Nothing about producing nuclear weapons, let alone miniaturized thermo-nuclear devices optimized to get the most efficient reaction during detonation is cheap. And the knowledge wasn’t necessarily lost, that is impossible to determine since we’re dealing with highly classified secrets regarding the construction of a nuclear weapon.

It’s possible that while making fogbank they merely got a contaminated batch of boron. Let’s say, for example, you find your grandma’s recipe for apple pie. But when your mother tastes it she says it’s a little off. You then eventually realize that you used apples that weren’t ripe yet, or that grandma used apples that were beginning to get soft. Thats not really the same as “lost knowledge” it’s more an experience gap.

Clickbait always makes these things sound like we’ve lost this information and now we’re screwed because it can never be relearned and no one knows anything oh no doom and gloom. Truth is lots of knowledge, through-out history, has been “lost” and then “rediscovered” primarily because this info becomes less valued/important and eventually someone needs it again so they rediscover it. Happened alot with mathematical theories and concepts, like calculus.

No one wants to lose knowledge but no one wants to pay to keep it alive the proper way (master/apprentice system that ensures these tricks of the trade are continually passed on) so we favor a system where specialized experts (scientists) are called in to solve these issues and rediscover the tricks of the trade using the scientific process. Either way you pay for the knowledge but we wanted to save money and shutter a bunch of cold-war era defense companies when the cold-war ended. The consequences of that are when you want to resume making nuclear weapons of the quality America demands you have to hire those scientists to figure out all the pesky details like fogbank.

There are no rules!

That isn’t great when it cuts both ways. I’ll stick with fixed pricing and enforceable tenant protection laws. Rules are there for a reason.

Cool. Glad I’m on an opinion forum and not a member of a legislative body that makes laws that apply to everyone.

No, corporate owns most of the stores property then leases that to franchise owners. If one wanted to liquidate some of the property they owned and downsize operations they’d have to kick out the franchise owners first.

They’re conducting on-going research into aircraft designs that can go supersonic without producing a sonic boom (the thing that made supersonic jets impractical for cross-country flights along with the insane about of fuel they burn) so I’d guess they need a reliable supersonic jet to test against.

NASA probably has lots of data on the SR71 so it makes sense to use that to test new concepts on.

And now they’re finding out the factory that provided the titanium or polycarbonate whatever got moved to Beijing in 2004.

Not really. The USA still leads the way in manufacturing high end aerospace stuff and machining titanium.

The reason the SR71 production line closed down was cause the government contract for them ended decades ago. Give the aerospace companies a new billion dollar contract and they’ll crank out as many SR71’s as you want. We do that with the 6th generation jets and they’ve done a pretty good job of fulfilling those orders.

China is leader of the consumer grade manufacturing sector, no question of that, and I would say they’re catching up. But the USA still has a sizable manufacturing base and whats left are niches like aerospace and medical.

As cool as they are this is the truth. Once spy satellites began transmitting digital images (the first few used film and dropped capsules back to earth to be developed) the SR71 began obsolete and too risky to fly.

Now we have satellites that are constantly observing the “hot spots” around the planet which is safer than having pilots fly across enemy airspace.

My guess is NASA is using these to test supersonic attributes since they have tons of data on the SR71 and NASA is currently developing supersonic planes that don’t create sonic booms.

Yes, we can build such stuff these days. There is no shortage of engineers in the USA, there is a shortage of employers willing to pay well.

There is no shortage of experienced machinist, in fact we have far more advanced manufacturing capabilities than we did in the 1950’s. We just have a smaller industrial footprint than we did in the 1950’s but there are plenty of companies that can machine titanium (in fact there are more machinist nowadays that know how to machine titanium because its more common than it was in the 1950’s.)

The shortage is in investors willing to invest in talented labor and the tooling to make the aircraft. The idea that we “lost” these skills is a general misunderstanding of how things work and reddit-tier click-bait “i’m smart” type headlines.

Yes, we can build a lunar lander even thought all the guys who built the original are dead. It would be a better lander than the originals. Yes, we can build rocket engines as good or better than the F1’s on the Saturn V. In fact SpaceX developed engine technology that far surpasses the F1’s for their boosters and just because they didn’t make 5 gigantic ones (opting for 33 smaller units) doesn’t mean they aren’t a better platform. The Saturn V couldn’t land it’s booster to be reused later on.

Yeah but what everyone forgets is that knowledge can be relearned if you do it right.

And the issue of Fogbank was eventually solved by having modern day scientist study the problem (it was something like contamination of boron being used to make the fogbank material.)

