Youtube comments of XSportSeeker (@XSpImmaLion).
-
9500
-
4100
-
Actually Vice, readers, commenters, and non-brazilians... Bolsonaro is not ultra right wing. There is an actual ultra right wing candidate running too, he's called "Cabo Daciolo". That's the real ultra right wing candidate - he has no chances of winning.
There's also ultra left, moderate left, centrist candidates, etc. Bolsonaro is definitely right wing, but not ultra right wing.
But let me tell you that at least part of the people thinking of voting for Bolsonaro are not considering it because his past military history, his past remarks, his idiotic remarks about the military dictatorship, his supremely asshole and idiotic statement against that senator, among other stuff. It's mostly because the current polls indicates that the final run will be between him, and the workers' party (PT) candidate Fernando Haddad, who's ex-president Lula's lawyer.
Yes, you heard this right. The other candidate is the lawyer of an ex-president that is in jail because of multiple corruption charges. It's a proxy candidate for the party. This is something Vice won't show in their videos because they have a left political leaning. Which I don't hold against them, but it's true.
With this in mind, people should realize that we're basically between a rock and a hard place. In one side, yes, we have a guy not that much dissimilar to Trump. Their rethorics are pretty similar, proto-dictators that thinks too highly of themselves while often spouting some grade A bullshit in public. Bolsonaro is definitely a bad choice as a president for Brazil, and setting aside fanatics and stupid revisionists plus religious zealots that are willing to vote for him no matter what, there should be plenty of better options among the presidential candidates. Bolsonaro is also homophobic (part of him being a religious zealot), he is a step towards dismantling secularism for brazilian democracy, he has shown a tendency of recrudescence against criminals, he keeps turning a blind eye for police brutality, he is pro gun rights, and a huge part of law propositions and whatnot he has made in his political career are basically for military forces, against human rights groups, against diversity groups, and for making criminal penalties and laws harsher, plus promoting gun rights. Typical macho asshole wannabe alpha male stuff. I hate this shit. I really do. This is why I watch Vice, and like several videos a whole ton of people hate.
Just so people know, we have 13 candidates running for president right now.
BUT, and this is a huge deal right here, the most likely candidate to go against Bolsonaro in an end run according to polls, is the de-facto lawyer for ex-president Lula. He entered in place of Lula who tried to run for election using all sorts of dirty tactics despite being in prison condemned of multiple charges of corruption schemes. He is a proxy guy who entered in the election run just recently. A puppet of the party and the people who wrecked the country's economy in the past half decade or so. He activelly defends that Lula should not be in jail, that it's all a conspiracy of the political opposition to put him in jail. He constantly attacks the legitimate press for being responsible for both putting Lula in jail and ousting Dilma.
He furthermore constantly discredits brazilian justice system, he says Dilma was unfairly impeached, he shows zero regrets and zero repetance on what his party has done to this country, and PT has shown several signs that they are willing to do everything they can to dismantle the current justice system, replace positions with cronies, and revert all the justice that has been done in recent years towards putting corrupt politicians in jail.
And to put things worse, this is all he's running for. A continuation of status quo. He has no active platform, he has only showed up in the very latest debates, he has nothing concrete to present other than being the guy who thinks Lula was unjustly arrested. He has no political career to talk about. He is a puppet of the party.
So it's super accurate to say that between Bolsonaro and Haddad, you are submitting to a logic of dictatorship either way. A military proto-dictator in one side, and a corrupt proto-communist in another. So it ends up in a decision dictated by historical distancing. The military dictatorship ended over 3 decades ago in Brazil, lots of people don't know or don't remember it's horrors, don't know how bad it was. The corruptocracy is still ongoing, everyone knows the consequences of it.
So, while I'd never discount the worries about putting someone like Bolsonaro in power, even if he is and acts like all the bad stuff critics are saying about him, we brazilians can still fight injustices on the streets. It's important to note that even if Bolsonaro comes to power and starts writting policies that are an exact reflection of his image, he can't supplant justice system power or our constitution. He can't single handedly go against brazilian diversity, he can't dismantle secularism by himself, he won't be a military dictator alone.
Much like Trump has limits as to what he can and cannot do, the same can be said of Bolsonaro. He is not a military dictator, he would be a democratically elected president with military leanings. He could definitely weaken a lot of things that were conquered with hard work by previous presidents, but he isn't actually gathering the military and enacting a coup.
The alternative though, is a continuation and a tacit approval of what has been happening to the country in recent years. It's an admission that we have to continue with a corrupt system that has put the country in bottom of the pit. There is no right choice in this election, only the least wrong choice.
And I'm frankly tired of all that has happened here in recent years. I'd rather see radical change that might wake up people and have a clear target to protest against, rather than succumbing to 4 more years of corruption, and having to watch all the white collar criminals we put in jail going free and taking the country over once more.
So, my current position is this: I will vote for a centrist. Neither Haddad, nor Bolsonaro. Because both are bad for democracy and for Brazil. But if it comes between then in the final run, I will begrugingly vote for Bolsonaro. Because Haddad deserves the vote of no one. And I guarantee you if Haddad wins, the future of Brazil is bleaker than if Bolsonaro gets elected. Because brazilians can't live like they are right now, and they will not accept 4 more years of workers' party. Blood will run in the streets. It is all but guaranteed that several sectors of the economy will go down in protests, it's the most likely scenario for a full blown popular revolt and revolution. And then, we'll really have a coup and the worst possible scenario.
3500
-
Just so people really understand the scope of the corruption, Lava-Jato is currently in it's 52nd stage, 4th year since the investigation started, each stage potentially having multiple cases like Comperj and Itaboraí, and the investigation is far from over. It isn't a single city, a single project, a single political party, a single area, a single case, a single private company... it's quite literally a network that involves the majority of the biggest private companies in Brazil, politicians from almost every political party, cities in all regions of brazil, with all manners and variations of corruption schemes.
And here's the kicker: This is only for the stuff directly or indirectly related with the initial Petrobras related scheme. Despite spanning all that, it's still only the stuff related to Petrobras and subsidiaries. It is only one case in a multitude of others.
There are tons and tons more of other corruption schemes coming to light that are not Lava-Jato related. The reason why international press covers Lava Jato is because it's a highly organized, concise, and current case. It is symbolic, representative.
But corruption schemes similar to the one unveiled by Lava Jato are numerous and several of them are just as big. So, everything you just watched in this video is like a tiny percentage, of a scheme that is probably still a tiny percentage of the total of corruption schemes in Brazil. Can you imagine that? A political system where quite likely more than half the politicials all are involved with some level of corruption one way or the other. My hometown had 7 of the 9 city councilmen arrested on corruption charges, right before an election. The other two had suspicions of involvement but there wasn't enough proof to put them in jail. It's a mid sized touristic city.
For lack of candidates, several of them were re-elected. They had to leave their jail cells to go to their Induction Day, take cuffs off to sign the papers officializing their positions, and then go straight back to jail. It's highly representative of what has been happening throughout the country.
Before Dilma, there was one president that was impeached due to yet another huge corruption scandal back in the early 90s with all sorts of sordid details - ex-president Collor. He initially basically fled the country and was banned for several years from politics. Well, guess what? He returned, was elected a senator just 16 years after his shameful and highly negative kick in the butt, then he became a governor, and then he was caught and arrested yet again involved in the Lava-Jato scheme. Only this time he was small fry. The corruption scheme is so huge that it puts his original impeachment scandal to shame.
With that you start understanding how the heck a country that's almost as big as the US, that pays some of the highest total tax per capita and has some of the most aggressive importation taxes in the world (we usually have to pay from 60 to over 100% of imported product price in taxes) can be so poor and underdeveloped. Brazil is a very rich country with a very hard working class that is overburdened by taxes and bureaucracy, with public money drained with corruption schemes, a political system that is rotten to the core where corruption is institutionalized and inseparable, and all manners of public services underfunded, underpaid and in shambles. Everything related to government in Brazil works at 5 to 10% capacity because all the rest is either stolen by politicians, or highly mismanaged.
We never had a real democracy here. It's a corruptocracy. It's unending. There is no hope. People who think something will change after the next election that ends tomorrow is living under an illusion. Every single president we've ever had after the military dictatorship promissed to end corruption. The military dictatorship itself promised to end it and was just another one among the corrupt govenments.
Collor promised it, a flagship of his campaign, literaly. Lula promised it, using the middle and upper class and "elites" as scapegoat to corruption. Dilma promised it, as continuation of what Lula did in his years, which we all know by now that only served to deepen and entrench corruption even more. Now both Haddad and Bolsonaro are promising the same thing. I'd laugh if it wasn't so sad.
And just so people know, it might look good that at least people are getting arrested for their crimes. But the truth is, way more people are not being arrested even with an overabundance of evidence against them. The first guy who was arrested under the Lava Jato investigation is already free. He got out because of good behavior after just 1/3rd of his total sentence, because you see, the jail, law and justice system are already compromised to favor white collar criminals. Lula among several other convicted and arrested corrupt politicians have key people working inside Brazil's justice system and high courts attempting every single way possible to free them up. We have judges openly affiliated to the workers party that tried slipping up a bail order to free Lula. And now we have a candidate for presidency (Haddad) that was the former Lula defense lawyer who is running on a campaign to free Lula. He only entered the presidencial race because Lula couldn't run.
So you see, there is no way out of this. Corruption is so ingrained into brazilian politics and in turn in brazilian society, institutions, and even private businesses that people have no hopes anymore. People who have worked and dedicated their entire lives to see most of their money and investments stolen by the people elected to protect it. It is a sad thing to see so much human potential wasted for nothing. Brazil is a country located in very priviledged lands. We almost have no natural disasters here to talk about. Most of the country have no snow season. We have the amazon rainforest down here. We have people living in the worst conditions imaginable still finding room for happiness. And yet, we a bogged down by this exploitive sordid politics. Such a shame.
1900
-
Glad you made the street interview guys, but I thought you would lead better with the questions...
For instance, talking about the low wages of animators. I dunno the purpose behind the question, but it was kinda lacking. Did you guys know that Kyoto Animation was actually an exception on this? Weird that you'd mention this trend while not talking how Kyoto Animation was actually among the few studios not following it.
One of the biggest reasons why animators get low wages has nothing to do with piracy or with them not demanding better pay... the biggest reason is market oversaturation, something that any anime fan old enough will have realized by themselves.
Basically, there are tons and tons of people willing to work in the animation industry. It's the same problem gaming companies have.
It creates a highly saturated market where passion mixes with market interests.
Nowadays, we probably have well over 10+x the ammount of anime titles that we had back 10 to 20 years ago. Likewise, we have 10+x the number of studios, and even more times the numbers of people wanting to work in the industry.
Meanwhile, even though anime has become a worldwide phenomena, the main source of income for animation studios remain fairly fixed. The biggest portion comes from licensing with TV studios, which have limited space, and then comes all the rest - international platforms, merchandise, selling of media like DVDs (which has drastically dropped over the years), among other stuff.
What happened over the years is that to maintain competition, prices goes down, the average income a studio can expect per title goes down by a whole lot, lots of projects gets slashed, the environment becomes much less stable, and what big studios do to compensate for that is lower pay, outsourcing of jobs, going for freelancers, among other stuff like that.
It's the double whammy of going for the cheapest labor possible. Too many people interested in working in the industry, the industry itself is very unstable and it's main source of revenue is highly competitive and very limited.
Kyoto Animation actually went against the trend. They had full staff of salaried employees. They didn't outsource jobs nor hired freelancers. It's among the very few studios that didn't go with market changes. And the studio bosses believed that this reflected in the quality of their work.
They managed to maintain quality and a great body of work by not cheaping their structure. Which of course makes the whole thing an even bigger tragedy.
So there you go, complementing the information.
1000
-
901
-
Brazilian here.
This reality is reflected in most brazilian capital cities, quite unfortunately.
But Rio is probably an extreme example.
The World Cup, Olympics and subsequent bankrupting of Rio's state made things even worse, but it should be pointed out that it's far from being the root cause. Good to note too that tons of brazilians, if not most brazilians knew that these events would only make things worse beforehand.
The problem in Rio is decades old, potentially centuries old.
For those who don't know, Rio de Janeiro was historically Brazil's capital city during colonization times up until 1960, when it moved to Brasilia, a planned city.
So, it has historically been a city that is pretty rich. Tourism is big in Rio... most foreigners will probably have an image of Brazil that looks like Rio, despite Brazil being a huge country with states that look nothing like it. Rio also has most of brazilian TV production, large companies and corporations, and whatnot. Cultural production is big in the city.
But the city's geography is very peculiar, and part of why it is the way it is. Relative to the population size, the city of Rio is a pretty tight area surrounded by mountains and national parks.
What happened in the history of the city is that the richness of the city attracted tons and tons of people to make a living there.
Being a rich city, it had tons and tons of construction and development over the years, but as it happens in most countries, people going there to work often find themselves without work and without money at some point in time having to deal with things as best as they could.
That lead to favelas. I think one of the big distinctions between the concept of favelas and the general term sometimes used - slums, is that most favelas are composed of illegal occupation of areas that were supposed to be for preservation, often in unsafe terrain, built from the ground up irregularly.
This is why favelas look the way they look - labyrinthic stairways and streets serpenting around shacks, houses and small buildings all seemingly haphazardly built without planning. It just so happens that this sort of geography also makes favelas pretty similar to ancient fort cities... like say, Toledo in Spain. It's extremely hard to go in and out, navigate, or locate things in there.
Since they are also not an official sanctioned part of the city, stuff like electricity, sewage and water came very very late to favelas, and they are also not maintained or monitored - because they weren't supposed to be there in the first place.
All of this unfortunately makes favelas the ideal place for criminals to hide, do business, take control of, escape when running from police, and as a defensive fort for criminal factions.
