I never found Athena expensive. Compared to employment cost it will be miniscule.
And some times, if your query is CPU extensive but the queried data size is not huge you can get a ridiculous value for money, like many CPU-days in 10 minutes for just $5 if your query covers 1TB after partitioning.
Query size limits are also configurable.
Obviously it depends on what data you are working on, but not having to set up and pay for a computational cluster is a huge cost saving.
That was just an example, not strictly what I was there for. I just pointed it out to the dean as something that was always mentioned, but glanced over like "ew, this doesn't matter so much".
There is a huge difference between "Geothermal Energy" technologies.
The project in Staufen seems to be about a heat pump, which is a really simple technology that can be used pretty much everywhere. The problem seems to be that the drilling hole hit a gypsum layer that started swelling. But this should be pretty easy to know if it is in an area at risk.
Lots of houses here in Sweden has this technology, my house has, and it is a 2 day project to drill a 150m hole for a standalone house and install the heat pump, maybe $20-30k investment.
Wikipedia claims Sweden is #2 in the world for geothermal energy, but it is because of these simple heat pumps.
Why would I ever do a geothermal heat pump for $20-30k when you can get a proper central air heat pump and air handler for less than half? The split unit heat pumps a good portion of the world like would be even cheaper. Not sure how much those would cost.
Geothermal heat pumps are more efficient. They also ignore air temp so they keep working efficiently when cold outside.
The downside is that geothermal is expensive and hard to retrofit. They make the most sense in new construction in cold climates or adding to large properties.
Geothermal heat pumps can work great in retrofitting old system with a water heater. My family house is over 100 year old and the original water heater used coal in 1920, then it was changed to electrical around 1980s, and is now fitted with geothermal heat pumps. Geothermal was installed as a cost saving measure and cut down the heating bill by more than half. All the old cast iron radiators are still the original ones.
Yeah, best deal if you already have water based central heating and radiators. Which is pretty common here in Sweden since don't really have air/gas heating systems, so our houses are not built with air ducts.
Better efficiency (you use maybe 30% of the electricity), connects to the central heating so it supports the entire house.
I installed mine for $15k but that was 20 years ago and included subsidies.
They were happy with it. On the opposite side, almost every dual role manager I've known have been miserable. Most of the ones I knew dropped out and went back to dev only work. A few stuck it out and got promoted into a no-code management role.
For me, going to Oslo and walking around inside "Fram" was much more amazing.
Sweden has Wasa, a ship that sank after 3km on her maiden voyage.
Norway has the most successful polar explorers in the world, and Fram was the most successful ship, used in overwinterings by both Nansen and Amundsen.
War is a negative sum game. Peace is a positive sum game.
The reality is China is now the top trading partner for most of the world. China is producing 50% of the world's steel. China has 200x the shipbuilding capacity of the United States, etc etc. Cooperation with China is positive sum for nearly the whole world, but China as the preeminent geopolitical power is incompatible with the unipolar moment where America led the world and decided the rules of the road, and could force dissenters to comply at gunpoint. China is far more relatively powerful than the USSR ever was, much less China+Russia+Iran+North Korea combined.
This is what we're seeing play out in microcosm in Ukraine, where Russia is to a large degree being backstopped by Chinese industrial and economic and diplomatic power. Hard choices are required, and there can be a lot of productive debate on the specifics of those choices. But much of "the west" seems stuck in the 1990s, where America can simply will the world it wants into existence by believing in it enough.
If America and the EU had started dumping 10% of GDP into the military 5 or 15 years ago things would likely look very different now, but we didn't and no one wants to do that now either because it would be incredibly painful for millions of people who in a democracy could vote out the leaders who enacted that policy. Hard choices are required, but we're getting mainly empty rhetoric and wishcasting, by those who wish things were otherwise. I also wish things were otherwise - but that and $5 will get me a cup of Starbucks coffee.
"The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences." - Winston Churchill
And what is striking is that, so far, China is effectively defeating the USA as the world leader, piece by piece, without firing a shot.
