I didn't mean to question the validity of the study, just the hyperbole in the reporting. After reading the report in Cell it sounds like they were able to reproduce the joining under laboratory conditions but they couldn't keep it stable. This is actually the kind of pure science we need to be doing more of. We need to value and support scientists who are making small, incremental advances. The kind of advances that don't make headlines, but that lay the groundwork for those that do.

They don't describe altering the conditions to make this happen, so It doesn't make sense for two life forms to conveniently merge while scientists happen to be looking at the petri dish. I think it's more likely that these two life forms have been merging and separating depending on conditions, probably for a billion years.

Demand for the shiny rocks drives war, crime, slavery, and oppression. DeBeers has finally lost control of the market and that's a very good thing.

At the time of the article's publication there were 2.7 million people in the database and only 93,000 of those people were categorized as having a connection to terrorism. I'm not opposed to maintaining a list of people who should be barred from access to the international financial system. However there should be transparency, accountability, and recourse for those wrongfully accused.

That database contains highly sensitive information on 2.7 million people, many of whom have never been accused of a crime. Business that access the database are contractually bound to secrecy. People on the list don't know it and have no recourse if they are denied loans, jobs, or business opportunities as a result. https://www.vice.com/en/articl...

The current price is $400 for the 2TB drive, $1000 for the 4TB drive, and $2200 for the 8TB drive. Since it's an upgrade you're actually getting 1TB, 3TB and 7TB for the price. I calculate the cost per terrabyte as $400, $313, and $314.

For comparison I went to Best Buy's website and pulled current prices for SSD drives with a SATA interface: Even with the corrected number you're paying a lot to buy from Apple.

Samsung 870 EVO , 1000 GB. Price: $99.99 Cost per TB: $99.99
WD Blue SA510, 1000 GB. Price: $79.99 Cost per TB: $79.99
Crucial MX500, 2000 GB. Price: $159.99 Cost per TB: $80
PNY CS900, 1000 GB. Price: $79.99 Cost per TB: $79.99
Crucial BX500, 1000 GB. Price: $69.99 Cost per TB: $69.99
Samsung 870 QVO, 2000 GB. Price: $184.99 Cost per TB: $92.5
WD easystore, 480 GB. Price: $49.99 Cost per TB: $104.15

i was startled a while back when I realized that almost all of Mr. Torvalds’ communications are either in the Linux Kernel Mailing List or in code comments. He does very little communication through private channels.

Really, you casually slip that into an unrelated conversation? 7 million people died. Freedom of speech is precious but some people really don't deserve it.

Apis nearctica fossils have been found in Nevada dating to 14 million years ago, but there are no native true honey bees in the Americas. That is, the bees and wasps in this part of the world don't produce the enzyme that honey bees do that preserves it. Apis mellifera (the European honey bee) was introduced in the early 1600's and I suppose it could have spread before the trapping era. If they were in South America or Central America they could have been collecting Melipona honey. If it was North America they may have been collecting honey from paper wasps.

Amazon might have a solid return policy, but they do a lousy job of making sure the products they sell are high quality. I understand there's an industry built around defrauding Amazon, but they've also built an industry around cheating their customers.

No. Verizon sold 90% what was left of Yahoo and AOL to an investment fund. Apollo Global Management seems to be buying up a bunch of other companies and folding them into Yahoo but it's not clear to me what their end game is. They must be doing something right. They bought the two companies for $5B and had $8B in revenue in 2022.

https://www.axios.com/2023/08/...

The page linked at the end of the first paragraph really is hilarious. https://bsky.app/profile/kathr...

That's a good point and it's not one I was thinking about. On the other hand I wonder how efficient home composting actually is. If you have the energy or the equipment to turn the pile then it will break down aerobically. But most people do what I do; they pile it up in a corner somewhere and wait for it to rot. I grant you that it's probably more aerobic than a landfill but I'd be interested to know by how much. The landfill still has the benefit of capturing the gas, and I would be interested to know if that process keeps more methane out of the atmosphere than at-home composting.

There's also a third option, which is municipal composting. In Maryland, the Montgomery County Yard Trim Composting Facility turns 77,000 tons of yard waste into soil amendment each year, and generates income in the process. Their rows are aerated and turned periodically, which ensures the process is aerobic. I don't know if they capture any gas in the process.

Ya gotta love how they slip in this idea that composting prevents methane pollution. There are lots of good reasons to compost. It saves space in the landfill and it saves on the equipment used to move garbage around. I compost everything I can handle safely, but I do it to enrich the soil. But organic matter emits methane as it breaks down, regardless of where it is. If anything the landfill may be able to reduce methane emissions by capturing the gas.

He didn't steal money. He stole cryptocurrency. The US Constitution reserves the power to print money to the federal government. Cryptocurrency burns fossil fuels, funds terrorism, enables identity fraud, and allows criminal regimes to evade sanctions. I have no sympathy for Bankman-Fried or for the people who lost their counterfeit currency.