dogslayeggs

A) But they would sell far far fewer tickets and less memorabilia. I've been to really nice castles that are nowhere near as many visitors and have tiny gift areas. The most famous castle in Germany (Neushwanstein), also one of the most famous in the world, only makes about $6M/year while Windsor makes $45M/year on its own. A castle I went to just outside London was really beautiful and cool, and I could freely walk around it with almost no tourists and an entrance fee about half what Windsor was... because it wasn't connected to anyone famous. It was just a castle. I went to the main palace in Vienna, and it was basically empty.

B) Fame isn't a zero sum game, and some things aren't so easily replaced. It's like saying if Jordan hadn't been in the NBA there would have been another player of his caliber. Or if Michael Jackson hadn't been around in the 80s there would have been another King of Pop as big as him. To be clear: I'm not saying the people in the royal family are special like Michael or Michael, but the royal family as an entity is something the world doesn't have any more. How many people know the royal family of Spain or Denmark or Saudi Arabia outside of the people in those countries? Now how many people know the name Queen Elizabeth? Not only that, but the people who buy tabloids fucking love reading about royalty. Yeah, there will always be famous people, but the things they are famous for aren't easily replaced.

I'm no fan of the royal family. I think they are fucking disgusting and shouldn't exist as an entity. But there isn't another entity out there like them, so the UK has made the financial decision to give them a stipend in exchange for the income they provide.

I think there was a foul on City when they gained possession to start the string of corners that led to the goal. Wolves should've had a free kick in a dangerous position, but instead City countered and got corner after corner. That said, the Wolves player should have passed it earlier instead of allowing himself to be tackled.

So much cheaper than going to MLS games.

Cost of business punishments do not work.

A) The people who executed these deals broke the law and should be subject to criminal prosecution.

B) Raytheon should be subject to sanctions beyond fines. They should not be allowed to bid on any federal contracts for a specified time period.

I don't know UK law, but in the US once you put trash out on the sidewalk, it is fair game for anyone to take. It's public property. Once the city takes it, it's their property. That said, your point about the passkey for the wallet has to be true. The city probably doesn't want to be arsed to dig up a harddrive that is 10 years old and likely not worth even $10 since it's been in a dump outside for 10 years, so they claim it is their property so they don't have to deal with the liability of private people digging through dangerous areas. I can't imagine them trying to claim they own the contents of the wallet, but who knows when it comes to government workers who don't know anything about technology.

For more fiscally conservative people, it's generally a worse financial decision. This is especially true if you just return your lease at the end without doing the leg work to leverage any equity your car might have (or might not have).

In the EV realm, though, the decision is less clear. Banks are still figuring out how to quantify depreciation, so sometimes lease rates are ridiculously low or ridiculously high (I leased a $40k Bolt for $284/mo for 36 months and 10k miles per year). Also, the tech is both newer and changing faster than normal cars, so people are more hesitant to sink that much money into owning something that may or may not be worth it in the end.

Pravda article about Ukraine sourced from a right-wing think tank study? Yeah, I think I'll pass on reading that.

The environmental impact of rocket launches is not good. I launch rockets for a living, including out of Vandenberg, so I'm personally invested in the ability to launch from the West Coast. It's one thing to launch national security missions once every two months and take the hit to the environment for that, but it's another thing to launch once a week every week to put up some disposable internet satellites so a billionaire can make more billions.

It's only political if you think preserving the environment is political. But CA has been long-known to care about preserving the environment, so if the Coastal Commission has been able to make rulings based on environmental impact in the past then I don't know how this lawsuit will work out. If they had asked for something reasonable like going from 6 to 12 launches, I think the commission might have been more amenable or at least open to negotiating to something like 8 or 10 launches. 50 launches is ridiculous, though.

I'll file this under "Most Easily Predicted Outcome."

I read some sysadmin forums about Conversation View, and most of them say users regularly ask how to turn it off. I always turn it off immediately.