Or at least, has a golden opportunity window to do so within the next 2/3 years, while Trump/Musk & co are dismantling the country capacity to function.
China has done that by ruling internally with an iron fist and ruling externally with financial influence.
The U.S. is actually trying a play from the same playbook by abstaining from deploying troops.
When was the last time you saw China getting torn apart in the media for failing to prop up a failed state? They're doing "greenfield" diplomacy without historical baggage.
Free trade as implemented in the past seems to have been the opposite of democratic cooperation. Non-elected appointees making free trade agreements behind locked doors, which effect ignore the citizens interest and makes industry regulation irrelevant. It was free trade that enshrined current copyright laws world wide with 90 years after the authors death, which few people in the world voted for.
Free trade only reflect cooperation if done transparently, chosen by the people, and which does not bypass industry regulation that people voted on. If that is not possible then the trade agreement need to reflect the different national views on things like minimum wage, environmental issues, safety standard, animal well fare, justice system, trade marks, and so on.
Further to this point, what people call "free trade" is in many cases actually not free at all. A good example of this is the bilateral relationship with Thailand, they put tons of tariffs on US imports, and the US puts very few tariffs on Thailand. Why? The rationale for this is ostensibly that the US would like to have more political influence in Southeast Asia, or hasn't totally internalized that the Cold War is over, or something.
(It also so happens that Thailand places very low tariffs on Chinese goods - and their government has been currying political favor with Beijing for a long time - they are happy to enjoy unrestricted access to US markets and seem quite confident that the status quo will endure so if we are trying to buy political influence with them, we seemingly have been so toothless that it isn't even working!)
The US has deals like this all over the planet where it gives other countries unrestricted access to its markets, in return for what is not clear. A lot of these deals contributed to the movement of US manufacturing to places like Thailand, which hit the US working class in the wallet very directly. Sure there are also good deals that we should preserve as-is but it doesn't seem unreasonable at all to me that some of these be subjected to scrutiny and revision.
That’s why Trump saying he’ll normalize tariffs is popular:
Many Americans feel cheated, whereby they give better terms to other parties and don’t even get respect in return. So they now support a movement to mirror that behavior.
This is an example of the iterated prisoner’s dilemma: one side defected on a partnership for their benefit, trust collapsed, and now the originally cooperative partner is acting selfishly as well. Reciprocation is a fundamental part of relationships.
The US isn’t the entity that needs to hear “cooperating is better than a zero sum mindset”.
Edit to respond:
Most of those people are upset about that as well:
- foreign owned farmland and corporations;
- foreign owned condos, etc;
- inflated stock prices enriching Wall St relative to Main St;
…and so on. What you’re describing is the concerns of the petite bourgeoisie who have benefitted from inflated stock prices, housing prices, and land prices.
For Trump supporters, ending that distortion in the market while boosting domestic labor is a win-win.
Americans will “feel cheated” again when reality arrives and learn that a huge part of their economic power is based on the world dumping trillions of dollars of their savings into us stocks, bonds and real estate, thus making the US dollar artificially strong, making it possible for Americans to buy stuff and being rich. Wait until foreign money and trust starts leaving the US to see how “betrayed” you really get, now it has been la la land, let’s wait for the next act..
I assume the intended audience for the tariff talk is rust belt workers (who swung the election) who feel cheated for more dramatic reasons like their company folding while foreign suppliers thrive.
> Many Americans feel cheated, whereby they give better terms to other parties and don’t even get respect in return
> - foreign owned farmland and corporations;
That's hilarious. Many languages have a specific term for US private equity investors that rush in, buy up entire countries' corporations, then try to squeeze out every cent of profit.
> Many languages have a specific term for US private equity investors that rush in, buy up entire countries' corporations, then try to squeeze out every cent of profit.
Sure — the US bourgeoisie and petite bourgeoisie benefitted. But they’re not the ones supporting Trump or feeling cheated.
> But they’re not the ones supporting Trump or feeling cheated.
One of the groups most benefiting from the US dominance in the past decades were the farmers. Which is one of the larger lobby blocks and voting groups supporting trump.
