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Comment Way Behind (Score 1) 9

It is insane that the EU hasn't done more to create local tech companies to reduce their reliance on the US. They need their own version of Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent (among others), just like China does. It's fine to leverage allies for certain parts of your economy, but the tech sector is right up their with military when it comes to industries where the EU shouldn't be depending on external allies so strongly. It's not like the EU has the same religious devotion to free markets that the US has which would make them hesitant to prop up their local tech companies for 10+ years until they could survive on their own.

I found an EU report from 2025 that suggested it would take $5 trillion to do this, which would be about 5% of the government revenue of all EU countries combined if done over a decade. Just like efforts to become less reliant on the US military complex, the EU should really get started.

Comment Re:A city at 7000 ft elevation but sinking (Score 1) 27

The problem isn't the population. Bedrock can handle more than that. London isn't sinking because of all the people (and London is huge!), it's sinking because the ice sheet that pressed the Highlands deep into the crust has been gone for the last 10,000 years, resulting in the entire island tilting back to where it naturally should be. You could move London's population into the Great Glen and it would not make the slightest difference - London would still be sinking. The ice sheets were a whole lot heavier than a few tens of millions of people.

(Ok, it would make a difference. If the rich people actually lived in Scotland, the transit system and public services would see a thousand percent improvement inside a week. If they were also forced to speak Gaelic, English would vanish in a month.)

Comment Re: Incredible Foolishness (Score 1) 27

Every place? Fascinating.

There are towns in England and Wales that have been occupied for the past 10,000 years. Manchester isn't the greatest place on Earth, but I'm really not convinced it's going to start sinking into the ground any time in the next thousand years. If "short term" is longer than the remaining lifespan of the human race, I am not convinced "short" is really the right word.

"Short term" is only meaningful if it's shorter than the time needed to take meaningful remedial action, and the time it would take to remediate the problem in Mexico City vastly exceeds the time it will take for the city to crumble into oblivion.

The sun will not explode in 4 billion years. It's far too small. It might well run out of hydrogen by then, but that will simply cause it to swell. If, in four billion years, we can't find a way to drift the Earth outwards to remain within the goldilocks zone, then we're a failure as a species. Of course, we might well have built a Dyson Ring by then. Although, to be honest, if we were going to do that, we'd want to find a gas cloud that was about to form a stellar nursary and head there. If we arrive as the proto star fires up, we've maximum resources in the easiest possible form (a dust cloud, so no mining needed and minimal processing required), can build the Dyson Ring or Dyson Sphere by the time the star really gets going, and have another ten to fifteen billion years.

Comment Re:One behemoth isn't a trend (Score 2) 83

I suspect is from sheer ignorance rather than any design to get more workers underneath them.

Wrong. Managers are always scheming to get as many people below them as possible. Claiming savings is an effective short-term strategy that only works in specific circumstances, and it only works as a strategy when it results in more people below you on the org tree.

Comment Re:Depends on your goals, I guess. (Score 1) 83

In the end- good engineers with sufficient experience and support will get stuff working with any methodology. Bad ones or ones insufficiently supported will fail with any methodology.

So true. Same with programming languages, too. Good engineers solve problems in the constraints they are given.

Comment Re:One behemoth isn't a trend (Score 1) 83

They say that is the intent, but they have zero evidence that the reorganization will in fact lead to "moving faster."

Why do you think their intent is to move faster?

If managers can slow you down, then they need to hire more people below them. That is a promotion for the manager.

Managers are actively trying to slow you down.

Comment Re:"Span of control" (Score 1) 83

Business consulting firms - Gartner, Forrester, and such need a new "silver bullet" program, strategy, plan,.... to sell to upper management.

They don't sell to upper level management, they sell to second tier management.

If you're second level, you need to make "positive changes" in the company to climb the ladder, but you aren't smart enough to think of those changes yourself. Gartner sells the plan to second level managers, who sell it to top level in hopes of getting promoted.

Gartner, Forrester, etc are in the "help second tier managers get promoted" business.

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