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Every time a train rumbles to a stop, the energy generated by all that friction is converted to electricity

Friction is how classic braking work, and all the energy that goes into friction is lost. Regenerative braking typically rely on magnets and rotors to slow a train. When a train brake, it uses part of its kinetic energy to spin a rotor, which generate electricity using spinning magnets.

The article is otherwise interesting, it’s just unfortunate they got the physics basics wrong.

Reference: Review and trends in regenerative braking energy recovery for traction power system with inverter substation in subway’s of São Paulo city

China’s Ministry of Commerce said Tuesday that PVH Corp. must provide documentation and evidence within 30 days to show it did not engage in discriminatory practices

That’s one way of saying they want this US company to provide proof they don’t comply with US sanctions.

I don’t understand what they’re realistically hoping for. Forcing them to pick between operating in the US or operating in China?

At least this is putting a spotlight on the genocide of Uyghurs.

fines of up to €50,000 ($55,580) for supporting “the refusal to have children.”

I’m sure the law is absolutely consistent and grant the right to adopt to gay couples, right? Right?

China’s really being a champion of peace and stability /s

Thanks for the links, it’s interesting background. In that article from February 2021, The Artlantic states “There was also never a default”.

There was indeed no default as of February 2021. The default occured later, in April-May 2022, so we can’t expect a past article to include that information.

All major lenders need to take part in restructuring the debt indeed. That occured in 2023, and multiple lenders asked for a restructuring deal similar to the first one signed with China. I don’t know about the US, but Japan/India/French lender were looking for a similar restructuration terms. That sounds fair to me.

A debt rework between Sri Lanka and countries including Japan, India and France was also expected this week, but news of the EXIM deal took them by surprise. The three nations request comparability of debt treatment with China.

“As far as the information we have is concerned, conditions set by China are comparable to ours,” Kanda said.

The country’s default is clear evidence the overall debt wasn’t sustainable. Both Sri Lanka and its lenders have a responsibility on this. China is often the first mentioned because it was (still is?) Sri Lanka’s biggest foreign lender, although it would be good to have transparency of the country’s debt and interest rates on a per-lender basis, to see which ones are the most sustaonables.

The 2022 bloomberg article you cite first state:

It didn’t provide details on the value of the loans which it said matured at the end of 2021, nor did it state which nations owed the money.

I couldn’t read much further due to the paywal.

The Bloomberg article has too few details to make conclusions. We don’t know if AP and Bloomberg articles are referring to the same countries, nor whether it’s a significant portion or that country’s debt toward China.

The Reuters 2021 article has more details, and cite write-offs, as well as specific countries benefiting from deferrals: Angola, Pakistan, Kenya, the Republic of Congo. It’s good to read there’s some willingness to accomodate some countries.

Sadly that didn’t prevent Zambia and Sri Lanka from defaulting. China has lended hundred of billion of dollars with unsustainable terms, and this contributed to countries defaulting. That’s a bad situation for everyone involved.

I hope Tanzania and Zambia read the fine pints on the loan/inversement agreement.

Better late than never.

Once the war in Ukraine is over, weaponized drones won’t just vanish. They’re already made by companies with different level of ethics and any country able to pay is or will be able to buy them. Sooner or later, like many weapons, organised crime will get their hands on them, and use them outside of battlefield.

There’s no way to completely prevent it, but we could at least limit damage by regulating the shit out of drones.

Sodas

🎻

A call for resignation may only be the first step, or a way to confront him and calling out his failures.

There miners robot don’t exist yet, but they would probably require high tech components and manufacturing capabilities for all these different components (motors, electronics, batteries, sensors, …).

Self replicating robots is still science fiction. If we wanted to build such robots in space, we’d need to build and launch manufacturing facilities in space before we can actually build robots in space.

Hypothetically, it would only make sense to mine rare materials in space, and it would only have environmental benefits if we return significant amount compared to the mass of rockets we send into space.

There is no coal/gas/oil in space, and even if extracting these resources were cleaner, burning that stuff would still be disastrous.

Space mining would be at best viable for very niche uses for a few material. It won’t bring us infinite clean resources, overall we still need to reduce extraction of resources.

I was about to say people can walk and chew gum. But this kind of miss the point.

This is not space exploration, this is not for science’s sake. This is about extracting resources, and making a profit. I heard one of these companies perpetuate the idea that there’s virtually infinite resource, which imply we can continue with humanity’s exponential growth without negative consequences. That mindset landed us in the inextricable mess we’re in.

These 5% of negative reviews probably has nothing to do with you. There’s always a small amount of people unhappy for random or unrelated reasons (broke up with boy/girlfriend, car broke, etc) and who would write negative reviews no matter what. It’s possible they cannot dissociate the course from other things happening in their life. They just happened to be unhappy at that time, and felt like leaving a nasty review.

That’s unfortunate.

Technically this hasn’t been approved by the General Assembly yet, and then individual countries would need to ratify it. But press coverage suggest it’s a done deal.

For the treaty to go into force, 40 nations have to ratify it.

UN approves its first treaty targeting cybercrime

In many places, ratifying a treaty requires parliament approval, so it’s not going to be quick. Talk to your representative once this treaty comes up in your parliement’s agenda.

Bitcoin is not practical for small purshases, because transaction takes several minutes, and have around 50USD per-transaction fee. Note the cost of fees and value of bitcoin vary wildly, so the same amount of bitcoin may be enough to pay rent in August, but not in September.

On a more ethical level, it’s also quite bad because of the insane energy cost of bitcoin transactions.

This is an opinion piece… It’s clearly marked as being an opinion. Even though it has solid arguments, and probably hold some truth, it’s not an actual news article written by NYT staff, it’s not pretending to be a factual reporting by a journalist nor an objective truth.

Everyone is free to agree or disagree with it. To buy, sell, or hold.

It would be wise however to consider the argument themselves, and not decide go to in one direction just because the author/publisher is someone you like or dislike.