lentildrop

Huh?

There’s a lot of science that was missed out on during the Apollo missions- they only sent a single geologist to the lunar surface, on the last mission. The original lunar landings generated a huge amount of scientific and technological advancement both from research on the Moon and from developing the technologies needed to get there.

In terms of lunar science specifically, studying the Moon can teach us a lot about what the early solar system was like, and what early Earth was like, because the Moon was formed very early in the history of Earth, made out of material that was largely originally part of Earth. We don’t still fully understand how or why that happened, and understanding more about the Moon could help us understand what the solar system looked like early in its history.

The ultimate goal of the program is to establish a semipermanent base on the Moon, which will allow surface science to proceed much much more quickly than could ever be done with robotics. There’s also lots of other science that can be done on how human bodies react to a higher-radiation environment in deep space like that. On Artemis II they’re actually doing some really interesting studies on how human tissue reacts to that kind of radiation.

To be fair, the build quality is really what you’d be paying for with a nicer cable, though with an RCA cable that just stays plugged into your audio system all the time I guess that doesn’t matter as much. I buy nice silicone USB charging cables for my phone because they’ll last longer and are nicer to use, though the ones I like cost $12-$20, so not exactly $4k lol.

In this case scientific equipment determined no discernible difference in audio quality, though. I do actually believe in paying for nicer cables but up to a point and that’s really mostly about build quality. $4000 for an RCA cable is just insanity.

Removed by mod

Opposition research isn’t really illegal, there’s no confirmation that anything from Palantir was actually used, and it’s trivially easy for any layperson to view deleted reddit comments-- to be perfectly honest in this specific case I just don’t think there was anything really untoward

I wouldn’t characterize Garmin as having a business model based on data mining, their privacy policy is actually the best out of the mainstream fitness watches and they’re probably one of the best privacy respecting choices especially if you don’t connect it to the internet. It doesn’t necessarily satisfy OPs requirement of not sending data to the US, though.

You’re majorly handicapping yourself in the US if you don’t use credit at all- you’ll get your credit score checked for apartments, home loans, utilities, even some job application background checks-- and the only way to build your credit score is to participate in the system. That’s not even mentioning the fact that the financial system makes it extremely worth your while via points/cashback/bonuses/etc as well as the extra security you have from being able to put stuff on your credit card in a major emergency. It sucks and it shouldn’t be this way but it is.