Back in the early 2000s I helped put funding into the first versions of HPCToolkit while working at a DOE defense lab. It's good to see that it has continued to develop as a useful collection of tools.

Don't perps who hold someone/something for ransome leave a ransom note or otherwise communicate with those they are demanding from? As written, this is very strange.

Back when I was a CS Department chair, an undergrad major wanted to teach CS at the secondary level---good for him, we thought. We contacted the Education Department to try to fashion a degree for him that made him employable by high schools and also qualified in CS as a minor (you have to know more than you teach to be successful). We thought this could be YA degree option, and the people could also learn about managing LANs by apprenticing with our staff. But there was no interest or flexibility in trying something new on the educationists' part no matter what we offered. The student gave up the idea, got a CS degree, and took a higher-paying job than a high school could have afforded. Frustrating.

Sorry, no. While I am retired, I have only a passing acquaintance with Windows. I began computing in 1964 using IBM machines of various sorts. My first workstation was a Sun3--woohoo! Adopted Linux (Slackware) on 60-some floppies downloaded one Saturday at work to run on a laptop. One of the groups I worked with built small Linux multiprocessors (1024 nodes) and fast Myrinet fat-tree interconnect that had some of the Linux kernel in ROM (LinuxBIOS) and could reboot, ready to run an application, in 3 seconds. Those guys started showing up at work with Apple laptops, and after a home burglary (sign from God) I moved off of Linux too. But my partner's brother is also retired, from an engineering career, and there is an opportunity for him to learn new stuff. I am asking in all seriousness.

We should use the term ground-source heat pumps for these shallow heat-exchange systems. My IA bro has one and it keeps his large home at 72F 24x7x52. They work great, but are a different animal than a power plant using deep geothermal steam or hot water.

Deep geothermal is certainly technologically feasible. Ironically, the techniques developed by oil and gas companies can be used to drill far down (5-7km), turn to go horizontal, frack the rock between boreholes, etc. Plenty of useful heat at much, much less than 20km. Drilling technology is not the issue. Funding to move this energy source into production is the issue, but things are looking up. Also, the notion that the vast mass of deep rock can be cooled by this is simply not true.

I have a paper written by a researcher at NREL and an MIT geologist that contains a map showing almost the entire US (not just the West) is a candidate for deep geothermal energy production. NREL had a flourishing R&D effort but GWB slashed that budget, and now they limp along. More recently geothermal energy plants in California have seen lots of dissolved lithium (and other elements) in the heated water that comes up from the earth. Like, 10X the annual US need for lithium. Companies are investing in developing ways to grab it efficiently. Even one of Warren Buffett's companies have invested there.

Didn't we already do that?

Miniaturize this to make a globe that I can afford to buy. Then the control computer can be programmed to display all manner of interesting global data graphically. Political entities, global weather, time-series trend videos about many things, etc. etc. etc, How cool would that be?

I was not referring to call centers, but to local establishments. Try "This is Jim's Emporium (or Mike's Auto Repair, etc.). My name is Dana. What can I do for you today?" I might buy something from your store, or schedule an appointment, since you have begun the transaction by treating me as a human being.

When I call a business, more often than not I get as a greeting, in total, "KenIHpYu" spoken in about 0.25 sec. I guess they want me to believe that they are so important and busy that I am to be honored that they bothered with my call at all. I respond much more slowly and we do business while they fume on the other end. Such fine customer service!

I am running an Air M2 (16GB, 0.5TB) in "clamshell mode" to be able to simply unplug it and travel. I have had to buy an external hub (OWC Thunderbolt Dock) to connect everything needed: monitor, Time Machine SSD, the OWC dock itself, occasional thumb drive (via adapter). Plus the renegade SuperDrive will only work if directly connected to an internal Apple port, so that requires unplugging something or reserving a port on the Air. OTOH, only the monitor and OWC hub need AC power directly. Apple really does not understand what its customers need.

Some things were not noted in the article: 1. The IRS $80B was re-funding after the previous administration cut its budget. 2. IRS needs to modernize its computer systems, this has nothing to do with private return preparers. 3. Turbotax had to be constrained from practices that disguised free government options already. 4. As a long-time user of TT, it has gotten less helpful year by year. I spend more time poring over completed returns to find the stuff it did wrong. 5. TT sometimes requires links to other Intuit components. In order to download Schedule D from Schwab I have to get an Intuit account. The Schwab info is already password-protected. There is no path for people who have lost their Intuit passwords; just make a new account when that happens.

Unless you're using an incredibly slow connection, most of the time spent loading a page is waiting for the server of that page and the internet nodes in between. Can't do anything about those.