I did see that and my cousin who fought in Iraq did not want to believe it but knew better that some people over there go on power trips.

Well here is one that might help. The only difference between now and when you were ignorant of it was your own blissful ignorance.

Not to say I condone or necessarily believe the NSA is a lesser evil. But I made peace with the reality of things a long time ago.

What's truly alarming is the pure lack of real reaction from the public when the horrible things that happen behind the scenes get brought to light

And Edward Snowden himself? Also nothing, he ran off to Russia seeking political asylum and I believe he now has citizenship. He's been very quiet since the beginning of the Ukraine invasion bar one quite odd tweet. Edit: seems like he has been tweeting a lot recently actually

If you happen to go in a relevant museum, keep an eye to tools and fire related inventions. Ancients spent their whole life with fire and they did that for centuries. It’s impressive the amount of tricks they came up with.

Let's not forget, he also confirmed that many US soldiers were killing Iraqi civilians for no reason besides gratuitous violence. It was being brushed under the rug and he exposed it.

Wow, an actual ELI5 explanation… good job

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What's 2,000,000,000 people? Just a small amount off.

Even then, there's another premise issue with the post since pretty much every estimate of English speakers being only about 1.5 billion.

It was less about spying on us itezens illegally and more about legally spying on our allies. Both were true, but one caused way more problems. As a result a bunch of things were changed in terms s of how people do things

We group similar plants into groups called families. "Nightshade" is the common name for a huge family of plants (Solanaceae). They're all flowering plants, many with edible fruits. They share a few similarities in the shapes of parts of their flower, but otherwise they are dramatically different in size (tiny shrubs to trees), shape (vines, bushes, ...), color (whole rainbow), fruits, etc.

Some common edible nightshades: tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, bell peppers, and chili peppers.

There are also nightshades that are poisonous: belladonna, tobacco, mandrake, henbane, etc.

There's no reason to avoid the edible nightshades unless you have an allergy specific to the plant. Obviously, you shouldn't eat the poisonous ones.

Sure you can survive a nuke, just dont be TOO close to the blast and then stay out of the radiation for like 80 years.

And ofc have water, food and everything else you need

He exposed the CIA head (Brennon) as lying before congress, and also exposed multiple other lies being told by CIA/FBI/NSA agents before congress, and nothing ever came of it. Remember the next time you see Brennan on TV talking about laws and breaking laws and holding people accountable. The man is a piece of garbage.

Sure, my mail can be encrypted in storage. It all depends how much you trust your mail provider.

Note that encrypting uses more CPU than plaintext does, so it costs more money in the long run. Now think from the perspective of a mail provider: "What do they care that their emails are not encrypted if they have no way to verify that?" At some companies (Google for instance) I'm sure they do everything in their might to store the mails securely. But they have to obey every order from the government and yield mails, so that means they store encryption keys which makes it a moot point. Note that even privacy advertised mails like protonmail obey government subpoenas and lie to their users that they don't store the keys while they do.

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So a nuclear attack has three components to its deadliness. One is the initial blast. Anything at the epicenter is vaporized. Anything within a given radius of the epicenter is blasted away, depending on the power of the weapon. Second, everything catches fire and this multiplies the damage. Third, which is less of a factor now that nuclear weapons use their fuel more efficiently, is fallout. Depending on the amount, it can make entire areas uninhabitable for quite some time. With one or two bombs, as seen in Japan, those areas can be habitable relatively quickly. But, say, total nuclear war? That's an entirely different scenario.

Now, a nuclear attack is likely to be centered around major population centers. You're pretty much screwed if it comes to pass. But if you're far removed into rural territory, you could manage for quite a while given that total war doesn't cause a nuclear winter. The other issue would be the aftermath of such an attack on things like electricity, water sanitation, supply chains for food and supplies, the environment, etc. We could literally bomb ourselves back to the stone age of which the recovery takes centuries.

In short: one bomb? So long as you're a couple feet underground and removed from the immediate area. A full nuclear exchange? You're probably screwed either immediately or eventually.

He did out our government agencies for spying on Americans, so that could be seen as traitorous, but he outed spying on Americans, so that was patriotic?

I am on the side that the government should have no right to any of my data without due process (warrants in advance), so I would consider his actions more patriotic than anything, but I totally get why he fears for his safety.

Right, I know I am but a insignificant person and not worth watching watching, but it is a sobering thought.

What makes nuclear war so complete is what they call M.A.D. mutually assured destruction. Many countries had or may still have systems that when a nuclear launch is detected they counter launch their missiles in case they don't survive.

A single nuclear missile has a blast zone of certain fatality then rings spread out to estimate the levels of destruction. After the initial blast there will be a radioactive fallout cloud that moves. That cloud will eventually dissipate. I read an article once that claimed a fallout cloud is only lethal for about 12 hours and it's best to shelter in place to avoid direct exposure. But take that as unsourced because I don't remember where I read it.

In the mid-20th century people did have fallout shelters installed on their property. It was like a tornado shelter but sealed up much better. A Brendan Frazier movie called Blast To the Past has a really neat fictional one as a set piece. If you're not in the blast zone and the other nuclear powers haven't launched all their nukes then a fallout shelter is very practical. That information is also anecdotal since I don't believe they ever actually tested it out. Somewhere there is a website that simulates a nuclear blast and the damage zones overlayed onto a map.

That would make them drive like shit at low RPMs. Cars essentially do something similar by pumping in fake noise through the speakers.

Sucks he tried to help out and is being treated like this.

On a somewhat related note, found this distillery on a business trip to Vermont, they make all their stuff in old maple syrup barrels.

They make bourbon, which is what I was thinking at first, but the rye I snagged makes an excellent manhattan

https://www.saxtonsdistillery.com/

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Well there are literally hundreds of millions of people to actually spy on, and I doubt an agency like the NSA even cares about your run of the mill illegal activity either.

But no. You haven't had right to privacy since 2001

He fled to Russia and just got granted citizenship, if I’m not mistaken. He did this to avoid extradition (one country surrendering an individual to another country for crimes) and prosecution in the US where he is still a wanted man for crimes related to his whistleblowing. He’s still a wanted fugitive in the US, so that should be a good example of how much has “changed.”