While I definitely do agree with accusations of corruption and involvement with criminal factions when it comes to Rio's police force, it's also true that being part of police or military making incursions in favelas is no joke. They are underpaid, underequipped and ill prepared to get into places that have essentially become criminal faction fortified cities.
The complain the drug trafficker made about not being able to live with minimum wage there? That's what the police force and military also have to live with. So much so that lots of those policemen and soldiers... actually live in favelas, trying to hide their professions not to be targeted by criminal factions.
Is it all about race? It is partially about it, because much like the US, during colonization times slavery was also a thing here. But at the same time Brazil is a more diverse mixed country, it has some implicit racism but not as much as some other countries. I think it's still pretty bad, but the lines are not as clear cut as people may think. It is more about inequality, most definitely. And the worse economy gets here, the worse things become.
The vast majority of the brazilian population is poor, and depends on public services. While we do have public healthcare, public schools, and social programs, they are all in bad shape and always become worse when the country's economy isn't doing well, like how it is today.
We have an economy that is still, from colonization times up to now, highly dependent on primary resources exports. We also have very poor technological development, which is dumbly amplified by brazilian protectionism, which all becomes a never ending encirclement of poverty hell. And that's of course not even getting to the biggest brazilian problem since forever - corruption. It'd be more accurate to say we have a corrupt governmental system with bits of politics spread out rather than a political system that is corrupt. From colony to republic to military dictatorship to democracy times up to now, brazilian people have been repeatedly hearing and voting in politicians and leaders who talked about eliminating corruption in Brazil. It just does not happen. Corruption is synonymous to politics in Brazil. There is no hope, no solution, no escape route from this. It's hard to change something when the very foundations of it are already corrupt.
You wanna see some of the biggest most absurd wages in Brazil, you'll find it in the political class. You add up the wages, extra payments taken from public coffers to pay for anything from clothing (suit), secretaries, housing or rent, travel expenses, food and a list of other 20 things or so, a politician in Brazil makes something like 20 to 50 times more than your average working class brazilian - and that's all legal, before we get to corruption schemes.
This situation obviously creates an impenetrable bubble. Politicians in Brazil cannot ever see the reality of the majority of brazilian citizens because it's just entirely disconnected.
832
-
811
-
Yeah so, this is not only an Apple vs UK problem, this is a problem with all privacy and security focused companies.
It is essentially the same issue with US agencies such as FBI and NSA asking for encryption backdoors.
Despite having well over a decade of discussions, some ill informed politicians and government busybodies keep refusing to understand this key issue with encryption due to dangerous ignorance or malicious intention.
This issue has been solved perhaps over a century ago already, and it is telling of the people who propose such things how little they understand what constitutes being in a democratic government.
It is the same problem of skeleton keys, unrestricted access to private matters, and the general panopticon surveillance state. It's an issue of balance of power, and how much power the state has to intrude in average citizen's private information.
The same old excuses keep coming up. It's to combat crime, will someone think of the children, yadda yadda.
And it is the same issue lots of people have in underestimating the Internet and digital information. Those are not to be messed with because they all have real life consequences, it's not less important or less significant than real life matters because they are real life matters.
Asking for unrestricted, unchecked, opaque access to private information, no matter what the justification is, is essentially anti-democratic. It's an assault on citizens' rights, it causes an unbalance in power, and it leads to undue persecution and targeting of people by power that eventually become abusive and unfair towards dissidents, critics and protesters.
I personally do not care about Apple and Apple products. But they are not wrong on this.
Put it in real life matters as an analogy, do you ever hear about politics, justice or police asking for skeleton keys and free access to all homes, vehicles and locks in general whenever they see fit? Oh, don't worry, it'll only be used by "the good guys".
Because that's how stupid this entire thing is. No, the police, justice or intelligence agencies don't need something like that to do their jobs. They should never be allowed to have such powers. And the reasons are pretty clear for anyone who thinks minimally about it.
There are no guarantees that any police force, intelligence agency or justice system to be completely free of corruption and ill intended people. Quite the opposite, those have repeatedly shown how little they can be trusted.
And so you give this much power for those governmental agencies, the proverb becomes reality - absolute power corrupts absolutely.
How many cases we already have of police misuse of public cameras already? How many abuses of power against minorities? How many cases of cops misusing their power to persecute ex-girlfriends, spouses, spy on people they have a gripe with, when not government people using intelligence agencies and cops to go after opponents, critics and whatnot?
So, why the f*ck would anyone agree with that bs? UK government can go f*ck themselves with that authoritarian bs.
786
-
763
-
702
-
516
-
492
-
351
-
349
-
319
-
270
-
263
-
249
-
Brazilian here.
While I fully agree with the sentiment of the video, the subtitles of the woman shouting in Manaus are entirely and completely wrong, Vice (2:24 - 2:45). Her last two statements translates to: "If we had the conditions, we wouldn't be here. The car is borrowed from our neighbor".
Almost everything else she said is also probably wrong... notice how you never hear she saying coronavirus, which in brazilian portuguese sounds very close to english.
It's really hard to understand what she is saying, but she definitely did not say what the subtitles translated to.
The rest of subtitles are fine.
Now, for the situation, yes, it is indeed getting to that point. Manaus, along with several northern states capitals are all in acute crisis right now. Rio and Sao Paulo are also getting close to that.
But similar to the US, what is mostly happening in Brazil is that governors and mayors have the final saying in each city and state. And the vast majority of them are going against the president's opinion, as are most brazilian citizens.
I have personally been in strict lockdown and self quarantine since the first cases appeared in my city, not leaving the apartment together with my mom for... almost 3 months now? 2 and a half?
Brazil is almost like a poor man's mirror version of the US. Most of the initial bullshit Bolsonaro said in the beginning was directly mirrored from Trump and the shit Republicans were saying up there.
Bolsonaro also diminished the pandemic severity initially, also predicted it'd pass quickly, also made speeches about miraculous hydroxicloroquine cure, also keeps hammering on the false dichotomy between lockdown measures and "the economy", and it is very likely that his sources, coming from his son Flavio Bolsonaro, are basically the same as Trump's. A network of right wing fake news production that is anti-scientific, pro-business and wholly ignorant.
Bolsonaro's strategy for governing is also becoming eerily similar to Trump's. He fired the ministry of health for disagreeing with his stance, put someone else of his choosing, the new guy limited himself to keep mute on controversial topics instead of actively contradicting the president, but not even that was good enough, so he also got fired, and we are now without a ministry of health because the president is a stupid sore fucking loser.
Oh, and he is also starting to look as corrupt as his predecessors, replacing people because his son was under investigation for corruption charges, and a whole lot of other crap starting to show up.
Alas, lets be clear about something here: the main reason why northern states capital are in the situation they currently are, is because the northern states in Brazil are also the poorest and most ignored in the country. They are the most economically deprived. Manaus health system, overall hygiene, economy, and population was already in a sore state. The absolute vast majority of Manaus' population already did not have any conditions to stay in a lockdown situation, because most people there already live day by day. A day without working is a day with either mounting debt, or even more likely, no food on the table. This added to poor education, lack of mental capacity to comprehend a viral pandemic, lack of access to information, lack of education, and several other things, this all leads to the situation it's currently in. It's exactly the type of people prone to fall for authoritarian personalities, unfounded beliefs, conspiracy theories, hoaxes, fake news stories, and stuff like that.
And it is a sad situation. Because the northern states in Brazil used to be the richest, and the people living there have no guilt of things being that way. This all has to do with a long history of exploitation.
For the southern states, which are the richer brazilian states nowadays, the pandemic has hit way less so far, with notable exceptions of Sao Paulo and cities like Rio de Janeiro. Rio is an easy one to understand - the city and state was already bankrupt before the pandemic hit. It has been bankrupt since the Olympics. The state was robbed left and right by corrupt politicians, and it has been struggling to make ends meet since then. It also has the world famous favelas smack in between city centers due to geography, and that contributes for the virus to spread around fast and easy.
Sao Paulo is the largest city in Brazil. It has an extreme urban density, with tons of favelas too, which makes the spread of virus happen fast and easy too.
Mind you, this is not to discriminate against favela citizens, this is just a cruel fact of the pandemic: people living in favelas or on the streets just don't have the money for self quarantine, and the workers who lives in favelas are also likely the ones working in essencial services such as food delivery, police, supermarket staff, public transport, cargo, etc. So not only the living conditions are not ideal for self isolation, they are also likely the types of workers that are exposed the most.
So while I do agree that Bolsonaro's and his blind followers attitude is just plain stupid and makes the crisis worse, truth is, the situation would likely not be a whole lot better without him, unfortunately.
I have always been of the opinion that the guy is an asshole. But out of all hsi buffoonery, there is one thing that surprised me a bit. The fact that most governors and mayors decided to completely ignore him and go with WHO guidelines instead, including governors that were total Bolsonaro supporters during the election.
Bolsonaro also recently lost a key figure that was the reason lots of brazilians voted for him - Moro.
So reality is, personal opinion, that Bolsonaro already does not have a whole lot of supporters anymore. Much like Trump, fanatics will always be there. And lately, it kinda looks like Bolsonaro only wants to talk and be a president for those. It's a guaranteed way to lose the next elections. People can scream and shout all they want, in Brazil voting is obligatory and elections are direct, majority wins.
244
-
213
-
You say it couldn't be done, pirates of that time would say: Hold my beer. xD
If anything, I'd say Sony was lucky they didn't do a whole new format for PS1 and PS2.
I have no way to prove this, and perhaps some might be able to disprove my theory here... but I bet the success of both Playstation 1 and 2 had LARGELY to do with piracy.
Like, not even a tiny part... the majority of it. And by extention, I also posit that the popularization of games into a full blown industry that is larger than Hollywood also has majorly to do with piracy.
As much as Sony and the usual industry associations will never ever give away officials statistics or admit it themselves, the only reason why consoles like Playstation, older cartridge based ones, and portables like DS were ever huge successes, was exactly because of piracy.
Perhaps not so much in the US, but in some countries where piracy was rampant most definitely. And they were not few. Probably over half the countries these consoles were ever sold, officially or not.
Companies don't even touch the subject much outside giving distorted statistics and hillarious assumptions using piracy as scapegoat because it's a convenient target. But I bet all you want the growth of several mediums have all to do with piracy. Because piracy enabled an unsurmountable ammount of people to get access to something they couldn't afford. And that's how games really got popularized.
I for one wouldn't be here watching this video and talking about games if it wasn't for it. I'm not sure I'd even have gotten into computers if it wasn't for it.
I can speak of my own - Brazil. Consoles were imported here pretty fast, demand on the gray market was so big that it was partially responsible for funding entire cities economies. But since NES times, piracy was were you got the games themselves. Importation taxes plus currency exchange rates always made any sort of electronic (up to this day) a luxury. It's basically double the price what you pay in US, and then you apply currency exchange... it becomes an investment.
If after buying a console you'd still need to pay double the price for each game, tons of people wouldn't be able to afford it. By tons, I mean, the vast majority. Only the 1% rich in Brazil would be able to get it.
But pirated games were everywhere... NES, SNES, Genesis... can't remember if it goes back as far as Master System, but yeah, possibly. By the time Playstation came, you had hawkers selling those in streets of every major brazilian capital, stores that sold only that, fixed shopping malls where you could probably find a bunch of stores, in major capitals you had commercial districts where you could find several stores, people who serviced game consoles who knew all the modchips, hacks and charged a reasonable price to install and every other trick in the book. :P
Yes, there were several attempts of crackdown, along with other types of piracy - music, movies, series, etc - but it was useless. It became big business that sustained tons and tons of people in an informal economy that had multiple layers behind it. Like, in Playstation 1 and 2 days, it'd probably be easier for police to find, arrest and extinguish drug cartels and traffic rather than the piracy business. That's how big it used to be.
So you see, a larger disc would make it initially harder to pirate. Potentially not worth it. But if pirated cartridges were made, I don't think it'd be too much of an obstacle to overcome, really.
Pirates would find a way. They either hack the console, or even start pressing discs themselves. Like I said, it was very big business, so it's not completely out of the scope.
People eventually figured out a way to crack even the infamous GameCube copy protection... though that one never got popular enough to justify scaling things up. Well, not as much as PS1 and PS2.
So while people who really don't like piracy might be angry with me for saying all this... it is my opinion, but I think it's just logical. I mean no disrespect or ill intent towards the industries that gave us lots of entertainment, no revolt or bad feelings towards the studios and developers that gave us great games, music, movies and overall content... but the reality of it is, if there was no piracy back then, the vast majority of people would not be able to have access to all this content. Forget the fallacy of lost sales RIAA, MPAA and other organizations always pulls out of their asses. One pirated cd or dvd would never translate into one original copy sold. Because the vast majority of people paying for those could not afford it.
I know for a fact that piracy made kids learn english, become computer fans, become gamers, become developers themselves, made games, music and movies part of their culture, grow up to be avid payers for official content, become more aware of american culture, and the chain reaction goes on and on.
I have never met a single gamer in a group, particularly around my age, here where I live who can say "I have never played a pirated game in my life". Might be annedoctal, but I feel it's representative of my entire country, and several other countries in the world.
206
-
British politics is moving so fast that the video was produced before Truss getting the boot, but also if you update to include that, a week from now it'd also have to be updated again to include whoever comes next, and what the policies will be like. xD
I always kinda knew when Brexit got voted in that UK would go through a phase of high instability... and that was only considering how the country would have to renegotiate everything with and against the EU right afterwards. I wasn't considering a change in monarchy, a revolving door on number 10, the pandemic, the energy crisis, the disruption in global supplies, the war in Ukraine and other factors.
Some of those effects don't matter all that much because it affects the entire world, so everyone is equally going down which brings to parity all other nations anyways, some are even kinda beneficial to the UK due to an expectation of general stability, but some are definitely not great... :P
200
-
180
-
Pretty shallow dive on the subject, but good intro overall. More for those interested:
No, Mastodon didn't just appear out of nowhere now because Twitter is a dumpster fire... it's been around for some 6 years now, and a lot of people in the privacy community has been using it... more because it's open source and not controlled by some big tech corp.
