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Comment Rubbish (Score 1) 289

Check the original source. Key quote (about US data): "After reaching an historic low point in 2019 at 10.7 percent, the youth disconnection rate spiked from 2020-2021 but has now nearly returned to the 2019 rate, at 10.9 percent in 2022." It was as high as 14.7 percent in 2010. In other words, youth disconnection (no job, no school) was close to record lows in 2022 and may even be lower now, despite degrees in basket weaving.

Comment Re: Reasons (Score 2) 29

Given the popularity and longevity of Wikipedia, I would think more celebrities would be willing to release a good quality photo of themselves under an open license. Older celebritiesy especially might want their Wikipedia bios to include an image of their younger selves. Wikipedia discourages people from editing articles about themselves, but adding a properly licensed and appropriate photo is allowed.

Comment Re:We didn't have a computer room (Score 1) 192

In the late 1950s, my high school had late night access to an IBM 650 at IBM's Watson Labs, near Columbia University. I didn't get into the computer class, but I learned programming by reading my friends' texts while commuting home on the subway. You can see a 1960 picture of a classroom with a 650 instruction set chart on the wall in Wikipedia's IBM 650 article. There is also a sample student program in machine language. The school got an IBM 1620 in 1962, the year after I graduated.

Comment Re:Recycled 5lbs of lightning cables (Score 1) 107

No need to recycle all that kit. There are inexpensive (about $2) Lightning to USB-C adapters widely available that will turn a Lightning cable into a USB-C charging cable. You can also buy USB-A to USB-C cables that will work with older bricks from Apple and and others as well as with USB-A outlets at airports, hotels and other places. This issue is a nothing burger.

Comment Re: The best of all worlds for Apple Music Subscr (Score 1) 47

Some classical works have a specific soloist, a violin concerto, say, others donâ(TM)t. We are not interested in every member of the orchestra. There are far fewer works in the classical catalog and many more recordings of each, sometimes with multiple reviews per recording. Yes, databases are flexible things. You could build a classical music database on top of one for books or even plumbing supplies, but a dedicated classical database is more likely to succeed. Classical has been a third class citizen on Apple iTunes forever. For us classical fans this is great news.

Comment Re: The best of all worlds for Apple Music Subscri (Score 2) 47

Classical listeners for a particular title (e.g. Symphony number 2) want to know the composer, conductor, soloists, orchestra, era, and sometimes recording date. They may want a playlist shuffled by work, not by individual movements. They may be interested in recordings of the same work by different conductors or soloists, etc.

Comment Re: The best of all worlds for Apple Music Subscri (Score 1) 47

Classical listeners, for a particular title (e.g. Symphony Number 2), want to know the composer first, then conductor, soloists, orchestra, opus number, era, first performance date and place, record label and sometimes recording date. They may want a playlist shuffled by work, but never by individual movements. They may be interested in recordings of the same work by different conductors or soloists, etc. For a popular music title, the main thing is the performer and songs can be shuffled freely. The database structure is totally different.

Comment Re: Typical (Score 2) 86

There was never a $20,000 toilet seat. The supposedly scandalous price was $640, and it turned out that the item was a fiberglass wall panel for a helicopter that had the toilet seat built in. The $7000 coffee pot was also a non story. It was a custom unit for a C-5A aircraft. Aircraft coffee makers have to withstand sudden decompression. The C-5B was redesigned to use commercial coffee makers which only cost $4000, in back then dollars.

Comment Re: Why vilify the customers? (Score 1) 75

I always get impeccable deliveries from Amazon drivers. Why should my guys have to compete with drivers who cut corners to deliver more per hour? I agree Amazon should allow for reasonable break time, but not on my porch without my permission (which Iâ(TM)d give actually, even put out a thermos of coffee).

Comment Is "behind the meter" solar included? (Score 4, Interesting) 106

Do the solar numbers include "behind the meter" PV installations, such as home roof tops? The New England grid (iso-ne.com) recently began including an estimate of behind the meter solar generation and it is much larger that the grid-connected solar they had been reporting. See https://isonewswire.com/2022/0...

Comment Re:Thermal runaway. (Score 2) 29

"Solar PV for power to the grid is not viable." At this very moment, per caiso.com, California is generating over half its electricity via solar and about 25% from wind. That is fairly typical of daytime there. They are also charging batteries for use after the sun goes down. They still burn natural gas at night, but much less during daytime. In the evening, when demand peaks, batteries are providing almost as much power as their nuclear plant, and more battery capacity is on the way. Not a complete solution yet, but sounds pretty viable to me.

Comment Not a big win (Score 1) 75

This is not a great way to improve storage density. Biological DNA is essentially base 4 (symbols A,C,G,T). You would need twelve more letters to double storage density, i.e. to get to base 16 or hexadecimal. (You can represent any hex digit as two nibbles of base-4.) Adding that many letters, each a distinct amino acid, along with the necessary 12 transfer RNAs and suitable transcription enzymes would be complicated and could increase error rates. Biological DNA already has very high data storage density. Getting practical read and write mechanisms seems to be the main problem, not density.

Comment Re: "Programming mistakes"? (Score 1) 251

It may be illegal. One of the actions banned under the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 18 USC 1030 (a, 5, A) is: "knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization, to a protected computer;" where protected computer is broadly defined.

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