Hmm, scary costume ideas: Politician. Money printer (borrowed that one from Bitcoin Magazine, though I only saw the headline and picture, didn't read.). CPI number (not as scary as it should be...).

Proof that P=NP would be a bit too scary...

I read OP the same way as you did, and obviously several others did too, who found it a good opportunity to advocate abuse. (And yes, deliberately inflicting pain = abuse.) Abuse can be non-physical too, by the way. Not going to write a wall-of-text about how here, but it can.

I still have emotional/psychological scars from my childhood, from both non-physical and physical abuse (despite the latter being both illegal and generally frowned upon here), and even though it was not extreme, they do degrade my quality of life to a not insignificant extent. It doesn't "make you stronger", it may make it look like that to (a certain kind of) external observers, but from a first-person perspective, it only hurts and will likely do so for the rest of life.

You wouldn't want to use that like they do, without quality laser goggles for the wavelength in question. One reflective speck of metal in the wrong direction and you'll be blind for life.

There are a few areas of "research" that has little to do with each other, but where every few years they come out with the news "X is by far more dangerous than previously thought". That tells me that those areas are probably of this kind. Studies doesn't repeatedly time after time show something to be more dangerous than the last study did unless 1: extreme probability outlier, i.e. "luck" or "bad luck" depending on subject and viewpoint, or 2: actively looking for things that "prove" that it's more dangerous.

No surprise that INT* is high, but I had expected more ENT*:s. I guess that's because we hear more from them (on average, of course).

That's an idea. But more people would get pissed about their clocks not updating correctly than people finding it, understanding what it is and be curious - but buying a regular high-power broadcast transmitter that can be received on regular consumer radio receivers, preferably AM for range, sending spoken, somewhat cryptic messages, including block height, maybe block hash when one is found, etcetera., then after a few months, adding Bitcoin-centered news programs, like the News Block with Natalie Brunell...

No, but it's pretty obvious since they are so much taller. Lightning is attracted to tall things that are conductive enough, like trees, skyscrapers and radio towers.

They show that they absolutely understand the workings of the Cantillon effect. Nobody needs to try to apply Hanlons razor anymore.

Also, this document seems like something they put out in preparation for a ban or strict controls.

I just want to say that I appreciate that you are here on Nostr, as a "counterweight" (of course not meant in a way to diminish you as a person or content creator and contributor) to the conservative-in-that-sense-of-the-word, old Christian, types - you probably know which ones I mean, they are common here. Those who think that anyone not being straight, married, with at least three children, is either the victim or member of a conspiracy.

Nostr needs a variety of people, opinions and life stories to become mainstream, and I'd say you are helping.

I read somewhere that there was an experiment where they set up measuring equipment that measured bodily signs of attraction/sexual arousal, and tested a bunch of people (whom I assume all self-reported as straight), and it showed that the homophobes were on average more attracted to people of the same sex than the non-homophobes.

I don't remember more details, or when it was done, but I think it's pretty long ago.

Too true.

Usually there are protection circuits that kick in, but it's probably not impossible to do some damage, at least to individual power plants or transformer/switching stations. Starting the power plants in the wrong sequence is impossible, since there's not enough power to do so, and if it was possible, it probably wouldn't be the wrong sequence.

You start with the power plants that require the least power for their own operation, use diesel generators to power them (controls, excitation windings, systems for fuel or whatever power source they use, etc.), start them up and bring them online to the grid, with all branches and load disconnected, except the power plants that require a bit more to power up, then rinse and repeat, probably also connecting load as required, for minimum load and probably also to keep the power factor within reasonable limits (not sure how important the latter is with such low load, but I guess it could be).

Has it happened before? A so-called black start, starting up an entire grid from complete power-down, is a complicated thing to do. Might take days or weeks to get everyone online if unlucky. Where I live, with about the same population size as Cuba according to Wikipedia, there are protocols for doing it in a way that should work, but it has never been done in practice, which is of course both good and bad...

TBH, that seems more like one of the samples got contaminated with soap or something. The difference shouldn't take much more time to manifest than the time to discharge, which would at most be in the order of seconds. Also, a tiny sample on a plate would have such low capacitance to ground that just sliding the plate in different ways when putting it under the microscope could cause differences in charge.

The only possibility I can think of would be if the effect wasn't electrostatic in itself, but something the cells actively do - which I have never heard of, but I don't know enough about biology to confirm or deny it - and the field slowly causes changes in them which prevent them from doing it, and they slowly heal from that in the absence of a field. Seems far-fetched, but I'd need an opinion from someone who knows this part of biology to know.

(As I have written before, I don't like the appeal-to-nature-and-the-past "explanations" i.e. "we've always been grounded, so that's what we should do". I want explanations of the mechanisms involved.)

I'd say the biggest are superior to the official government in many aspects. I don't remember what bankster or whatever he was who said it, nor do I probably quote him verbatim, but it was something along the lines of "it doesn't matter who's in government as long as I control the money".

Or being automatically blocked doing same by the ISP, mandated by government. That's one of my biggest concerns regarding the future of free communication and money.

If not electrons, what causes the phosphors in a CRT to light up?

Somewhat on topic: the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency is soon sending out a (new edition of a) pamphlet titled "If crisis or war comes" to all households. It's available in Swedish as PDF already, but English and other languages comes the 18:th of November.

There are of course good parts, not least regarding what we can call light prepping, but I find parts of it somewhat amusing in a "look at yourselves" kind of way:

A rough translation of a part of the introduction: "War - the uttermost threat against our freedom. When someone by force wants to grant themself the right to decide over us, it threatens our right to a free and independent life."

It also has a chapter on "psychological defense", containing among other things: "Foreign powers and other actors outside of Sweden use disinformation, confusion and propaganda to affect us [...] those who want to affect us do so by - spreading lies and false stories, or stories that are partially true but taken out of their context [...] -arousing strong emotions regarding a topic or event in order to make us worried or suspicious of each other"

And one of the solutions? "In case of a serious event, seek confirmed information from government authorities"

I'm not too familiar with the situation in Norway, but here in Sweden that may be partially true, but from what I can see, the big reasons are the banks making it difficult, and too few people caring enough to regularly pay with it or even say something to businesses quitting it. (or knowing that it matters what they do and, to a lesser extent, say)