I don't think we should expect to see steady progress toward a climate solution, I think it's going to happen quite suddenly after some combination of the technology to do it getting cheap enough and the climate producing enough "shit's getting real" moments for a large fraction of the first-world population. At that point either we'll get our asses in gear and set up oceanic and atmospheric carbon sequestration megastructures all over the planet with maybe a little SRM sprinkled on top, or we'll be too distracted or impoverished to do anything about it for some silly reason or another and all the disastrous predictions will come true because this is a problem we're collectively too stupid as a species to solve. That's a real possibility.

Also, the only realistic way to create a true "unintended acceleration" without pedal misapplication is something getting stuck in the pedal or the pedal getting stuck down, which is not actually a subtle thing (again, these things have happened, but they're dwarfed by how often people hit the wrong pedal). Just sensor readings alone don't cut it. As a general rule, pedals have multiple sensors reading the pedal position (typically 2-3). They have to agree with each other, or the target acceleration is set to zero. A sensor failure doesn't cut it. Also, Hall-effect sensors are highly reliable.

Oh, and there's one more "failure mechanism" which should be mentioned, which is: creep. Some EVs are set to creep or have creep modes, to mimic how an ICE vehicle creeps forward when one lifts their foot off the brakes. If someone forgets they have this on, it can lead to "unintended acceleration" reports. There have been cases where for example the driver gets in an accident, but not intense enough to trigger the accident sensors, and the car keeps "trying to drive" after the accident (aka, creep is engaged). People really should not engage creep mode, IMHO - the fact that ICEs creep forward is a bug, not a feature.

All the person in these "runaways" had to do was lift their foot off the accelerator. Or even leave their foot on the accelerator and just press the brakes, as the brakes can overpower the motor (think of how fast you accelerate when you slam on the pedal at highway speeds vs. how fast you slow down when you slam on the brakes).

Regulatory agencies the world over are constantly getting reports of "runaway unintended acceleration". Nearly every time they investigate, the person mixed up the pedal and the brake. When the car starts accelerating, in their panic they push said "brake" (actually the pedal) harder, and keep pushing it to the floor trying to stop the car. In their panic, people almost never reevaluate whether they're actually pushing the right pedal. It's particularly common among the elderly and the inebriated, and represents 16 thousand crashes per year in the US alone.

If your car starts accelerating when you're "braking", get out of your panic, lift your foot up, then make sure you *actually* put it on the brake, and you'll be fine.

This is the first time I've ever heard Eiríkr "The Red" (TH)orvaldsson referred to as "a shipping marketer" ;)

Not saying this is a good idea, but I don't think the gig worker would know if you're paying $6.99 or $2.99 for the delivery, which is what would tell them if you have more than $100k in assets.

In general data owned by app A is not readable/writable by app B. This is a pretty important security feature. There are ways for apps to choose to share data, but by default every app's data is private to that app.

I can see how that might inconvenience you, but I think it's Really Good Idea.

1) 1850-1900 is not "The Little Ice Age"
2) The Little Ice Age was not global, while you're talking about global climate reconstructions. The planet as a whole was not cold in the Little Ice Age.
3) You're talking about the basis of a particular climate target, not what the science is built on.
4) The mid 1800s is around when we started getting reasonably good regular quasi-global ground climate measurements, hence it's nice for establishing a target. That's why HADCRUT, which is based on historic measurements, starts in 1850. The first version of HADCRUT started in 1881 when the data was even better, but as more old data was recovered and digitized, it was extended to 1850. You can go further back, but you not only lose reading quality, but also are more confised to mainly regional records (Europe).
5) 1850-1900 was not a global cold period.

There's not some sort of conspiracy theory. The target is based on relative to when we have actual comparative data, and variations in modern preindustrial levels are a few tenths of a degree, not "several degrees" as per climate targets.

Nah, their previous plan already provided the bare minimum, since it didn't restrict sideloading of unverified apps via ADB. This is just an attempt to calm the complaints by offering an even easier sideloading option. Unfortunately, it will probably make the whole scheme pointless, since malware authors will just train users to click through the scary warnings.

This is sadly true. They're going to attempt to throw up a lot of warning dialogs to dissuade users, but we know from long experience that users will click through anything to get to cat videos.

This is actually not a change, really, since they were already going to leave sideloading via ADB open, so their plan already included an "advanced user option" which users could be trained to do. This new thing must presumably be easier than ADB. My guess is that it will feature more scary warnings than enabling ADB, but will allow sideloading without using a USB cable to connect to another computer so that on balance it will be approximately as hard.

During another discussion of this I posted a story that an Android OEM related to me when I worked on Android security, when they asked me when we were going to "close the USB vulnerability", i.e. disable ADB.

When they say "pre-industrial levels", when do you think they mean? The 19th century (even though the industrial revolution was well underway), usually 1890 specifically.

What year is used depends entirely on the study. Some start at the advent of satellite measurements, some at the advent of modern ground-based measurements, some with the era of semi-reliable ground-based measurements, some incorporate further back with more fragmentary measurements, and others use proxies - some recent proxies from 200, 300, 400 etc years ago, others thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds, millions of years ago or more. There is no single timeframe that is examined. Numerous studies evaluate each different source, and the different proxies are commonly plotted out relative to each other.

How so? The developer verification does not require compliance with any of the Play store policies or anything at all other than the rule "don't distribute malware", since distributing malware would result in the developer account (and signing certificate) being revoked, which is the point of the whole thing, to enable Google to shut down malware authors. Or at least to slow them down, since they'd have to register for a new account, with a different government ID.

This does leave determination of "what is malware" up to Google, but they've been doing that for a long time and I've yet to see any case where people disagreed with their assessment. Note that I'm talking about designation of malware, not about removal from the Play store. Identified malware is removed from the Play store, but there are lots of other policy violations that can trigger Play store removal.

This is not correct. Per the information on Google's developer console sideloading of unverified apps via ADB was not going to be disallowed:

Q: If I want to modify an app and install it on my own device, or if I'm a power user, is there a way to turn this verification requirement off?

A: We understand that's an important use case for many developers and power users. While the verification requirement itself is a core OS feature to help protect the broader ecosystem from malware and can't be turned off, developers and power users can still use Android Debug Bridge (ADB) to continue to build, test, and install modified or unverified apps on their own devices.

(Emphasis mine)

This information has been up since shortly after the announcement.

The quantities of water and salt involved are not on human scales.

It's hard to overstate how bad it would be. Iceland doesn't just get glaciated in ice ages, it gets catastrophically glaciated. As in "mass kills almost all of our plant species". That's why there's currently no native conifers even though there used to be, for example - virtually the whole island ends up under an extremely thick sheet of ice.

Of course, a shorter localized ice age, in an otherwise warming world, isn't as bad as a Milankovitch Cycle ice age. But it'd be pretty awful for us. Right now, we're benefiting from a warming world (though losing our glaciers and regularly getting annoying new insect species which previously couldn't survive here :P). Our growing reason is so short, and the difference between our winter and summer temperatures so small, that even a small amount of warming drastically lengthens our growing season, and makes a vast difference to how well things can grow in it.

Palm trees kinda grow in Iceland ;) I had a windmill palm (in an area with geothermal-heated soil) last for like 4 years, though it slowly declined each winter. You can keep them alive by covering them with Christmas lights and then a blanket.