And the logic doesn't compute either. Average people around the world got exploited by western, but primarily US, billionaires.
So the average people, the proletariat, should unite and revolt against those billionaires.
Instead the US proletariat voted to give billionaires even more power, in the hope that "their" billionaires would exploit foreigners more than themselves?
Free trade is built on top of economic systems which themselves are built on top of zero sum games. The only thing we can put economic value on are goods and services that use finite resources (oil, lumber, human labor, etc).
A forest, for example, has no economic value but lumber does.
Free trade may optimize how goods and services are dispersed but it can't escape the zero sum game that is foundational to economics.
I don't think it is merely a matter of redistribution. It can escape the zero-sum game through productivity gains, technological progress, recycling, and better legislation (for example, policies that regenerate forests). It may even create new industries as replacements. Because of this, I don’t believe it is inherently a zero-sum game.
> The only thing we can put economic value on are goods and services that use finite resources
A software patent does not consume physical resources (aside from the initial human labor) yet holds tremendous economic value. An app can be easily duplicated, making it a virtually infinite resource, while the patent remains attached to its novel functionalities.
There is always the possibility to dig deeper mines, explore further into space or just give people the possibility to live more a comfortable life.
But it is not only about that. Trade is also for comparative advantage. If you ever played settlers boardgame with more than two players you'll soon realize that whoever trades the most wins. And it does not really matter who you trade with, it is just reaping the benefits of trade instead of being stuck with 10 wood that is of low value to you but of high value to someone else.
What you're describing is a zero sum game. The world is limited to the board game, and whoever is best at trading and strategy collects the most finite resources and the others lose.
(Sorry if I lost the thread here. Most here were trying to argue that trade and globalization are a way to escape a zero-sum game).
I get your point, but I don't think a board game is a good abstraction to collapse the real world into. The world is not a fixed, closed system with finite resources. In a board game, expansion and innovation are not possible, only trading and strategy, as you mentioned, can optimise the system to some extent. Moreover, winning in a board game happens solely because of its rules, whereas in the real world, one person's success does not necessarily mean another's loss. Trade can be mutually beneficial, driven by each party's ambitions.
Innovation is an interesting wrinkle in the comparison for sure (I used the comparison only to continue with the previous commentor's point). Innovation only increase the potential usefulness of resources though. Assuming that will always avoid hitting the boundary of the zero sum game assumes perpetual innovation at a good enough pace to keep up.
Trade is an interesting one because it can be mutually beneficial, though it rarely includes everyone. Two countries can trade and both be better off, but other countries excluded may now be worse off. Trade also can't be mutually beneficial with regards to relative gain. Both sides can gain in trade or cooperation but one will always have gained more than the other. That doesn't make my point by the way, but an interesting related dimension to the whole topic.
The first tried to explain that it does not necessarily have to be a zero-sum game.
The second paragraph tried to explain that, even if you do see it as a zero sum game, trade between two parties, or trade in general, can give you benefits over ones who are not part of the trade.
Obviously I am trying to describe this in simple terms without writing a book. But i do think the board game analogy holds even though it is very simple.
That's a very limited (XIXth century?) perspective.
A forest (like, anything) has economic value, as soon as you get people to adopt/believe in it.
A forest may even have a greater economic value than the lumber it could produce, if it would, for instance, help/ensure the prosperity of something else that has economic value (leisure, wildlife, heat protection, soil water retention, etc.).
I completely agree outside of economics. I put much higher value on a forest than lumber. Economically, though, where is the forest ever accounted for?
In your strategic business plan, by IFRS accounting standards (existing and developing).
You have several options, account for it as lumber (but... well), or as a carbon sequestration well (so you could get carbon credits, IAS 38), or as an ecosystem providing services (several frameworks under work here), or as a contingent liability or asset (IAS 37, can be in the balance sheet if the probability of event/impact is high/certain).
Even if you forget to account for it, your insurance likely will remind you about it.
