It's not entirely impossible that someone smuggled in some Chinese or Russian kit in the last month. It would certainly be an interesting development. I wouldn't be too surprised if there are some sympathetic people in the Pakistani military prone to misplacing things.
It's probably fairly high, considering the existence of the sodium-sulfur battery. It's not economically competitive since it operates at high temperature, but it's based on very abundant materials.
The unknown subject is a valid construction in language. It is not necessary to be able to answer "who's they?". It is semantically equivalent to saying "I knew the rules would be changed."
There are also perfectly ordinary situations in which this pattern is used to imply the influence of an unknown party. "They built a bridge over the river." Clearly the speaker does not believe that bridges over rivers construct themselves. She doesn't need to know who built the bridge.
>There are also perfectly ordinary situations in which this construction is used to infer the influence of an unknown party. "They built a bridge over the river." Clearly the speaker does not believe that bridges over rivers construct themselves. She doesn't need to know who built the bridge.
This excuse only works if who built the bridge isn't central to the discussion. Otherwise this is just generic conspiratorial thinking that we're being oppressed by The Elites™.
Aren't we, though? Like it's hard not to argue that there's one or more groups of people that get together at lunches and dinners and galas and have ongoing projects to do things like institute rule changes at NASDAQ that effectively require index funds to take on outsize risk from a known-overvalued IPO just in time for that IPO to happen.
To understand why this isn't a conspiracy of a sort by some "elite" group of people to take money from 401ks and IRAs, you'd have to argue that there's a good reason to shorten the window that outweighs the reason the window exists. The fact remains that many many IPOs crater within a few months. The rule change seems to exist to leave small low-effort investors holding the bag.
Just because we're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get us.
>Like it's hard not to argue that there's one or more groups of people that get together at lunches and dinners and galas and have ongoing projects to do things like institute rule changes at NASDAQ that effectively require index funds to take on outsize risk from a known-overvalued IPO just in time for that IPO to happen.
It's also not hard to think of half a dozen other groups that could possibly benefit and plausibly have enough clout to steer things in their favor, hence why the need to make a specific claim rather than beating around the bush a vague "they" that can't be refuted.
>This excuse only works if who built the bridge isn't central to the discussion.
It isn't central to the discussion. The appearance of corruption is clear; nailing down the culprit is difficult. It isn't reasonable to expect people to have a theory of corruption in order to complain about it.
>Otherwise this is just generic conspiratorial thinking
The perception of corruption is not a conspiracy theory. Corruption is an ordinary financially motivated crime, while conspiracy theories usually involve some kind of grandiose or mystical objective ("new world order").
Anyway, the question is moot because the only possible answer is "the regulatory authorities". We know who makes the rules! I just didn't want to tolerate this kind of fallacious nitpicking.
This also distorts the shoplifting statistics. If two stores have equal rates of shoplifting but one has boxes and the other doesn't, they are not at equal risk. The one with boxes is at more risk. Flat shoplifting rates while boxes proliferate mean things got worse. (You can argue that boxes do nothing, but you would need strong evidence, cf parachutes.)
The number of shoplifting incidents is also a weak metric. Most shoplifting is not of serious economic concern. The problem is with repeat offenders and those doing it for profit. The value of merchandise lost is a much better metric but stores may be reluctant to share this due to concerns about insurance rates and public perception.
Crime statistics are very hard. And state capacity is declining, sadly. We can't expect bloggers to pick up the slack.
The website talks about making cement, but only describes making concrete. Making concrete involves mixing cement and fillers with water under controlled conditions. Making cement involves heating calcium carbonates and oxides with silicon dioxide or calcium silicate to form alite at a temperature of (so far as we understand) no less than 1250 C. Usually this is done with fossil fuels and any impurities in the raw materials (which are cost-constrained) go up the flue, making cement plants rather polluting. Carbon dioxide is a nearly inevitable byproduct (CaCO3 + SiO2 >> CaSiO3 + CO2) and is either captured at source (not implemented at most facilities) or released.
There is plenty of room for improvement in cement production. I'm not sure exactly how to apply AI to it but I guess I was hoping for more than this. If we are going to have the infrastructure renaissance that keeps being talked up by reformists of various stripes, we need more cement.
South America is also a surprising laggard in cement production, which is odd considering they have the materials and they need the roads. I think that environmental concerns and a continental aversion to coal might contribute.
Certainly, building new housing works well at a policy level. But calling for new housing doesn't seem to work at a political level. We've been fighting this fight ever since the financial crisis and every election cycle brings us a few victories with an equal number of reversals. And it isn't only within the left that the opposition arises; it wears red in progressive neighborhoods, but it seems to have a taste for brown when that's convenient.
