Why is this even a Slashdot story? It doesn't involve technology in any way and relocate-to-this-location-or-leave ultimatums are not uncommon in the business world so it's barely even a business story. Are we now going to have posts for every single announced corporate layoff?

For my entire life practical fusion power has always been 'just around the corner' and that's going back to tokamak reactors, hydrogen pellets. cold fusion, whatever. What they don't tell you is that there are probably dozens to a hundred corners to get past before fusion power will become a reality. In fact this post could have been published in 1990 with only a modification or two and it would have been just as accurate then as it is now.

I'm sure that one day we will finally have usable fusion power but that day is still probably decades away.

Even if you had a replacement chip that was identical in form, fit, function, and reliability to the original (and you rarely get all of these), it would still have to be qualified as such. And that involves a non-trivial amount of engineering and testing plus any required government certification. As long as the currently designed-in chip is available at a satisfactory price it's difficult to justify the time and expense of replacing it in an existing product.

Plus I'm pretty sure that car manufacturers are already re-evaluating/modifying their chip choices for car models still in the design pipeline. The big question for them now is whether it makes sense to design in and test replacement chips just for the 2021 models. Designing-in, testing, and sourcing the new chips takes time and if they don't think they can complete this process before they're already into 2022 model production, then it makes sense to just wait until the current chips are available for whatever remaining 2021 models are scheduled to be produced.

As I recall almost no traditional VC firms ever ended up investing in Theranos for exactly this reason. Theranos was never willing to divulge enough details of their technology for the firms to independently verify that it existed and was viable so they walked away. So most of Theranos investors ended up being non-VC investment companies and individuals enamored with Elizabeth Holmes' story.

Ah yes you are correct. It's been a long time since I've had a Roth IRA so I had forgotten the distinctions between the two types. :-|

Yes Roth IRAs can be a much better tax shield in the right circumstances. The fact that they can be inherited and the withdrawals staying tax-free for the beneficiaries is almost too good to be true. I will have to look into the details further. So it looks like it may be time for me to re-evaluate how my investments are structured....

The Propublica author seems to have just now discovered Roth IRAs and is shocked, shocked! that they exist. But they've existed for decades and the rules regarding them have been roughly the same all during this time. Annual contributions to the IRA are capped but the gains on assets already in the IRA are not. And contrary to the author's assertion that the gains are 'are shielded from taxes forever', they are in fact only tax *deferred*. The IRS will get its cut when Thiel starts withdrawing money from the IRA after age 59.5 or when the gains are transferred as a gift or as part of an estate.

Both my grandparents and parents have done very well through their IRA investments - in fact it's the gains from these that mostly financed their retirements and that's probably true for many Americans these days. The author mainly just seems upset that Thiel has done very well from stock options and had the temerity to use a tax deferred investment tool that is available to ALL Americans. Apparently this is supposed to be an outrage.

Good point. These effects were due to limitations of the technology at the time - not artistic choices. Given the opportunity the original filmers certainly would shot in color in high resolution and at full frame rate if they could have. So we shouldn't treat artifacts from the limited technology as some sort of sacred artistic vision that must always be included with the original source material in order to appreciate it.

I agree. Suicide is complicated and rarely due to a single factor. In all of the cases of suicide I've had personal knowledge of it turned out that there was more going on than the specific reason the person gave. Often it was a history of mental issues, chronic medical or financial issues, drug use, or some kind of abuse or a combination of all of the above. My suspicion is that there were other factors involved that left him in a vulnerable state and it was just the sudden perceived Robinhood loss that pushed him over the edge.

I feel like the quality of summaries has been declining recently. They're either so badly written that you can't really tell what the article is about or in the case of this one the summary fails to explain or even *mention* the item referred to in the title.

Actually the whole Kitty Genovese bystander story is more or less a myth. Only a few people ever heard her cries for help and they did in fact respond by calling the police and yelling at her attacker from the window and forcing him to flee (but he returned a few minutes later and killed her then.) Abe Rosenthal, the then editor of the NYT, basically made up the entire narrative of 38 people standing by, listening to her being murdered, and doing nothing.

Not true. Moderate use of testosterone is safe with minimal side effects. Do a google search on "HRT" to see why many middle aged men are prescribed test by their doctors. The steroid users at the gym are taking 10-30x the normal amount of testosterone your body produces while HRT users are only taking about 2-3x normal. The main problem I see with this treatment is that the men would only get 1 injection per month and even with longer lasting testosterone, their levels are still going to vary wildly. What's the point of birth control if your libido crashes every 4 weeks.

Guess I'll have to use the caps lock LED as my secure interface except Doh! it puts out signals that can be sniffed as well.