It is open source, but that doesn't mean it's a free for all. Truth Social got threatened with a lawsuit for basically taking the code from Mastodon and running with it without compliance with open source licenses. Gab is another alt right platform that switched to the same common protocol used by Mastodon. This is why it seems that these alt-right platforms have been popping up again and again so easily - they are all using open source stuff, often without attribution.
Mastodon is part of a bigger network of federated, decentralized, open source social network communities that offers alternatives not only to Twitter, but also Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and others. It's not even the only alternative to Twitter, there are several using the same standard protocol called ActivityPub. Things to look for if you are interested - Fediverse, Pixelfed, Friendica, PeerTube, diaspora, Pleroma, Hubzilla, etc.
This form of social network - decentralized, federated, open source - is far more popular in other countries such as Japan and some European nations. You didn't hear much about it if you are from the west because people don't give two sh*ts about invasion of privacy and personal data control in western nations anymore... but if you care about these things, chances are you already knew about it because there is plenty of information floating around in channels and communities that care about privacy and taking control out of the hands of tech giants.
Oh, just one other thing that I should warn people about - most of the mainstream communities and channels won't take your alt-right, politics, and conspiracy theories lightly. The BBC video is talking about some worries about moderation, but reality is that moderation in the major channels are all stricter than what you will see on the big platforms such as Twitter and whatnot. You will get banned permanently for violating code of conduct rules, and crying about it has no effect. This is one of the main reasons why alt-right and Trump follower groups are not inside Mastodon and other communities on the Fediverse, and instead chose to build their own apps and networks.
Plus, of course, grifters and scammers are very much unwelcome.
It is very much not the same thing as Twitter... it's still microblogging, but the Fediverse in general was created on the idea of having smaller, better localized, more focused communities that is separated in smaller numbers so that human moderation is possible in some level. Reason why this huge influx of people leaving Twitter to go there isn't super welcome by current Mastodon users - the creation of servers that hosts a ton of people isn't something that Mastodon users really want, because it brings back one of the problems it was supposed to solve.
But we'll see how this goes.
180
-
Good to hear you made a full recovery man!
I've heard the news about this, but didn't know the full details... it's like yeesh, a crash on maiden voyage.
Sounds like one of those cases where several people involved got too up on their noses about the thing being safe, broke all sorts of rules with a cost down or fast launch in mind, and made others pay the price for their mistakes.
The issue being not so much that we didn't know better, but that we got too lax on well known safety practices... on the older historical videos we can understand the safety standards didn't exist yet, growing pains, lack of tech for support, etc.
This one is more on the corruption side. It's pretty weird that not only it crashed on maiden voyage, the company ignored all sorts of safety measures, and even... it's like no one was monitoring the situation with a bit of anxiety?
Perhaps it's the speed of society these days, but I'd kinda expect for a maiden voyage (well, not entirely, just a segment of the route I guess) to happen during day time with good visibility and emergency services at the ready for any eventuality... or that at the very least someone would've gone through the most dangerous portion of the new track with the pilot and engineer thoroughly.
Anyways, good report as always!
178
-
The only thing I'm shocked and surprised about this whole thing is international press saying this is somewhat a revelation that came after Shinzo Abe's assassination... it might have thrown everything more on public view and international scrutiny, but it's not like Japanese citizens didn't already know or at least suspected about all of this.
Perhaps I'm mixing things up here, but as far as I know, the links between LDP and the Unification Church, along with several other ultra nationalist and ultra conservative organizations, has been well known and reported for decades now. The "church" itself has an ideology that aligns itself with several policies including anti-LGBT stuff, nationalistic policies, policies regarding the militarization and changes to the constitution, revisionist material in schools, among several other stuff.
Mind you, I'm not sure if there was already something about the Unification Church specifically, but it's the same radical groups and the same base mentality. Basically speaking, it's the sort of cult that ultra nationalist and ultra conservatives would gather together to influence politics.
Those things might sound separate, and perhaps they are a bit, but make no mistake - it's a church founded on anti-communist stance, which might sound fine at first, but what this actually means is that it's a very pro conservatism and pro nationalism cult, basically. And it's very likely that the groups with a hard fringe-like political stance also participate in the very same cult. You have extreme ideologies mixed up among all those groups involved with the LDP.
For people who never heard about the Unification Church but watched some cult documentaries, you will have heard about the "Moonies". It's often listed right along with famous others like Heaven's Gate, Aum Shinrikyo, People's Temple and Scientologists.
That's what the Unification Church is. It's a cult that has a long history of exploiting followers until they are penniless, a cult that formed bonds with very powerful people to gain political influence and money, it was investigated in the past by US House of Representatives for trying to gain political power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_Church#Criticisms_of_Moon
So, don't let the name fool you - they changed it a few times to avoid the negative association. It's not a church, it's a cult. A huge cult with a long history of malfeasance. This is not the same as a president saying he is Christian or something like that. This is a political party aligning itself to something like Scientologists, KKK, or some other radical group. To make things even worse, as some will know, Japan is largely a non-religious country. Christians are minority, and the predominant religions, Shintoism and Buddhism, are seen more for traditional and cultural backgrounds, and less as actual religion and faith.
153
-
Mark, this is an awesome initiative, and it is sorely needed... but I have to point out some stuff so that people do not get the wrong idea from the video.
It's extra information for the sake of completion, if you are not interested just skip my comment and support it as is because like said, this saves lives!
The product itself was made and tested in conjunction with the CDC, which is good, and it seems it's going fine for a while now... it's not a super new thing, communities have been benefiting from it for years now - it's ok if you never heard of it, and it's awesome that people like Mark is talking about it. So even for the most paranoid, at least give it the benefit of doubt.
But the way Mark demonstrated on the video is not exactly the way it should be used.
https://www.cdc.gov/safewater/flocculant-filtration.html
The muddy water gets floculated and decanted, then the cleared portion of the water has to pass through a cloth filter, and then a 20 minute wait period for hypoclorite to take action.
It's not shake, wait for it to clear and drink. Hopefully, in Mark's own video he made all the steps, it just passed a wrong idea because of editing. :P
Also, just so people know, this isn't exactly perfect... it is easy to use and convenient, which are high priorities for the places it's going, but from the CDC accessment:
"has also been documented to reduce diarrheal disease from 90% to less than 16% incidence in five randomized, controlled health intervention studies". It's of course still very very good, probably among the best results possible so far from such a system, but not exactly perfect. So, don't go using something like this yourself if it isn't needed.
The usual problem with purification systems advertisement is that killing 99% or 99.99% of bacteria, virus or protozoa does not mean reducing the potential of getting ill by the same ammount, unfortunately. Basically because contaminated water can have so many of those in there that 0.01% still could have an effect.
Water purification is a super hard problem.
There has been an independent WHO study for those curious on water purification systems that includes this one:
https://www.who.int/household_water/scheme/scheme-r1_keyfindings_8feb2016.pdf
Not sure if it's the same version that is currently in use since this study was made back in 2014, but this floculant received 2 stars while another well know product (Lifestraw) received 3 stars for the resulting water test.
Of course, this doesn't mean investing in this one is bad.... these packets seems way easier to use for high volumes of water in comparison to a filtration system like Lifestraw, specially with very turbid water. Lifestraw itself has advantages like it could be used multiple times, and is even more effective in eliminating stuff from water, but it's also not as cheap to make, not as cheap to transport, and the filters can clog if the water is too dirty... not to mention stuff like cross contamination, flow rate, among others.
Which is to say, there are advantages and disadvantages in both systems. I mean, I'm no specialist, but this is my guesstimation.
Again, this is not to put down the initiative or whatever, just to provide more information for those in doubt if it's worth - it is.
146
-
142
-
140
-
140
-
I am just thankful that I live in a day an age when someone in brazilian middle class (me and family), could afford to fly twice so far over their lifetimes to the other side of the planet (Japan). This took a decade of savings, and both our routes had flyover stops (first one was Toronto and then via Pacific, the second was in Qatar via Atlantic), but if you think about it, just amazing that it's even possible. We're talking about almost literally, the other side of the planet. Parts of Brazil are the closest to being perfect antipodes of parts of Japan.
Comparing to how my grandparents and grand grand parents migrated less than 100 years ago from Japan to Brazil, boarding ships that took almost a couple of months to traverse the same distance.... like 50 somethings days to less than 2 including waiting times in the flyover destinations. How the crap. In a single lifetime.
It also seems that we're reaching peak optimization there. The interests have shifted to making flight cheaper rather than faster, so this is kind of a glorious moment to be alive in history. xD
Man, it's mindblowing... perhaps someday in the distant future we can travel directly through tunnels bore straight through the planet, or some sort of teleportation device, but until then, I'm not exactly expecting another huge leap in prices going down and speeds going up in such a short period of time...
137
-
134
-
Neat! xD
My personal theories goes like this.
1. all of those phones have "good enough" cameras. Perhaps even the Royole Flexpai. xD But they probably differ on edge cases.... P30s crazy zoom, one of those smartphones had a macro mode I think, how many focal ranges the multiple cameras cover, what software processing they use for low light shots, stuff like that.
2. when results are getting this close, people switch to deciding the better photos more on subjective stuff.
3. MKHB guess around brighter, more colorful photos is correct, specially for social networks. It's not only because on average people pay more attention to those, it's because those are the factors that will make the most difference given a wide range of screens, brightness, and general color accuracy. Like, if you are using a crappy tiny low res phone screen to compare those photos, potentially the only difference you will actually be able to see is brightness and color saturation - it's like, you really can't see more than that if your screen is crappy. Most other factors will vary depending on how good the screen you are looking at is.
4. One likely reason why people chose the photo where everything was in focus is because the center of attention in the photo was divided between the model car, and the color chart. Because the colors in the chart are so vibrant, people might feel like it should be in focus... specially people who don't know what the color chart is for. xD
5. I also think there is a threshold that is dependent on background and subject of the photo that establishes the amount of blur needed in the background of photo for it to look better. For instance, if you have a rather plain background for a portrait, a little bit of blur should be enough. But if you have an extremely busy distracting background with lots of vibrant colors, then it needs to be heavily blurred out more towards a bokeh effect for the portrait to look better. The objective of the blur is to create depth separation and lead attention to the subject of the photo. If it fails to do that, perhaps sometimes blur is not perceived as a positive point.
6. cloudy days, despite all progress cameras have done over the years, are still bad to make camera comparisons. That's because lighting conditions can go from one extreme to another with just a single cloud passing under the sun. It's a good way to see if a single camera is adjusting white balance and color well with a changing environment though.
In any case, I don't think I have much to complain about the results, as long as people understand that this is only a single test made for funsies... it's not a lab test, and you shouldn't take overarching conclusions from this. I think the best thing people can take from it is that smartphone cameras these days are good enough. The cameras won't do any magic for you, the most important thing is just your own photography skills.
But if I personally was to chose a smartphone with camera in mind... I'd perhaps think more about the options it gives me, and this is an entire personal choice. I just like the idea of having a camera that can take photos down to macro, all the way up to 20x zoom. :P Even if it isn't the absolute best in resolution, I like the flexibility.
The other factor would be dynamic range. For the type of family photos and casual photos I use my smartphone for, if a camera can take pretty good photos in harsh conditions like low light or scenarios with too much light in one spot, and dark shadows in another, while still retaining some details... that'd be great. :D
In general though, I think these days you'll only get an extremely crappy unusable camera if you go to the very low end of smartphones. Mid range and up it's all good, for casual photography.
129
-
Look, I sympathize with these guys, and if they wanna beat themselves to dangerous injury or death in a controlled environment, I'd say it's not that much different from several other sports out there, including some of the biggest ones.
And sure, plenty of people will have their adrenaline-testosterone rush to be a fan and back this up, but in the end, this isn't about the sport being "too violent", the image of blood, or stuff like that. It's totally about longevity of players and the sports dynamics.
This is part of the reason why boxing uses gloves and why there's stuff like WWE or even that other one Vice covered not long ago that pops up in the end of this video - Deathmatch Wrestling.
Here's the real problem with bareknuckle that fighters and the guy who is trying to make it happen will soon find out: fighters will get wrecked too fast and too permanently. This is why it's an underground sport. And this is despite being winner or loser.
A hard direct hit with bare knuckles on the face not only causes some serious trauma to the receiving side, the giving side can also end up with some broken fingers there. And yes, professional fighters are hardened and will mostly avoid these sort of injuries, but as stunts people and other professionals that have to deal with direct contact will know, you can't guarantee 100% avoidance all the time.
So what you get in the end is unpredictable times for fights, high risks of not being able to keep a champion or favorite on the podium, and as the sports grow bigger and older the more you are gonna have problems with stuff like crippled retired fighters condemning the sport as a whole, the more you will have a public rejection, the more you'll have issues with participants from all sides.
Because as people familiar with fight sports and the editors of this video knows well, fighting games goes around celebrity culture, or cult of individuals/personalities. There's a good reason this video centered on the story of the fighters, instead of being a technical explanation of what bare knuckle fighting achieved - it's because all these contact sports get fans around fighters, celebrities, the big figures that it puts up.
Paradoxically, when it's just starting, you are more prone to move things forwards because people who are following the initial steps are all fans willing to overlook whatever problems they see in it.
The hope these guys have is that the sport gets big faster than it can fail. Like boxing, MMA or, you know, american football. Then it reaches a point where even if some problematic stuff comes out, fanaticism and money are enough of an impediment for it to stop, because it'll happen officially or not. We all know what has been happening for quite a while with boxing fighters, with super bowl stars, with past champions like that. They pay dearly after retirement for a career of abuse.
