The latter, I think. For instance, Philips was by no means a monopoly, but they had a similar long-term vision. Philips Research generated a similar number of patents, and their researchers were very much encouraged to publish papers and engage with the wider scientific community.

Minor grammar fix: "the low-hanging-fruit of solid state electronics R&D has dried up."

I don't believe it's because of the tax-breaks, for they still exist, but that the low-hanging-fruit of solid state electronics R&D have dried up. Software has replaced hardware for many functions of machines, and software needs less "big lab" R&D since it can be done in pajamas. Corporate hardware labs just stopped being able to pay their way.

If say quantum computing started spewing innovations, a similar "gold rush" of R&D may appear again. This is not saying "everything has been invented already", but rather that technology doesn't progress at a steady pace. The AI boom (bubble?) has produced AI labs, but I doubt its lab boom will last as long as the solid state boom.

Why use a date field, which introduces all manner of privacy and anonymity issues? Instead, you could use flags: unverified, verified-minor, verified-adult. (and for further protection you could opt to leave minors at the unverified state). It might need some refinement since age restrictions vary with jurisdiction. But recording whether someone is at least over a certain age beats recording their exact date of birth.

And the fridge will be locked until you finished watching them. Resume viewing --- Resume viewing --- Resume viewing ---

With a working fusion rocket you won't have to coast most of the way, and the journey can be significantly shorter. It's right there in the summary: "from months to just a few weeks". Though I doubt that this company will build an actual fusion rocket motor anytime soon, if ever.

Google moving the deadline up and saying "because our own quantum tech is progressing faster than we thought"* sounds like using one of their branches to spin another.

* Paraphrased

I think what he meant to say, is that if Lewinsky had been a decade younger (12 instead of 22), then nothing would have happened.

This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.

You don't get to pick and choose what people post (with some obvious exceptions like fraud or csam), while also claiming immunity for the stuff you couldn't or wouldn't.

Exactly, thanks for the excellent example. That's the kind of statement that nobody ever explains, but always presents as pure axiomatic dogma.

I do think that you might have revealed a clue in your unusual phrasing, though. You said "claiming immunity for the stuff you couldn't or wouldn't" but how can there ever be any possibility of liability there? If your computer denies someone else's request to publish something, what liability is there to be immune from?

Yeah, what kind of idiot would think of using the internet to make money on porn?

so will Mila Mozilla.

What about the Strait of Hormoooz?

Have you ever heard a single person, including plumbing professionals, call them "copper-phosphorus pipes"?

No. Because that's not how the English language works. You're the one who is too lazy and ignorant to figure out how people actually communicate in society.

Hint: The systematization your mind wants to apply to everything is not absolute. You need to figure out when to relax the formal logic rules when they start to result in absurd outcomes.

I don't know if it's still strictly true, but they used to say that all of the antimatter that has ever been produced by humans has had enough combined energy to warm up a cup of coffee.