If you want similar, yet opposite, I would suggest Sebastian Lague. He has a slow output of high quality videos, which are interesting “coding adventures” where he goes in depth about learning some aspect of software. He’s much more relaxed than Code Bullet, but he’s similar in that the videos are primarily about the process of implement some project and showing the failures along the way.

For digital copies of written works in the public domain, projectgutenberg.org is a good source.

The idea here are very interesting to read, but I think I’m leaning most favorably towards the last group’s idea to bury it with as little marking as possible. The plans modeled on Stonehenge seem odd to me. Stonehenge is famously a monument whose origin and purpose was a mystery, and that mystery enticed people from all over the world to travel to the site and excavate it. It seems more like a good reference for a method that would not work. How many people would have toyed around at Stonehenge if the monument weren’t there?

At the same time, we have events with contaminated materials being used in construction within a matter of months or years, so it’s not like these are abstract problems. E.g., look at the 1983 Ciudad Juárez Cobalt 60 incident. We have the technology to identify contaminated materials, but we’d only use them if we have reason to believe we should. It’s probably fair to assume the same of future societies, so it makes sense to want to make sure they have reason to believe they should test the area.

The vacuum is the hard part, not the maglev. You would need to enclose the entire track inside if a vacuum, and that world be ridiculously expensive and practically impossible with current technology. It’s already very expensive to build a tunnel for a train, which is why they are avoided if possible. But this would need to be all tunnel that is air tight, so even more expensive than regular train tunnels.

To put it into perspective, the current largest manmade vacuum chamber is at a NASA research facility in Ohio. It’s a cylinder with a diameter of 100 feet and a height of 122 feet. If this were laid on its side, about 1.5 New York subway cars could fit inside. The largest vacuum ever made can barely fit the vehicle inside, let alone allow it to travel between two different places where the extra speeds would be warranted.

I like the explanation from Gnostic Christianity the best (though gnosticism is considered heretical by the vast majority of Christians). It seems to fill in a lot of plot holes, but I guess people that actually believe the stories as true don’t like to think about that.

The gist of it is that the God of the Old Testament is not the same a the God of the New Testament. The NT God is the true creator of the universe, and when He created the universe, He created lesser emanations of Himself. Each emanation had a divine spark within them that tied them back to God. One of these emanations, Sophia, tried her hand at creation by creating the OT God. However, this creation was a corrupt being as she was unable to instill a divine spark within it. So she hid him away from the rest of creation.

That God found Himself alone and created the world in His image and declared Himself as the one and only God. However, since he was a corrupted creation, the world He created was corrupted as well.

Sophia came clean about her mistake to the true God, so he sent her counterpart, Christ, to the Garden to try and spread the knowledge of the true reality to the humans. He created the Tree of Knowledge and took the form of a serpent to convince Eve to eat from that tree, which would give her knowledge of the corruption in the world. However, the OT God was jealous of the true God, so He cast them out and made them forget what they learned.

Later on Christ returned to Earth and sacrificed himself so that his divine spark could be set free into the world and fix the corruption that was inherent in its creation. His disciples were given the mission of spreading the knowledge of this to all of humanity.

Yes. The last person that the United States executed for desertion, Eddie Slovik in 1945, was tried in a military court, found guilty, and executed.

I assume that Russia would have rules for the same. Whether they are followed is the question.

Red Dye #3 is not commonly used in the United States anymore. Instead, Red Dye #40 is used and works just fine as a safe replacement.

Brominated Vegetable Oil is used to emulsify flavor oils into water and is commonly used in citrus soft drinks. Sucrose Acetate Isobutyrate and Glycerol Ester of Wood Rosin are both be used for the same purpose.

Potassium Bromide is added to flour to strengthen dough, allowing for a greater rise during baking. It appears that Ascorbic Acid (vitamin C) can replace much of its use.

Propylparaben is an antifungal preservative that is used in packaged baked goods to prevent mold. There are other preservatives that can be used, but it sounds like parabens are the most effective for preserving non-acidic foods. I assume that propylparaben will be replaced by some other paraben.

Yes. A government shutdown is what happens when Congress fails to pass a law that allows the federal government the necessary funds to operate. If the House is unable to pass such a law, the federal government will shut down.

Not only is it legal in most states, it’s actively kept legal. It’s not just some old, irrelevant law that only exists because people haven’t noticed.

E.g., here’s an exchange from Missouri a few years ago where a state senator references an attempt to end child marriage.

https://youtu.be/9H6UJ-uCrgc?si=hihhxIuOJl7N9ror

I think the “Me” was saying that they’ve done literally nothing new or interesting and has nothing to answer the question with. The distress is from thinking about how little they are doing and feeling pressure to admit that to their friend, transforming a light conversation to a heavy one.