Do I personally care? Nope. I'm not a sports fans anyways, and I think people should be free to like or dislike whatever they want to. And if fights and fighters are well regulated and safety of fighters are protected as much as they see fit, they are coming forward well educated and have risks an potential problems well explained, it's just a risk several other athletes are taking everyday.
I'd dare to say that some non-contact olympian sports athletes are probably taking training regimes that can be even more detrimental to their healths right now in comparison to bare knuckle fighting. The end game of sports that are constantly pushing the limits of human bodies for records produces some of the most grueling training regimes imaginable. Out of context it'd be seen as pure torture, period.
So yeah... ethically, if we're talking about what should and should not be allowed, I don't really think bare knuckle fighting is all that bad or essecially different from what we already have. If I were to say this doesn't have a place as sport, I think I'd have to do the same for several other bigger and very well known, celebrated sports too.
125
-
121
-
Love the nuanced tone you used on this topic Greg... I often talk about this but in a way more sharp tone. xD
Put simply, the stuff you usually see on international news coverage, specially for countries like Japan on a western publication, is often times sensationalized, exaggerated, or made to look weird/unique on purpose.
There is a secondary intention there, and it's often not a great one.
It changes at times, but sometimes it's demeaning (as in, our culture is superior to theirs), sometimes it's fetishization, sometimes it's targetting specific subcultures to make it look like it's a mainstream thing, sometimes it's for the clicks or for the views...
And it's also often in a judgemental tone, not to provoke discussion or to make people think, but rather superficial and one sided. Which is quite unfortunate.
I often say that if your own culture was seen through the lenses often applied by international news about Japan, or other foreign countries, it'd look as "weird" if not weirder.
You don't even have to go that far I guess... tabloids will usually give a sense of how that goes. But still, tabloid news is not the same as international news because at least on tabloid news you have the full expectation that it's purposedly made that way for the clicks. International news often portray themselves as serious, composed, when they often actually are not.
It gets to a point where a whole ton of these weird things that are often covered in international news are there mostly for tourists instead of japanese people.
The weirdest thing most tourists will think about Japan when they visit there will probably be how not weird Japan actually is.
It's a really good exercise to go through all these supposedly weird and unique things that are often talked about Japan, and see if there isn't something there in your own culture that looks or sounds extremely similar. Look hard enough, you'll often find that there actually is.
I'll just talk about one thing that came up recently that is not an example of weird thing, but how international news tend to distort things, in this case by shallow coverage: the "Fukushima disaster".
Fukushima is actually the 3rd biggest prefecture in Japan, the Daiichi power plant tsunami flooding and subsequent meltdown was bad, but the plant is located on the west coast of the prefecture, and the area that is still dealing with problems around ionizing radiation is a radius of a few miles around the plant, not much more than that.
It was catastrophic, I'm not trying to diminish how severe the whole thing was, but it affected an area much smaller than most people imagine.
The vast majority of the prefecture was not affected all that much, and it's a prefecture that almost reaches all the way to the east coast of Japan... it has lots of mountains, lots of onsens, lots of interesting stuff to see, different terrains, lots of cities and culture, lots of stuff that even most tourists don't see (because most tourists only go to Tokyo and Kyoto)... because it's a huge prefecture, not only a power plant.
And yet, as it was labeled "Fukushima disaster", people specially from outside Japan thinks the entire prefecture is condemned or something, when not even the capital city of Fukushima which is located more towards the north of the prefecture didn't change much. :P
I don't think many people realize this, but the capital of Fukushima, that has the same name, never saw anything related to ionizing radiation out of the Tohoku 2011 disaster. They had problems in infrastructure and public transportation because of the earthquake, but that's mostly it.
So I think it's awesome that Greg often makes videos de-mystifing Japan... I think it's needed, because it's something you don't see a lot on traditional media.
118
-
Brazil has among the highest homicide numbers in the world, particularly among countries that are not in a declared war, and Rio de Janeiro in particular is a city that has basically been in a siege war-like situation for years now.
After the Olympics, the city basically went bankrupt, and two major factors - in my personal opinion - only aggravated the situation. First, it had a governor that is an extremely well known corrupt pastor of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. He was embroiled in several corruption schemes as everyone who knew the guy was already expecting, and then things only got worse during Bolsonaro's presidential term because of militias, Bolsonaro's tough on crime posture, and making it easier to purchase and own guns.
There is a specific characteristic of the city which makes it so violent. Basically, it has high density population in a relatively small area that is surrounded by mountains, and those mountains are where all the favelas are, because it's all illegal occupation. There should be nothing but native forests where favelas are, but because Rio was the former historical capital of Brazil, remains the second most populous city, and has several important sectors, industries and whatnot - it attracted and still attracts tons and tons and tons of people, several of which ends up poor and without a place to live, and so illegal occupation is the only solution.
This makes rich and middle class neighborhoods sit in close proximity to favelas... but the problem isn't that, it's just that favelas are so labyrinthic and they are so close to popular beaches and places that criminals have an easy time committing crimes anywhere in city center, popular beaches, and wherever large amounts of people are, and then escaping into favelas, which are the perfect hiding spots.
And it's also because of closeness, crime gangs operating inside favelas, and how labyrinthic they are, they basically work as a sort of fortress for organized crime.
Police and militia are indeed extremely violent, and this only worsened in recent years, but you have to keep in mind that this is also true for the criminal gangs that hide inside favelas. Some crime gangs will execute people in the most inhumane horrendous ways just to rule by fear. Police don't usually try to get in those places because when they do, it's under a rain of lead, if you know what I mean.
Make things worse for police, lots of low ranking officers who are exactly the ones that participate in favela operations, will often... live inside favelas themselves. They often don't get paid enough to live anywhere else in the city, so they have to basically completely hide their identities in order to live there. If a criminal gang that controls the favela finds out or learns about this, there are high chances of the officer getting persecuted and shot down. There are numerous cases of police officers living inside favelas that got executed by organized crime.
Police is ill equipped, don't have enough training, are not paid enough for their jobs and the risk they take, and are working in constant fear because of those conditions. It's not an excuse for any sort of corruption inside the police, but knowing the circumstances it becomes pretty obvious why it happens. It's part of the reason why militias exist after all.
It's an insane situation.
So, the situation is already dire by itself. Whenever you add that to a corrupt mayor, corrupt governor, corrupt president, or any of those being pro-guns, having a tough on crime posture, or are involved somehow with the militia, then it's all downhill from there. Everytime there are shootouts between criminals and police, criminals and militia, one criminal faction and another, bullets are flying all over the place, and it's not rare for them to end up hitting innocent people, mainly people living inside favelas, but because of proximity to city center, it can also hit people outside favelas too.
Brazil is a country with lots of violence, but Rio is kinda notorious because of this entire situation. I'm Brazilian and at least for me, the thought of visiting Rio is just the same as visiting a war zone nowadays. I'm not going there not even if I got paid for it, sorry. I've been to the city decades ago, at a time things still weren't as bad as they are today, didn't spend much time there because it was just one afternoon, but the city is beautiful, and does not deserve to have all this violence, nor the people living there. So it's all just tragic.
Marielle's case is just incredibly sad, and it's extremely angering that her case still wasn't solved, which points out to deep corruption. Militia did the killing, but it's extremely likely that the order came from very high up. She was well on her way to becoming a great politician and leader, and that's why someone powerful with militia contacts took her down in such a cowardly manner. We all hope there will eventually be justice for her case. Rio de Janeiro has no hope of ever getting better until we do.
117
-
116
-
114
-
Over 150 young lives lost... this is unimaginable. A single parent doesn't deserve this, over 150 families destroyed like this is a permanent open wound for South Korean society. May they find force somewhere to live on.
For those wondering, and that seems to be clueless about government and police responsibilities, the event didn't just happen from one hour to the other. We are looking at specific images in singular moments, but not only the alley had already been problematic in big events and holidays in the neighborhood, which should have prompted mitigating action years ago, infrastructure and reform early on, authorities should've been on high alert for Halloween because of how packed the streets have been in previous years - previous to pandemic I mean. They should've known better to respond quickly when the first calls started coming in, and that is what is in question there.
If you are not familiar with South Korea and Seoul's Itaewon district, think Shibuya in Japan on Halloween. If you are familiar with that, think of how police acts in that case. Or think locally in big events where streets are bound to get full of people. You may not notice, but police, firefighters, ambulance and other services are always acting behind the scenes to control things, and for quick response in case something happens.
It's there on the video - multiple calls were made several hours before the situation took a drastic turn to the worse, not only to police, but also firefighters.
I think people are too oblivious to the important role these forces have to play on public safety in public events... because they are often invisible and working on the background, but you should know that it's their job, and you as a citizen is paying them to do so, to protect the lives of citizens in crowded public events.
It's the side of crowd control that is often not recognized. Westerners might have a corrupt concept of crowd control being employed only when it's to disperse protests, often with violence, but crowd control also is about managing access to points in the city to avoid crushes.
There is an element of urban planning and permits in question there too. Afaik, that alley with a single access point and no escape routes was allowed to have multiple venues that are expected to have crowds on entrance somehow. That shouldn't have been allowed.
And then, in the very same way private venues, open or not, have regulations regarding maximum capacity, ability for people to walk around and escape routes - cities also have (or should have) those, and the responsibility for maintaining those fall flat into police, firemen and government. So, it is in full right of South Korean people, and specially the family of victims to point out exactly that. This isn't Vice being anti-police, they are reporting what is being said openly there.
Mind you, probably no one imagined something so horrific like this could happen. People going there also cannot see what is happening. This is the worst thing about crush events... you might be in the midst of it and not realize it's dangerous enough for people to die in there. The message does not go through, and even when people realize something is wrong, actions don't go through fast enough to alleviate the situation.... sometimes it gets even worse. Panic sets in, people start trying to force their way to escape the crowd, then trampling starts happening.
Those asking for reasons why so many people died - it's suffocation, it's trampling, it's literal crushing, heat strokes and others. When a place get this packed full of people, it's like a moving solid wall. In the middle where there is no room to escape, you could suddenly get tons of pressure, literal tons of crushing force because you have no space to move. The weight and force of hundreds of people pushing against you all at once. And wherever there is room to move, what usually happens is that because of the pressure, people fall, and then start falling one on top of another, which is where trampling happens.
The dynamics of this, crowd control, and whatnot might not be in the minds of most people, but it is a well understood phenomena that occasionally rears it's ugly head once again because of complacency, administrative incompetence, corruption and other factors. We shouldn't need such a tragic event to be reminded of how dangerous a crowd can be, but I hope respect for all these affected families and our collective empathy for their pain is enough to ingrain the knowledge about this once again worldwide. We cannot let events like this one ever happen again, and all the necessary changes need to be made to avoid such a huge loss of lives.
113
-
Ultimately, both Trump's complete lack of diplomacy and Brexit could be turned for the benefit of the rest of the world.... because less dependency on both economies and a route to better diversify trade among countries is just a good thing overall.
But yeah, dismantling blocks and agreements that took decades to happen with no plan in a reactionary manner is just pretty f*cking stupid overall, no kidding. And of course any type of businesses that had big export agreements closely related to EU will suffer. That should've been obvious even for the most ignorant people. If it wasn't, it's better to learn the lesson because that will be the most valuable thing coming out of it.
Now, you'll have to come up with something better or at least equal by yourself, good luck. And protip: the government won't do it for you, no matter how many politicians promised it, no matter what flavor of propaganda you chose to believe. They don't know the specifics, they can't negotiate for shit, and considering Brexit the way it was done just proves it. And you'll have to do it without the backing and security that being part of an economic block gave it to you.
If it's a net benefit or loss, time will tell. But you gotta be stupid to think exiting a huge economic block would be all benefit. People have warned up to the last minute of the vote that this would happen, and so it did.
Overall, we live in a globalized economy whether people like it or not. This isn't something people can chose to be in favor of or not, this is how the world works today. The vast vast majority of every country's economy is highly dependant on trade. Even the most sanctioned countries still depend on whatever trade they are allowed to do to survive. It's not by coincidence that this is one step from going to war - limiting international trade has incredibly severe consequences.
When you chose to insulate yourself, become arrogant, aggressive and stand on some pedestal, you can't blame other countries from avoiding doing business with you. It's a very risky move that tends to sooner or later backfire.
110
-
Prefacing: I'm neither an Apple fan nor Samsung fan. Nor hater of either too, though it's fair to say I probably dislike Apple more than Samsung.
Some ideas and thoughts...
It's possible that Samsung put out the idea of this ad before Apple started offering cheaper battery replacements. Remember that between the reveal that throttling was a thing, Apple admiting it really did happen, and then Apple offering battery replacements at a discount, there are at least a few months interval there. If the ad was produced in that interval, it makes a bit more sense. Not a whole lot more sense, but still.
Apple's out of warranty battery replacement program used to be... 79 bucks, right? They cut 50 bucks out of it months after admiting the whole throttling thing.
https://www.macworld.com/article/3245168/consumer-electronics/iphone-29-battery-replacement-faq.html
Then again, even at 79 bucks a Samsung battery replacement still costs more. But I don't think that's the focus... the ad is implying that Samsung phones don't have throttling at all. So, more specifically, this is about the scandal because it reached national news coverage. It's all about targeting, but more on that later in the comment.
About Touchwiz... believe it or not, lots of people actually love Touchwiz. I'd go as far as saying that some people like it so much that they almost sound like people who cannot live without iOS.
Don't believe me? Go to Google and search for "Why do people hate Touchwiz"?
The reasoning is simple. Lots of people have used Samsung phones for a very long time, they always had Samsung phones, and they see Touchwiz as an Android version that has more features, that has the apps they use, and that they are familiar with. They don't care about a little bit of extra lag, if it's a bit slower than vanilla Android and stuff like that.
And I honestly get it. My mom is having a hard time transitioning from an LG phone to an Android One phone because of the change in interface - even though I tweaked a lot to get closer to LG's own skin. Nowadays they are actually pretty close, closer than ever probably, but familiarity plays a huge role for non techie users.
