Industrialization has always been about increasing productivity per man hour. Less labor, more output. But that's tricky if you have trucks delivering packages to individual houses. And we're not quite to the point where we can have automated delivery trucks, but clearly that's the dream for Amazon. So how do we work less hours while still delivering the same number of packages? Bezos hasn't solved the problem yet.

While I am fine with it, it will cut into profits. Because productivity is unlikely to increase in a scenario where we preemptively reduce labor. It's optimistic that think that productivity will even remain at current levels if we reduce the time worked, at lease in some sectors.

Technology and more importantly, infrastructure investment in the 50's and 60's.

Not a lot of competition. Globalization hadn't quite taken hold yet. And when we were competing in international markets, we were competing with industrialized nations with a similar standard of living. And everyone was stacking lots of tariffs on top, for political and economic reasons. Not a lot of countries were into free trade agreements back then. Europe was still working out the details of the European Economic Community, and the Euro as a currency was only a dream and currency exchange was a big deal in everyday life.

We had a quite a few bankruptcies in the 80's. But I think it was external factor's like Texaco's funding of a Colombian assassination squad, rather than strictly a productivity problem. I don't think cutting productivity immediately leads to bankruptcy.

100% of the pay, 80% of the hours, and 100% of the productivity level.

I guess drivers will have to travel faster to go the same number of miles in 80% of the time.

Either way, sounds like the kind of place where people are smoking weed behind the loading dock.

Trees decompose and release CO2 and methane, which percolates up through the dirt.

Really what you want to do is truck some dense carbon material down into an old gypsum mine or any other deep geological formation that is sealed off from air and water. If that sounds more complicated and more expensive than digging any old hole several meters deep, well now you know why we haven't cheaply solved the problem.

exciting. Can we pay them with stablecoin backed cryptocurrency?

I think they sell "tugger" bots on Aliexpress. With washable silicone inserts.

The chemical composition of coal and charcoal are significantly different. If you've ever heated your home with both, as used to be common in the UK, you'd note that it takes way less coal to do the job. Coal is just a whole lot denser than charcoal, which is mostly a porous matrix of amorphous carbon.
You can cook coal into coke, which is more like charcoal than it is like coal. In practice they burn a bit differently, as a coke fire can go out on you if you aren't constantly feeding it air. But charcoal burns very quickly because it's lighter by volume. It throws sparks everywhere and sometimes still contains a significant amount of moisture which can be problematic in certain applications.

I'm not sure about that. The terms of service and agreement has repeated phrases and weird licensing terms on top of CC-SA-By. I'm concerned that company attorneys could weasel out of the usual obligations in a typical copyright licencing agreement by arguing that the terms of service is the real agreement.

For example:

Now when You or I post on StackOverflow, I think our intent is that we expect this to work like any other ShareAlike /w attribution by license. And that we'll receive attribution, as clearly stated in the license. Our expectations of the agreement count for something. But man, I don't have the time or money to argue any of this with attorneys if things don't go my way.

Subscriber content is CC-BY-SA and licensed to StackOverflow. It is specifically not revokable. So you can't actually delete your post and expect SO to honor that. They say multiplw times that the license is perpetual and nonrevokable, I don't know what happens if SO violates the terms of your license. I assume nothing.

When the demand for training AI with racist ASCII art comes, the archives of Slashdot will be waiting.

Can't have car accidents if my car is in the shop. Smart!

All you need is an environment that lacks microorganisms that can break down ligind. Let a bunch of trees pile up in the forest without breaking down then after millions of years you have yourself a coal seam.
Unfortunately I don't see trees piling up meters thick, modern microorganisms break them down and release CO2 and methane. I suspect there will never be more coal made on Earth.

I think it's time to pump the breaks on yoyr digital purchase habits. These content owners are not terribly reliable when it comes to honoring your game collection. I learned that with the Wii store and went back to bidding on original cartridges instead of Nintendos virtual console scam.

I think you're right. And I think the whole thing is a bit nuts. And I'm pretty sure I'd I am driving a car around with a camera to refresh my company database that it is not hard for software to correctly read most of the signage, and flag ones that are difficult for a human to decipher.

It's a gray area. Probably would fly in the right court, and maybe in SCOTUS if they would hear it (they won't). But major commercial copyright holders are a huge pain in the ass and it's best not to give them any excuse.

For what's it's worth I have authorize a copy being made for me. I had a book printed from a PDF I purchased. And printer didn't have a problem with it when I gave them proof that I had the authority to make copies (this particular book's license). And to them it seemed like a normal way thing to do. I admit this example isn't a legal argument, but courts seem to get confused when dealing with less familiar mediums like MP3s or DRM'd software.

P.S. when you use an AI speech system you aren't running it locally. You send your data off to a data center.

The food pyramid makes sense if you are a child laborer working on a farm from dawn to dusk. Us modern humans don't need quite so many calories to stay alive.

Peas (as porridge from pea flour) and turnips were popular during medieval times in most of Europe. But the stable was bread. People ate bread as often as one could afford. Made from wheat, barley, rye, and/or oats. But drinking the barley was preferable because it didn't make the best bread.

Humans and early hominids seem geared for eating fish rather than red meat. We thrive on the Omega-3 fatty acid and the balance of essential amino acids is just about ideal in most of the fish we eat.

But we're adaptable. We can eat just about anything, and if there is enough variety we can sustain a civilization for generations. But I suspect vegetarianism was not common or practical before we domesticated Murrah Buffalo for milk. Or before humans evolved adult retention of the lactase enzyme needed to digest lactose. Although potentially we could have started off with lower lactose milks like goat milk before moving onto water buffalo. But wow, the production from buffalo is so much greater, even though goats are way easier to manage.

That said. My ancestors ate different things than I do today. They also didn't have white skin and were lactose intolerant, if you go back far enough. It's one thing to have some historical perspective. But it's another to slavishly follow the diets of our ancestors. Especially when we don't necessarily have the full picture of what paleolithic people ate or what their health was like.

I read that they have a car that runs on water now. But big oil won't let you have it. When I get one, I'm going to install those lightbulbs that never go out.

This is all somewhat plausible and scientific when compared to breatharianism.