Are they going to disclose when they are sending my call record data to the NSA? No, of course not, but they're doing it anyway.

Cost of money (i.e. interest rates) are up, controlling spending becomes more important.

As for overlap between AI and efficiency, doesn't seem very significant... if both are in fashion at the moment (and they are), there will be overlap.

We are likely nowhere near the true Kolmogorov complexity. Note the restriction on running time/space. The Kolmogorov complexity is defined without regard for running time and, in all likelihood, that's going to use some algorithm that's hugely super exponential (with large constant) in time and space.

Your distraction is irrelevant, it still takes more water to wash out your bin than to make a plastic bag to put in it.

Just because bags are used to hold things doesn't make the plastic bag you buy for trash the same as the plastic bag you load your shopping into.

Don't make stuff up. Trash bags are usually made of LDPE, just like most single-use grocery bags. The exceptions are usually made of HDPE, just like other single-use grocery bags. The big difference is the trash bags are thicker.

It takes far less water to wash out a bin than it does to make a bin liner.

Not according to Columbia University. 1000 plastic bags use 58 gallons of fresh water, which works out to about a cup of water per bag. It'll take more than that to clean your unlined bin.

Here in New Zealand we banned single use plastic bags about a year ago and it has been very successful. I was wonder what is different that it didn't work in California?

California made the mistake of measuring the thing they claimed would be reduced, rather than saying "Look, see, disposable bags banned, fewer disposable bags used, success".

And how does the energy and resources used in cleaning the bag affect the environmental footprint? Bet it's more than negligable. Not to mention the suggestion in that article to not store the bags in the car, which would result in more cases where you forgot the bags and had to buy more, leading to less reuse.

Yeah, you can do a shitload of engineering to figure out the right size of a heat pump system that will just barely keep you warm 99% of the time. Or you can just use a (perhaps dual-stage) gas furnace which will have plenty of capacity.

The house being "not properly insulated" is pretty much a given for most older houses. Newer houses... well, I don't care how much R-49 you have in your attic or R-23 in your walls, your windows are R-5 maximum, and probably less. And that's assuming no air leaks. Maybe your house was built tight, but most likely after a few years of thermal cycling, weather, animals, and perhaps modifications, it'll be a lot looser, probably in diffuse ways which are hard to fix. Which means your engineered-to-a-T just barely adequate heating system is now inadequate. And unfortunately with heat pumps, oversizing isn't good either, as it increases cycling and reduces efficiency.

Baskets were generally available before the bag ban and not after, so it's not just a New Jersey thing. What happened most likely is people would get to the checkout, not have bags, and just take the basket to the car. And some people would not dump their stuff into the car but just take the basket. And so the stores saw increased costs from replacing the baskets so they pulled them all instead; after all, the point of the stores supporting the bag ban was to reduce their costs, not increase it.

It is NOT normal in New Jersey. Shopping baskets have disappeared as a result, so if you want to shop but don't want to take a cart, you either have to hold the items in your hands or shop into a bag you brought.

The stores don't want you shopping into a bag you brought because of the potential for shoplifting, so they put up signs against it and doing it risks being accosted by Loss Prevention. If you get to the checkout (perhaps with a cart) and realize you've forgotten your bags, you're screwed. Maybe you can buy bags ($2.50 at ShopRite), but rather likely they'll be out. I've had to abandon groceries a few times because of that.

And the result? The amount of plastic used for bags has tripled, as the increased weight of the reusable bags outweighs re-use.

Came here to mention that exact book. A few years ago I noticed I'd ballooned during the corona-work-from-home, and following that simple (for engineers) method I lost 26 kg in a year or so, and still maintain the target.

Whenever I used it it was to find the actual information I was searching for. Quite often you search for some keyword (in quotes to force an exact match) and when you click through to the website, the information is nowhere to be found.

Often this is because it was hidden to normal users who they wanted to jump through hoops to look at their precious data, but they want to use google as a free marketing tool.

The cached version showed the same thing they show google, so they can't hide it.

Yes, if you're trying to hire purple squirrels, you're going to have a bad time. Or worse, there's invariably job ads asking for X years of experience in a technology Y years old, Y X. This ain't piloting, there's no type certificates, you don't always need to hire someone who has done exactly what you need done.

When they load you into the trains, Iâ(TM)ll be taking photos to feed my Ai so folks never forget.

Until the next generation of you calls for censorship and forced speech.