And in a sense, iOS operates in a similar way. From a logical standpoint, and this is a common thing people migrating from Android to iOS will say... iOS interface can feel super clunky and outdated. Not a lot of customization, lots of iPhone users I know have a huge mess of icons, they have a hard time finding apps that they don't use often, the way the configuration menu is organized can be pretty unintuitive when you are trying to reach less common settings, etc.
But for someone who is familiar with it and has been using iOS from start, it's really really hard to start over again with something else. Specially for most of the market, who are not necessarily comfortable with messing around until they know what everything is.
Ok, given all that, the last thing about it would be... targetting. It's kind of a scummy ad strategy and cringeworthy one, which Apple used in the past against Microsoft, but Samsung is probably targetting people who are not all that much into tech. They are trying to capitalize on the scandal, in kind of a desperate and ugly way, just to create controversy and get the attention of people who don't actually follow what's happening in tech rounds on a daily basis. It's also appealing to fanboys and long time users I guess.
Do I agree with it? Nope. My opinion goes line in line with Louis basically. But the thing is, Samsung probably doesn't give a rat's ass about our opinion. They are trying to sell an image for the average joe.
And the thing is - it works. Think about it. Just a couple of years ago Samsung had a scandal worth of closing up doors and never selling another smartphone ever again. I don't think Apple capitalized on the scandal, but sure as heck lots of their fanboys did, and the press also piled up. But Samsung somehow managed to not only get out of it, but set record sales on the next device in line. So it must have fans that are close to if not on par with Apple fans.
So they keep dancing that dance. Much like other multi billionaire oligopolies.
I'm just hoping for some mid-range reasonably priced smartphone with vanilla Android or Android One with direct from Google updates... no middlemen. Of all brands, Nokia might be a candidate. xD
105
-
Always an interesting subject... I'm no expert but I imagine lots of things had to be cut to fit.
Samurai was only a government designated label for the most part, that's why historically it doesn't make much sense to tie to very specific images. It was basically a caste system, not something meant to signify a certain type of profession or specialization.
But samurai had to follow a system of morality, behaviour, beliefs and overall system (you could see it like a particular set of laws and rules) called bushido. That's where practices like sepukku comes from. But it's not like it's the honorable way to die. You could die as a samurai of old age, natural causes and whatnot without commiting sepukku, honorably. This is kind of a mix up.
Sepukku was a way of keeping your honor when accused of crimes or of violating the bushido code when the accusation came specifically from superiors. Because bushido was a very vertical system, masters and those above you in the caste system always had the moral high ground. Like the local lord/daimiyo accusing you as a samurai of a grave crime.
So, you are accused, and you have no way of proving you are innocent, you commit sepukku as proof of strength in showing you are innocent and willing to pay with your life to show your conviction. Sepukku was basically the ultimate way to show your conviction in something.
Similar to self-immolation, for instance, but drawing particularly from the bushido code.
Following what I've already said, shinobi or ninjas were quite diverse, but in general terms it was just people secretly hired, usually by feudal lords, to do stuff that was frowned upon by or outside the bushido code. It was dishonorable work. But they were there because their type of work obviously had strategic advantages for feudal lords. This is why it's closer to spies. It's also why there's all this myth around invisibility, hiding in shadows, assassination techniques and whatnot - they weren't meant to be seen or known about, and they were often supposed to kill themselves if caught. Because if they were caught on the act and tied to a feudal lord, again, as they were under bushido code, the feudal lord himself would probably have to commit sepukku, and the shinobi would probably be killed on spot without any recourse - as they are already in a social caste considered inpure or not worthy.
It's not that all shinobi did assassinations though, again, those are general terms of a caste system.
You could have a shinobi/ninja that just gathered information and intelligence as part of the crowd, for instance. Of course, shinobi that worked close to feudal lords and were very specialized in certain tasks like assassinations or infiltrations got their positions by being very proficient at the stuff they did. The legends are a mix of portrayal and exaggeration of the most famous ones I guess.
You can imagine that people like that, from specific castes I mean, can get extremely proficient, evolve their own techniques, and be trained to almost perfection when this sort of stuff is going around for several hundreds of years in a country that had a warring state that lasted almost 600 years. This is why there are stuff around hidden villages and families with generations of people who were trained from a young age to be shinobi. Hundreds of years in a very strict societal caste system will lead to stuff like that. It's not so much that those villages were really hidden per se, but they were very out of the way, isolated, and common people in a society would not know about them because feudal lords really did not want for their existance to even be known.
In a way, kinda unfortunately, this is also why there's not much actual history on them. Lots of speculation, and some second hand register and accounts, but of course, shinobi couldn't record their histories or let it be known in any way, as they were bound to secrecy by feudal lords, which were still their superiors in all ways.
So there you go. A bit of what I have read over the years on the subject.
99
-
97
-
As someone whose first Android phone was a Sony Xperia Z3, I can give you my personal perspective as to why people won't buy Sony smartphones these days, including myself.
First of all, why I bought that phone at that time? I was coming from a Nokia 1020, you can already guess why.
It had a reasonable price for spec, a camera package that stuck above average on Android land, and an overall good looking functional design with stuff like IP68 rating that appealed to me at the time... I put that phone underwater and used it while running under rain without worries.
I guess good to mention too that it was an all glass phone back at a time when most Android phones were plastic, though this didn't matter to me a lot since I used it with a case.
So, why I went to OnePlus after it?
Sony lost a ton of faith, followers and goodwill with the next models.
They ramped up the price too much, and made phones that were a mish mash of useless high end features with outdated software and other specs.
4K back then was not only ridiculous, it was downright useless. It drained battery like nothing else, there was not a whole lot of content to make use of that 4K (imho there still isn't), and in practice, it wasn't something I'd like on a phone anyways. With that release, they also put an absurd price on it too, in a time before the artificial ramp up of flagships. People would laugh at it because they could spend less and get the latest Note or something instead.
Next models had all sorts of problems. Overheating cameras, Sony stuck to microUSB at least a year longer than the competition on their flagships, they put priorities where it wasn't necessary like slow motion on cameras, and ignored things that people liked - like low light mode. Even the entire concept of putting more manual controls on the camera came later than other brands, despite them - like said - making the camera sensors for everyone.
It felt to me like smartphones made to be a showcase of stuff Sony did, while ignoring everything else. They had outlandish unecessary tech on the camera hardware side, but didn't have a bunch of things that all other brands had already adopted.
The Z3 also wasn't perfect by any means, and the problems it had was a glimpse of the general problem with Sony doing smartphones. The IP68 rating was accomplished by using these flap covers on top of ports - SIM card, SD card and microUSB charging port - yes, a flap cover on top of the microUSB port, which you had to use for charging. It was a hassle. The ones from my phone ended up falling out eventually (which invalidated the IP68 rating), because everytime you yanked the thing got more and more lose, until it fell off.
It had a magnetic charging port that was a good idea, but awful execution. You could either get a proprietary cable or a docking station to make use of it, I had both, both were less convenient than opening up the damn flap and connecting a cable straight. Weak magnets, weird configuation, it never worked well. It was just badly designed.
And this is coming from someone who has been using magnetic charging cables for years now, done right.
Sony also didn't change, update, or improved their Android skin for ages. It was more or less like how Touchwiz prevented some people from buying Samsung phones, but with the difference that Touchwiz actually had a good ammount of fans. Sony's Xperia UI was just... weird. Between barebones not adding much to it, but also with a different jarring look that was stuck in the past. Seems like they changed that recently, I'm not sure because I just stopped looking at their phones after sometime.
There was also that time when Sony tried to bring the very side power button fingerprint sensor combo that MKHB is showing there, but for some reason around pattent dispute with... HP if I'm not mistaken, they ended up releasing a phone with NO fingerprint scanner when it was already a standard feature in the US. That one was a doozy... not sure how they solved that, probably by paying the necessary royalties.
On another hand, of course, the fact that Sony smartphones never seemed to get how smartphones are sold in western markets, or more likely, just not wanting to deal with the hassle - because it kinda works the same way there afaik.
They took very long to close deals with mobile operators, and when they did it didn't last long, and was kinda haphazard. Not sure how it is now, but for very long, a Sony phone just wasn't an option when you went directly to mobile operators. That's in the US... here in Brazil I never saw a Sony phone sold in any mobile operators. You have Samsung, LG, Motorola, even some brands I have never heard about like Semp Toshiba phones... but personally, never seen a single Sony phone sold on mobile operators here. Because Sony doesn't care, but probably also because Sony phones are too expensive for the market.
I suspect this has to do with other puzzling decisions other japanese companies often do - their main market always is the japanese market, and their decisions often go around what the japanese market understands and wants instead of the global or western market - take it or leave it. They have an extremely hard time understanding what other markets want, care for or need.
This explains the deficiencies on something like the Nintendo Switch... despite having hardware that basically comes from Android devices, it is so lacking in social and networking features it seems almost illogical. It also doesn't have, for some super weird reasons, absolute basic stuff like Bluetooth support for general headphones, gamepads and whatnot. Why?
I mean, it's good to hear Sony is catching up and putting out some features that at least some people might care about... but I'm not going back to it, mainly because price. Samsung, either because they understand the market, or because of a stroke of luck, made the perfect phone for me at this point in time... the S10e. It has all the necessary specs and features at a price I find reasonable. Chinese companies filled that whole a few years ago, but these days, given how trends are, I think it takes a corporation like Samsung that churns out a dozen models every half year of so to get to what I really want and need, because what I want and need is not exactly en vogue anymore.
But Sony? I think they remained in obscurity for too long for a comeback. It'll take years of putting out exceptionally good phones to make a dent in the market. And it's not enough to hit enthusiast markets, and other niche categories... if they really want the recognition and reach, plus percentage of the overall market, they'll have to do something closer to what Samsung does. Lots of models, targetting all markets, generating lots of buzz in the entire spectrum.
Also do way more in terms of marketing and reach. How did OnePlus got this big a market in such a short time? The tip for others trying lays there. It's a very real case study to go for.
96
-
96
-
I grew up using those to scrub in the shower... I'm so used to them that nothing else has the right texture, there are no replacements for it. They really last far longer than regular sponges, they dry faster, and if you store them the right way (a simple hook in a well ventilated area will do), they also don't get smelly, moldy or slimy.
In fact, there is a curious thing about them that points out the time to replace... they start getting a bit darker, the fibers. Or when they become too flimsy, poking holes through.
I also like how they are firmer than regular sponges... it kinda feels like you are cleaning yourself harder. xD It's a bit addictive.
It's not even about environmentalism, it's all purely selfish reasons just because I like them over anything else. xD
But I'm super happy to see it's a more environmentally friendly alternative, that it has a huge potential market to replace plastic crap, and that it's being promoted here.
Never thought about using them for dishes though, will try it.
96
-
85
-
I'm personally against the death penalty, I think criminals like this guy should live to pay his entire life for what he's done.
But considering the Japanese justice system has a maximum penalty of death sentence, and I'm not one to judge blindly the culture of other nations, that's exactly what he deserves - the maximum penalty possible. So it was the right court decision.
He was not mentally incapacitated. This was a premeditated horrific crime with a frivolous, false motivation.
For those who don't know much of the case, I'll share some extra stuff I read on it.
This guy was a hikkikomori, one of those social withdrawal cases. Those people don't necessarily have a mental illness per se, just to be clear. This is more a societal problem that Japan has been working with for several decades now. People who self isolate and withdraw from society. It's becoming less of an issue these days there.
Like many, he was also a sort of Internet troll with a bottled up violent personality. This is probably what led to this plagiarism accusation that had absolutely no substance to it. I don't remember the exact details, but it was something stupid like some small generic scene that appeared on a KyoAni title, which was already an adaptation to a light novel, so there is no way he created anything in it. He was just delusional, which is not uncommon in hikkikomori and Internet troll cases. Well, you know, it's more or less the same as incels.
It was later discovered in investigation that he not only applauded a mass murderer in a stabbing case a few years before his arson, known as the Sagamihara Stabbing case, he also planned to replicate it. Didn't have the courage to follow through on that though. But he did plan the arson, even though he hesitated to execute it in the day. Police has the entire action on CCTV cameras and whatnot. Seems there was some point he hesitated some 10 minutes before going through with it.
For people who don't know, this guy bought several gallons of fuel, transported it to the building, then proceeded to splash and douse people in the studio with it, and set people directly on fire while shouting things like "Go to hell" and stuff like that. This all because he was convinced people in the studio plagiarized him somehow. He didn't only set the building on fire or stuff like that, it was a direct attack against people in the building, and that's why he ended up badly burned too.
He also knows what he did, despite showing remorse and being regretful. During treatment he said stuff like "I went too far", and "I deserve to die". So he is fully conscious of what he did.
There are tons of evidence that this was not the product of mental illness or some altered state of mind. The only portion that this guy was delusional about was his accusation against the studio.
As for the animation studio and it's works, suffice to say the studio was a luminary to Japanese animation in general, way beyond most people think, including anime fans. There will be some older anime fans of the 80s and 90s that will criticize the style or the genre that the studio focused on, which is a matter of personal taste that everyone is entitled to their own, but it is undoubtedly one of the most influential Japanese animation studios of this century. Fans are not in the thousands, it's on hundreds of thousands if not millions. It was also a close-knit studio that had one of the most respectful practices in the entire industry, and a focus on quality over quantity. It paid a decent wage for all employees, it didn't use overseas labor or badly paid freelance work, it had a gender balanced staff - all stuff that is becoming increasingly rare in the industry these days.
This is part of the reason why it had the entire staff working in a kinda run down building. The studio struggled because it didn't adopt predatory practices most Japanese studios these days have. Most if not all of their titles were everyday life comedy style titles, that didn't appeal to violence or sex to sell itself (which is why some people dislike them, they prefer the overly violent and sexual titles of the late 80s and 90s).
