There is a reason they publish opeds right next to hard news. Its not by accident.

Concerns about inconsequential water usage at datacenters is a far more welcome problem for the the industry than the other real issues they could be dealing with. People distracted by water concerns will not notice the very real energy usage and AI ethics/practices issues.

Say what you want but the industry has figured out how to manage public perception and sentiment. Water usage problem is easy to fix, while energy usage is a far tougher nut to crack.

Federal subsidies don't stop at paying for much of the bus purchase costs, they are also paying for much of the roads and bridges the busses run on. Subsides cover of the operating costs, especially labor and energy. And at the very end, the reason most localities are able to offer free rides or very low cost rides is because federal dollars are subsidizing the final ride fares.

Yes, and?

The outcome of that approach is that an important service has uniform low costs to direct consumers, many of whom rely on the service for their quality of life, and many of whom would be unable to afford the service if its costs were passed along to them instead of subsidized via government debt and taxes.

In other words, a public service. That’s a good thing.

I'll argue that this Woit post is no better. Its lazy. What was the point?

Obviously, the next move is to build and sell the new iPhone Air 2 which has a two-day battery and improved camera system.

For better or worse the man is exposing the mindboggling scale of deindustrialization that was hidden underneath America's transition to a "knowledge economy". Decades of failed economic policy has led America to this point.

Unfortunately, that ship sailed a long time ago. Why is no one in the administration paying any attention to the outsourcing of high skill knowledge work to India and elsewhere? Obviously I have a bias working in technology, but it seems to me to be a much more CURRENT issue and one that can actually be addressed in the present.

That job retraining is going to happen ANY DAY NOW I tell you, and then those textile workers are going to be so glad that they can be call center workers.

Technically, they are leaving the front door open to all interested parties

New allies, same as the old allies.

The cynic in me sees people building careers off promotion of pseudo-science, and other on the creation of content around said pseudo-science. Reminds me of string theory for some reason.

What does it mean when I get better and better at picking blues/greens on second or third attempts? Does it mean my ability to pick colors can be somehow influenced or improved?

Yes, you can absolutely get better at discriminating different colors, orientations, etc. though unfortunately improvements tend to be highly specific to the stimulus. There's a great book by Barbara Dosher called Perceptual Learning that extensively overviews the literature.