If access to US models can be switched off by executive caprice (viz Fable 5 and Mythos 5)*, anyone remotely concerned about building a reliable system is almost obliged to use a non-US model. Doesn't hurt that the Chinese ones are good, and cheap, but they win on the commercial consideration no one is going to switch business on and off at random.

*Some will say "that was only an foreign export restriction," but if that power exists it will be used against anyone inconvenient.

Great not to have phones in school - so great that it seems most schools have already banned them some time ago. So I don't see the point of making a law; perhaps Department of Education regulation would have been more appropriate - this just looks like Parliament trying to make some sort of voter-pleasing statement by enacting a pointless law. I am curious (and too lazy to read the bill itself) what the penalty for non-compliance will be. Fine the teacher? Or the student? Send them to prison? And is that a) if the school fails to have a no-phone policy or b) if a phone is found within the school?

I suspect a national firewall is the endgame, where we only have access to information vetted by the government, and it's a sad and frightening thought.

I think that is precisely, and very worryingly, where this debate is headed: Since the UK can not stop non-UK Internet sites from existing, let's make it the ISPs' responsibility to protect our children - and drop a huge fine on one the first time we find it allowing a child to acccess something awful. "Not fair!" will cry the ISPs, "We had no idea that site hosted awful stuff, how are we even meant to check?" "Well, we at the government have a list of permissable sites here for you." And Hadrian's Great Internet Wall is born.

A lot of posts are debating various features and datasets that the Bloomberg terminal provides. Those are comprehensive, but have also been available from other providers for a long time (Reuters, anyone?). Bloomberg buys nearly all of the data from third parties.

The terminal also has a chat system requiring biometric verification that is connected to every person in the finance industry relevant to your job. You can communicate with them securely and traceably, making it possible to arrange transactions with confidence. That network effect will be very difficult to replicate.

Ya, think I'll stay inside too. I hope the hospitals are on alert!

I use calc a lot, after 20 years of Excel. I agree it needs some work - it crashes from time to time, and engages in some unexpected behaviours (random font changes??). OTOH, many shortcuts are the same as Excel, and it hasn't been too burdensome to learn a few new ones. Meanwhile, Excel has reduced shortcut functionality, by effectively introducing speedbumps. Hit Alt+E+S+V at the rate you did in the 2010s, and you will often be left with a floating "Office Access Key" info box.

Because gravity pulls all of the atoms in the structure downwards, and accelerates anything that is not static, which is different from just squishing it from above, and this thing simulates gravity - not perfectly as noted in other comments, but certainly better than a press.

"Because the world doesn't need synthetic rubber, pharma, plastics, roads, and the shitton of other things you ignore from the oil industry" is in fact a pretty good argument to stop just burning the hydrocarbons. They can be turned into things far more valuable than heat.

a) if you burn billions of dollars pouring useless concrete pilings, it's not a very good money laundering scheme - the idea is to keep most of the money! b) the guy with the money owns his own country! He makes the laws, why would he need to launder money?

Limited by G forces! When was the last time anyone but an astronaut's journey was limited by G forces?

Goodness me! That there is some righteous ad-hominem bitterness towards a person you've never met! But help me understand - will be better that the gig economy jobs cease to exist, so the people who "took what they could find" will no longer be able to find even that?

Despite millions of individuals exercising their free will to work gig economy jobs, evidently because they determined that to be their most attractive option, there has been a lot of commentary over the years that these jobs "weren't good enough". I've seen countless airmchair protests that the pay, or benefits, or conditions aren't adequate for a human worker. Now, when suddenly it may be possible that human workers will no longer have to do these jobs, are the same comentators worried about the loss of jobs? It doesn't compute...

Correct that "oh we must protect the children" is the thin end of the wedge to total Internet censorship, and VPN bans are not far off. But don't forget that left wing is the original control economy and invetor of the Cheka. Our Labour government is pushing this, and mandatory ID cards, to expand state control into every corner of private life.

Waymo and Tesla have functioning full self-driving systems available for what? around $10,000 per car? This one which performs the arguably simpler task of following a slow convoy yet costs $1 million. How does the State of Colorado manage to spend so much?