Yep. Ghosts in Machines are real.

I have witnessed it first hand multiple times.

At university there was an old 1st gen Makerbot 3D printer and if you took away one of it's prints that were displayed around it, all of your prints would fail, even if you replaced it the printer held a grudge. And never EVER say a 100% certainty statement that the print would succeed like "it is printing ok, it will be finished in an hour". Only say things like "the print is doing ok so far".

The electronics lab was throwing out five old Cathode Ray Oscilloscopes so our little maker group took them in and two were working fine. The other three weren't displaying the trace on the screen. One of our members, a chap from Romania who in his youth spent his time fixing old TVs in his home country, said to let him have a look. I swear down he plugged them in, leant his ear against it, said to the scopes "shh it's ok, we'll look after you", and gave them gentle taps on top just behind the screen, and all three jumped back into life in perfect calibration.

And finally, my girlfriend at the time had a 1st gen iPod that would, at the most inopportune moments randomly wake itself up, play a few seconds of a random song, then shut itself down.

They're betting that they can sell before that happens and someone else is left holding the bag: pension funds and 401k.

I hope you bought your guns, beans, and gasoline.

As is tradition dating back to cave paintings.

In like 5 to 10 years there'll be veterans getting horrific flashbacks when the delivery drone comes by to drop off their pizza and / or Amazon package.

I've got bad news for you bud about what was originally placed on those Russian rockets before Sputnik, Lyka, and Gagarin.

In principle, under a First Past The Post system you can get vote splitting parties and those votes for those representatives should still be counted because if they got more votes than last time and are on an upward trajectory then those candidates can measure how well they're resonating with their voters.

But with the USA's FPTP and electoral college system, I'd agree with you, there's zero point in counting those votes before declaring the winner because ultimately the electoral college comes down to red or blue which is the only thing that matters in US politics.

This is a shame because a private continent like the US could be the greatest tapestry of all flavours of political candidates and ideologies with debate and compromise if it wasn't for:

1. The electoral college and FPTP making it into a two party system.

2. The hugely biased news media which has no obligation to report factually and fair.

3. That both sides (with the Republicans being the one that is objectively worse because of their abhorrent behaviour that's somehow only gotten worse of late) vying for that insider trading perk and getting to control the worlds largest military and therefore dictate history.

Get out of here Moffat! Go on, shoo!

I'm glad for you but please remember that progress is not inevitable it is fought for to attain and needs to be fought for it to be kept.

Some guy working for Royal Armoury taking a stroll through the woods in 1941:

"Hmm that's a nice stick."

Picks it up, grips the "handle"

💡

"By Jove! I must call SOE!"

My new recipe book:

A Taste of Fire and Ice.

Just don't expect the sequel to be released anytime soon.

He's a world-class air-dicker.