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With all the shutdowns, Google is also foolishly throwing away what will be an increasingly important asset - distinguishing between real human identities and bots. False bot negatives waste Google computing resources, while false bot positives waste users' time.

I would happily opt in to having Google use AI on each of their services to see if I behave like a real human and then combine that information across services to give my identity a low-bot-risk rating. As it is I am constantly asked to Captcha prove myself (probably because I perform a large number of unusual complex search queries).

Black hat AI will make bots harder and harder to detect and cybercrime (and disinformation dissemination) easier and easier. Detecting fake identities will soon become crucial and yet almost impossible - and Google could be best positioned to provide that information.

But instead they will let MBA twit bean counters ruin the company. My advice to all corporations - keep MBAs in dungeons, bring them out occasionally for advice and never allow them to make decisions.

Different people learn in different ways. Unlike most people apparently I credit Mims with delaying my taking up electronics. I found his books a complete turn off when I was young - painfully unimaginative and boring. Mims books were the only books available at Radio Shack and in the US, Radio Shack for decades before hacker spaces was in most places the only place to begin to tinker with electronics. The high number of Mims books sold has a lot to do with those decades of "monopoly". The Art of Electronics is what worked for me and many others and I have three hard bound copies that are falling apart from overuse. There may be simpler, fewer- topics-covered alternatives that would be better for very young readers, but AoE is what most teachers in particular that I know swear by.

The elephant that isn't in the room: China (one Hong Kong station and that's it). Anyone know if their government restricts streaming?

All over the world there are testosterone poisoned males engaging in as much obnoxious behavior as they can get away with (e.g. riding motorcycles with no mufflers). Particulary coming from the Southern US it is absolutely delightful to be in a place where "rednecks" are completley suppressed.

>plants/bacteria need additional energy in the form of sugars to pull carbon out of CO2 in the air.

Sorry perhaps this is not what you meant to write. For anyone who wants an unmangled understanding of photosynthesis please consult Wikipedia or other text of your choice.

There is every likely and unlikely combination of political beliefs to be found in every population including commune members. But I will go out on a limb and try to speak for that population. Relatively few see the communal life as a viable prescription for society as a whole, and most believe that all political and economic systems involve painful tradeoffs. On the other hand most look with horror at purist libertarians rejecting as much enforced sharing in general society as possible. This philosophy is irreconcilable with the view of many, inside and outside of communes who strongly believe that having many kinds of sharing - enforced by a government - is necessary for any civilization worth living in, and eternal vigilance against all slippery slopes presented by governments and corporations is unavoidable (and is not simply avoided by letting free markets run amuck). Many of us are thoroughly familiar with your arguments and adamantly reject them as dangerous, simplistic and in effect evil thinking that we will resist with everything we have.

Kind of like how anti-sense RNA works.

They could call it anti-adsense!

to summarize in consistent units:

Orris oil 50,000 euros per kg OP BBC story

Ambergris 1,140 euros per kg Wikipedia

Saffron 958-9,583 euros per kg Wikipedia

Mostly off topic. Why has China produced most of the serious competition to US software titans? In particular, given that South Korea was way ahead of the rest of the world in cell phone and broadband universality for it's population, why haven't they been the birthplace of any social media or other internet companies that expanded abroad (instead they adopted YouTube and Facebook)?

Contradancing does not require any specific footwork and revolves around dancers flowing through and bonding with eventually all the other dancers in a line. It is an all ages activity (from babies in papooses to dancers pushing 100). It is possible for many with disabilities. Around the US I know contradancers who are completely blind and others who are deaf, are amputees or who are in (athlete style) wheelchairs. Engrained in the subculture is the idea that dancers gently guide other dancers who are drifting off course and they constantly adjust their style and speed to match the needs and preferences of each new dancer they meet.