and play. If you want to play another game, format the drive, clone the OS from the external backup, install and play. If you want to play multiple games, have them on different SSD drives.

It’s hardware sandboxing.

As a 6YO, you will have zero sex drive. You may have thoughts and memories, but no desire. You’ll have to wait for hormones to kick in. We see this a lot in postmenopausal women. Zero sexual desire when the hormone factory shuts down.

Yes, you could memorize an almanac ala “Back to the Future”. But sporting event outcomes are often dictated by random events that may or may not happen. Your best bet is to build on your own efforts based on generalized trends.

Assuming that the red pill lets me revert to a 6YO (thus preserving my knowledge), and not time traveling back to when I was 6, I might be tempted to do a lot of unethical stuff to make a ton of money, provide for my family, convert the remaining assets to BTC, memorize the wallet details, then take the red pill. As a 6YO, the government can’t hold me responsible for my adult conduct.

If it’s a time travel situation, there’s no contest. Red pill after studying the history of inventions. Start out by inventing the Pet Rock (near zero initial investment), reinvest in the fidget spinner, Pokemon, D&D, and writing the scripts to all the blockbuster movies. Provide technical details to the right industries for a royalty. Invest heavily in the creation of the Internet, then start Facebook, Google, and Amazon, bypass the PC and jump straight to smartphones. I’d be the patent king of the world.

With the trillions of dollars, I’d heavily influence politics. I’d fully fund the campaigns of moderates, institute free Internet-based accredited college, set up work training programs to support industries I intentionally locate in depressed areas, and make most of my business non-profit. And maybe, just maybe, avoid the cesspool we have today.

Edited for spelling

I would 100% patronize a restaurant that had full transparency and decent no-frills food. They publicly post all their expenses and how much profit they make. Charge a table/dine-out fee, then actual cost of food and prep on top. Pay their workers in full, so no tipping required. Explain things like dining hours that help the business keep down costs.