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Comment Re:Literal rent seeking (Score 2) 28

"far in excess off the cost to provide'

Pricing is not always dependent on cost to provide. As often, it is based on value received.

This seems like a high value item, to the merchant. Worth the 'cost to provide'. And solving an existing problem. Passes the test of value. Not simple rent-seeking, and I submit not at all...

Your car analogy suffers slightly, car makers are indeed finding new ways to derive recurring revenue, but adding value? I don't see it. They fail the test of value, in these subscription features, I think. Sufficiently close to 'rent-seeking' that it can be adequately described as such, for now.

Comment Re:Ah yes, the EPA (Score -1, Troll) 31

The mandate of the EPA and the 1970 clean air act have nothing to do with climate change and CO2 isn't a pollutant. They never did and it never was.

That the Left feels anyone is buying this little exercise in bureaucratic land-grabbing is funny; that they insist a 2007 Supreme Court ruling proves it so simultaneously claiming that the same Supreme Court ruling it otherwise today would just be a conservative court playing politics makes it hilarious.
Well, nobody ever accused the left of excessive self-awareness.

Since the 1970s, the left has relied heavily on courts to advance their agenda they couldn't pass democratically (you know, because everyone's dumber than they are). That this court is undoing that vast overreach isn't politics, it's housecleaning.

Comment Re:monkeys boutta die out (meaning you) (Score 1) 113

So pretend it's a genuine question instead of trying to be clever?

If 90% of the span of a system's resting state is MUCH warmer, but it has been slowly cooling over time, how theoretically will a small increase in that system's warmth suddenly "set off uncontrollable warming"?

Let's walk through an example:
I have a beaker of water at 140F. T=seconds.
If I let it cool/warm as follows:
T= 0 140
T= 50 40
T= 100 120
T= 150 0
T= 200 -40
T= 250 110
T= 300 60
T= 350 50
T= 400 80
T= 450 140
T= 494 40
T= 499 -20
T= 500 0
I'd love to understand how when T=500.001 if it goes to +10 that will somehow set off uncontrollable cascade of warming?

ELI5, professor.

Yes, this is essentially the path of earth's climate the last 500m years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Comment Re:I have it on my car (Score 1) 299

I would rather not run into the back wall of my garage.

1) I drive in
2) I MUST step on brake to stop driving forward.
3) engine stops
4) I put in park
5) car stops
6) I press the ignition button to kill the engine
7) engine stops

I invite you to explain how I can enter my garage and kill my engine without touching the brake.

Comment Fish (Score 2) 205

The Economist's Babbage podcast has done several episodes on lab-grown meat. One of the ones that makes most sense to me is there was a company targeting fish, not beef or pork. Their reasoning was that fish is a more homogeneous meat than the other two, and also it would have a larger environmental impact since popular fish species can be heavily overfished and become endangered.

This always made complete sense to me, yet I've only ever seen plant-based steak and burger alternatives. Lab-grown fish meat seems absolutely perfect since it doesn't have to reproduce the marbled texture of land-based meat, something that the process struggles with today.

As an aside I'd love to switch to lab-grown if it were widely available and similarly priced. I'm never going to become a vegetarian, and if there's a way of supporting that without affecting actual animals...yep, sign me up please.

Comment Re:Productivity maybe unemployment is definitely h (Score 1) 73

'Because a lot of companies just aren't hiring waiting to see if AI can replace those jobs.'

Lots of companies do lots of things. Lots of companies hire AI experts etc. to see if there is any there there.

Lots of companies aren't hiring at all.

Lots of companies are hiring for lots of reasons.

Lots of companies are not hiring because they decided they have too many employees already, or are doing things that do not need to be done, or not doing them well enough, or should be doping something else more important, valuable, or with more potential.

The 'a lot of companies' is vagueness bordering on vacuous. You can do better, I hope.

Comment It's energy, property, employment and tax costs (Score 1) 99

I didn't see anyone give the true reasons, talking about population this and that. I spoke with a pub owner - they said it literally cost more to keep the lights on than they were making in profit.

It's not demographics or 'young people drinking less' - I've heard that every generation. It's purely cost driven - high energy, high rates (property tax), increases in national insurance (employers tax) and wages, to a lesser extent increases in duty vs buying at a supermarket...all leads to high drink cost at a time of low disposable income. That's the driver.
br. Many of the pubs closing are rural pubs too. These had already declined due to drink driving laws and accessibility (and to be clear - I'm in favour of such laws). The attendance is the same as when they were profitable, it's the cost base that has increased not the customer interest dropping away.

Comment Re:Also good for desktop Linux (Score 1) 36

And there's the small issue of X v Wayland. Which desktop? LTS v today's hotness.

And systemd.

Linux is not the same as Windows, but it struggle with the same software complexities. Incompatible stuff, hardware support, UI complaints, really only viruses are much of a distinguishing trait, and well the recent Telnet debacle shows Linux is not immune to troubles.

Recommending Linux as a Windows alternative is disingenuous. Many valid reasons to not jump into the Linux world. Even Apple is an alternative.

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