That's a bit hyperbolic don't you think? Sure, they're the only game in town when it comes to the leading edge nodes (eg. 3nm), but there's plenty of options at 14 nm and above. That corresponds to AMD zen (released in 2017) and Intel skylake (released in 2015). They're significantly worse than the latest and greatest CPUs today, but they're still in use today. I'd hardly call that as "going back to the stone age".
Select * is pretty standard for wide table queries like they are used in Data Analytics teams regularly. Because you really want ALL columns, even new ones without going back to fix all 300+ dashboards.
Volcanic ash is glass (the stone melts during an eruption due to the heat, then explodes into millions of splinters as clouds which lock down air travel because it melts again in the engines and destroys them) and can be found thousand of kilometers away afterean eruption (e.g. Yosemite eruption), creating a deadly environment for every animal where it's falling down.
Pyrolysis isn't exactly burning stuff, it's carbonizing it by heating without access to air. So no, it's not the same as wood ash because it's not ash.
It’s not, really. Japan is absurdly good if the only thing you want to do is have children, and don’t care too much about how or where they’re schooled.
1 year of leave per child, inability to get fired while on leave, free childcare.
The only negative is that all those make advancement options for working age women 25-35 whom are expected to have kids ’soon’ nonexistent.