fabian2k

In a very automated, high-throughput setting I'd imagine that parallelizing the PCR would be the best way to increase throughput. There probably isn't that much potential in speeding up the time compared to just multiplying the number of reactions. Which is part of the point of the article.

Regarding the cheaper lab instruments, I'm not quite convinced by these ultra cheap examples. Many lab instruments need quite a bit of precision and reliability, and I would be suspicious that the cheap examples here could compete in that regard. Even PCR needs pretty exact temperature control across many individual reaction vessels. Of course the margins on lab instruments are likely enormous, and there should be plenty of potential for cheaper ones. But I don't think the ultra-cheap DIY stuff will convince people, and it'll likely also fail at the purchasing process anyway for larger institutions.

Plain old API keys are straightforward to implement. Create a long random string and save it in the DB. When someone connects to the API, check if the API key is in your DB and use that to authenticate them. That's it.

What happened was entirely predictable, as the article says. Iran using the Strait of Hormuz as leverage was an obvious consequences of putting them into a sufficiently precarious position.

You're also ignoring just how far outside the norms Trumps administration is. They're entirely dysfunctional, breaking all kinds of laws and full of unqualified extremist with their own agendas.

In practice, this draft is not a real draft yet. Nobody is actually drafted, so there are almost no practical consequences. If there was an actual draft, I'd expect to see a challenge to this.

At this moment, changing the constitution is not possible, there is no majority for this. So that pretty much took the option to change the broader parameters out of the discussion entirely.

Your point about consensus unfortunately doesn't quite work in cases like this were the people using the paper are not scientists. They're not continuing work in the same area, people are using this paper to support their arguments.

The anecdote in there is about complex B2B enterprise software. That's not the majority of customer support, and is very heavy on escalating to actual experts.

You don't have to remove 100% of the jobs to have huge effects. Automating large parts of a few sectors would already create significant disruptions.

Inert doesn't really say anything about toxicity, it's not directly related to that. The opposite is though, pretty much any strongly reactive chemical is dangerous or toxic in some way since it will react with stuff humans are made from.

With PFAS the inert example is also usually Teflon. That is also a solid polymer, so not many individual molecules. There isn't much you body could do to process a macroscopic chunk of Teflon, so you'd almost certainly just excrete it.

My understanding is that the bigger danger is e.g. a Teflon-producing plant than the final Teflon products (assuming the Teflon isn't damaged and heated too much). Because the plant has to handle the reactive ingredients, and those can leak into the environment.

And as far as I understand, helium is a byproduct of the extraction, so they can't choose to keep only the helium.

The only time I really saw checks used was when I was a child ~30-35 years ago and my parents used them. I did once cash a check from an elderly relative, but that was very unusual and only happened once. I didn't even know it was still possible to do that, my reaction was more like if someone had handed me a stack of punch cards to run on my computer.

There hasn't been anything an average person used checks for in the last decades in Germany. Except a few elderly people, nobody uses checks and there are no rebates via checks at all.

People voted for a vindictive and petty criminal that doesn't care about rules or laws. This is the result of that.

For example, with a German ID you can provide proof that you are older than 18 without giving up any identifying information. I mean, nobody uses this system at the moment, but it does exist and it works.

Another example where this plays a role are voter registration and ID requirements for voting in the US. It is entirely bizarre to me how these discussions just accept it as a law of nature that it's expensive and a lot of effort to get an ID. This is something that could be changed.

This is the full list of price adjustments (it's also linked in the article). I didn't see any other official announcement by Hetzner yet, only the previous announcement about the higher setup fees.