They still have people at hand who can make sense of that code. Even the junior programmers of the original crew are by now retired or dead.

Solar panels are not "backup" power when there is no battery. They can't any any base load under many, many conditions. And even with a very expensive battery system, many are still mediocre for "backup" power.

If you want power backup, you can spend $60,000 or whatever for panels and a battery system that might last a day or something. Or you can buy an ICE generator (gas/diesel/natgas) at a fraction of the cost and have it working as long as you need, under any conditions.

What I see with solar stuff in my area is a total scam. People are spending $30K+ for just panels/install/connect and a "loan" for it, with the hopes that it MIGHT pay for itself in 20+ years (don't forget the interest), at which time the panels might be too old, or the support stuff breaks, or you have to rip them off anyway to re-roof the house, etc. The only ones actually making money is the solar panel company/installer. I think many people are doing this just to "feel good" and without much economic sense.

I can see it working out well, but only if the panels/batteries/controller/install costs are low enough AND reliable enough AND last long enough AND you can use the power yourself AND sell the excess at reasonable rates AND nothing bad happens. But that is a lot of presumptions. I ran through that just a few years ago and it was way, way in the red and with a lot of risk.

>"Not free, paid for by large corporations."

Which then it is immediately passed into higher consumer prices. And, thus, is a tax on consumers (all of us), again. Kinda like inflation is also a tax on everything, although even worse.

Crashes, even if extremely rare, are likely too risky from a legal perspective.

On the other hand, that Amazon delivery van could run over your child or dog out on the street, or veer out of control and smash into your living room. Even if such things are extremely rare, using multi-ton vehicles to deliver Amazon packages is likely too risky from a legal perspective.

Or, maybe Amazon can purchase this thing called "insurance" ...

Most of the population just doesn't have a fucking clue what's going on. Imagine all you get is Fox News. No other news sources allowed.

It's like being trapped in a right-wing filter bubble, the main difference to the average Fox News enthusiast is that it's not self-inflicted.

Yes
*looks left*
*looks right*
A stroke. Right.

It's a similar concept to Alternative Minimum Taxes [*], which you probably haven't experienced with your own taxes. Basically, deductions that corporations can normally claim are disallowed and then their taxes are calculated at the lower rate. If the result is more than they would pay with the higher rate and broader set of deductions, then they have to pay it rather rather than the normally-calculated amount. So it doesn't apply to all corporations, or maybe even most, but it extracts additional revenue from those that would otherwise be successful at using extensive deductions and credits (also known as "loopholes") to reduce their tax liability.

In some cases they're already committed to the behavior and won't be able to avoid the tax. But, yeah, in many cases this tax may deter the behavior rather than raise revenue. The CBO's projections try to take that into account when projecting the revenue impacts, of course. But I think the main goal of this part of the IRA is to appease populists on both sides who think stock buybacks are bad, because they don't understand how publicly-traded corporations work.

The grants will also be paid out over time, so it's more like spending money in the future that will be raised in the future.

Yeah, it's probably inflation-neutral. The IRA does contain some inflation-reducing provisions in specific areas, notably healthcare, but it's mostly revenue-neutral and inflation-neutral. I suppose you can say it's inflation-reducing compared to its previous incarnation, the Build Back Better bill, which if enacted would have increased the deficit and potentially stoked inflation.

[*] Note that AMT is slightly different in that for most taxpayers AMT is actually calculated at a higher tax rate, in addition to disallowing a lot of deductions. But AMT also allows a much larger standard deduction (with a phaseout based on income).

If we were sure that we'll never go to war with China, I'd agree. Right now we're facing a situation where we may end up in another world war, but we'll be on the side fighting against the manufacturing powerhouse. If it weren't for such strategic concerns, I'd be all for dropping all the tariffs (well, we should add some carbon tariffs) and outsourcing all the manufacturing to China. Trading electronic dollars that we invent as needed for hard goods? Hell yeah. I'll take all of that they want to give us.

But I don't think the geopolitical situation can be ignored. I'm not sure that propping up the US auto industry is the best way to maintain vehicle manufacturing capacity, but until a better alternative is proposed we should probably stick with it.

It really won't. We already know how battery degradation works. Unless they bought trucks with too-small batteries to begin with, the trucks will wear out before battery capacity drops enough to require replacement.

My point is that expanding the acronym isn't useful, except perhaps to chemists who would already know what the acronym expands to. Explaining what PFAS are is useful. And the article did that:

PFAS are a class of 15,000 chemicals used across dozens of industries to make products resistant to water, stains and heat. Though the compounds are highly effective, they are also linked to cancer, kidney disease, birth defects, decreased immunity, liver problems and a range of other serious diseases.

They are dubbed “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down and are highly mobile once in the environment, so they continuously move through the ground, water and air. PFAS have been detected in all corners of the globe, from penguin eggs in Antarctica to polar bears in the Arctic.

So, I think the Guardian did a fine job of explaining what matters.

Hold on, what animator gets paid a subsistence level income? Is the studio hiring?

So... advertising is fraud.

That's not capitalism, it's simply human nature. Want a communist example? Allow me to use a joke:

The communist economy was a planned economy. Every kolkhoz, every "people owned enterprise" (read: state-run company) had to produce a certain amount of certain goods. What mattered was fulfilling, or preferably over-fulfilling, that plan. At least if you wanted to climb the corporate ladder. So here's what usually happened:

The leader of a worker brigade noticed that his brigade fulfilled their plan only by 80%. Disaster! Under-fulfilling the plan was anathema, and tantamount to severe repercussions. So he reported that the plan was fulfilled to 100%, he'll fudge the numbers a little and somehow that should work out.

The kolkhoz leader got the report from the brigade leader and was pleased to see a 100% plan fulfillment. But 100% wouldn't be enough to impress his superior and since he wants to get ahead, he'll report a 120% fulfillment. Somehow he'll fudge the numbers, and if the other brigades would pick up the slack, this should be doable.

The oblast coordinator is pleased with a 120% fulfillment report from his kolkhoz leaders. But 120% is what everyone reports, that's no big deal. He'll report 140% fulfillment, that way his section stands out and he will be commanded, and of course eventually promoted. If everything fails, he'll buy some good on the black market to make ends meet.

The plan aggregation office collects reports of 140% plan fulfillment, but reporting less than 50% surplus would not look good. Let's report 160% plan fulfillment, nobody is really going to notice the difference between 140% and 160%, everyone will just be happy and after all, it's some anniversary year again (every year was some important anniversary), and we need that for our people to know that we have a huge surplus.

The planning committee is ecstatic to hear that the plan has been overfulfilled to 160%. The recommendation is to send half of it for export, the rest should be far more than enough to keep our people happy.

Back in the good old days, when Ma Bell was considered a (considerably lesser) problem?

Well?

Well, with most, that's hardly possible. We have already arrived at descriptions that aren't far from "under the right circumstances, with a particular set of configurations, a packet with the correct payload sent at a certain time triggers an unspecified exploit".