I don't think that the urbanist movement can succeed if it is driven by policy wonks who want to throw out the rulebook and impose reforms from the ivory tower without a real small-d democratic political strategy. Many of us are used to fighting the political battle against climate change by being Absolutely Correct and expecting that Science with her indefatigable armies of Reality will guard the flanks. A fully economic fight like this one just doesn't have the same kind of inevitability. Every step forward on the ground weakens the sense of urgency in the legislature, leading to an equilibrium trap without a vigorous political movement that can hold momentum.
Nerds do not usually want to do politics, but in housing you have to do politics.
IMO, this is largely because the government's job is to stay out of the way, and people who hold elected office in areas where this is a problem (the Northeast Corridor and West coast generally), mostly have a certain something in common that indicates they are likely to think they need to "help" the market along.
It's not a coincidence that the "housing crisis" continues unabated in places like NYC that are losing population, yet appears to be solved in areas in the south that are absorbing those people.
Does this not have more to do with desirability? It's kind of hard to compare property prices in NYC with Alabama. Like no shit housing will be affordable in places that, no offense, are kind of a shit hole. In Canada, housing prices are crazy in beautiful in beautiful Vancouver, but are totally "affordable" in the arctic circle. It has nothing to do with legislation.
NYC rent being unaffordable is due to legislation that keeps apartments off of the market due to not being financially viable to repair to habitable standards in addition to legislation overly empowering local groups to block new construction.
Housing prices represent a tradeoff between affordability and desirability in most cases (with a major aspect of desirability being access to desirable employment).
It's not hard at all to compare property prices in NYC to Alabama using a cost of living index (and to some extent a quality of life index, though these are fairly subjective).
People are voting with their feet every day, and they largely aren't moving because they are looking for a decrease in their standard of living.
Many, many, many people think NYC, SF, Vancouver etc. are shitholes. The good news is that people are currently allowed to choose where their surroundings look like, though many politicians and bureaucrats seem hell-bent on changing that. And now we're back at the start of this discussion...
That's funny because a lot of people in Huntsville, AL would consider San Francisco, CA to be a literal shit hole. And yet SF real estate prices are much higher. It turns out there are many factors: local government development policies, weather, jobs, geography, etc.
Another big surprise is Mexico. It seems like every day there's another gory story about a bunch of people disappearing or getting shot in a gang war. But they're the second-highest ranked in North America at #12, behind only Costa Rica.
Israel I think is similar to Costa Rica in that whatever problems Israelis have, they look around at their neighbors and realize how much worse it could be.
I have been thinking that this is a reason why the megacities are winning. In the largest cities, a couple can cohabitate and both find jobs. In smaller cities, you have to get lucky, and if one partner's job falls through (which may be unavoidable) then you might have to move! In a one-income household you can live in a city with one industry. Two is a coordination problem. The eleven largest cities have reached escape velocity. Detroit is hovering right on the edge. Seattle has favorable climate and a port. Other cities are boom and bust.
I associate it with cool summers which are rare in the US. The rain and dark won't be everyone's cup of tea, but other places with similarly cool summers either have very harsh winters or rhyme with "Nabisco".
Yeah, I never understood what Beyond's core innovation was. Impossible had that whole synthetic heme thing going on. Beyond seemed almost like opportunistic mimicry. But Impossible turned out to be pretty expensive IIRC.
In my opinion as a mostly-vegetarian who used to adore burgers as a kid, the Impossible brand was by far the most realistic (and my beef-loving partner would agree, they made stroganoff with it and loved it)... but the price truly is ridiculous at this point. It started out just barely justifiable, and it's simply too high now.
I am more than a little bit outraged that animals who were raised in miserable industrial production facilities to meet an ugly end are having their parts sold for less than a decent alternative simply because of subsidies distorting the market.
If I look at walmart right now, they have Impossible 'ground beef' for $9/lb and real ground beef is more than $7/lb. So the price isn't too high everywhere.
Agree. Impossible is on a different planet in terms of being very very close to the taste of real meat. Unfortunately still premium priced.
It’s a pity that Beyond is getting so much attention because they’re not the best ambassadors for meat alternatives. People will try it, and then decide to wait another 5 years before trying again.
I still eat impossible sausage as a substitute for pork and find it pretty dang good. I grew up in appalachia so we know our pork sausage and impossible seasoned well comes close.
Aldi in Germany might be very different for all I know, but I've been vegan or vegetarian my entire adult life and I think every burger alternative besides Beyond/Impossible is quite awful, though I usually don't eat meat alternatives in the first place.
Beyond was available well before Impossible was. I used a combination of Beyond and Boca as my primary substitutes for ground beef, until Impossible came along, and now I use almost exclusively Impossible.
I don't feel like they have a niche anymore, but there was a time I considered them my top choice, before impossible dethroned them.
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