pjc50
> Nvidia is positioned to own a serious fraction of the future global economy.
=> just how bad are you expecting global earnings to be?
The AI boom is overstated but that is not the same as nvidia not having a business.
People forget why the retail banks were bailed out: because they're an essential service that is used on a daily basis! Imagine if you woke up one day and heard that Amazon was bankrupt, and therefore all AWS storage was going to be offline for 30+ days, and if a buyer could not be found the hard disks would be sold off at auction with no opportunity to retrieve your data.
(a much smaller version of that happened: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49285418 )
And, yes, from this we can infer which tech companies are "too big to fail" and therefore would be bailed out if ever at risk of imminent bankruptcy and shutdown: the cloud companies. AWS, Google, Microsoft, and probably Cloudflare as well.
The Intel "bailout" was more like the General Motors one, good old fashioned manufacturing protectionism.
Americans should also note that almost all other countries with bank failures had comparable bailouts. A few exceptions: Iceland (failure of Kaupthing forced the UK government to bail out some local authorities who were banking with them!), and Cyprus ("bail in" with loss of money in high value accounts, basically because the EU deemed the country to be too deep in dodgy foreign money to be worth saving).
(sarcasm marker, because there really are people who think like that)
This is only possible if you (a) fudge the definitions of "everything" a bit and (b) are one of the largest countries in the world. This is only ever going to be possible for US and China. And even then the US really is the "lucky country" with which natural resources it has ended up holding within its borders.
Alarm bell here: are you sure it's legal for the F35s to contain Chinese parts?
Low info voters are very, very bad at dealing with causation. Either for events in the past or events in the future. They tend to follow an algorithm more like "has my life improved recently? Then incumbent, else challenger". Much of the rest is differential turnout. Especially when all the constituencies have been gerrymandered six ways from Sunday.
I guess we'll see in a couple of days. The voter verdict on Trump #2 does not look positive, and this is going to reflect on every candidate with an R by their name.
Total UK spend in 2024 was about £70m or about £1 per citizen. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...
> It is incoherent to endorse restrictions on free speech while also supporting universal suffrage.
Even in the US free speech does not allow you to simply sell fraudulent goods and services. There has to be some sort of defense in the system against lying, or the entire process just turns into competing to write the worst fantasy about your opponent.
(Judge unconstitutionally refuses to accept appointment of other judges, situation escalates into a proper physical "lock the doors vs storm the building" conflict.)
It's not great, but it's not even clearly worse than the situation Greece survived. https://think.ing.com/articles/carsten-intro/
Or you go for a gas. But then you're not able to use water as a moderator, so it either has to be a "fast neutron" design (which the few liquid sodium reactors are) or use a graphite moderator (flammable, lifespan issues with neutron cracking).
The unexplored corner is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas-cooled_fast_reactor : plumbing is "safe" apart from being incredibly hot, but you still have to deal with fast neutrons smashing up the reactor from the inside on an atomic level.
Ramping up takes longer, yes, especially from maintenance. But the real factor is that operating cost is constant, almost independent from output, so they want to run the plant at operational 100% as much as possible.
(handy UK status page: https://www.ukgridlive.co.uk/nuclear )
The UK is currently building two long offshore DC-DC connections between north Scotland, where all the wind is, and the south of England, where much of the demand is. This is easier than running another line of pylons on land because fewer people will complain.
By comparison, the country's nuclear programme is targeting 2050, and I suspect that may get overtaken by events. Although it's still required for nuclear weapons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Pakistan
> You're making it sound like solar is power available now
It is. It's a thing you can buy from Aliexpress.
I have been wondering if there is a smart way to make use of "island" solar at home, but not thought of one other than heating assist (pipe tape heater).
Magnox: un-enriched fuel, designed for weapons, low operating temperature.
AGR: too complicated, can't be refuelled without complete shutdown.
PWR has emerged as the only viable design, and even that is too complicated compared to solar+batteries.
Basically, plumbing is the enemy. Every joint is a potential failure. If what's in the pipe is radioactive or corrosive or explosive (in the case of molten sodium, all three), that's extra bad. So there's tremendous cost of inspections.
C is not a great idea but like HS2 failing to finish it would also be a disaster.
https://ij.org/press-release/homeowners-appeal-to-u-s-suprem...
The victims weren't even accused of a crime, let alone convicted, and the police destroyed their house without compensation. They lost in court, because of the important American principle that the police can do what they like and owe nothing to the citizenry.