The SR71 could be manufactured today if we wanted to. It wasn’t built with some magical spells that are forever lost to history. There are more people alive now that know how to machine titanium than there were when they built them originally. Its just a matter of investment in the labor and tooling to make them again, which probably isn’t worth it which is why they’ll keep flying the remaining planes.

One of the worse internet “I’m smart” thoughts is that “we’ve lost the ability to make insert outdated item because all that talent is dead.” Ok, so retrain new talent like every generation has to do anyways and maybe next time don’t pinch pennies and shutdown the factory with all these gods of manufacturing, instead bring in apprentices and have them learn from these masters.

But what about the profit margins and the shareholders?!?!? PE firms can’t milk successful companies to death for $$$$ if they actually invest in talent.

Having different prices for different meals isn’t dynamic pricing. We have menu’s because some food is more expensive than others. 2 eggs and some hash browns costs less then a hamburger with full dressings, fries and a soft drink.

Dynamic pricing is a form of prejudice that relies on a few additional data points but at its heart is no different than “hey this guy is skin color and is wearing clothing type so he must be loaded I’m going to tack on another $4 to his order!”

Now if that example above seems fine with you, change out the skin color and clothing type to something stereotypically negative and then tell me it’s not prejudice for someone to base a business transaction on those attributes (which the Supreme Court has in the past ruled is illegal to do.)

I don’t like vendors who think they can take advantage of me for a few extra bucks because of what they see (isn’t that a form of prejudice?)

Same with haggles at flea markets or garage sales. If you don’t label your prices I’m immediately not interested. I’m a demographic that looks “put together” and thus “wealthy” when in reality I’m basically broke and would file for bankruptcy if it’d clear my debt.

So when I come across a haggler (usually an old guy or a foreigner from a country that has a culture of haggling) I tend to avoid them because I don’t enjoy that process. Thats why America came up with price tags and fixed pricing for stuff. Way less hassle. Only idiots really savor the process of haggling. It sucks.

You can make just about everything at home and it’ll be better quality. The only thing thats really hard to replicate are the fries, which are one of the best things at McDonalds when they’re fresh. Even if you have a deep fryer at home (unlikely) they go through multiple processes that give them their unique taste and texture.

But burgers are easy to make, the trick is roll a 2 oz patty of ground chuck as thinly as you can. 2mm thick is ideal cause it’ll thicken up and shrink in diameter a little as it cooks. Salt and pepper are the only seasonings used.

Dehydrated chopped onions are easy to find and they can be made in seconds at home by rehydrating them. Bam. You got a double cheeseburger. A Big Mac uses their special sauce and some rotten shredded lettuce. The sauce recipes are all online and I even think companies make clone sauces now you can buy at the store. I know Arby’s sells their sauces at the store now.

I haven’t tried it but I’ve been told Walmart sells the same frozen hashbrowns McDonalds uses. Way cheaper than way and you just toast them quick right out of the freezer.

Fuck McDonalds. They’ve become something to actively avoid and if you like something there do some research cause someone online has figured out how to make it at home.

More reasons to not eat McDonalds. It sure seems like they are trying to shift from being a hamburger chain into full real estate company and are trying to sabotage their weaker franchises so they can cash out the properities PE style.

Taking the name from a book doesn’t make it tongue in cheek.

It’s super fucking cringe to me and I don’t even like The Lord Of The Rings so it isn’t because I’m a fan.

Tech CEO’s love to co-op beloved scifi/fantasy properties to market their insane ideas. Jeff Bezos once said he wanted to make life like Star Trek where you could talk to the computer. He didn’t mean he wanted to build a tech utopia where everyone was treated fairly, he meant he wanted the computer to be constantly spying on you, listening to every word you say and always aware of where you were and what you were doing.

When they outsource your tech job or bring in a cheap international hire to suppress your wage they’ll say stuff like, “I just hate to think of all the Mozarts and Einsteins going to waste in insert country being exploited for cheap labor and this is how I’m helping solve that.” Except Mozart and Einstein were the direct result of a life-long process of intensive education that began in early childhood. But you don’t see these billionaires dumping money into our school systems so kids can have a better teacher:student ratio and thus become these Mozarts and Einsteins.

It’s all marketing.

Yeah it wasn’t AI. It was the head of Google Ads (who got promoted to head of Google Search) that changed the search results so they were less accurate so users would spend more time on the results page and thus look at ads longer.

The Man Who Killed Google Search

But they do allow bestiality now.

Meta glasses without camera

So just normal glasses?

All the real hipsters use amplitude modulation. Posers use frequency modulation.

Heres hoping the federal government goes down with it so we can forget about all those pesky student loans.