HackerNews Summary (2023-05-21 07PM)

Source: Americans no longer want to move for work. Here’s why.

Summary
The rate of Americans moving for work has fallen to a record low of 1.6% in Q1 of this year, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. This trend is attributed to a decline in the dynamism of the U.S. economy and factors such as home prices and a surging real-estate market.

Facts

💼 The rate of Americans moving for work has fallen to a record low of 1.6% in Q1 of this year, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

🏠 Skyrocketing home prices are major roadblocks for mobility, with home prices increasing by nearly 25% over the last two years nationwide, coupled with mortgage rates that have more than doubled since the start of 2022.

👥 The declines in job mobility is a sign of a decline in the dynamism of the U.S. economy according to experts, while undercutting the historic narrative of Americans as a population of pioneers and risk-takers.

💻 Remote jobs are still plentiful for white-collar workers, giving them options if they decide to seek a new position, even though businesses are pushing to bring back employees back to the office.

🔒 Nearly 1 in 4 existing mortgages today have a rate under 3% and contribute to homeowners feeling locked in their current homes.

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Source: Same Stop

Summary
A retired programmer who worked for Apple for 26 years has found themselves returning to programming and has become addicted to it. They are now working on a new project that involves revisiting some of the shareware games they wrote over three decades ago.

Facts

🧑‍💻 After retiring, the programmer felt relieved to no longer have to deal with programming, but it only lasted for about four months.

🧑‍💻 Before working at Apple, the programmer wrote shareware games and commercial games.

🧑‍💻 The programmer started a small project to learn Python and play with e-ink displays, which led to their return to programming.

🧑‍💻 The retired programmer has a passion for programming, and now finds themselves fully engrossed in it again.

🧑‍💻 The programmer is revisiting and rewriting some of the shareware games they wrote over three decades ago.

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Source: How solar farms took over the California desert: ‘An oasis has become a dead sea’

Summary
The Mojave desert is home to one of the world’s largest concentrations of solar power plants, forming a sprawling photovoltaic sea. However, the region is also home to Indigenous cultural sites, thousand-year-old carbon-capturing woodlands and endangered species, as well as hundreds of people’s homes who are affected by noise, pollution and dust.

Fact

🌍 The Riverside East Solar Energy Zone is 10 times the size of Manhattan and makes up about 3% of the US electricity supply.

🏡 Residents living in the Lake Tamarisk resort are increasingly being surrounded by the desert’s solar farms that have brought noisy construction, excessive water use, dust and pollution, impacting their health and property values.

🌞 The Biden administration hopes to reach a 45% share of solar power in the US electricity supply by 2050, primarily by building more huge plants across the country’s flat plains.

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