> Summer starting when the days grow short makes no sense.
Well, that's why there isn't just one summer. We have meteorological summer, astronomical summer, solar summer, etc. Solar summer already covers your intent.
I'm reminded of the comments every time unemployment rates are mentioned. Someone invariably chimes in with something like "the unemployment rate isn't valid because it fails to account for x", somehow not realizing that there isn't just one unemployment rate and that x is accounted for in the applicable rates.
> Most people consider it to have genuinely transformed commerce sometime around 1999–2001.
Because that is when tax and "munition" laws finally caught up. Internet commerce was already well understood before that time. The major online commerce players we think of today had already been in business for years. But an outdated legal system made scaling a challenge.
What's getting in the way of AI? It seems lawmakers have actually been afraid of holding innovation back here like they did with the internet and are allowing AI to do just about anything, even things that would normally be under intense scrutiny (e.g. copyright violations).
By using the type system. You define your type constraints at the module interface point and when you try to link the third-party module into that interface the compiler ensures that the constraints are satisfied. Same thing the compiler is already doing in simpler cases. If you specify that a third-party library function must return an integer, the compiler will ensure that function won't unexpectedly return a string. Just like that, except the type system is expanded to enable describing more complex behaviours.
> I really like the idea of implementing the std lib separate from the language. I think that would be a huge blessing for [...] Go
Go's stdlib is separate from the language. The language spec doesn't specify a standard library at all. It also doesn't have just one stdlib. tinygo's stdlib isn't the same as gc's, for example.
I will note that gc's standard library also isn't written in Go. It is written in a superset with a 'private' language on top that is tied to the gc compiler to support low-level functions that Go doesn't have constructs for. So separating the standard library from the compiler wouldn't really work. No other Go compiler would be able to make sense of it. go1 promise aside, the higher-level packages that are pure Go could be hoisted completely out of the stdlib, granted.
> Along with the "Bees are disappearing" scare, which was just measurement error
Or fixed? The suspected cause at the time was pneumatic planter dust-off and addressing that was as simple as adding a baffle to direct the dust to the ground, so it was quickly adopted once identified.
I think there's a linguistically-driven temporal misunderstanding happening here. A cow couldn't have a calf if it hadn't become pregnant.
But there's so much to the linguistics of animal husbandry and dairy that many folks don't know. It goes way deeper than just the milk-oriented terms in the article: Heifer versus cow, freshening and calving, steer versus ox versus bull, AI (not the LLM kind) versus natural service, the barn, parlor, and pasture, and more. Plus plenty of technical knowledge. If you're not hand milking, how many mmHg of negative pressure should you use? Do you use a surcingle, or a claw, or a robot?
Even in the milk-oriented terms, there are others not covered by the article. HTST and UHT aren't the only options, there's also LTLT. Pasteurization can be done in a pipeline, or in a vat. Smaller vats for home and small farm usage can be multi-purpose: I pasteurized milk and cultured yogurt in mine. Some folks even care about the specific proteins (A1 beta-casein versus A2), which is genetically determined by the cow (and can be bred for).
I’m curious curious, what’s the English term for a female calf that lived more that two years and didn’t experience pregnancy? Never heard such a term in any language.
I don't think people are kept abreast of the realities of animal farming in general.
Cows simply produce milk like chickens lay eggs.
Consider how imagery of a farmer inseminating a cow with his arm disappearing up some tract or fitting a spike to the baby so it can't drink its mom's milk -- or farm conditions in general -- are basically shock footage that people are insulated from until they maybe chance upon a movie like Dominion.
I didn't want to put a spiked nose ring on the first calf born on my small farm because of the visual shock. Its mother didn't kick the calf off as it grew up. The calf wouldn't stop nursing, kept the cow in milk for far too long, and I believe eventually caused her death.
These are not sapient beings that are capable of looking out for their own well-being. We've bred that out of them over hundreds of human generations.
The gestation period of a cow is approximately 9 months, similar to humans, by coincidence. Only a cow that has given birth to a calf will produce milk. The normal lactation period is 305 days before the cow is "dried up" before giving birth again. 10,000 pounds of milk is considered a good lactation total. Typically, cows are bred to calve once per year. Typically going through 10 lactations before that one way trip to MacDonald's.
Dairy bulls are notoriously nasty creatures, so artificial insemination is almost universal in the dairy industry. The "tract" that you speak of is the cow's colon. The technician is careful to guide the pipette so as not to injure the animal, and the colon provides convenient access to feel what is going on inside.
