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I believe the tires themselves have RFID chips in them. There are some various RFID readers embedded in highways and roads that quietly track all tires that go over them.

What is an example of a nectar-stealing non-pollinator? Doesn't anything rooting around in there end up moving around some pollen?

Some carpenter bees will bite straight through the flower bypassing the stamens and stigma.

Sometimes it's just an anatomy mismatch - like very small bee species and big open flowers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nectar_robbing


Take a look at the Flowerpiercers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowerpiercer

They're true parasites, piercing the flower to drink nectar without any chance of pollination.


The most common example are ants. Moths are often guilty of this as well.

I'd guess hummingbirds.

Some plants actually have evolved to be pollinated by hummingbirds, they have long thin tube shaped flowers that a hummingbird beak can travel up. The Sword-billed hummingbird has an incredibly long beak due to mutual evolution with flowers that grew deep tubes.

No, hummingbirds also pollinate some plants. Random link from a Google search: https://www.nps.gov/articles/hummingbirds.htm#:~:text=Hummin...

Some is not all, and hummingbirds may well steal nectar from less tubular flowers.

DOGE sent people to Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Maryland Congressional delegation (made up of largely Democrats) condemned DOGE and even sponsored protest rallies. I have no idea how this has evolved, but I think it's fair to say that many people don't want DOGE to be serious about catching Medicare fraud.

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/economy/maryland-delegati...


Would you let DOGE into your offices after they wantonly and indiscriminately fired huge swaths of our federal workforce and canceled government contracts and research grants based on very little data?

If DOGE had built a reputation of rooting out fraud instead of being a government arsonist I think we would be having a very different conversation.


Bingo. It's like people have no problem calling out the marketing doublespeak in things they don't like (eg "PATRIOT" act, in 2025), but then when it comes to something being pushed by their team it's like "But why are you against Efficiency!!1!"

> … but I think it’s fair to say that many people don’t want DOGE to be serious about catching Medicare fraud.

That’s a leap (if I’m being charitable). I think you could state that most people don’t trust DOGE, especially given DOGE’s apparent lack of concern for the American’s they are technically working in service of. I don’t believe DOGE has the capability of identifying fraud, let alone have the desire to stop it.


DOGE sent people to Medicare for the purpose of cutting off Medicare patients, not rooting out fraud in service providers.

DOGE's actions have actually increased service provider fraud quite dramatically across all agencies, because the existing fraud prevention processes have all been circumvented.

Taking into account the increased costs DOGE has imposed on government agencies, DOGE's net "savings" to date are an estimated negative 100 billion for 2025 alone (meaning, that when all is said and done, DOGE will have caused the government to spend at least $100 billion more than it would have if DOGE had done nothing at all) and negative $500 billion for the remainder of Trump's term if their "cuts" are extended.

DOGE is what happens you put technoidiots in charge of things they know nothing about and think that technology is the magical solution to every problem.


Certainly vitamin D can't be the one and only molecule that's produced in the human body by a photocatalytic pathway.


What if some executive tweaks a "no code" tool? Technically, the name says that there's no coding involved.


Presumably that still counts as "developing software"- the regulation doesn't mention "coding" at all.


A fair point.

Or is it "using software"?

A person typing an essay with a word processor in doing more work than many of the users tweaking no code software.


A person typing an essay with a word processor is producing an essay. A person using a no-code tool to modify a software process is producing software processes.

The nature of the tweak involved probably determines the classification of the effort, but for tax purposes and R&D expense amortization, it is a percentage of time basis.

If the executive tweaks the code once, the percentage is so small it won't count as far as anyone cares.

If 20% of the executive's time is tweaking the tool, then odds are the company cannot expense 20% of the executive's salary and instead must claim that portion as R&D over five years.

Back before 174, I worked for a company that did claim R&D but only for one of the projects I worked on. As such, I had to be careful filling out my timesheet because they wanted an accurate accounting of what was salary expense and what was R&D.


What if the Olympics are suspended in 100 years, as they were in 1940 and 1944?


Given salary, overtime and benefits, a single cop is more expensive than the license plate reader contract.


Unfortunately, the first question needs to be, "Is there real funding? How likely is it to be cut?"


What's that line from "Animal House"? "Only we can do that to our pledges."


What? I was led to believe there would be collisions. I feel ripped off.


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