So there you go... I could go on and on, but leave it at that, you can look for the rest.
74
-
I have to ask this because I'm genuinely curious - has electing the offspring of dictators ever worked out for democracy? I am genuinely curious to know about actual examples worldwide, as I personally don't know any.
See, I'm not saying this out of prejudice or "sins of our fathers" perspective... most of the cases when politicians who are the children of former dictators ends up elected it always turns out that they lived in such a completely different reality compared to the population that it always ends up in corruption, a step backwards from democracy back into dictatorship, or a combination of both. The latter is the most likely scenario.
To make things worse, a strict military family also not uncommonly means children who grew up in very strict, very do as I say not as I do, very controlling households... which heightens the chances of people being brainwashed and controlled by things such as cults, religious figures, etc. Or mirroring the behavior of their parents being as controlling as their parents.
There is a specific mix of problems that often come in military households/families that puts both strong intolerance towards diverse opinions and complete inadmission of mistakes - to the point of the person never admitting personal errors and always attributing them to others -, together with the potential to form one or multiple relationships based mostly on faith, loyalty and fanatism instead of any real measure of evaluation and trust.
It's an extremely dangerous mix that I've never seen work out in politics. There are likely exceptional cases, but I haven't heard of them. It seems like you always end up with worst outcomes in cases like that, at least for the population. Of course, it benefits greatly the cronies, the party, the family and friends of those politicians who will be taking bribes, corruption schemes, and reaping the benefits of exploiting public coffers and lobbyists... military dictatorships will always have that crowd that thinks the country was better back then because they weren't in the receiving end of the exploitation and violence practiced by the regime. But overall, it always looks bad for the country.
Just understand - I'm not saying ONLY military related politicians are corrupt, or that military linked politicians are ALWAYS corrupt... obviously, I live in a country with a political system that is so structurally corrupt that no matter the origins of politicians elected there, they always seems to end up in corruption whatever they origins are.
Idealism tied to ignorance is often another source for extreme corruption and moral decay in politics, which is subject for another discussion.
But I'm more focused on thinking about the origins of corruption when it comes to military families.
Surface level, one might think that the discipline and moral teachings in military families could end up in better politics... but to me it almost always seems to end up at the opposite end.
72
-
Do not worry about pronunciation, ignore the trolls, we understand!
Also, lots of thanks for bringing up the subject, memory and thoughts on these disasters... we unfortunately get very little international exposure despite accidents much like these being very frequent in Brazil.
Unfortunately, it's far from being the last ones, and they'll just keep happening.
The core issue in Brazil is just plain corruption. Governmental and private big business corruption. The richest and biggest company in the entire country, which is Vale, is a primary resources exploiter that destroys the environment, uses the most shoddy methods for it, but unfortunately is also a huge employer that several regions in Brazil can't live without. In a country that never got away from it's status of primary resources exporter, it's a cycle of despair.
With a bureaucratic, morose and unbalanced justice system, the multiple victims of these disasters spend decades in courts awaiting for help that never comes, and even when these cases are solved with a penalty against the companies, not only they mostly get a slap on the wrist, victims and family of victims are the last ones to see any compensation... it mostly just ends up at the hands of lawyers, organizations and governmenf that uses the money to fund equally corrupt and incompetent corporations just ready to create the next source of disaster.
Mariana and Brumadinho are only a couple of shoddy work examples of tens if not hundreds of similar places - in the very same brazilian state. I do mean similar... similarly owned by Vale and other huge mining companies, similarly using the same type of barrier, similarly having several previous warnings during heavy rains and floods, similarly ready to fail and take entire cities with then, further adding to pollution and destruction of the region, further taking lives and livelihoods.
The history of the state has always been one of exploitation of mineral resources with some of the poorest methods available. It's actually right in the name of the state - "Minas Gerais" translates directly to General Mines. The names comes from portuguese colony times, and it tells how the land was seen as purely means for exploitation.
The history of exploitation continues despite Brazil not being a colony anymore... titles change, realities remains the same. We're still mostly a banana republic, natural resouces exploited to be sold worldwide, while the local population keeps the worst of it at inflated prices because the global market said so. And you have to take criticism coming from developed nation leaders with your head down... the exact same countries that funded and are still funding the exploitation of our land.
With climate change rearing it's ugly head more and more, and corruption staying the same or becoming even worse in recent years, with a cast of politicians that openly and unabashedly destroy what little regulations we have, persecute ngos, and favor industries and big agribusinesses over citizen safety and support, you can bet these "accidents" will keep happening, because workers are expendable, and the violations of humans rights are out of sight out of mind for the clientele.
Anyways, sorry for the rant... it just gets to my nerves how a country like Brazil, that have by comparison few natural disasters and a climate lots of people wish they had year round, has to be reduced to the state it currently is because of greed and corruption. And again, thanks for sharing the story... more people need to hear about it worldwide, the victims are still suffering to this day, and the businesses responsible for it still haven't paid their dues, nor changed their ways. You do have the fines and penalties, but like in many other cases that the channel already put out, it is far from enough, it didn't get to the hands of those who really need it, and it wasn't enough for the corporation to change it's practices.
70
-
69
-
62
-
62
-
59
-
58
-
57
-
56
-
The sad thing is that this current caravan scandal doesn't even pass basic math tests.
Let's say all 7000 people on this caravan actually reached the border and both caused a mess there, and entered the US illegally, or even encouraged repeated situations like that.
You know what would be waaaaaay cheaper than mobilizing the military there, creating this entire media storm and being used as a propaganda tool for fearmongering votes?
Paying a reasonably good wage out of taxpayer money without any strings attached to all those people and giving them public housing... for say 10 years or so until they could adjust themselves to the culture and lifestyle and find ways to sustain themselves.
No, really. Do the math. 7000 people is nothing, border wise. Much less those who will actually get there, since they are nowhere close. Even if all those people and many more entered the country, never worked, received a government pension, public housing and whole bunch of other comforts paid directly from public coffers, it still would not get even close to reaching the major financial distresses and big decisions politicians have to get to. It'd be a tiny blip in comparison to other problems, financially speaking.
This is the story of the entire fearmongering campaign created around immigrants, illegal or not, and asylum seekers. They come in such small numbers and require so little to be given an opportunity that it shouldn't even be a minor talking point in political decisions. Probably why it's so frequently used for polarization... it's basically weightless when compared to stuff like healthcare, student debt, military spending, retirement funds, climate change, etc etc. Yet people give it ridiculous ammounts of attention as if it was the armageddon or something.
The US could quite literally open all borders, receive every immigrant that wanted to enter the country with a far less burdensome process, give a living wage to each one of them, housing, all that without the money spent on it ever getting close to reaching the level of several of the huge major issues that politicians are completely failing to address.
56
-
ROFL, Greg, next time you take them deep in the boonies and order in a restaurant without photos or plastic food displays, preferably a plate with a whole bunch of options. xD
Tokyo is just too easy. :P
Just go tabemono onegaishimasu. xD
Anyways, to note, Google Translate doesn't get a lot of things right, but in an emergency it'll also translate what people are saying... I'm not sure if it'd be able to get everything they were saying in the last bit, but if you don't have a Greg there to help you, it might be the solution.
Actually, I just tested when he gave the options for shoyu, Hakata salt or red miso... Google Translate got: "It becomes white or red miso of pediatric Hakata". LOL
50
-
47
-
44
-
This was absolutely and undoubtedly orchestrated.
It's also an useful case for analysis and comparison so that people realize there is a structured, well organized, extremely detailed playbook and probably corporate well financed structure that politicians are following to replicate the successes of the alt-right in the US.
Hi, Brazilian here. Here are some stuff that didn't appear on this video that I'll just point out.
First, the attack on Jan 8th down here was just the end point of a mirroring of Trump's politics that started before Bolsonaro was even elected. Proof enough of this is that Bolsonaro was already questioning the election process without any proof or any reason to do so when he was elected. It was a play to inflame and enrage his base just in case he did not get elected back then.
He has been mirroring Trump's discourses even before the election that put him in power, but he ramped up things drastically a few months after he was elected.
So, here are just a few things he did as acting president that are likely connected to this general plan.
Down here in Brazil we do not have mainstream TV news equivalent to Fox News that are paid for and are always attending to Republican needs in a party sponsored manner... the biggest mainstream open TV news channel we have, Globo, has a left leaning stance. Most other official and traditional channels of communications are similar, and at most maintains a neutral stance.
We also don't have that many online channels with huge followings that are conservative, conspiratorial, and on the alt-right side of things. I mean, we do have some notorious figures, some big social network groups, and stuff like this - but it doesn't exactly reach the notoriety of US stuff like Breitbart, OAN, Alex Jones and whatnot.
I think we didn't quite get to that stage yet not because there aren't enough people who believe in alt-right extremism and conspiracy theory radicalism, but rather because most of the Brazilian population just aren't well equipped nor have a cultural background to follow such channels in the first place.
The way most people seems to consume things down here is very disconnected, not by following specific people. Radicalism has coalesced not around these big channels and big figures, but rather around chat and social media groups, smaller ones.
So, what Bolsonaro did was completely cut off communications with mainstream news in TV, newspapers, magazines and whatnot, and create his own channels from scratch where he talks directly to his indoctrinated following. This has a different effect in comparison to the president talking to a Fox News sized channel, or appearing in radio shows that are listened to hundreds of millions of people all at once.
The problem this created for himself is that the strategy is self evident. If there are voters and parts of the population that are undecided about who to support, there is nothing of Bolsonaro's ideology going up in mainstream news. And since he chose a channel that a whole ton of Brazilians don't have easy access to, what it looks like for lots of people is that he was a president that refused to talk to anyone but his followers. In effect, he was an absent president for the majority of the Brazilian electorate.
Another significant step on proving the connection. We had, during his term, a parallel, secretive cabinet with regular meetings that eventually came to be known as "cabinet of hate", where Bolsonaro, his followers, his sons, his party members and potential new recruits constantly gathered behind closed doors to discuss... something. Probably the strategy behind the whole thing.
From there, it is speculated that came things like the anti-vax strategy, playing down the pandemic, putting the electoral process in question, the dismantling of regulatory agencies, the dirty corrupt alliance with old centralist politicians giving birth to something as absurd as secret budgeting of huge portions of money from the public coffers, plus a whole host of other things. Strategies for his sons to avoid prosecution for their past corruption schemes, how to deny accusations and avoid liability, how to vilify and paint the opposition a certain way, how to run the political campaign for re-election... it was all done behind closed doors without access to press.
A trigger for this was likely because when some of initial ministerial meetings happened with press access, multiple irregularities showed up and were reported promptly. A minister openly talking how they were going to use the pandemic to pass regulation-destroying changes in law, some politician using white nationalist gestures and signaling to it's followers, the president complaining and getting visibly altered in defense of his son who was being accused in a notorious corruption scheme... all that came to light when the meetings happened not exactly with open doors, but being recorded for press evaluation.
So they switched to a closed off cabinet neither the press nor public had access to. It was an obvious strategy for information control. We had multiple revelations of scandalous things happening behind the scenes leaking during his term. The fact that it happened in secrecy only further alienated people who were unsure if they should support him.
The other major thing that tips off to a playbook strategy is how many of the smearing campaign tactics against the opposition during the recent election mirrored things from Trump's campaign, things which don't make much sense for Brazilian politics. It convinced a lot of his radical followers, but it doesn't pass muster if you look just a bit into it.
For instance, there were a lot of red scare tactics going on saying how Lula was going to transform Brazil into a communist state, I've even read absurd things on how there was a plan to make the Brazilian flag communist red, how he was gonna ally himself to criminals he met in prison, how he was gonna ally himself to other Latin American leaders to make a China or Russia kinda state in America, and other bullsh*t like that.
The problem is, President Lula, no matter how badly people see him, already had two complete consecutive terms as a president in Brazil, and his party was the ruling party for almost 4 terms, which is almost 16 years. He attempted none of that while he was in power, and there is zero indication he is going to try doing this now.
None of what Bolsonaro's propaganda was putting out happened in all that time. There was no reason to believe in any of the FUD that Bolsonaro's campaign was putting out, in secret and indirectly I must add, unless you were completely indoctrinated by it.
Any major link that Brazil has with supposed communist states are there because of trade relationships, and those relationships cannot be put at risk by any political party because Brazil's economy is highly dependent on it. China, for instance, is one of the biggest importers of Brazil exports. So Bolsonaro cannot use some jingoist strategy down here without bankrupting the country in the process... and with this you see how even more artificial this FUD campaign against communism will sound. There is no room even for a mild trade war like the one Trump started and Biden is continuing, apparently.
Bolsonaro was also unsuccessful in turning the Supreme Court in his favor, even though he did attempt to do it... his party is new and does not have as many direct political supporters in legislative and judiciary branch, his power grip is not as strong as Trump's, his strategy was clumsy and filled with holes for press and opposition to exploit.
That's the difference. He didn't manage to co-opt half of the political ideology down here, because we have a system that allows for multiple parties to run, and even though it often ends up in an election that amounts to right versus left, during the election you clearly see how a huge part of voters don't want either extremes.
This past election did indeed put lots of pro-Bolsonaro governors, mayors, and congressman in power, but the majority of them to not fully subscribe to his radical ideology. They got the support, they talked well about Bolsonaro's term in electoral propaganda, but several of them disagree with his ideology and politics to varying degrees. So it's a much less organized political power structure. Every current or former politic Bolsonaro supporter that is currently occupying a public position rushed out to condemn the Jan 8th attack lest they end up implicated too. There was no "these are just good people that are frustrated with the electoral process" response coming from politicians.
