Hacker News Reader

varroaon Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

Partly because most of the builders went under during & after the great recession. They don't quite need decades to come back, but it definitely leaves a ripple.

varroaon Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

One can imagine if the bid process is sufficiently competitive & transparent, if HQ2 brings $10b in economic good, cities might bid eachother down asymptotically to offer $10b in incentives, which in net would result in nearly zero economic good for the winning city or the parent country, and transfer all that value to Amazon & it's shareholders.

There's also the concern that negative impacts are being ignored, such as increased demand on infrastructure, ala the Olympics, wherein by most accounts the winning city actually winds up economically worse-off.

varroaon Detroit executives are killing off slow-selling cars in favor of SUVs

It seems like car safety standards have led

Don't forget about aerodynamics.

varroaon Detroit executives are killing off slow-selling cars in favor of SUVs

What do you consider a hatchback? The Subaru Outback, for example, I believe is considered a crossover today, as is the Subaru Crosstrek, but both are arguably also hatchbacks.

varroaon Lithium chloride kills a honey bee parasite by a systemic mode of action

Perhaps- native pollinators may be impacted simply by "big ag" techniques, pesticides, or fertilizers, in which case changing practice to care for them is surely seen as burdeonsome, annoying, and impacting profits.

Or, it may be that native pollinators are simply invisible. In other words, they won't know what they've got until it's gone.

varroaon Turning Soybeans into Diesel Fuel Is Costing Billions

corn ethanol is a net negative

Some amount of ethanol added to gasoline serves as a fuel oxygenator, reducing emissions of soot and carbon monoxide. A discussion of whether there is a better oxygenate than corn ethanol could be interesting, but 5% or 10% ethanol is really there for emissions, not biofuel.

varroaon Lithium chloride kills a honey bee parasite by a systemic mode of action

While this is exciting, I can't help but notice-

Under the conditions of the common beekeeping practice in non-tropical regions, which are characterized by high colony densities, prevention of swarming and periodical mite control, it seems difficult to achieve a more balanced host-parasite relationship. Thus far, a long-term survival of A. mellifera colonies without any control measures is nearly exclusively reported from feral populations or colonies kept continuously under natural selection pressure

Varroa mites have evolved resistance to all available synthetic acaricides

In other words, this discovery is just another step following the footsteps of other failing herbicidal & insecticidal campaigns. Doing things nature's way is inconvenient, so we develop chemicals. But eventually, resistance is developed, and then we are in an arms race that will never end.

It would be nice to see more attention paid to the well-being of native pollinators, which already take care of themselves in regards to parasites & diseases, but whose numbers have been falling in recent years.

Managed honey bee colonies supplement the work of natural wild pollinators, not the other way around. In a study of 41 different crop systems worldwide, honeybees only increased yield in 14 percent of the crops. Who did all the pollination? Native bees and other insects.

https://www.wired.com/2015/04/youre-worrying-wrong-bees/

http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2011/10/native-bees-are-bett...