Once someone can "own" the forest, that be a bit of a cheat around the whole idea. I'm thinking out loud here, but I think all of you're examples are actually valuing the financial mechanisms rather than the forest itself.
The carbon credits are given economic value, its just not a physical resource like lumber so its harder to distinguish that the credit holds the value rather than the forest.
If Europe's military were so strong, why does the US need any involvement?
There's a reason even Zelensky described the EU militaries as weak, and believes a European army to be necessary.
Don't confuse spending with strength either: The UK, on paper, spends 2.3% of GDP on the military. That sounds good - until you realize they have only 136,000 personnel total. That's not going to defend the UK from anything - it can't even defend Ukraine for a year.
You are asking the wrong question (or at least, a wrong question). It's not "why does the US need any involvement", it's "Why has the US insisted on involvement for so long?" (e.g. during the 1980s when widespread sentiment in Europe was for the US to close its military bases, the US insisted on remaining).
The UK does not rely 136k people to defend itself from military risk. It relies on its nuclear arsenal, which while not as large as those of the USA or Russia, it quite the deterrent all by itself.
> The UK does not rely 136k people to defend itself from military risk. It relies on its nuclear arsenal, which while not as large as those of the USA or Russia, it quite the deterrent all by itself.
It's a deterrent from invading the British Isles, which would require a navy that only the US has, anyways.
It's not a deterrent from challenging the world order. The US nuclear arsenal is the only one in the West that, if it were deployed, would end human society on a global scale.
Russia has designed its nuclear forces and defense infrastructure around a war with the United States, a country with a much, much larger nuclear arsenal than the UK or France. There's a possibility that if Russia decided to use its tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine (which it has threatened before), and the UK or France responded in kind with strategic nuclear weapons, that enough of Russian nuclear forces could survive to completely wipe out those two nations while also having weapons in reserve.
Its "nuclear arsenal" consists of a single missile boat on patrol with about a dozen or so ICBMs (which could certainly mess with major Russian cities. But if a Russian fast-attack sub (of which they have quite a few) gets it, bye-bye "nuclear arsenal".
> Since 1998, when the UK decommissioned its tactical WE.177 bombs, the Trident has been the only operational nuclear weapons system in British service. The delivery system consists of four Vanguard-class submarines based at HMNB Clyde in Scotland. Each submarine is armed with up to sixteen Trident II missiles, each carrying warheads in up to eight multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). With at least one submarine always on patrol, the Vanguards perform a strategic deterrence role and also have a sub-strategic capability.
Yeah, it's the reverse of what's often pushed in the media. There have even been initiatives for autonomous EU security projects, with the US (I think even Trump at some point, despite what he says now about NATO) being against anything that would undermine NATO.
Basically, don't piss off Poland, you'll need to defeat about 500,000 soldiers, though do you really need to march on to France if you win against Germany? Even if you did, that's about 1/3 the US military, and nowhere near as well armed, or well trained, or well psychologically prepared. If you're Russia, about 1 million soldiers should do the trick; and that's not hard when you don't have moral qualms and 21 million military age men to throw at the problem; and (edit) possibly an additional few million from North Korea for purchase.
As for nuclear weapons; Russia can probably bet that using a nuclear weapon from inside France, or inside the UK, as a first strike, would be too controversial to even do. The government would probably be sued by human rights lawyers from inside itself for even trying; convinced that it's better to take the loss while remaining on the moral high ground. What's even the point, when NATO predicts they have less than 5% of the defenses required for the inevitable retaliation? https://www.ft.com/content/5953405f-d91a-4598-8b6b-6345452ca...
> (edit to reply): Russia isn't winning against Ukraine.
"Don't piss off Poland?!" There won't be a large scale war against the Eastern EU started by Russia that does not involve Poland. The EU has stronger mutual defense clause than NATO article 5+6 (of course, it doesn't have anything close to the military might of the combined NATO countries). Once there is an all out war, Finland would mobilize its army, threatening Russia's northern flank. The Baltic would be closed. The black sea would be closed. All out war would be terrible, but the deterrence is still too strong in my opinion, as the price would be too high.
