"The UK creative industries reflect our national stories"
Can you still say that when My Lady Jane shows the king of England as black, gay, and disabled?

I mean there's certainly a narrative there I say nothing of an agenda ... but in no way does it represent the British "national story".

"the fourth most important food crop globally, after wheat, rice and maize." Apparently this is a quotation from The Guardian (see "pummeling", above), which got it from Christian Aid, which got it from -- I am not making this up -- Mordor Intelligence: "bananas remain the fourth most important food crop globally after wheat, rice, and maize in terms of production volume." I couldn't find any source listed for their information; I assume they got it from some kind of All-Seeing Eye.

Thanks for that. "... coated with a 10 nm thin dark ceramic nanolayer comprising only 50-100 atom layers". Seems like scratches might be a big problem. They have carriers to protect the media when not in use, but the machines will need to remove and replace the sheets in the carriers.

"the data is not corrupted even when exposed to electromagnetic pluses". What about minuses?

But they're offering a money-back guarantee if you can't read your data 5000 years from now!

But there's also Linear A, which is more recent and can be read as a set of symbols, except no one knows what they mean.

Unfortunately there's a huge gap between "should" and "is". From the Los Angeles Times of January 13, 1991 [Paywalled]: History Fades Away as Data Is Lost on Computer Tapes: "One of the biggest headaches is sloppy record-keeping. Everyone who designs a computer or a program for it is supposed to write down--on paper--how the machines operate, how the program organizes data and what information is on each tape. Often, they didn't. 'Generally it's the last thing you do and pay the least attention to,' said Gerald Cranford, assistant Census director for data processing."

Sometimes the formats are really weird and inconvenient: "The most extensive record of Americans who served in World War II exists only on 1,600 reels of microfilm of computer punch cards" or fragile: "Census data from the 1960s and NASA's early scientific observations of the Earth and planets exist on thousands of reels of old tape. Some may have decomposed; others may fall apart if run through the balky equipment that survives from that era." (At least these could be addressed by more durable media.)

And sometimes things just get lost: "In 2010, 440 of the previously lost magnetic tapes containing the raw ALSEP data were recovered" and Apollo 11 missing tapes.

The current most popular cultivar is the Cavendish, which is a cloned monoculture. This has some benefits: it means they're consistent in size, shape, and growth patterns, and they're seedless.

There are many other varieties of bananas, but most of them don't travel well. Bananas produce ethylene gas, which causes the bananas and other fruits to ripen faster, not desirable in fruits shipped long distances and then expected to last several more days. Maybe Cavendish bananas have a relatively long shelf life, but I don't know.

There's also the problem of consumer acceptance: apparently people think "banana" means something that looks like what they expect a banana to look like and aren't eager to experiment. Still, other varieties are available.

Also "chiquitito/chiquitico" (tiny) and "chiquitita" (little one or little girl).

Technology to the rescue! Now you have another 12 hours! "The banana, developed by Tropic, a biotech company based in Norwich, is said to remain fresh and yellow for 12 hours after being peeled and is less susceptible to turning brown when bumped during harvesting and transportation."

See, trump was right after all; other countries do pay the tariffs. But of course they aren't paying them to the US government.

Tariffs are paid by the consumer. Companies pass along any tariff costs, not add them to their bottom line.

Possibly they meant something like this, but ONLY if contaminated soil was used elsewhere.

The Gros Michel is the one which was essentially wiped out by Panama Disease, thus leading to the Cavendish. However, Cavendish is also susceptible to certain types of Panama disease fungus.

I ironically find myself agreeing with the employees here.

Overwatch is such a pablum of woke crap that I endorse anything that will kill it more quickly. Go union!

Here's an example of the "rigorousness" of such science.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.realclimate.org%2Fin...

Let me be clear, I think the research done and data gathered is amazing and insightful. The authors are careful to regionalize their conclusions but cautiously generalize only when reasonably likely.

What I take issue with is the exception handling; when the pre 1000ad data very clearly doesn't fit the expectation, they just TOSS IT OUT (shrug). If your data -which looks solid- shows a significant change when you don't think there should be one, FOLLOW THE DATA.

The result, of course, is a reinforcement of the good old "hockey stick" - little change until recently which fits a desired climate change narrative so much more neatly...

"Though global sea levels "varied little" for the 2,000 years before the 20th century"

I know slashdot is deeply Christian, but why are the last 2000 years so sacred?
"Over the past 20,000 years or so, sea level has climbed some 400 feet (120 meters). "
Seems like sea level has radically changed over time, that the highest peak was higher than today, and that over the last 100k+ years, the trend with each cycle has been to greater peaks.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Focean.si.edu%2Fthrough-t...

" You can always find an example to prove any point you want to make"

I enjoy the complete lack of self-awareness in this comment.