If you compress the HTML, which you want to do anyway for HTML/CSS if you care about file sizes, then most of the base64 overhead goes away:

    $ head -c 1000000 /dev/urandom | base64 -w0 | gzip | wc -c
    1009042

    $ head -c 1000000 /dev/urandom | base64 -w0 | zstd | wc -c
    1000300

So gzipped base64 can add less than 1% overhead. Of course a binary format can be even more efficient (also when decoding, I imagine) but the question is if the difference is big enough to introduce an entirely new format when base64 data URIs are already widely supported.

Then the other question is why this proposed packed format is better than the dozen already existing formats like Web Archive, CHM, MAFF, MHTML, etc.

Hacker News admins: can we please ban illiterate morons like this who think they are contributing anything of value by responding directly to the post title alone, while obviously not having read the actual posted article?

Interesting that you're downvoted for pointing this out. Lots of people in Switzerland are struggling to find jobs, but no, they're all unfit, and we must import more immigrants.

Then of course those immigrants are laid off and contribute to the unemployment number, and rather than hiring them back, people will say we should import even more immigrants, and so on.

> On the other hand, it's already now hard to find people for almost any kind of work.

Lots of people in Switzerland are struggling to find jobs, especially in the tech sector after mass layoffs and outsourcing.

If you're looking to hire a full-stack software engineer in Switzerland, send me a message! But I bet you won't, because there isn't actually an abundance of jobs in Switzerland.

Despite that, China has a fertility rate of 0.93, which is among the lowest in the world, and certainly much lower than the US (1.6).

So it doesn't seem that that cultural difference boosts the fertility rate all that much.

china destroyed its fertility rate with the one-child policy. so that is not comparable.

That's an easy answer, but it doesn't explain why nearby/culturally related countries like South Korea and Taiwan have similar or even lower fertility rates, despite never having a one child policy.

And of course China's fertility rate now is even lower than it was at any point when the one child policy was in effect.

Obligatory: https://xkcd.com/1102/

And according to your article, this is almost exclusively a problem with the elderly:

> Those aged 85 and older die from malnutrition at a rate about 60 times higher than the rest of the American population, with deaths in that group increasing about twice as fast.

(Of course, I'd expect those aged over 85 to be dying at a much higher rate from _most_ causes.)

The problem with "just" asking people is that people aren't always aware of the reasons for their own behavior, and even if they are, they are prone to giving socially desirable answers, _especially_ in a social setting like a family Thanksgiving dinner.

Point 1 about affordability is directly contradicted by the fact that low income households are having the most children (except for a tiny minority of ultra rich), and those kids are rarely starving to death.

Point 2 is true, and probably a factor, but even married couples and partners sharing a household are having less children than before.

Point 3 is another excuse: fertility rates are low in _all_ industrialized nations in the world, from Canada, Italy, to Australia, to Japan, with perhaps Israel as the only exception. Meanwhile the countries with high fertility rates are absolutely terrible places to live like Afghanistan or Somalia.

Affordability is relative to a lifestyle though. Not starving to death is the absolute lowest level.

Right. Kids cost time and money. So the lifestyle you can afford _with_ kids is slightly lesser than _without_ kids. But this is true at all income levels below the richest 1% or so.

Every person who chose to have kids had to make some lifestyle adjustments. If "we cannot afford kids" just means "if we had kids we'd have to make some lifestyle adjustments" then practically nobody could afford kids in this sense, including the overwhelming majority of people who _did_ have kids and are doing fine.

That shows that "we cannot afford kids" is not really the reason you're not having kids. More honestly it's "we prefer having more time and money over having children" which is not even an objectively bad preference, but people don't like phrasing it that way because it sounds selfish.

So they say "we cannot afford it", suggesting "we _would_ have kids if we had more money", except in reality they still wouldn't, because at a higher income level they'd be making exactly the same argument, too. Which is why we see fertility rates _decreasing_ with income levels, up to a household income of approximately $500K/year in the US.

That comic is popular only because it absolves people of personal responsibility, not because it makes a great point.

In what way does it do that? It in fact strongly urges people to take responsibility and stop being hypocritical.

You're not taking the comic at face value are you? The orange shirt guy is supposed to be the loser who is just trying to "gotcha" the people in the other panels.

The comic isn't even _always_ wrong; sometimes people are using gotchas or accusations of hypocrisy to dismiss otherwise valid concerns. Importantly, just because someone is a hypocrite, that doesn't mean they're wrong.

But in practice, the comic is often used by as a get-out-of-hypocrisy-free card by people who never want to to take any personal action to practice what they preach. Example:

Alice: I loooove my new iPhone 2026 Supermax XXL, it's at least 0.163% shinier than last years model! Oh but I heard that seven Chinese workers died in the Apple factory and that is soooo sad! I wish that could be avoided somehow. Oh well!

Bob: I agree, working conditions in Apple factories are deplorable. If you want to do something about it, you can consider buying a Fairphone instead, or simply delaying upgrading as long as possible. You don't really need to buy a new phone every year, you know!

Alice: What? You expect me to walk around with last year's model like a poor person? I would literally die of embarrassment. And of course I _would_ totally buy the Fairphone if only it came in rose gold with sequin bedazzling which is an absolute necessity to match my purse.

Bob: Okay but these seem like really petty reasons to keep buying Apple products. I find it difficult to take your complaints about working conditions in Apple factories seriously when you're not willing to make any sacrifices or lifestyle changes yourself to improve the situation.

Alice: Oh, I see. You're one of those "gotcha" guys. [Link to comic] Here, this tells me you're just a smartass, and I can do whatever I like while complaining about whatever I want. After all, I'm _just_ like the medieval peasant who wants to improve society somewhat.

The number of straw men in your post is dazzling.

That Wikipedia article is called Spring Violets, by the way.

What's so nice about twelve-and-two (12)? Twelve (10) is a much nicer round number.

Though programmers may prefer base two (10) or base twelve-and-four (10).

If you say it in German, it doesn't even sound out of place. Zweiundzwölf, vierundzwölf.