To a point. Economies of scale will still exist for things that cannot be done remotely, which means that population density will continue to beget population density.
But that still has all the problems associated with why M1 Abrams are suboptimal for infantry.
1. Very slow rate of fire -- It takes time to load the weapon.
2. Low number of shells -- an M1 Abrams only can carry 40ish shots.
3. Extreme heavy weight / armor is redundant -- 70-tons means really big engines, really big engines uses a lot of fuel.
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I'd say the "heavy vehicle" that is actually designed for infantry are the M2 Bradley IFV. Less than 30 tons, a smaller 25mm chain gun with 900-rounds, armor still too thick for small-arms fire (but not redundantly / absurdly thick like the M1 Abrams).
The 25mm cannon is still capable of firing those "anti-trench burst rounds" that started this thread, and a faster rate of fire would be more useful than a bigger, slower 120mm boom.
Things like the M1 Abrams exist to kill things like the M2 Bradley. Sure, the M1 Abrams has some tricks (mainly the 50-cal secondary gun) to deal with infantry, but a lot of its features are straight up redundant if there's no enemy armor around.
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A lot of military weapons, maybe most of them, exist to beat the strategies that beat lower level tactics. Ex: F22 is designed to kill airplanes, but cannot serve as a close-air support fighter very well.
A civilian might have to worry about a Predator Drone (seemingly the main weapon we use to kill targets from the sky). But civilians don't have to worry about F22.
Even if you're volunteering you still have to work towards agreed upon objectives. You wouldn't show up on a Habitat for Humanity build site an start modifying the blueprints and working on whatever you found interesting because you are volunteering and are entitled to only work on interesting projects.
How do they integrate at all? Windows has ability to link to a android phone to view texts, place calls etc, but no such link exists for iPhones and Windows.
That seems like it must be an exaggeration. Not once in my entire life have I seen a beach closed due to any of these factors. I know it happens, but I don't think it's as common as you make it sound. The only time I've ever seen a beach closed was due to rough surf.
Of course, I don't claim to have been to most of the beaches out there, but I've been to a few! Have I just been getting really lucky?
I've been going to the beach several times a week for about 13 years, even during winter. Never seen it closed. They monitor water quality regularly and the results are readily available.
You're lucky. I live near the Baltic Sea, a relatively shallow sea with a very narrow link to the ocean, and agricultural runoff and sewage from 100 million people drain into it. We have very regular algae blooms, typically late summer when the water warms up sufficiently (for some reason, even though it was very hot, very little this summer).
The sewage problem is largely solved nowadays, thanks to modern sewage treatment plants, but thanks to the disastrous EU agricultural policy (CAP) there has been no improvement at all in the agricultural runoff for over 20 years.
Sure there are always exceptions, and it may have been just some unfortunate phrasing, all I know is that the phrasing explicitly didn't specify that the river being unswimmable was at all an exception.
It's like if you asked a lifeguard if it was safe to swim and they replied "Many people survive".
And yet, the majority of the auto industry decided they should cancel their chip orders as soon as the pandemic hit because it might be an economic downturn.
Apple alone spends more money on semiconductors than the ENTIRE auto industry. They played stupid games and won stupid prizes with this chip shortage.
Their margins are much tighter than Apple’s. This outcome is far better than having a ton of unsold stock depreciating in dealer yards. That quickly leads to bankruptcy as it did in ‘08.
Limiting their downside risk was the right call given the information.
So now the auto manufacturers know they don't need to worry the next time it looks like there will be a downturn. They can cancel orders and if they turn out to be wrong just get on the phone to their favourite politician.
Maybe more like: next time there’s a downturn, keep the orders if they can afford to. Having the chips on hand when the market picks up again could be a great investment, since they’ll be able to produce vehicles when their competitors can’t. Or they can sell some of the chips they’re holding to their competitors (at the going market rate).
and then what? TSMC falls over itself because oh no, Merkel sent a letter, full focus on automotive chips? I doubt that has very much influence in how production is balanced.
But which provides more value to the economy over time? That such a large percentage of the economy was able to stop driving and work from home does say a lot about the value of computers today.
The iPad Pro with the trackpad keyboard is indeed more of a content consumption device than the typical office PC, but it's also more of a work creation device than the typical office PC, particularly if its user ever has to do work from a different chair.
