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Weekly new hospital admissions is better.

Case numbers are massively skewed by testing capacity.

You misunderstand. I 'modernized' to Python (similar to the GP). Then the Python version stopped being supported so I reverted to Fortran..

It depends on the language. Fortran last broke backwards compatibility with F90. F77 code is still 100% supported. C is similar.

How do you validate that the machine readable sqlite db has the same content as the human readable?

The only parenting experts have just one child.

When they get their second they realise that all children are different.

You will grow into it.

Yep I learned the skills of how to take better care of my children! It improved my bond with them massively. Use the leave for that. It's what it's for. If you waste it 'learning' you won't get it back.

OK but the latest Fortran specification and compilers explicitly support all Fortran77 code and a really large amount of F66 as well.

Will there be Python 3.8 interpreters in 2100? F77 will still compile and run better than it did in the 1980s.

I've 'modernised' such an old program then come back a few years later, realised the 'modern' ones don't run anymore and reverted to the old Fortran version.

I bet the old Fortran versions are supported and compile decades after the 'newer' languages stop being supported...

Hang on are you actually accusing me of astroturfing????

How is this post allowed to stand? How do I flag it?

Absorption. Even with the fanciest microfiber reusable your babies bum is red raw after a few nights. Cotton would be appalling.

I'm not speaking in the abstract. We tried reusables.

They do a serious assessment of every new technology to decide if it adds value to their society. Disposable nappies are one of the few technologies they decided to use.

Even the Amish use real nappies rather than messing around with reusables.

Real nappies are better for baby and toddler bums, easier for already stressed parents and more hygienic.

Reusables result in massive energy and water waste, they are a health hazard if not washed properly (many manufacturers washing instructions are very inadequate. They must be washed at a minimum of 60°C whatever your manufacturer said), release loads of microplastics and are a lot more work.

I don't see climate change as a moral issue. To me it's a practical issue. Best case climate change will seriously mess up our way of life. Worst case is very bad.

I'm not sure that we can grow and store enough trees to bring CO2 levels down to non dangerous levels in time. If we could it would certainly be worth doing. Can you point me to any calculations?

Even if this specific solution isn't viable, it is an example of what we need to do to solve this problem. Fundamentally we need to scrub a huge amount of carbon out of the atmosphere as soon as possible. Everything else is just moving the deckchairs.

Per seat licences are very standard. Interesting you've never encountered it when e.g. an MS Office 365 subscription is for so many devices (seats).

That was considered standard then in London. Royal Mail even had its own underground railways in London.

I'm politically very in favour of personal liberty. Climate change being a real and causing problems is a fact at this point (we are mainly working out how big the problems will be). I wish that some liberterian politicians would start to accept that so we can get some freedom respecting solutions!

Luckily we were able to discuss it further and clear up some of the confusion.

> The problem with the argument is, well, why doesn't this apply to everything? Massive changes happen all the time in the world, and anything could be a disaster if our only standard for "could" is lack of knowledge that it won't be. If someone said "we need to focus our global efforts on stone-faced office buildings, because humanity might go extinct if we keep building so many all-glass ones", we'd demand more than a lack of evidence.

I can't think of any comparible examples where human activity is known to be causing massive problems... Various forms of pollution maybe? But I would argue for action there too.

Sorry I must be communicating really badly.

I'll try to put it more clearly.

1. We don't really understand how these systems work. (The evidence for that is basically a lack of evidence and the type of thing we are still working on...) 2. Certain outcomes in the system could be very very very bad. 3. We are changing part of the system massively. 4. Because of (1) we don't know what (3) will do.

I'm not alluding to any hiden knowledge here. I'm not a climate scientist. My published work is related to other parts of the Earth's carbon cycle.

Did you ever read this https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html?

I think I get what you are saying but maybe you could reformat it in a civil way rather than berating me.

I listed some very simple examples of places where we don't understand the Earth's carbon cycle fully. No one will publish a study saying, 'Hey guys we don't understand this yet'. We know we don't! That's why we do research to chip away at the problems.

> But you can't just use a lack of knowledge around an low probability event to drive global policy that could potentially be disastrous in all kinds of other ways.

The way I think about it like this. When I do an experiment I (am supposed to) do a risk assessment. If a proceedure has a low probability of causing a huge hazard like death I should take steps to reduce the risk of that hazard occurring as much as possible. Similarly climate change has a none zero possibility of causing humans to become extinct (and a much more than none zero chance of cause society as we know it to breakdown). Shouldn't we lower that probability?

You should speak to some more Geologists then. We really don't understand the systems of our planet and we are currently sticking a big spanner into them. Many of us are more concerned than we can publish - precisely because we don't want to scaremonger.

Will the Earth definitely turn into an out of control hothouse with a Venus - like climate? Very probably not there are many differences between Earth and Venus.

Can we be sure than some positive feedback mechanism might make life as we know it untenable on Earth? I'm not sure myself and I don't think anyone can know.

Back then the continents were configured rather differently. That has a huge effect on hothouse vs icehouse regime. Right now we are in a continental configuration that should be icehouse (circumpolar currents with cold deep water). If we force the climate into hothouse against its natural state what will happen?

It's very much not settled how balanced the mantle vs surface carbon cycle is. How much carbon is in MORB? Is subducted sediment actually entrained into the mantle?

A major store of CO2 is sedimentary dolomite. We did't even really understand how that formed! (Last time I checked but I'm no sedimentologist so that might have been solved.)

Speaking as a geologist your statement is dangerously naive. I'm not saying Venus and the end of all life is definite but it is the worst case scenario of a situation that we don't understand and that will soon be (maybe already is) out of our control.

Assuming some negative feedback mechanism kicks in. There is a chance a positive feedback occurs, global warming spirals and Earth becomes uninhabitable. See Venus for an example.

I use both MS and Google at various locations. The result is also dismal... But we can all be exasperated together and vent about how awful it is without upsetting anyone.

Some people really hate GDPR. It has crushed the AdTech industry in Europe - I'm not sad about that but I do hope those people found other employment fast.

Let's hope the filesystem API does require user permission and that anyone building such a service follows the law.

You know that GDPR doesn't require pop ups unless the service is doing something that isn't otherwise lawful?