Because if you just buy Apple computers the problem magically gets solved? Aren't Macs produced in China? What about other companies (HP, Dell, etc.)? Which of them still produce the entire laptop (motherboard, RAM, SSD/HDD, etc.) in the US?

I didn't know that, thank you for the information. However, my point was not to say the Gates Foundation was equal to the Nobel foundation, just pointing out that investing the money is part of what they do. If the Gates foundation ends in 2080, I hope they invest their money rationally until the end in order to maximize the return it gives to society. Just because it's set to end in 5 years shouldn't mean let's stop investing and throw parties until we run out of cash.

Except that being next to equator does not guarantee "near perfect weather". Plenty of friends from places close to equator just say "back home we carried an umbrella every day even if it only rained once a week, because when it did it was pouring really hard.

And to further counter your example, the more artistic oriented among those friends, even after years of being in a place with significant seasonal changes really appreciate contrast of green summer bursting with activity and people vs the white winter of cold and quiet. Different people for different things, I guess.

Yes, the Gates Foundation should just use all its money this year and close shop by next year. That will do much better for humanity!

Guess what, wealth investing has to be a big part of any decent foundation's work. The Nobel Foundation has been around for 113 years and the way they did that was by investing the money they got in the first place. Otherwise it would have ran out a long time ago.

Replying to myself... always nice! At least it's for a clarification about the state of the world when it comes to iPhones.

I knew, unlike what my previous comment indicates, the differences in the size of the screen. But, quite frankly, they seem minute enough that I can't distinguish them unless they are next to each other. Individually, I can't spot the screen differences (once again, I haven't had enough time with either to figure that out).

Not the AC that wrote the text, but I want to contribute anyway. I'm by no means an ignorant when it comes to phones and stuff, but I'm not following the checking all the pics and following all the news on new phones. I guess I would call myself average on this field.

With that said until you described the differences (which I may now use to recognize it), the only way I knew to distinguish both was based on the connector. Small on the 5, big on everything else.

That's like saying there's a good reason McDonald's exists... we really needed crappy burgers and nature wasn't giving us any

The only reason multivitamins exists is because some people saw a market there and started selling them. Whether helped by a crazy chemist or not. It doesn't mean we need them. Hell, we've been in this planet for long and we never had the need for added doses of vitamins. What's with the 20th century, apart from crap food, that suddenly makes us need more vitamins? And if the problem is the crap food then clearly we don't need extra-vitamins per se, we need to revisit our dietary choices.

As a native from a non-English speaking European country, I wonder what's the "problem" with the long scale. Certainly here no one sees it as archaic.

I haven't had the time to read the text you post, I'll try to do it later on tonight. So, this may be a bit off, I'm posting this based on your tl;dr.

W. L. Gore and Associates (the company responsible for Gore-Tex) can be used as a counter-example to what you/Jo say. There are no bosses (everyone is an associate) and people work in small teams. No one bites others in the ass. And the company, while not the biggest in the world or whatever, works fine and people in it seem to be happy.

One key element seems to be the size of each of its campuses. They limit them to 150 people. More than that and what you mention starts happening. A de facto hierarchy arises and bickering ensues. But below these numbers (and this seems to be corroborated by other sources) people work as in a small community/village and peer pressure keeps everyone working nicely. Above 150 people clustering of people occurs and, while peer pressure still occurs within these groups, the problems still occur in between groups.

So, perhaps flat structures do happen, but only in small groups because "friends" take care of their friends, but employees don't necessarily take care of other employees (especially when the employee he's supposed to take care of is his nasty boss).

What does removing advertising and including privacy features have to do with "search quality"?

With all due respect, I am a system administrator (doesn't matter what kind for the subject at hand) and you should see the kind of things people expect me to do. People have no idea what my job is, they just know I'm good with computers. And they know the have problems with their computer. Which that just makes us a perfect fit for each other...

But the sysadmin's time is limited. He also only works XX hours a week. And his day also only has 24 hours. If everyone sees themselves in the right to write to the sysadmin because Firefox is slow, because the password isn't working anymore, because... then the real problems can't get fixed (e.g. a screwed up backup policy left by the previous sysadmin, or a failing front end machine who needs to be transferred to new hardware).

Sure, the user doesn't know why Word isn't working, and he thinks he can just write that guy we met last Christmas party. Turns out, that guy is the Linux guy at the company and he doesn't know either, nor does he care. Now he has to forward that email to the helpdesk himself! If the Help Desk is properly implemented, then going through it is the easiest way for the regular user. Not only it gets him to the right person, but when it does, the right person may already have all the information he needs (because the first level guy asked for a snapshot of the error Word gives).

Indeed, sysadmins are just a cog in the machine. But so is the secretary of the assistant director of whatever. And by screwing up everything, you can't let those cogs perform at their best. You also expect the secretary will tell her boss "You have a meeting at 2 pm with person X in building Y" and not just "you have a meeting today" and wait for his questions "when? where? with whom?" (or the same in reverse when he asks her to put something in the agenda)

Hydrogen behaves in odd ways and it's hard to place it in a specific place that fits all "needs". In some ways hydrogen behaves like halogens. Among other reasons because it can only establish one bond, like other halogens (since it's highest occupied orbital [which, coincidentally, is the only one] is missing one electron). Of course, since it's highest occupied orbital only has one electron, it fits nicely in the first column of the periodic table, where all elements have only one electron in their highest occupied s orbital. But all the elements on column 1 are metals and they readily react with water, which the hydrogen molecule doesn't. So, from that perspective H cannot be an element of group 1.

I didn't read the article because I had seen it earlier in another news source, so I don't if this is mentioned in the one mentioned here, but proofreading may not do it in this case. The source I read mentioned two specific types of change that do not introduce any typos (I'm choosing the exampled myself):
- One of them was reordering of nouns when the order does not matter, e.g. "Peter and John went for lunch" vs "John and Peter went for lunch";
- The other was playing with negatives: e.g. "something is unclear" vs "something is not clear"

Since there are no actual typos, it's hard to spot the identifying bits. You'd have to change the text substantially, in order to have a good chance of being free from discovery. Adding your own typos may not serve any purpose, since the company selling can focus just on the changes they made, not looking for other changes introduced after.

Of course, if there is a concerted effort to release documents, all pirates would need to do would be buying a few copies and diffing the documents. You may not get the original back, but if the changes are randomly put in a specific set of words, you certainly can end up with something close to the original than any of the sold copies and still free from pirate identification.

And which other country, willing to invest dozens of billions of dollars, do you see coming in to finance a third canal? China wants to invest a ton of money making a new canal and it chose Nicaragua to do it (let's not even assume it was the other way around). Where's the market for a third one?