This has also influenced how Bolsonaro positioned himself in the electoral run, at least for the mainstream media campaign strategy. It was clear he decided not to officially rely on attacks against his opponent, not to make inflammatory accusations, not to rely on a FUD campaign officially, because that would likely incriminate him. And like I already said, institutions in Brazil weren't co-opted by him or his party.
So, he had to do a campaign that was focused on supposed good things he did while he was president with thinly veiled threats that all of this was going to end if he wasn't re-elected, while ramping up the hate machine under the hood via 3rd parties.
44
-
43
-
42
-
The lesson, as always: Stop trusting celebrities for anything other than their main jobs.
Something that unfortunately gets violated too much.
For the most part with few exceptions, celebrities are not doctors, they are not nutricionists, they are not the FDA, most are not engineers, not scientists, and not even good reviewers, researchers or analysts of anything worth your money. I'm not trying to demean them, if you think logically about it, they just don't have the time to spend on stuff other than their careers.
There are exceptions, yes, but they are just that - exceptions. You know, some genius people like Natalie Portman.
Acting tips from your favorite actor or actress? Sure, that's their area of expertise. Instruments of choice or effects and production environment from favorite musicians and whatnot? Sure, that's what they work with everyday. The rest? Just say no.
I guess I could also say to just avoid Twitter entirely, but lots of people still find it useful... xD Hey, I'm not judging, I'm still on Facebook... sigh
Oh, as for the switcheroo, I bet it'll keep happening. You know why? Because for the most part, it's not celebrities that are making the posts... it'd a managing agency that probably has a fixed device to do everything, and they just don't wanna get a new phone, configure it all, and change their workflow everytime they get a sponsorship.
Though if it's a long time contract like Gal Godot's, I think they should've done it. And big brands obviously should do it, that's just sloppy. Probably same reason though... 3rd party marketing agencies taking care of the campaign instead of the brand itself. What with shots taken with a dSLRs instead of the smartphone camera itself...
41
-
I said this is what is going to start happening more and more as tourism grows way back when a similar case happened in Arashiyama. Do people remember this? Happened before the pandemic.
It is just the way it is. Most tourists don't behave like that, but when you get an influx that is getting close to 3 million a month, even if just 0.001% of tourists behave like assholes, what you have is still 3 thousand of them behaving like assholes.
Crimes, vandalism, and general problems are just going to start happening more and more, and tourist locations in Japan will need to start preparing better for this volume of tourists more and more. Which usually translates into physical barriers, pay to visit, unfriendly locals and police, prejudice, bad attitude towards non-locals, and the list goes on.
Unfortunate as it may be, this is just the reality when it comes to numbers like those.
If things continue to trend this way, I'm sorry for those who admires certain things about Japanese culture and receptiveness towards foreign tourists, but the reality of the situation will force the change. And usually, it's not great. Everyone who has lived their lives in places which became highly sought after tourist attractions will know all too well how this goes.
41
-
40
-
It's never too late, because as long as we're here, what we do today will affect future generations... including how likely they are to survive.
But on the negative side, it's also true that whatever we do today, the results of it will only be felt in the future.
Reality check for most people, even if we stopped emmiting CO2 today, reversed most climate change causes, and even started heavy carbon capture programs right now... we still wouldn't see significant changes for a while.
Because that's how climate works. It's not an instant action instant effect system.
Much of what we are seeing today is still a growing effect of times people weren't even aware of climate change just yet. This is the real danger of it. All this stuff we've been doing slowly accumulates overtime, and the way we are being unable to control emissions today has severe implications into the far future.
If humans survive this crisis in the long term, no doubt history books will mark this period of time as the period we should've done far more if we only knew how bad usage of fossil fuels, plastics, generation of insane ammounts of trash, pollution and whatnot would affect everything in the future.
Which is why we can never give up. Because giving up today or tomorrow, is giving up entirely as a species.
This is our extinction event. If we can't find a way to control things, it means our time as a species on this planet has ended. Or optimistically, our time of progress as a species will end.
Prospect for the future is either a continuous decline, because we'll be constantly dealing with the damages climate change brings, or an abrupt stop, because of potential conflicts, wars and destruction once resources start dwindling down.
40
-
38
-
Erm... actually, yes, there are terms and conditions for someone to get these homes, and they vary quite a lot depending on prefecture. Even though the content of the video is mostly right, the intro was pretty misleading.
There are several different programs for people getting abandoned houses in different states of disrepair and legal abandonment.
It of course starts with most of those homes being abandoned sometimes for decades, so they are in such a ruined state that you almost have to rebuild everything in them, if not tear it all down and start from scratch. Some are not as bad, so they won't be given free, but with prices well bellow market.
You will be dealing with government sometimes, or sometimes it's relatives of the former owners. Well, not directly, it's either through some program or a real estate agency.
Some of them require you to not only start reforms as soon as you get them, you are expected to move in with family in a given period of time - you cannot get it for rental, 3rd parties or stuff like AirBnb. I think some allow that, but most of the programs I heard about you can only take the property if you are moving in.
Another good part of those are only granted for Japanese citizens, or foreigners with permanent Japanese Residence visas. Some requires you to have a job locally. Some have age gates, or are only giving to young families with small children. The spectrum is kinda huge.
There are all sorts of different situations there.
That is, if you are talking about all the abandoned houses in Japan... perhaps there is a program that is giving out abandoned houses for free with no strings attached there, but I find this very hard to believe. Real Estate in Japan is notoriously more stringent and selective. It's hard for even foreigners who have been working years in Japan and have no intention of leaving to sometimes rent a place, let alone buy one there, or get one for free. Some property owners explicitly won't sell or rent for foreigners.
But you know, this isn't unique to Japan... I've just watched a video on a similar thing happening in southern Italian towns.
Another thing to note on the video is that while yes, the mixed zoning rule allows for a lot of things in Japanese neighborhoods, it also comes with very strict regulations on what commercial and industrial places can do if they are located in a mixed zone.
Everything from how much noise they can do, how tall buildings can be, what materials can be used, along several other things are tightly controlled.
There is also a kind of a mixed assumption there... it is true that most of the real estate market and absurd rate of new constructions is due to older places getting torn away and new places being built to replace it, but a good portion of those old houses and homes are incredibly well built and sturdy - reason why they are still standing to this day. There are also lots of poorly built houses that came up in the 60s and so, mostly in urban centers, but it isn't the norm, particularly for abandoned homes that tends to be in small villages far away from urban centers.
Take note that these villages in the inaka where lots of these abandoned homes are, are also losing ground in terms of public transportation... if you intend to get something way out in the boonies for free, there are chances you will also need a car to go to bigger cities, and you might not have access to many facilities. There are exceptions of course like the one shown in the video, but most abandoned houses are located in villages that are also getting abandoned, train service might stop at some point, and stuff like hospitals and schools are also going away if it still exists.
It's less aging of Japan and other factors, and just plain urbanization. Kids of families who lived there moved to the city and have no plans to go back.
But in the age of these properties also lies problems that have nothing to do with how well built these places were. Very old traditional homes requires specialized maintenance and service for upgrades and repairs, they are expensive and sometimes very hard to find, and the expertise in it is dying with the older generations. Particularly for a category of homes known as minka houses, several aspects of the architecture, design, materials and a bunch of other stuff is close to artisanal, it doesn't fit mass produced stuff, so repairs and reforms can get super expensive to do.
Like the video said, code is also being constantly updated... so it ends up in a mix of things which often results in it being more profitable for owners to tear an old house down and build a new one in place to live, sell or rent rather than trying to do a full scale reform.
So, it's a huge combination of factors that led to this very unique real estate situation that Japan has. But interestingly enough at least for me, I think the weird way real estate works in Japan is also kind of a factor in a more equal economy that Japan has.
For instance, rent in major urban centers like Tokyo are still pretty expensive for what you get, but nowhere near the discrepancy in prices that you have in countries like US, Australia, Canada and UK. You'll pay half for more space in smaller cities, but it's not some completely absurd discrepancy. Even if you go a bit outside central Tokyo... say an hour away by metro, prices starts becoming pretty reasonable.
But anyways, I'm getting outside the topic here... there are lots of channels on YouTube with people going for these almost free places with several attached terms to them... Tokyo Llama comes to mind. If you are interested, check them out!
36
-
Whenever the topic is wealth gap/disparity, math and statistics always comes to mind... forgive me if my numbers are wrong, and please correct me because I'm always interested in this.
I think it's always interesting to try to put things in perspective because the numbers are so insane it's hard to really understand it.
So, for instance... I think last time I looked into this, here's some interesting math to consider, if I'm right that is - if you somehow took the money from the 1% richest worldwide, and redistributed it entirely to all the people falling bellow the poverty line, everyone on that category would get something like a hundred thousand dollars each. It may not sound like much considering how much money is concentrated on that 1%, but this is because the world has 2 billion people still bellow the poverty line. 2 billion of the global total of almost 8 billion, so 25% of the entire global population.
That money would work differently depending on what country you live in, what the standards for bellow poverty line are, and what you can pay for with that kinda money... in some countries you could live comfortably for the rest of your life with only that, in some you wouldn't be able to even buy a home. It really gives you a sense on how big the wealth gap is though.
36
-
Place your bets on what's going to happen here guys! Here's how I think this will go.
Eventually, someone that has power inside the company will see these videos. CEO, a stakeholder, management, etc... it'll end up in their field of view somehow, or perhaps a complaint from another costumer that watched Louis' video.
Then the company will come all repentant about this, apologizing, sending free products, saying they'll change ways, they'll "review their processes" or some sh*t, etc.
Louis being Louis will likely say f*ck off, which doesn't happen much for tons of cases like this one. YouTubers tend to be very forgiving when they are offered a bunch of free stuff and perhaps some advertisement deal, plus a vague promise of "correcting their ways" yadda yadda.
Reality of it is that nothing is likely changing, and the reason why stuff like this happens remains the same because it's just the most cost effective way to handle costumer service and public relations. A sh*tty way that is bound to end up with cases like Louis, but cheap nonetheless.
So, what is it? Well, Crest likely has a standard costumer service system that is perhaps highly automated, or done with badly paid and poorly trained people, that have no idea who costumers are, and likely also have no stake in the matter anyways. They just churn out standard responses for inquires that comes.
The bigger the company is the more likely it is for this to be the case, there is no follow up system or understanding who they are talking with, no integration, these things likely ends up in the hands of multiple different people that have no clue how to actually handle people - they just handle a system.
Depending on company, and considering what Louis is saying it's likely the case for Crest, they must have a staff for costumer support that is extremely overworked. This could be because it's an inadequately small team to care of a huge volume of costumers, and/or this could be because the company is so bad at QA and basic verification steps that tons of their costumers are getting their orders wrong, bad products, etc. Then of course getting in contact with costumer service which is overworked and understaff and not knowing how to do.
In a situation like that, each person in costumer service having to deal with hundreds of tickets a day, they'll just shove out prepared replies all day without looking much into it.
This is YouTube's case, the case for most if not all of big tech, but it also happens in mid to large scale size businesses, and even small businesses at times.
It could also be the case that even management does not really care about Louis' case or that of any independent repair service. They do ultrasonic cleaners for tons of different, huge, and extremely rich industries - health related industries, automotive, different industries, aviation, the list goes on. So for smaller scale costumers, they just don't give two sh*ts about giving horrible costumer support or not doing the bare minimum on QA. This will often happen when you have businesses whose main costumers are huge industrial settings while you are just a single costumer, or even a single provider for a niche category.
Everyone that has done repair or DIY projects must've felt this in one way or another.
Finally, there's also always the potential for someone inside the company to be doing this on purpose... because of course there's always room for petty vindictive crap to happen even in the biggest of companies, like the stuff seem in the Madison Square Garden thing. Oh, Louis Rossman, it's that guy that criticized us in the past. Just give him the worst treatment possible without crossing any lines.
One way or another, seems it's just time to move on for Louis, and thanks for sharing.... people should know what to expect from the company. Too bad there aren't multiple fitting alternatives though. Won't help Louis' case specifically, but perhaps if you get together multiple repair businesses and get in contact with a few ultrasonic cleaner makers asking if they could produce a line that fits your needs with adequate pricing, this might foster better competition in the future.
36
-
It's a modern commune.
Which isn't inherently a bad thing, there's lots of experiments that can be done there, lots of stuff to learn and do. It can be nice for people who fits well in those sorts of jobs and for that type of living and culture.
But ultimately, it fails to scale. And it can potentially go very wrong depending on the people who are there.
What's the problem, you might ask. The same problem of every other commune that ever existed: you are either letting go of several modern conveniences and conventions, or you are necessarily taking funds from outside to keep things going. Or, as it is in the vast majority of cases, usually both. And yes, modern societies have a whole lot of problems in exchange for those conveniences and conventions, but they work specially for big cities and whatnot, and an arcology or commune like structure will never replace it.
Another big problem is highlighted right close to the end of the video - it's a selective group. You have to bring something there to be accepted, and you probably need to fullfill some sort of role. If you can't, you're out. Which is super convenient, but not exactly how societies work.
Most commune systems will only work up to a certain number of people (think tribes), with certain types of people, and much like tribes it can easily turn into a cult with the wrong leadership. It also usually has a very limited output, it cannot go past a certain technological level, and it cannot muster the level of research and development of modern societies - because that usually relies on global scale exchanges and contributions nowadays.
What people living in communes usually get wrong is that they are serving as model for societies... it's more like they are a product of modern societies and they can only live because of them. I'm not saying it's wrong for them to do it, but to be more careful on what you preach.
The two major sources of income I usually see in longstanding communes is some sort of artisanal production or stuff like organic farming, plus donations and an NGO setup or a funding for research and lab work setup, which can only be sustained by modern societies. Cut off all connections with modern societies, things start doing downhill super fast.
