Also recommend Antifragile, also by Taleb - but I read that one last year.

Also read most "Memoirs of Service Afloat" by Admiral Raphael Semmes, but haven't finished it yet. Good stuff though.

... there have been many recent developments finding replacements for rare earth metals in solar panels and other technologies.

Besides that, there's this:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/12/japan-rare-earths-huge-deposit-of-metals-found-in-pacific.html

In the U.S., the medical cartel deliberately restricts the number of people who can become doctors in order to justify high salaries. They do this by restricting the number of students who can attend medical schools in the U.S., and by introducing a sort of hazing to reduce the number of people who want to become doctors. Some Americans avoid this by going to medical schools established by American doctors overseas precisely to deal with this problem, but the medical cartel takes other measures to make life difficult for these doctors. For instance, doctors educated in the United States are paid a modest salary during their residency, while American doctors educated to the same standards overseas are required to PAY a similar amount annually during their residency.

Of course the population has grown even as the supply of doctors has remained about the same, so we see two competing interests: one side wants to provide more doctors and reduce costs, so we import doctors from countries that already have too few (and these doctors are far more likely to cheat our healthcare system than locally born doctors), and introduce programs to let nurses do more work traditionally done by doctors, while at the same time we restrict the number of doctors educated in the United States and make it difficult for foreigners or even American doctors educated elsewhere to practice in the United States. We insist that only doctors can prescribe medication, although there are many, many countries that don't require doctor approval and do very well with that. One side wants to restrict the number of doctors to increase salaries, but as a side effect overworks doctors, while the other side insists on cutting costs and in doing so often increases them. The system is a complete mess, but it is very profitable - at the expense of the public. This monopoly can only exist because of government enforcement.

IIRC, negative returns start at about 55 hours - so no company in their right mind would regularly schedule workers for more than 55 hours per week if they want to maximize profit. Of course short term emergencies are an exception, and there are a few workaholics who are exceptions, especially in fields which require a rare level of proficiency. But employers ignore the basic facts at their own peril.

Episode VII: The Whills To Power

Episode VIII: Triumph of the Whills

Episode IX: The Last Whills and Testaments

One problem with straws is that they are so small that they are easier to miss when picking up trash, and small enough that even conscientious people seldom think twice about them - yet they make up a surprising amount of plastic pollution as a whole. Three or four percent, by some surveys.

More notably, they are an easy place to start. I'm particularly interested in straws creating a market for biodegradable plastic. Unlike some other products, straws will not have a serious problem from possibly degrading too soon. They would seldom need to last more than a few hours, and the biodegradable plastics that have been developed last at least a month. But biodegradable plastics need a market before they can be scaled up and perfected. Plastic straws could be that market.

Naturally, plastic lids for cups are another appealing target. They, too, seldom need to last for more than a few hours from deployment. They only need to last longer than the paper cups.

Of course those who litter are individually responsible for their actions.

However, it is virtually impossible to effectively enforce a law targeting those who carelessly discard straws.

On the other hand, this could be an ideal market for scaling up production of biodegradable plastics. Any problems with biodegradable plastics breaking down too soon isn't relevant, as straws wouldn't need to last more than a few hours. But to come into common use, biodegradable plastics need a reliable market. It could be straws.

Agreed. For such an easy-to-replace item, plastic straws make up a surprising amount of the plastic that becomes pollution. There are already plenty of solutions possible: waxed paper, biodegradable plastics, etc. One problem with a biodegradable plastic bottle is that it might biodegrade before you really want it to - but a biodegradable straw does not have this problem. It won't be needed for more than a few hours from the time it is deployed. Straws are a really easy place to start with an impact that is disproportionately large for the effort that is put into making the change.

Even if the CIA did frame him, legally it makes no difference. The charge is for possession. How one came into possession, or whether one is even aware of that possession, is irrelevant to the court.

The gift that keeps on giving ... power to government.

Nothing at all suspicious about charges that never need to be proven because the public is forbidden from seeing the evidence. Nothing at all suspicious about a crime where, if evidence were needed, it could easily be faked.

Move along, nothing to see here. Unless you want to go to jail, that is?

The author may or may not be right, but he gives no examples and names no names. His "article" is just an assertion that is repeated several times. It appears that standards have fallen at Slashdot.

The technical issues may be too complicated to work out, but a political fix would be to designate the facility its own 911 area, have all calls from the facility directed to an in-house "dispatcher" who will simply answer every call and, in the odd event that it is a real call for assistance, forward it to the city's 911 service.

Indeed - and the book makes clear that the franchise had been limited precisely because democracy in the hands of an electorate that had no skin in the game, that was willing for others to sacrifice but unwilling to make any sacrifices themselves, had ended in disaster. It was the veterans of the war voted on by people who paid no price themselves for their errors who established the rules after that war. All citizens in that world had the same rights except one: only those who had proven their willingness to serve were allowed to vote.

Quartz Media is shilling for the opthamologists. There's no other explanation for it. No wonder their website provides no contact data for themselves, no place to leave feedback, no way to comment.

Was the actual purpose to replace every transaction in the world, or to provide the foundation for a new system to replace the existing banks, and especially the SWIFT system for interbank transfers?