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Comment Re:Hey, Google... (Score 1) 98

How about you train-up some American talent?

If just anyone could be trained up, that might make sense, but there's a big element of native talent and intelligence needed, and the US only has about 4% of the world's population. It makes a lot of business sense to look into the other 96% to see what you can find there. And its the moral thing to do, too. Kids in the US are already massively advantaged by their lucky break of being born here. Why not give others a chance?

Go to high schools, like the car makers used to, pick the most talented / gifted / hardworking students, and see if you can make something of them?

Google actually does that except they start a little bit later, with college freshmen and sophomores.

Comment Re:Because they want wage slaves (Score 1) 98

Why hire American when you can bring someone to America, pay them minimum wage, claim they're tipped to bring that down even further, and if they complain, fire them and let the State Department deport 'em?

Google pays its H1-B workers the same as US citizens, or green card holders, etc. There's no cost savings to be had there.

Comment Re:Fuck it. Buy American or fuck off. (Score 1) 98

Yea, well, that band of fanatics are ... fanatical. You, poasting on the interwebs, aren't going to dislodge them. They've got their vision for this world and you're not in it. And I mean right now, not some terrible future. You don't matter. Your preferences, your ideas, your votes. None of it.

Comment Re:Fuck it. Buy American or fuck off. (Score 1) 98

You're free to tell our leaders to pound whatever you think is best. Google, on the other hand, sets up our leaders kids in nice, cushy non-profit no-show jobs at $250K/year. Guess how our leaders are going to vote?

It's done. The fix is in and you lost. Accept it. Adapt to it. That's the only rational plan left to you. The rest is some form of self delusion.

Comment Re:Fuck it. Buy American or fuck off. (Score 1) 98

And why do you think our youth is like this?

I know exactly why they're like this. Knowing that, and even knowing Google contributes the the problem, doesn't solve the problem Google has, however. When they aren't trying to take over HQ they're proudly indulging their bathroom confusion and creating other problems. So obviously Google wants a pipeline of workers from Asia that aren't all fucked up in the head.

Comment Re:Meanwhile (Score 1) 107

Bullshit. And I'm betting the "lulls" keep happening right at peaker plant max profit point. Probably scheduling windmill maintenance right for max profitability.

Wait, what?

If the operator of the windmills and the peaker plants are competitors, why would the windmill operator give up revenue to benefit the peaker plants?

If they're not competitors (e.g. in the same company), shutting down cheap power generation in favor of more expensive power generation would decrease profit, not maximize it.

I can't think of any reasonable structure in which your theory could work. What am I missing?

Comment Re:China (Score 2) 31

Is this due to the recent reports of China all in on RISC-V?

It's because RISC-V is currently fragmented. Not the base ISA, but the base ISA isn't enough to build a device, and there are a lot of divergent extensions.

That wasn't a problem when RISC-V was only theoretical, but now that companies are working towards actual devices, having the "common" RISC-V support in the Android Common Kernel was a hindrance, not a help. The expectation is that over the course of a few years the RISC-V Android ecosystem will coalesce and settle on a common set of extensions to the ISA and it will then be possible to standardize the RISC-V support in ACK. Until then, it's better if ACK doesn't have any RISC-V support so chip vendors and OEMs can straightforwardly patch in what they need.

I should mention that although I'm an Android engineer, I don't have any significant contact with RISC-V work. The above is my interpretation of the public comments, in light of what I do know about the state of RISC-V and the way the Android ecosystem is structured and works.

Comment Re:China (Score 3, Interesting) 31

Is this due to the recent reports of China all in on RISC-V?

It's because RISC-V is currently fragmented. Not the base ISA, but the base ISA isn't enough to build a device, and there are a lot of divergent extensions.

That wasn't a problem when RISC-V was only theoretical, but now that companies are working towards actual devices, having the "common" RISC-V support in the Android Common Kernel was a hindrance, not a help. The expectation is that over the course of a few years the RISC-V Android ecosystem will coalesce and settle on a common set of extensions to the ISA and it will then be possible to standardize the RISC-V support in ACK. Until then, it's better if ACK doesn't have any RISC-V support so chip vendors and OEMs can straightforwardly patch in what they need.

Comment Re:China (Score 1) 31

So that China can't easily deploy Andoid clones on RISC-V if the US decides for a ban on Android software and ARM licences.

That doesn't make sense.

Android devices in China are not Google Play devices (can't be, really, thanks to the Great Firewall), so the device makers are not obligated to use the Android Common Kernel -- or anything else. They're free to take the open source and build whatever they like. Removing RISC-V support from ACK does exactly nothing to hinder their ability to build and deploy RISC-V devices. If they want to stick with Google's kernel for whatever reason, they can simply reapply the patches that were removed. If they want something else, they can do that.

Comment Re:was pretty pleased until the 29th day... (Score 1) 57

Back a few years I was wondering why Mint, being glorified Ubuntu, ran so much better than Ubuntu. Turns out Mint was running (by actual count) 1/4th as many processes. Gee, I wonder how that could impact performance...

I didn't much like Devuan until they borrowed the PCLOS desktop and general way of doing things... now it's a lot slicker.

Comment Re:Why would any coal plant invest in carbon captu (Score 1) 147

We could see alternatives developed that come in at lower cost than coal. Isn't that the claim often repeated by solar PV advocates? That coal is dead because solar PV is cheaper?

Yeah, it probably will go that way, but it'll take longer than it should because PV is operating at a significant disadvantage due to coal plants free-riding on the environment. In the language of economists, pollution -- including CO2 -- is an externaity, a cost that is borne by a third party not part of the economic transaction. In this case, the parties in the transaction are the power plant operator and whoever buys their power, and the external third party is everyone else who has to cover the healthcare and climate impact costs of that transaction.

The EPA can't do it, but we really should implement a carbon tax to "internalize" (again, the economic term) the CO2 emission externality, so that whoever is emitting the CO2 has to include that cost in their operations, and of course pass it on to whoever buys it. With a carbon tax, the estimated future cost of climate change would be priced into every carbon-emitting process, creating a level playing field against carbon-reduced or carbon-free processes.

Without that, coal has an enormous built-in advantage. I expect that renewables will eventually win anyway, but it's going to take longer and create greater climate-change impact than necessary.

Ideally, we should also internalize other externalities, such as particulate pollution which increases healthcare costs. Make sure everyone is paying the full and accurate cost of their actions, then let the market optimize the outcome. But, one thing at a time.

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