Tons of tech companies were firing employees in 2022, so much so Apple was far and wide an exception in just keeping the same numbers. Feels more like an economic cycle / preparing for the worse rather than result of bad decisions on behalf of Pichai. And yes - firing employees to protect the efficiency of the company is (an unpopular) part of a CEOs job.
> “ People who are diagnosed with ADHD at a younger age likely have parents who just don't want / know how to deal with issues.”
I have no idea where you take this opinion from or if you can back it up. From my anecdotal evidence exactly the opposite is true: kids from families who do realize there is such a thing as mental health and who care deeply about their kids - those get diagnosed. Kids from other families just get mostly slapped around and screamed at to get their shit together.
As somebody who founded and ran R&D-heavy companies in Czech Republic and in Bay Area - this is complete bullshit. Arguably the per-capita amount engineering talent is much higher in Eastern Europe, and it is untapped because the target market is small and there's lack of entrepreneurship tradition.
Sure, if you take 300M market like US and pool all the best talent to west-coast, there is a lot of engineers. But the market is saturated, and it's nigh-impossible to hire a team of the magnitude you can get in Eastern Europe. Canada? Oh please...
Look, as somebody that's lived many years in Europe and in US, the situation is incomparable. I don't know why - either you have crappy laws, or you have crappy enforcement. If you read the article, it claims both. The FDA has super-low requirements to do anything - and manages to do even less than required to.
The european market is significantly bigger than US one (380m people) but manages to have much better labeling standards.
The reality, as in so many other areas with regard to the US, is crappy enforcement. If inspection authority was enforced at the state level (while still being funded by the federal government) I suspect you'd see much greater results.
Because currently the USDA and FDA equivalents in EU actually work, and the laws that require food inspections are stricter. The worry is that TTIP market access policies will force uniform, lowest-common-denominator rules, eliminating european food QA policies.
TLDR: European regulations force more stringent regulations on producers of eggs; therefore eggs are cleaner and you can store them for weeks without refrigeration.
This is why eggs in Denmark (as of my last visit) cost approximately 1.5x to 2.0x as much as eggs in the USA.
There is a cost to having free-range eggs. There's a cost to controlling egg-quality so they can remain unwashed, and unrefrigerated for days.
Now in the US, you can choose if you want to pay that cost and thus shop at different supermarkets that cater to your tastes. In the EU countries, you must pay the cost because its mandated by the government.
If you'd prefer blander food, that requires more refrigeration, and deeper cooking because its inexpensive... you can't make that choice. It's taken away from you by the government.
The problem with your suggestion is information. The difference in quality is not in any way made available to the consumer. Terms people believe to indicate quality mean basically nothing, as indicated in this article. These cheap products, which are often the only choice, are intentionally advertised as the higher-quality product. So, no, it is not a matter of Americans having more options. They're being openly deceived, while their regulatory agencies are intentionally dismantled.
Denmark isn't a great comparison because it's one of the places in Europe with the highest cost of living. Also these regulations aren't just to do with free range eggs but any battery farming facility.
You might be on to something, that you should have the right to cheaper food, even if it notionally means poisoning yourself.
The problem is though that you are not always in a situation where you can make an informed choice. Even if all the necessary information is provided at the point of sale (an exhaustive list of the details of the production of the food).
You don't always consume at the point of sale: You may be buying sandwiches or be in a restaurant. Perhaps you could have regulations about the point of consumption having to declare all details there. I can imagine that becoming quite tiresome in Starbucks.
If you have that, how do you enforce it? How much do you spend? How much time do you spend updating these rules to cover all the new permutations that an evolving market produces every day.
Effectively this has what has happened with eggs in USA by transferring the cost of producing clean eggs onto stores and consumers who must now bear the cost of refrigeration.
There is an environmental cost to all this energy used as well, in storage and transportation. Then there is food wastage because these eggs spoil more easily. So it's not even all about "your" choice any more ...
By enforcing standards at point of production it drastically reduces the amount of red tape required to ensure consumers get a certain quality product.
What I meant by choice is that the USA has standards that can be considered minimally safe by 1st world nations. Companies can and do exceed those standards for food quality and safety, and end up producing better products that consumers can choose to buy then.
Another example of the difference between the US and EU with regards to encouraging choice is labelling.
In the EU, food must be labelled for origin, and other factors. In the US, that's all option but if a food company does label, it has to meet strict standards as to accuracy of the label.
Do consumers care about GMO corn vs non-GMO corn? In the EU, the question is non-optional, you must label. In the US, the question is optional---some companies label themselves as non-GMO and charge higher prices, some do not label themselves anything and could be using GMO or non-GMO products.
"Now in the US, you can choose if you want to pay that cost and thus shop at different supermarkets that cater to your tastes."
The point of the article is US consumers can't really choose what they're buying, because we are constantly, systemically lied to about the contents of our food purchases.
I buy Pasture Raised eggs from Whole Foods, about $6-$8 per dozen. Expensive but the only eggs I've found in the US with actual orange yolks like I found overseas. Even the farmers markets here disappoint. Pale yellow yolks are a very bad sign.
That's not quite true. What all your sources say, is that it is influenced by chicken feed. Specifically "the amount and type of carotenoids the chicken consumes."
You can argue that it doesn't matter what chickens eat, and you could win. But I'd wager that to a great many people the quality of food does matter.
"Some studies have shown, however, that eggs from pasture-raised hens can have more omega-3s and vitamins but less cholesterol due to healthier, more natural feed."
The better indicator of quality is how well the yolk and white hold together. A low quality egg will have a runny white and the yolk will break very easily.
You can store European eggs for longer because they're unwashed, precisely because they're dirtier. It's a value judgement, and I don't think it should be regulated either way.
Being dirty doesn't magically make eggs last longer; these eggs don't need to be washed because they're not very dirty.
While I can't speak for all European eggs, you can store UK eggs for longer, outside the fridge, because they are likely to be significantly less dirty at the point of collection, the chickens they came from are less likely to be infected with salmonella, and because they are not subjected to a damaging process (washing) that aids the transfer of harmful substances from the outside of the egg to the inside.
Its a chemical layer that's removed by washing, that makes eggs need refrigeration. Until washed, they're an antiseptic capsule. After - bacteria can enter through exposed pores in the shell.
What do you mean be "store longer"? I've stored average American eggs in the refrigerator for multiple months without a problem (I only use them on the rare occasion that I bake something).
I am under the impression that European eggs are not refrigerated. My understanding is that once you refrigerate an egg, the membrane separates from the shell, requiring that you continue to refrigerate it, as the egg is no longer properly sealed. Since American eggs are refrigerated to begin with, you need to continue refrigeration.
Those that want TTIP, want lowest common denominator, to force the EU into lower standards and force what would be democratic decisions into crappy backroom arbitrage. The capitalists have a world wide conspiracy to kill democracy.
(disclaimer: I'm the founder of Apiary)
First things first - Readme.io is a great product and congratulations to Gregory for following his dream. I did so with my own, similar passion a couple years ago.
That passion was connecting developers - API builders & users. Documentation is just a part of this (interaction, collaboration, prototyping, and testing being others), which is why it’s a bit harder to be completely free-form. That said, we're aware that there's a lot room for improvement and we're working very hard to make Apiary better. Your feedback is really appreciated, I'd like to know more. @dmak, @special and @sidi would love if you could contact to me directly at jakub@apiary.io. Thanks for speaking out and pushing us to improve.
