There's at least one guy who pretty famously objected.

Not sure why it's relevant but there's a photo in the first link. Looks like a pretty skinny kid.

Impressive that you've reached such vast conclusions about the Exploration Company and its founder's motivations, given that you don't seem to realize that the founder in question is a woman.

The idea that dark matter/energy can be explained away by a modified theory of gravity isn't a new one and is an active area of research. See: Tensor-Vector-Scalar (TeVeS) gravity as just one example of an (unsuccessful, as far as I understand) attempt.

If you've got a compelling argument for why it's definitely the right path forward, please report it to the folks in Sweden and collect your Nobel prize.

Betting against Apple when it comes to hardware engineering is... a choice.

Say what you will about their pricing, software, marketing, etc., but I can't think of a consumer product company that has delivered a consistently better hard product. I guess we'll figure out who's right in a few months.

"The best camera in the world is the one you have with you."

Yes? The cellular network in my area could use improvement, but my smartphone makes and receives calls just fine.

It seems the opposite to me. Developing these chips in-house had to be much, much more expensive in the short term than continuing to buy Snapdragons from Qualcomm.

I guess you could argue that they should have spent a few more years investing in R&D before deciding that what was released as the C1 was "good enough". But, outside of places like Slashdot, I don't think anyone has any idea what modem is in their phone and I haven't heard of any widespread connectivity complaints, so it seems like the "good enough" determination was reasonable.

The first "Pro"-branded iPhone, the 11, launched in 2019 at $999. That's ~$1300 today. For $100 less you get a phone with more storage, a better camera, better CPU, better battery, etc.

If the $1200 price point is a problem, it's at least not a new problem.

If we accept the premise that school should prepare you to do the things you'll need to do to function in society, does that not imply that school should teach you to read things "because you have to" even if you don't enjoy them? (though FWIW, I vaguely recall enjoying The Cay and Hatchet.)

That's not to say that there isn't a place for giving kids more freedom in what they read so long as they're reading something. Seems like it'd be a big step up from the current state where a minority of kids read books for enjoyment.

There's a difference between being able to read and comprehend a novel and being able to read and comprehend the comments on social media. It's the former that teens are lacking, according to these PISA assessments.

Whether kids should be forced to read "the classics" is a separate question on which I don't have a strong opinion. But compared to the current state, if all kids end up reading is Harry Potter or The Hunger Games (or whatever's considered "enjoyable" at the moment) I'd call it a win. Whatever gets them reading something longer than a Tweet.

It's been done. My grade school did "Accelerated Reader". You could pick any book at an appropriate reading level and would get points after taking a quiz confirming you had read and understood the work. Each student needed to get a certain number of points, the classroom that got the most points would get a pizza party, etc.

The same logic could (should?) be applied to nuclear weapons. For good reason, limitations on nuclear weapons are handled through international treaties with robust inspection regimes. And for obvious reasons it'd be ineffective for the US to pass a domestic law banning/restricting them: if other nuclear powers don't play along, you've only shot yourself in the foot.

I wish I had a clean solution to this. That "robust inspection regime" is essential to any effective system of nuclear arms control that I can think of, but I don't know how you could feasibly implement an equivalent for AI.

Hardly. You could subscribe to all of Apple, Amazon, HBO, Paramount, Netflix, etc. and still come out well ahead of your typical $125+ cable bill. And to boot that cable bill will lock you into a contract, where with the streaming services it's straightforward to cancel your subscription and switch to another once you've exhausted the content you're interested in.

Yes.

Why? What evidence is there to support that? Or lacking evidence, even a proposed biological mechanism by which harm could be caused by non-ionising radiation?

Your numbers are off. Rome is at ~42 degrees north. Mainz is further north than 47, but it's at 50 north not 52.