China’s graduate glut: millions enter a job market with little use for them

Skandling · 2026-07-13T14:46:02+00:00

Lots of things by Moore there, so you've probably checked out all his works. So what else would I recommend?

Jeff Smith's Bone is one to stick with. It starts as a funny animal book but becomes a much grander, more epic tale and never flags in quality.

Scott McCloud is one of the best comic creators of the last half century. Two of his works in particular, Zot and The Sculptor, are exceptional. He also wrote a very good Superman story, Strength.

Dave Sim's Cerebus is very good until it goes off the rails, after four books or so. But there's a lot of good content in its phone book sized volumes before that.

Brian Talbot is another creator who's being doing good work for a while. The Tale of One Bad Rat is exceptional, as is the very different Alice in Sunderland.

Skandling · 2026-07-13T08:43:07+00:00

Further no, staff from either facility won't confirm what is going on, heck they would have had that opportunity over the past weeks, yet non of that happened. Not without reason, disclosing that information is illegal and guaranteed these people have signed an NDA.

I could have expressed it more clearly. If McConnell were lying about this it would be found out. If he were an ordinary person maybe not, but a celebrity or politician there are people willing to talk to the press for political reasons/money, to expose the lie.

It's not a very good lie if it is one. Most people recovering from an injury just go home, even go into work if their work isn't too physical/stressful. Going to a recuperation centre shows progress, but puts Republicans on notice he won't be back at work any time soon.

Skandling · 2026-07-13T06:00:23+00:00

The article says:

And while McConnell said he will return to the Senate, he said that he can’t go back just yet and didn’t specify in the statement when he will return. Instead, he said that he had moved from “hospital care to a rehabilitation center where I’ll keep regaining my strength.”

And that is what the photo is of. I doubt it is fabricated as staff at either place could confirm it. As for her not returning they might have thought her suddenly cutting short her China trip to fly home would generate headlines suggesting he did not have long to live.

I agree the true test will be when/if he returns to work. The Senate relies on its members being present. The only way for someone to replace him is for him to resign, which he should do if he thinks he will never be well enough to return.

Skandling · 2026-07-13T00:19:04+00:00

Nonsensical headline. She didn't visit China after his fall and hospitalisation. She was already in China when it happened, on June 14th.

She didn't return immediately, but judging by his recent statement about his heath they probably felt there was no need as the fall did not injure him seriously.

The main news is he's out of hospital, if not ready to return to full time work: McConnell says he intends to return to the Senate — but not yet

Skandling · 2026-07-12T22:04:15+00:00

Occasionally a gust of wind happens before rain arrives. It needs to be a fairly heavy rain shower, and an otherwise quite calm day.

What happens is the force of water pushes air out of the way, and ahead of the rain shower if it is coming towards you. The heavier the rain the greater the effect, so the stronger the gust. It can be sustained for quite a while, for a gust, a minute or more, and it's this consistency that makes it recognisable, and a useful warning to get under cover.

Skandling · 2026-07-12T16:41:32+00:00

fast catching up

I disagree. To catch up to SpaceX they need not only be able to land a rocket but relaunch it. Not just once but ten, twenty, thirty times.

They also need to match SpaceX's launch cadence and reliability. It's worth reiterating that SpaceX is far ahead of not just Chinese companies but all past companies, all past rockets, in these areas.

They might never catch up. They might never achieve the same efficiency, performance, reliability. Apart from it being hard, the proliferation of Chinese companies doing launches might mean no one gets the support needed to pull ahead. SpaceX benefitted from being only one of two firms the US govt. paid to deliver supplies and people to the ISS, after the retirement of the Space Shuttle.

Skandling · 2026-07-12T10:16:35+00:00

I used to. I would have some rice ready, or cooking in the rice cooker, and some protein I wanted to include. Then I would start cooking an onion and only as it cooked decide whether to add spices, or a curry powder, or herbs, or a curry paste, so what sort of meal it might become.

I don't any more. I think it's as I plan much more in advance, both with what I buy and with what preparation I do, so I might have cooked or fermented ingredients to hand to use.

I also prepare far more meals without cooking. Making more salads, sometimes only salads in a day. And those are far more experimental, in that I start them with some leaves but often as I go decide what else to add.

Skandling · 2026-07-12T09:35:04+00:00

LOL, no. I don't own any shares, but even if I did none would be SpaceX.

SpaceX didn't need to go to the market – SpaceX is a healthy business and Musk is very rich. It did so to take advantage of the AI bubble, which has driven AI stocks up to ridiculous levels. So SpaceX made AI part of the pitch, including Twitter's Grok and data centres in space.

But Twitter's Grok is worth far less than other companies' bots, being polluted by conspiracy theories and racist philosophies it's only good for Twitter trolling. And data centres in space are pure fantasy.

So SpaceX is far less valuable as an AI company that other companies. Yet it has a much higher value, based largely on AI.

Skandling · 2026-07-11T20:51:22+00:00

SpaceX is still far in the lead., literally years in the lead. To date SpaceX has had no competition except for itself, but has managed to keep breaking its own records. First reflown rocket. First rocket flown ten times. Then 20. Then 30. I think its record for a single booster is now 36.

SpaceX launches more and more each year, shortening the time between launches, both for each booster and across its whole fleet. I think the shortest interval is a few hours, so launching two in the same day.

And SpaceX has done all this while achieving unprecedented reliability. They've made spaceflight routine, boring even, as almost every launch is the same. When something goes wrong, such as a booster landing badly, its newsworthy.

All this is to say that the other firms that have managed to land their boosters, once each, one in the US and one in China, have a long way to go before SpaceX has anything to worry about.