If you are squeamish about such things as cow's colons, then vet school is not for you.
I was speaking from the perspective of the people in my opening sentence. How commonly known would you suspect those facts are in your comment?
e.g. "[They might assume] cows simply produce milk like chickens lay eggs."
It's normal to never really think about it -- our society is set up so that you never have to. The secretion comes in a jug, the meat comes in cellophane, and that's it.
> e.g. "[They might assume] cows simply produce milk like chickens lay eggs."
You may have a point that many have no idea how chickens work. Egg laying being like giving birth isn't an unreasonable explanation if you had to come up with one on the spot while completely in the dark. But most understand how milk is produced because even if they've never seen a cattlebeast, they deal with milk-producing humans daily.
A cow must have been pregnant to produce milk. So it's artificially inseminated and the calf separated (so as not to steal valuable milk) which is arguably traumatic to both the mother and the calf. Most modern people, if they've ever even thought about it at all, likely think that cows are bred to (or naturally do) produce milk without pregnancy being involved, like sheep are bred to grow wool around the year.
> Most people think that cows are simply bred to produce milk without pregnancy
Am I misinterpreting you here? You're saying most people think cows are bred (you know, what causes pregnancy), and presumably think that that calves are born — I've never met anyone who didn't know what a calf is, but somehow don't realize that pregnancy happens inbetween?
Yes, you're misinterpreting me. Breeding involves making calves, obviously. But once you get the hypothetical continuously-milk-producing cows, they don't have to make calves. Making more cows can be delegated to cows specialized to making more cows, so cows producing milk for humans can do that without inconvenient pregnancies.
But that's not how it works. Every single milk-producing cow must have been pregnant at least once, and typically several times in its life to keep producing desired amounts of milk. And the calves are an unwanted byproduct that must be taken away. At least they're not shredded in a big blender like the male chicks of egg-laying chicken breeds are.
Where else are you going to get them from? A calf factory?
> And the calves are an unwanted byproduct
Am I misinterpreting you again? Heifer calves are the prized possession that ensures that your dairy continues into the future. Cows don't last forever (or even all that long).
You maybe had a stronger case for bull calves, but now that modern breeding can select for heifers with ~90% confidence, that's hardly an issue anymore. And, I mean, in this day of age of high-priced beef, even if you get the occasional bull you're not exactly complaining either.
> modern breeding can select for heifers with ~90% confidence
May you expend on this? I know we kinda have selection techniques for eggs to crush them before hatch but I guess that’s not what’s happening with milk caws as the diary is the main target and the cow need to give birth to start lactation. Or perhaps it’s the impregnating technique or some hormone therapy that tricks the odds?
> in this day of age of high-priced beef, even if you get the occasional bull you're not exactly complaining either.
I depends on the breed: in this days of high volume diary and meat consumption, most of what people eat comes from specialised breeds that hare very good at producing milk OR muscle. The non-desired sexed are not so valuable. Switzerland (and others countries I can’t remembers) recently passed a calves handling low to require farmers caring them for a minimum days in response to industrial sloped into unethical territories.
That documentary shows another practice in India : some invaluable calve are just roped to a fence and forget until dehydration. https://christspiracy.com
Huh? A holstein bull calf is selling for around $3,000 right now. That's... insane.
I remember from what doesn't seem all that long ago when fats didn't even fetch half that much. Beef has gone wild. If that's not valuable, what do you consider valuable?
I’m not sure we’re talking about the same data. Here’s the price evolution of lived calves in EU. They happen to be very high since 2025 (300€/500€ for diary/meat) but if you click « select all » on the top left you can see they use to be around 100€/200€ in the previous 10 years, going as low as 60€/head during covid.
Fair point, I didn’t express it well: I don't think calves “have no value” in general, they’re sentient beings. However, as you pointed out and shown ahead, they are also part of a market and in some places their value is not high enough to care them well [0]. Some of them happen to be euthanized very shortly after birth:
> In one survey of Canadian farmers, an average of 19% of calves were euthanised at birth and of those respondents that euthanised calves, 34% reported using blunt force trauma (sharp blow from a solid object to the head) [1]
There’s also the "bob veal" (2–3 days to 1 month) [2], I guess the goal is to have a different taste but I’m not sure about that.
side note: I found the technique used to "select for heifers" you mentioned: the process is called flow cytometer and it sorts the sperm with a laser.
