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Comment You don't believe what Economics shows, do you? (Score 1) 133

'If the employer's plan doesn't include paying a reasonable wage then their plan is crap and they need to go out of business so that someone with a better plan can succeed them.'

That assumes that such a plan can exist. Why do you assume that it does? If a firm in a high wage economy is competing directly with one in a low wage economy in a simple product, there's no reason to believe that the high wage firm can continue in the sector. You're indulging in an act of faith that is quite simply wrong, otherwise known as wishful thinking.

Comment Not a gamble. (Score 1) 11

A key milestone for Rapidus came with the delivery of an extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) system from the Dutch company ASML.

The high-tech machinery helped bring about Rapidus' biggest accomplishment yet earlier this year – the successful production of prototype two nanometre (2nm) transistors.
[...]
It's a feat only rival chip makers TSMC and Samsung have accomplished. Intel is not pursuing 2nm, it is leapfrogging from 7nm straight to 1.8nm.

"We succeeded in manufacturing the 2nm prototype for the first time in Japan, and at an unprecedented speed in Japan and globally," Mr Koike said.

It's not really a gamble if they have demonstrated the basic technology works. It seems more like a logical an investment. Will they be highly successful or not has yet to be seen but this isn't a company without merit.

Comment The point of one laptop per child (Score 2) 6

Is to give access to information that otherwise just wouldn't be there. If you're in a position where you can actually measure academic performance then you probably have a semi-functional public school system and you don't need programs like this.

These programs work well in intensely impoverished areas where the school systems have broken down or just never existed in the first place and information isn't available. Places where you're lucky if the kids are taught to read.

Comment Re:You guys need to do something about this. (Score 1) 76

There are well over a thousand food additives that are banned and illegal in Europe... that are "legal" food additives in the US.

I wonder what the arguments from the other side are. For instance, I wonder if some of those toxic pesticides aren't present anymore at harvest (so should not cause harm), or whether some pesticides are only harmful during application (so is theoretically safe with PPE). I.e., I'd like to know whether the US is just unhealthy/unsafe as you've implied, or whether we judge risks differently and both sides are reasonable. I bet it's a little from column A, a little from column B.

To make a strong case that the US has unsafe food, I think one would need more specific evidence than "1000 agrochemicals are banned in the EU but not in the US". Why are they banned/not banned?

Comment Re:Right... with the Zephyr Kernel? (Score 1) 33

I'm not saying they shouldn't have abandoned it, I'm saying there is a tendency to make bold proclamations about the future (either by Google or media outlets) that do not reflect reality and thus should not be taken at face value. As such, it's more accurate to say that Google "plans to eventually replace Android" rather than stating it as a fact.

Comment Re:Make them eat the poison they approve (Score 1) 76

Yes and no.

Based on the article, the fluorochemicals are additives. They are probably spreader stickers, designed to lower the surface tension of the pesticides so they fully coat foliage and even penetrate the stomata (if desired). They may also form a waxy layer upon drying so rain doesn't wash the pesticides off--or they may be part of this general chemistry, allowing the right kind of emulsion to form so the "soapy" spreading action doesn't mean the pesticide just gets washed off (as would happen if you mixed ordinary grease and detergent). The upshot is that you need less pesticide, applied less frequently.

The fluorochemicals also don't increase the toxicity of the pesticide's active ingredients. However they are toxic in their own right. The article says this isn't a bioaccumulative pesticide, but the fluorochemicals do accumulate in the environment. So we can reduce our pesticide usage, but the price is that the environment will slowly accumulate these toxic additives. It seems like a bad bargain, but I wonder how long we could do this and not end up with a permanent problem--how long until we need to figure out other solutions to protect crops? And is the trade-off only money? Does it merely cost more money to use higher doses of pesticides with less effective spreader stickers, or does that have a different negative environmental effects? It's naive to assume this can be solved by banning the bad chemicals. You need to evaluate that with the concomitant increased use of different chemicals.

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