The problem / question is what would the EU (or NATO) do, if Russia starts a small scale hybrid war against Estonia or Latvia. Creating a small "local" insurgency, that takes over a majority Russian speaking town on the border. If the military alliances do not react united in such a case they are done.
I think the critical question is what would the allies do (especially the ones with nuclear weapons) if Russia actually used one. There's a lot of treaties, words spoken and on paper but nobody really knows how people would react to the idea of partaking in a nuclear war.
If they dropped a nuke on e.g. Lithuania would the French do the same knowing that retaliation would come that could wipe out most of their people and country off the map? Would any country do that for someone else?
> Even if you did, that's about 1/3 the US military, and nowhere near as well armed, or well trained, or well psychologically prepared.
Nowhere near as well armed as the US. But I would argue perfectly well trained. But I laugh at your assertion that the French military is not as psychologically prepared for war.
The population of Russia was widely disputed even before the war(With most estimates placing it at below 100M), and now it's basically a guessing game.
"that's not hard when you don't have moral qualms and 21 million military age men to throw at the problem"
But do you really have them?
Putin seems really hesitant to start a new round of mobilization and refills his army with volunteers. Some of which are voluntolds, but the regime seems to be afraid of the Moscow/St.Petersburg street, so to say.
His grip on the Russian nation, especially after 3 years of endless bloody slog with almost nothing gained, does not seem to reach into the "give millions of recruits weapons and they will use them exactly as told and there is no risk that they could rebel" territory.
> If Europe's military were so strong, why does the US need any involvement?
Because Putin is all-in, willing to sacrife the lives of big parts of his population for this purpose. And this makes him a formidable enemy. Does it have to be more complicated than that?
If that is the first question you ask when someone needs help, I guess you will not have that many friends.
And it all amounts to a bag of beans. If it's so impressive they can support Ukraine and render irrelevant any contribution that the US might make? One wonders why Zelensky is in the US pleading for US help?
In the US he needs to convince one administration (and realistically, one guy). The EU is 27 governments, each one with way smaller budgets than the US.
Anyway, you might have missed it, but Zelensky is also regularly asking for help in Paris, Brussels, London, and Berlin.
But Europe is not at war. It is Ukraine that is. But they need help with equipment, and balancing their budget. This is what they are asking for, nothing else.
Much fewer than 500k soldiers are needed for training Ukrainians.
Europe certainly has the means to support Ukraine financially, if the political will is there.
But it’s incapable of providing alternatives to Starlink, Patriot or ATACMs. Especially not at the scale required to make a difference in Ukraine. The withdrawal of these systems would be disastrous for Ukraine.
Especially if the US opens Starlink for Russia but closes it for Ukraine.
ATAMCs could be somewhat mitigated with heavily increased medium range drone production.
The game of shooting down everything Russia sends was always a losing game. At some point you have to start addressing the source of the attacks - i.e. strike hard at the Russian infrastructure.
Europe produces alternatives to Patriot (Aster). And ATACMS are not crucial in any way, these days it is Ukrainian produced long range drones that do the most damage behind the lines.
Ukraine cannot win without manpower from either the EU or the US. That's the reality on the ground. No amount of equipment/weapons (conventional) is going to change that.
According to the Austrian military, there’s currently about 800k Ukrainian soldiers up against 700k Russian soldiers.
Because a substantial number of Ukrainian soldiers need to be present across the Belorussian border and elsewhere in the country, the Russians have a meaningful manpower advantage on the frontlines.
Remember Ukraine doesn't need to take Moscow to win. Russia is burning resources hard to keep the initiative and achieve Putin's war goals. All Ukraine needs to do is continue to bleed the Russian army and wait until Russia has a hard economic crunch.
And some times, if your query is CPU extensive but the queried data size is not huge you can get a ridiculous value for money, like many CPU-days in 10 minutes for just $5 if your query covers 1TB after partitioning.
Query size limits are also configurable.
Obviously it depends on what data you are working on, but not having to set up and pay for a computational cluster is a huge cost saving.
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