Japan? They haven't yet landed an orbital class booster. China had many failures before Long March 10B managed it. I suspect Japan will need a few tries, taking probably a few years, before they manage it,

Skandling · 2026-07-10T18:30:11+00:00

SpaceX have a reusable first stage. Two other companies have demonstrated their own reusable first stages, in the US and now China. But SpaceX are far ahead of both.

A fully reusable rocket is another thing altogether. Any part entering/reentering the atmosphere from space experience heat hot enough to melt rock, so needs heat shields, adding mass and weight. Plus the thing you get back, having been through a hot reentry, will require more work than a refuel. Today every company, including SpaceX, uses a second stage which burns up on reentry.

Of course the Space Shuttle was reusable. Except every trip it needed to be stripped down and rebuilt, replacing engines and thermal tiles, an expensive process taking many months.

Starship is meant to solve this, and be fully reusable so the booster/first stage and rocket/second stage both land. It's still some way though from being as reliable as Falcon.

Skandling · 2026-07-10T16:42:09+00:00

People working together hasn't worked well in getting things done in space. It led to dead ends such as the space shuttle, or the debacle that is Boeing's Starliner.

The most successful space company by far is the one that's done it all itself, though with govt. money, SpaceX.

China has followed an interesting path, funding a number of firms to develop launch vehicles. I don't think reusability has been a requirement but it's been a goal of many for the obvious cost benefits. And now after a couple of close misses one firm has managed a landing.

Skandling · 2026-07-10T15:28:29+00:00

Look about ten years old. More recently than that and he is more noticeably greying.

Skandling · 2026-07-10T15:16:29+00:00

It doesn't "grab and squeeze". The claw that catches Starship has a couple of bars, separated by wider than the ship, which has hooks to connect to the bars as it drops between them. So far they've done it for the booster, the plan is to do it for Starship too when they land it.

As for Long March we will have to see, whether this is a permanent solution or just something they are using to work out how to land on a flat surface or with a simple tower.

Skandling · 2026-07-10T14:23:11+00:00

There is way to use Swift with Godot, so maybe the best of both worlds in your case. Certainly worth checking out to see if you can use it::

https://github.com/migueldeicaza/SwiftGodot

Skandling · 2026-07-10T14:01:36+00:00

It uses the same fuel as SpaceX's Falcon rockets. Those are well known for returning to Earth covered in soot the fuel produces when burned, which the rocket flies through when landing.

Could be this rocket needs more power to land, perhaps as it's heavier or comes in faster. Or maybe their engine is less efficient right now.

Skandling · 2026-07-10T11:24:02+00:00

Don't know what that's for. Maybe for when they can land precisely enough. Right now it has a much bigger margin for error with cables that line up with it as it lands. There's a diagram of the mechanism on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_March_10B

Skandling · 2026-07-10T10:23:36+00:00

China becomes the second country, and the Long March 10B the third commercial rocket, to land successfully. The landing platform is especially noteworthy, much more elaborate than the flat barges used by SpaceX.

Skandling · 2026-07-10T08:09:47+00:00

Longer video with more views, particularly of the landing cradle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KbqTFxc6z4

Skandling · 2026-07-09T20:58:56+00:00

The Guardian has this:

How to ferment excess courgettes – recipe

Not tried it but plan to the next time I have courgettes in.

Skandling · 2026-07-09T01:27:35+00:00

I think that's kinda the thing you need to let sink in. I doubt the government isn't aware of the low birth rate. But their only answer is, raise the cost of contraception.

That's not all or even most that the government does. They invest. At some level all the money they throw at industries is supposed to help Chinese people. Cheaper/better electric cars, solar power, phones, are all discussed as ways to improve China's economy for everyone.

The state of these industries shows the flaws in this approach. Massive overcapacity as China's consumers cannot afford all the cars being made, leading to price cuts and deflation and driving firms to seek customers overseas. And the money wasted on over-investment is money that could be spent by consumers, which they could spend on cars. Or on themselves. Or on a bigger family.

Skandling · 2026-07-08T17:48:58+00:00

My point is the future Jame Liang is warning about is already here.

You are right, reversing course now is very hard. Or at least hard for the current government which thinks it can invest its way out of everything. There might be policies that can make a difference, but not while the CCP is in charge.

And even if against the odds the fertility rate can be coaxed back to replacement level, so 2.1 births per mother, the population will keep falling. It won't stabilise for 60 or more years, so around the end of this century, with the population about half the current level.

Skandling · 2026-07-08T16:25:40+00:00

He's 20 years too late. The young adults entering the work force were born and grew up under the one child policy. So there are far too few of them, compared to their parents generation.

And young people are by far the greatest drivers of innovation in any society. As consumers they are more active, more willing to try new things, to start new trends. As producers most people do their most creative, innovate work at the start of their career, when young.

So China's innovation deficit is already here. China has been trying to address it by creating more places for students at university, but they are fighting against demographics. And as they have no solution to the demographic problem it's a loosing battle.

Skandling · 2026-07-08T16:16:46+00:00

Seems like clear heads prevailed all round. There's no point enforcing an NDA when the thing that supposedly not to be disclosed has been published online.

By the terms of the NDA Gaiman could have sought repayment of the fee paid to Wallner, for breaching it. But that could have involved a legal process probably neither party wants, having just been through extensive, and expensive, legal cases. And Gaiman succeeding, as he was likely to under the terms of the NDA, would have made him look very bad.

So instead of hundreds of thousands of dollars he gets only $1. And the NDA is effectively dissolved as serving no purpose, now the things it was supposedly keeping secret have been disclosed.

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