panax (u/panax) - Readit News

panax commented on New $3k Couch Might Be Garbage in Three Years wsj.com/lifestyle/couch-s... · Posted by u/sharkweek

noodlesUK · 2 years ago

Serious question: enshittification seems to be plaguing all parts of our consumer economy at the moment. How can we actually address this? Are there economic or regulatory steps that we can make to ensure that we aren't forced into an eternal race to the bottom where product quality just trends to zero permanently?

panax · 2 years ago

Buy based on quality, but you have to be willing to pay for it.

panax commented on EU hails discovery of phosphate rock deposit in Norway euractiv.com/section/ener... · Posted by u/simonebrunozzi

panax · 2 years ago

From what I understand only about 2 billion of the 70 billion tons are economically extractable.

panax commented on No Man's Sky just keeps getting better polygon.com/gaming/239392... · Posted by u/PaulHoule

panax · 2 years ago

The worst aspect of this game is the tedious inventory management and awful UI. You only get 10 storage crates which each only hold 5 different items and they all look identical so you have to run around trying to find the right one to add it to the right stack. There's not enough space to be able to store most items especially if you need intermediate items for crafting, even if you limit yourself to storing only one stack of one type of item. You end up using all the exocraft just for storage and never use most of them besides only for storage. Progression is largely centered around buying extra storage slots for your exoskeleton which ends up allowing you to carry more stuff on your body than you can on a large vehicle or in one of these giant storage crates that barely hold anything. The item icons are also unnecessarily huge in them and there isn't an easy or efficient way of interacting with them. The big storage cubes allow you to access the inventory from anywhere so that somehow justifies the very limited space, but there is no option for building a container that you can only access locally from inside a base other than building portable refiners to abuse as storage, which hold hardly anything and sometimes despawn randomly. So you end up building like 50 refiners in a base for storage and you constantly run around trying to remember what each one holds so you can go store something in an existing stack to save space.

panax commented on Berkshire Hathaway posts a 40% jump in operating earnings, cash pile of $157B cnbc.com/2023/11/04/berks... · Posted by u/thelastgallon

dangerwill · 2 years ago

Is there a stated reason that a handful of the biggest companies are sitting on cash piles greater than the yearly GDP of mid sized nations?

Are they convinced that a more muscular re-investment in their businesses won't provide returns greater than interest?

Is there a tax advantage here that pushes companies to hoard?

Is the C-suite set really worried about the greater economic environment going forward and so want these cash piles as a buffer to get through coming lean times?

panax · 2 years ago

For Berkshire in particular most of this cash is part of the float for their insurance business which they need to have on hand and available to pay out for potential claims and they will only ever keep that part of the float in cash equivalents. Still they have a large amount of cash beyond what they need for the float which they attribute to lack of opportunities to invest in given their immense size and investing style. They also want to be able to be in a strong position in a downturn or crisis situation. Hoarding all that excess cash still presents a major opportunity cost for them, although now not as much as before with higher interest rates.

panax commented on Turmeric can kill cancer cells and prevent their growth cancerresearchuk.org/abou... · Posted by u/algobro

graphe · 2 years ago

Funny this was the other discussion it being contaminated. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38139011

Wikipedia suggests its toxify is overblown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_chromate

>Despite containing both lead and hexavalent chromium, lead chromate is not particularly toxic because of its very low solubility. The LD50 for rats is only 5,000 mg/kg. Lead chromate is treated with great care in its manufacture, the main concerns being dust of the chromate precursor. "Extensive epidemiological investigations have given no indication that the practically insoluble lead chromate pigments have any carcinogenic properties".

panax · 2 years ago

Because it has low solubility it will be less toxic compared to a more soluble form of lead, but it is still highly toxic and there is no safe dose. It has been implicated in numerous documented cases of lead poisoning from adulterated turmeric and you wouldn't want to be consuming it.

panax commented on TSA let a gun on flight: WA state senator arrested in Hong Kong seattletimes.com/seattle-... · Posted by u/throw7

crote · 2 years ago

TSA fails about 75%-95% of their routine red team checks. That includes bombs and guns making it through security undetected.

It's security theater, nothing more.

panax · 2 years ago

We need to abolish the TSA already

panax commented on Commercially available chairs in Star Trek ex-astris-scientia.org/da... · Posted by u/zichy

hef19898 · 2 years ago

At least the set designers had style! Some nice designs there, for sure! If only someine would have thought of, I don't know, seat belts...

panax · 2 years ago

What about these seat belts? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ysvyXDebsM

panax commented on Dianne Feinstein has died nytimes.com/2023/09/29/us... · Posted by u/Kaibeezy

yboris · 2 years ago

Putting it on your radar: Approval Voting

Has many advantages over RCV / IRV (Ranked Choice Voting / Instant Runoff Voting). For one - no need to change ballots; educating the public is a single sentence rather than a more-complicated explanation.

https://electionscience.org/library/approval-voting/

panax · 2 years ago

Another system similar to this but with more information is STAR voting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STAR_voting

They all have different strengths and weaknesses. We should be trying to move to more optimal systems.

panax commented on Dianne Feinstein has died nytimes.com/2023/09/29/us... · Posted by u/Kaibeezy

iamwpj · 2 years ago

It would require voting for the other party. The big issue is the parties being willing to back aging candidates. But of course, party leaders are just as old -- so they see no problem.

panax · 2 years ago

There's more than two parties. Nobody is forcing you to vote for one of them. Parties are also an anti-pattern. Again we need a better system than first past the post that naturally biases towards a two party system.

panax commented on Dianne Feinstein has died nytimes.com/2023/09/29/us... · Posted by u/Kaibeezy

chongli · 2 years ago

Between her and McConnell and the other gerontocrats in Washington, I’m really baffled. Why do these people grip the reins of power until their knuckles turn white? What is so important about political horse trading that they have to literally haul you out of office on a stretcher?

panax · 2 years ago

Why does everyone keep reelecting them? Vote for someone else. We also need a better voting system than first past the post.