To have a better understanding, one could suggest to search for the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize
Exactly. From my point of view the strongest plausible interpretation of "in this day of age of high-priced beef" is that it recognizes that the current situation is a historical anomaly.
But that isn't how it was interpreted. We saw the weakest plausible interpretation + silly criticism transpire instead. However, I trust in good faith that it wasn't intentionally interpreted in the weakest way, but rather that it simply failed to communicate its intent.
Which is where I seek an understanding of where it broke down so that I can be clearer in the future.
As I said, I doubt most people think about this at all. But if they do, I find it an entirely reasonable assumption that, as I said, if cows could make milk without making calves, in modern industrial farming the calves would be made by individuals that only make calves, and milk would be made by individuals that only make milk, for efficiency reasons. That's what I would assume, probably.
> One could argue there's more suffering in a glass of milk than a steak
What I find quite bizarre that in India (where I am from) milk is considered ethically vegetarian whereas unfertilized chicken eggs are not.
But the weirdest experience I have ever had was at the main Google cafeteria. One gentleman with a steak on his fresh plate was quizzing the attendant at length to be sure that the mashed potato was vegan. After many months of thinking I found a plausible reason.
I know a number of people who have allergies to some animal products (notably eggs or dairy). Given the growing familiarity with (and catering to) vegan diets, they find it much easier to use "is it vegan" as a shortcut to "can I eat this" rather than interrogate food workers about specific ingredients.
> If starting a business was so easy, almost all of us who work salary would go do it.
Would we? Starting a business is easy. Building a profitable business isn't even that hard. Wanting pleasure in our work is what stops us. Running a business generally isn't much fun. We work salary because it means we can focus on the enjoyable parts of the business, letting someone else deal with the crap.
This is completely wrong - Good for you if you think its so easy. I would do almost anything to get out of salary but every idea/attempt (and I have made several attempts) I have never even makes revenue let alone profit. Yet I can make 200k as a software engineer on salary.
> Yet I can make 200k as a software engineer on salary.
Then I dare say you've found your market fit. Tomorrow, your task is to start looking for a contractor position doing the exact same thing you are doing now. There's your business.
> but every idea/attempt (and I have made several attempts) I have never even makes revenue let alone profit.
Not even a single penny? What did these attempts look like? Were you out there knocking on doors offering to weed every flowerbed in the city? Or were you sticking to fun tasks, like programming, that made it feel like you were busy building a business but in actuality were hiding from it?
Starting and running a business is an entirely different skillset from "doing the work" - even someone who could easily "be on their own" (think: plumbers, doctors, etc) really often prefer the salaried position where they don't have to think about "the business".
It's an older book, but The E-Myth Revisited is worth a read for everyone, a business is not a job. It's related, but it's not the same.
When you get right down to it, collecting a salary is running a business with a client of one. So virtually everyone will start a business. I acknowledge the false dichotomy I submitted earlier.
But what you don't often see is one being willing to scale that client base to two. That is what I was trying to get at. Having two clients actually provides greater security than just one, as even if one client relieves you of your services you still have the other to help support you during the downtime. However, there is no free lunch. Two clients wanting your attention is orders of magnitude less enjoyable than just one client, and it only gets worse as you scale even bigger. There is good reason why most prefer to never scale beyond a single client.
Only a small sliver of the world has to worry about health insurance. Job security, maybe.
I think the biggest component is all the crap that comes with running a business.. accounting, sales, budgets and planning, regulatory concerns, office/site management, the list goes on forever. I'm an engineer, I want to do this and leave the other jobs to people who specialize at those, not run around trying to spin a dozen plates at once. I'm sure there's a tidbit more money to be made but it's just not worth it for me.
Now, if someone can make a vibe-business platform where AI handles all the drudgery and I can stick to the tech.. that might be worth talking about.
"Nothing" is a stretch. Major capital being now being allocated towards building AI data centres, away from what it was doing previously, is absolutely a contributing factor. Of course not the only one, but there is never just one reason for anything.
Well, that's why there isn't just one summer. We have meteorological summer, astronomical summer, solar summer, etc. Solar summer already covers your intent.
I'm reminded of the comments every time unemployment rates are mentioned. Someone invariably chimes in with something like "the unemployment rate isn't valid because it fails to account for x", somehow not realizing that there isn't just one unemployment rate and that x is accounted for in the applicable rates.
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