At the risk of being Captain Pedantic... The claim that this is a closed system isn't quite true, right? Sure, the liquid boils and then condenses back to liquid once it cools.

For this to happen, however, the system has to lose heat. Excess heat must be radiated out to the surrounding environment.

I sell merch via various print in demand sites. Google quite noticeably suppresses my designs if they poke fun at Google even in a light hearted way. Should it be allowed to do this? Sure. Will this heavy handed behavior endear them to sellers and buys? Nope.

Interesting. Wondering if anti-big-tech sentiment will foster bipartisan cooperation.

This is certainly the case in areas with tight labor markets.

Let's see how long it takes Slashdot's political activist moderators to mark this post as flamebait, or similar.

Increasing cost of labor leads to fewer jobs, in general. Hard to argue basic economics.

However, I suspect that regions with strong economies and tight labor markets would be ok. Job losses would likely impact primarily teens and undocumented immigrants. At least, this is what I see in my neighborhood.

On the flip side, large increases in the minimum wage would devastate regions with weak economies. How could it not? Struggling businesses don't magically increase revenues when cost of labor goes up. If they cannot increase prices they charge to customers, then they have to reduce costs to stay in business. What alternatives do they have? I've seen this first hand in large, urban neighborhoods nearby.

The Congressional Budget Office is one of the only non-political government entities left. Attached is a recent link to CNBC noting the CBO's estimate that a government mandated wage increase to $15 per hour will cost 1.4 million jobs.

Raising minimum wage to $15 would cost 1.4 million jobs, CBO says. Cite: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/0....

Good questions here and in other responses ... and that's the point.

A serious proposition would bring facts into the conversation instead of hand-waiving, pie in the sky prose and fancy graphics. For example, could existing gas stations retrofit their facilities for electric car charging and still have a viable business? Seems like a dubious assumption, but I don't know. Without supporting data and analysis, no one can reasonably argue one way or the other. This is just 1 of many, many details that cannot be overlooked.

Protecting our environment is too important to allow half-baked ideas pass as serious commentary.

Not a serious discussion. A hugely important variable is blithely overlooked.

What is environmental impact of building enough electric cars to replace all gas burning cars within the next 9 years AND building the infrastructure required to charge them? Clearly, itâ(TM)d be insanely, overwhelmingly huge!

Additionally, whatâ(TM)s the environmental impact of disposing all the car batteries that eventually make their way to landfills. Again, very significant variable.

Have we not learned anything from Hollywood? Next step, "get your hands off me you dammed dirty apes!"

It will be interesting to see who and how many sign up. I will make the observation that not everyone who works at Google is a 6 figure white collar techie. I'm guessing that there are a number of blue collar workers such as custodial personnel.

That aside, I don't have a problem with private sector employees deciding to form a union especially if they work for a huge, monopolistic behemoth like Google. Unions deal with issues important to white collar workers besides pay. Plus, I somewhat enjoy the irony that a large progressive company like Google is anti-union, at least for its employees.

Cool that DOJ followed up with you. I wouldn't have expected it.

You could be correct, but the following excerpt from the linked article makes me think otherwise.

Public court records also describe instances where the EDAU appeared capable of accessing encrypted information off of a locked iPhone. And beyond that, the EDAU even sought to hire an electronics engineer whose major responsibilities would include âoeperform[ing] forensic extractions and advanced data recovery on locked and damaged devices.â

Very insightful commentary!

I suspect that you are 100% correct. ACLU took inconsistent free speech and privacy rights positions over the past 4 years for apparent political reasons and destroyed its reputation.

I used to be a big supporter. Not now or ever again.

In order for this action to go anywhere, ACLU will need to show some type of evidence that the FBI is breaking into people's phones without warrants or due process.

However, ACLU is not asserting that. Instead, ACLU appears to be arguing that FBI shouldn't be permitted to use technical means available to law enforcement to decrypt encrypted data on phones that it seized with a warrant.

Moreover, investigative techniques and methodologies are exempt FOIA requests. I'm sure ACLU knows this, so ACLU actions are unexpected.

This change will be good for consumers and movie studios. It will also be good for small specialty theaters that give you more than an uncomfortable seat and a sticky floor.

The large mall movie theater chains will suffer. Too expensive. Too jam packed.

For the past several years, Iâ(TM)ve only gone to a small local theater that was one of the first to put in big recliners. Movies take an extra week or two to get there, but I donâ(TM)t care.

Oscars? Important?! Does anyone even pay attention to award shows? Nothing more than a bunch of insufferable rich people sitting around waiting to have their fragile egos stroked.

One problem is latency. Press a button to jump, for example, could cost you 100 milliseconds or more. Doesnâ(TM)t sound like a lot, but it's enough that you'll notice. Also, non-streaming peeps in multi-player games will have an advantage.

There are ways to mitigate the effects like teaming up with a content delivery service like Akamai. CDNs put a crap ton of work and money into creating low-latency, high-availabiliy services. Guessing most have a cloud component these days.

Hrmmmm, seems to me that Microsoft might be in the market for a large, well established CDN. Company!