He made plans for a trip to Paris to read a specific book, but the librarians he had been corresponding with mailed it to him as a sign of respect for his time.

Freakanomics made that argument, but there is very little statistical evidence abortions were the cause. For one thing, abortions were legal in states like California and New York, which also saw crime drops.

What is the correct cost for a flight leaving in 3 hours with an empty seat? What is the correct cost for a scheduled flight leaving in 2 months with no seats sold yet?

Tickets aren't the same price for everyone, and planes fill to variable levels. Plus there are addons like luggage fees and beverages that have a huge markup. What is the best way to solve for that?

Besides, it averages something like 53L of fuel/passenger to make that trip. Hardly necessitating £500.

You can do whatever calculations and speculations you want, but the fact is that airlines do not pay any tax on fuel and no VAT on fuel. Not sure why they should not.

Another thing with flying is that it is so easy to go long distances as it takes limited time. A trip London-Barcelona is a 1.5-2 day trip one-way by car. You think twice before doing that. An intercontinental trip London-Bangkok is impossible by car, but creates more CO2 than all energy one person uses in a year (heating, cooking, going by car to work etc). Dirt cheap and in the blink of an eye.

> that airlines do not pay any tax on fuel and no VAT on fuel. Not sure why they should not.

What a weird rule. In the US they do.

Although some of that might go back to attempts made early in aviation to handle the import taxes of airplanes landing with a half full gas tank.

Intent to commit espionage is not a crime (but committing or attempting to commit it is) Lying on the form is. It is probably easier to demonstrate intent to commit espionage than to catch them in the act.

> It would be great if governments were more explicit about precisely what all of this theater is intended to prevent.

The liquids requirement was in response to a famous (at the time) plot by people in Britain to smuggle a two part liquid explosive onto the plane. So the context was, at the time, obvious and needed no explanation.

> they pay to put Gemini on iOS. Google has a real competitive advantage with IA and they just gave it to Apple.

What Google loses by pushing iOS AI customers to ChatGPT outweighs what they gain by trying to convince people to switch phones for access to Gemini.

What is a founder/lead multiplier?

An opaque method of ensuring investors get a huge payout at the expense of employees with ISOs that convert to common stock. Many startups refuse to share this multiplier with candidates, and will instead insist their equity grant is "competitive with the market" and "very generous."

I wouldn't be surprised if, despite the large-sounding acquisition sum of ~5b, many employees are getting their equity zero'd out and replaced with a back-loaded 4 year grant, with vesting starting today and no credit for time already worked.

It's a different form of guaranteed payout where their value is a multiple on the next round or buyout event.

Both guaranteed payout and multiplier are forms lowering your specific allocation of the evaluation so you get a larger payout vs the rest of that group or future groups.

If their representatives are voting against their interests, they should vote for someone else. If their representatives are trying but getting outvoted in Congress, why change them.

If it was that simple farmers in the US could just voluntarily adhere to higher standards. It's not like those things are legally required.

Usually the attorneys who handle this are not state level but county or city level. In general they have so many cases to handle that victims who don't want the case pursued will cause them to drop the case.