I would be so utterly disappointed and surprised if Napster had somehow grown up into a stable, solvent, law-abiding corporation.

Agreed, but people were allowed to indicate multiple sites (the sum is way over 100%) so you can just ignore the questionable ones without changing the rankings among the more social websites.

The fall of erstwhile-twitter is quite stunning.

Come on, corporations don't have the authority to decide arbitrarily where to site a nuclear plant, and I bet you know it.

They'll be all over that. Water tables, for one, only go so deep. Even for oil drilling they are pretty successful at avoiding ground water contamination and the site selection for this will be much, much more restrictive.

The only way would be if there were a true breakthrough in tunneling costs (which from what I can tell the Boring Company did not achieve.)

I dunno, I guess we can argue which possibility is more microscopically feasible than the others - a political surge of collectivism enabling eminent domain on a national scale, or devoting housing-boom scale resources to acquire and redevelop land on the surface, or a magical tunneling machine.

Pretty sure the answer is and will remain "put wings on each railroad car and make it fly over all the congestion." It does convert an awful lot of jet fuel into CO2 though.

I'm sure you're being sarcastic, but I'm not sure why.

I really don't think all these datacenters will ever be built. There are always more plans and announcements than what comes to fruition. The only way so many datacenters will be needed (i.e. economically viable) is if AI is so revolutionary to the economy that it would affect our power consumption in very unpredictable ways, likely offsetting a lot of activity in meatspace.

This aspect is troubling to me too. You know they keep making changes because "studies show..." Yet so much of the time, what studies show does not pan out IRL. I am (was) a researcher (in a technical field), I am not anti-intellectual. I want there to be an evidence-based argument for designing programs that work better than before. Yet it seems like it is not working.

I feel the same about discipline (or rather the lack thereof) in the classroom, "studies show" being coerced is bad for them, but now one problem kid that can't be controlled or moved out of the general population classroom is destroying it for 24 others in that class. There are certain kids who don't respond to instruction, and once they realize nobody can actually do anything to stop them (and I mean that literally, even while they are physically assaulting other students) it's all over.

Ha. I can't access the article to be sure, but I think they mean making the user feel like the computer is incompetent, not making the computer feel bad about its performance like Marvin the Paranoid Android.

The last great recession was due to precisely this sort of spending pattern plus a collapse in payment. Banks may be healthy, for now, but they can't keep lending forever with no recover. This is not a good sign.

As the other poster says, the reason for the shortage is because successive British governments have cut funding in the NHS in real terms, and are now flailing around as those cuts have really started to bite.

And every time the doctors or nurses strike to make a point, they get gaslit because "think of the patients".

Healthcare systems run on two things - staff, and good will.

The government has reduced the staff well below minimum, and burned up all the good will, so now theres nothing left. Fewer doctors are coming into the NHS through British training schemes because those are capped and indeed some have been reduced recently, and more doctors are retiring early or leaving the country.

And thats not counting the doctors who were forced to retire early because of the Tory governments cap on lifetime pension contributions - when the government dictates how much you pay into your pension, and also dictate that above a certain threshold of lifetime contributions you become liable for a huge tax bill immediately, and you cant withdraw from the pension contributions without also forfeiting the pension itself, then your only option to avoid a huge tax bill is ... retirement....

For a pro-capitalist, anti-socialist country, its astounding how much US law makers get involved in the running of businesses, whether it be with regulations, hearings or "opinions". US law makers love to do it.

Of course, its all performative - calling CEOs into hearings to berate them rather than actually doing fact finding, basically using the hearings as a court where the people appearing have already been judged and sentenced. Got to be seen doing something, but lets certainly not fix the issue through good legislation, because berating people in public is more fun.

My wife is one of those who left.

Yes, a lot of it is to do with the over worked and under paid, but not all of it - a lot of it is also due to the unbelievable stress of the responsibility heaped on you as a doctor, coupled with the diminishing respect for being a doctor by pretty much everyone.

For example, GPs being told that they have to open in the evenings and weekends, despite not having enough staff to run a 9-5 Monday to Friday service already - and your budget is being taken by the pharmacists who are doing random pointless examinations or reviews on anyone who comes through the door (because the pharmacy makes money that way, but they can charge the GP for doing it). And if you refuse to, then a GMC complaint is raised.

How about being rung up by the police at 6pm and told to do a wellness check on a patient, despite it being the police’s responsibility and not yours - but because you have now been told, you have a duty of care if anything happens. Which means a GMC complaint being raised.

How about the physicians associate refusing to take your guidance, and putting in complaints if you have any feed back at all which isnt glowingly positive, despite them being under your license and insurance. Which means a GMC complaint being raised.

How about having to spend £100,000 and two years of your life defending your license because someone thought you had too much to drink at the staff party and thus must be an alcoholic, with no evidence at all.

How about the government dictating how much you pay into your pension fund each month, how much you will get back, the pension fund being massively in profit to the point where the government gets £6Billion in rebates from it annually, and STILL requires you to pay more in and take less out

How about patients coming into your consulting room clutching the Daily Mail, complaining that you get paid too much because thats what the newspaper says and ranting for 20 minutes, and then still complaining that you are running behind.

How about the only way to get a specialist training position is to have an interview on one specific day of the year, but your current training program absolutely refusing you the ability to go to it?

I can go on and on.

Antibacterial soap doesn't contain antibiotics... At least, it never has in any country I've lived in.

Their properties are supposed to be chemical in nature, not medication based - the fact that they haven't exactly stood up to scrutiny isnt surprising, but they arent adding to the current antibiotic-resistent problem...

It will live on on the various worlds of Alastair Reynolds books...