They are also often reliant on stuff that only modern societies can keep up - electricity, Internet, modern pumbling, those solar panels, big screen TVs, the Pyrex jar the kid is using, the bench drill press they are using to make those bells, or several products of those industries. A whole ton of the architecture done in the place, the design work, vehicles these people drive, tools they use for work, and a bunch of other stuff involved simply cannot be done in a structure like one of those arcologies or communes in general. It's all dependant on mass production, modern industries that can only exist in modern society setups.
It's great that people can live like that if they are happy there, and perhaps a better alternative for lots of people who are suffering in urban environments these days, but it is important not to become blind to the fact that they can only live like that if there is a modern society background to keep it up. It is a priviledge of sorts.
So yeah.... on an individual level, sure. People can move in setups like arcologies and live pretty well if it fits their worldview. But no, this isn't a model of future societies. This is a model of how more people could live in the future, if modern societies continue to evolve and have enough resources to sustain that method of living. And it is highly dependant on the products of that modern societies that people in communes are often saying they left behind, or shunning in some way.
35
-
I dunno what to say and how the handle people like that... this is the sort of stuff that leads to dangerous conspiracy theorists and whatnot.
Feel absolutely free to disagree and specially do your own research on reputable spaces, but ok, here's my perspective.
- There have been tons and tons of studies, lab analysis and all sorts of other experiments going around low frequency noise and all sorts of other noises as effect on human health. Sound is a complex thing, and it's constantly subject of scientific research.
And I'm not talking about an engineer running around with cheap sound recorders, microphones and level meters... I'm talking about professional grade equipment in anechoic chambers or properly isolated in-loco scenarios. While there has been proof around adverse health effects in industrial environments, ambients with persistent loud noises, and sleep disturbance related problems... nothing has ever been found in direct relation to what is being called hum there... close to inaudible low frequency noise. It's not that it's impossible that he doesn't have something there that might be true, but it's just about his methodology and the very far fetched fallacies that he cites at several points in the video. With what we currently know and have as understanding of sound is basically that in order for it to have any significant effect on people, lots of energy has to be involved. By which I mean loudness. It makes some logical sense in correlation to how our hearing actually works. And yes, it could be disproved at some point with some new finding, but this isn't it;
- The video or interview might be incomplete, but at no point he seems to consider it might be a problem with his own hearing or mental health/state. Which is something that very often happens with people, including very methodical engineers, very intelligent people, very capable professionals - see A Brilliant Mind. There are some key components that indicates that he didn't follow scientific method and is straddling more towards obsession, compulsion, or classic signs of conspiracy theory forming right there in the video. Tons of confirmation bias when he collects testimonials, gets information "from the Internet", implies correlation equals causation, and starts forming a support group that obviously creates a positive feedback reinforcement loop for what has all the characteristics of a belief or cult. It might look scientific to some, but that's just an illusion. In the past, similar methods were employed for stuff like ghost hunting, aliens, and all sorts of topics that showed up in the X-Files;
- It all became all the more shady once he started making his own diagnostics of cases with zero evidence, no expertise and quite probably zero real information. Like the problems with a kid's withdrawal case and then his mom, or the Vegas shooter. This is classic confirmation bias. Basically when you are very much drowning in the belief that there is some invisible negative force operating against people that no one seems to care about or give attention to, you start drawing all these connections between baffling cases that you can't fully process, understand or simply don't know much about, drawing correlations (which are not causations) to this supposedly negative force that only you and a select few can see or feel. It turns into a rolling snowball, he seems to be getting to the tail end of it already;
- The Las Vegas shooter had a history of debt, drinking and gambling addiction, and there can be multiple things that triggered his terrorist streak. Yet, the guy theorises that it might be this hum thing, which I don't think was ever mentioned anywhere in that particular case. So, this is purely used as fuel for his confirmation bias. It fits his narrative, so he used it. There's absolutely zero connection there. With his drawn map he basically has a limitless supply of crimes, violent cases, terrorist attacks, odd behaviour and whatnot to fuel his theory. Because he can always point out to those to say his theory is true, but he won't be able to explain how tons and tons of people are living just plain regular lives around those places unaffected by this supposed hum;
- Then he goes on on a very long list of things he perceived "started" when gas pipes got installed or the companies switched to something else, including, amazingly, well known and understood health issues, cultural shifts that are much more likely related to modern communication, and other stuff. Again, confirmation biases loops and fallacies. People should understand that while he has an engineering background, this does not mean that he has any knowledge regarding human health, scientific research on sound, or good understanding on stuff like mental health. I don't know if he has ever bothered talking to sound specialists, doctors, or people who have researched the stuff he's talking about for their entire lives.. but probably not, because it puts at risk his theory. And he is too invested in it right now to give room for dissent.
It's good that people watch this and understand how the entire process works. Because cases like him are not uncommon at all, and you'll one day more than likely find people like him. Be aware, be careful and think things through before going into these things. It can potentially end very badly for you.
34
-
34
-
Yap... I've heard similar stories from people who were classmates or childhood friends. I dunno if they got into actual cults, but into religious sects that are so extreme that they should be considered cults.
I think the first sign is plain disappearance. Cults usually come in to fill a void, but then they end up taking it all... some of them require extreme dedication, which victims usually see as something they just need to do because it shows fervor, because it "purifies" them, because they are working for a greater good, because of peer pressure of other followers, etc.
And brainwashing to the level of overwriting basic concepts like ethics, morals, beliefs and general modus operandi usually needs this constant indoctrination, constant monitoring, constant string of one sided information to fully get someone.
Some end up working or dedicating to cult/church life almost 24/7. The more extreme ones will get you to move with other followers and indoctrinators.
Some get scammed out of their posessions. I had a mother of a classmate outright giving out or selling home furniture to give it away for "the cause", because her husband had already locked their bank accounts. Unimaginable outside situations like debt, extortion or drug addiction, but it happens more than people think. At some point she started seeing her husband and her own son as "the enemy".
It is freaking scary. Cults take over the lives of people in a way that they just cannot see themselves living without the rituals, the habits, the customs, the everyday life outside it. And cults make sure to make exiting the cult sound and look as scary as possible. They will slowly convince people that they might as well be dead rather than leaving. And at some point, they just start believing it. There is no lie that, given enough persistence and argumentation, won't be turned into truth.
Most people in modern societies will at some point experience a level of emptyness, dreadness, lack of significance in life, lack of role to follow, lack of purpose, the destruction of childhood or naive dreams, lack of motivation, fear of stepping up, among several other sentiments that leave them fragile and gullible for all sorts of strategies that cults, scammers and other exploiters will use to their advantage. The vast majority of people will find themselves in one of those situations. It's often left to luck, an experienced family member, overall knowledge that these things happen, and a few other factors to stay away.
This is, of course, a hugely complex topic that touches pretty much all aspects of being human. I'm glad that Steven got out, and decided to study and help others that might be in a situation like he was before. But like he said, not many might have the opportunity he did to get out. And it's just a sad reality.
33
-
33
-
33
-
32
-
This is too complex a subject to be covered in a single, or even multiple videos... so thanks for shoving as much as possible into one! xD
Questions and balancing out a few things though... I think sanctions at the scale that it was done against Russia coming from western nations against China would pretty much be - MAD - mutual assured destruction.
And I really mean this... it'd be equivalent of a small scale global nuclear war. Not total because that's extinction, but the consequences would be similar to a global war, particularly if sanctions and trade war goes both ways, which it probably would.
First of all, you gotta think about scale. This isn't to diminish the horror that Putin is causing leveraging his military against Ukraine, far from it, but Russia still is a BRICS country - a developing nation with limited effect on global trade.
China and the US are both an order of magnitude or more above the effects that sanctions in either would have.
You know how in several poor countries the sanctions against Russia and it's response has been causing famine and leading to extreme poverty at unprecedented levels? A sanction show off between China and western nations would lead to secondary and tertiary wars by itself, revolution conflicts in several countries, overturning of governments, and an unimaginable spike in extreme poverty and deaths throughout the world.
Because the web of dependency is far stronger than anyone would think.
Australia's case on reshifting exports and international costumers is just a very special and fortunate case, even though I'm sure it also caused a ton of hardship for lots of people involved.
China and US are both on a different level. Both countries export and import so much, they are composed of such large markets and industries, they in summary do so much that is consumed worldwide and consume so much that other countries produce, that reshifting things just would not be feasible. Countries on the US side would lose an extremely substantial part of it's clientele without China, several would also lose it's main source of all types of products, and the same thing would happen to countries that would side with China. Reshifting of several exports and imports wouldn't be feasible due to how large a market both of them are of so many different things. There isn't enough flexibility in the rest of the world to accommodate the change.
And it's such an insane amount of goods and services that reshuffling even the things that could be done, would likely not happen fast enough for a whole ton of things to survive. The world would be thrown centuries back having to focus their efforts on survivability alone. Because what you'd effectively have is a chain reaction of production, research and development of tons of different things being stopped because of a lack of this or that resource, machinery, tech and whatnot.
What you hear about an interruption of goods because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine is what? Wheat, fertilizers and gas for the EU, right? There's more, but those are the main ones.
A sanction on China would yes, eliminate most rare earth minerals, but it's far from only that. Heck, that alone becomes only a detail of the overall thing considering we'd have little use for rare earth minerals if everything else stopped.
Honestly, I think the video downplayed the chip problem a bit too much. China might not have the latest tech in chip manufacturing, depending on tech of other nations to produce the latest most highly advanced products available - but that pales in comparison to how much it produces more simple chips and integrated circuits which whole entire categories of products depends on in large volumes. China is the 2nd largest importer as well as the 2nd largest exporter of integrated circuits in the world. The problem will always be on the volume side, and I cannot overstate how important that is. Modernity has been basically fueled by China's unparalleled capability of production and logistics.
And then, obviously, you have to consider that the number one in chip tech worldwide is none other than Hong Kong... in a divided world scenario, I seriously doubt Hong Kong would stay with western countries, even if right now they want to be independent from China. I think sanctions and disputes on that level would force Hong Kong, Taiwan and a few others to stick to China either by force of influence, or by pure force. Ultimately, it wouldn't take much for China to invade those and stop exports to the west, so the west ends up without the most advanced chips, and also without the more cheap common stuff in volumes.
South Korea has the other portion of the global chip manufacturing production, but it can't produce in volumes enough to attend western nations demands, and it's mutually dependent of China for production too.... so in effect, for a long period of time neither would have access to it because both sides would be scrambling to fill in the gaps and adapt to the new reality.
Ok, what else is China among the main global exporters of? Clothing, computers, broadcasting equipment, office machine parts... the list goes on. That's only for industrialized products.
https://oec.world/en/profile/country/chn/
As for commodities, look at this list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_producing_countries_of_agricultural_commodities
See the insanity of it? How many times China appears as the largest producer or at least is among the top 3?
This is of course because China is by far the country with the biggest population in the world, it has almost 1/5th of the global population... so yes, a lot is consumed internally, but a huge portion of that list also goes for export. Imagine the hit that it'd be for countries sanctioning China.
Here's another bit of an eye opener:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_partners_of_China
See the problem? No matter how big the effort, you don't just excise an entire fifth of a system and expect it to continue functioning. That is if we consider only China, and not the countries that would side with them. More likely, the world would be split almost in half.
What we'd really end up with, considering a total trade sanction scenario between China and US, is more like a whole bunch of middleman countries where products from both sides would be passing through directly to the other, just for survival sake. It's just not comparable to what happened with Russia.
31
-
30
-
30
-
There are several stories just like this one spread throughout entire slum/favela communities in Rio and other brazilian cities. International press tends to cover Rio more because that's the city where most of the channel station infrastructure is located that, plus it being the biggest touristic city in Brazil, but as some might imagine, Brazil is much much bigger and diverse than only Rio.
While it's good to see stories like that getting coverage, in a way it's also bad that international press seems to only care about this particular narrow view of Brazil itself. I often hear foreigners imagining that Brazil is only about favelas, soccer, carnaval, and not much else.
Rio is also currently a bankrupt state, due to years of mismanagement and governmental corruption schemes. And remember, just two years ago it's also where the Olympics happened. Guess what? The Olympics only made things worse. It didn't bring any of the benefits promised, and there are corruption schemes still under investigation coming from infrastructure made only for it. As tons of brazilians knew, both the Olympics and the World Cup that happened two years apart from each other just made things worse. People in Rio and other cities involved in the events have yet to see any of the several infrastructure reforms that these events were supposed to bring for the benefit of the population. I live in a city that was supposed to have metro service, something that's been promised over 40 years ago.
It's also always good to note that most of the violence that happens in favelas have nothing to do with corrupt or violent cops, even though press will always make it look like that. Because yes, there are corrupt and violent cops, but the situation is so dire and so dangerous in favelas that most of the times cops go there, it's in direct response to organized crime in tightly packed operations with a clear objective, usually in pursuit of some criminal or criminal gang that is behind tons of deaths, assassinations, and drug cartels. Cops refuse to go inside favelas otherwise, because they know they'll be killed there.
Cops have indeed been involved in deaths of several innocent people there, but for the most part it's not like they get there and start shooting people. It's often that they get in there, there's zero cooperation, they start getting surrounded and shot by criminal gangs, and then they have to shoot back or die. It is literally war. Cops, criminals and innocent people die there everyday in similar proportions. If you don't see it that way, you are making a very superficial and biased analysis of what's really happening.
Police is often badly trained and equipped for those situations because they are underfunded to the point of not having money to pay for car repairs, they get shit wages to risk their lives everyday, and they are vilified by everyone. Cops also often live in favelas, just so people know. But they have to live there in secrecy, because if a criminal faction finds out, they are summarily executed together with family and friends, often in the most brutal way possible.
Again though, most of the shots, the executions, the crimes that happen in favelas happen between criminal factions, not between cops and criminals. This is very often overlooked. They are disputing territory to sell drugs, exploit people for "security" and whatnot.
It is also a perfect labyrinth trap to run and hide from police for criminals who act in other Rio neighborhoods. It is a characteristic of the city itself - the mountains where those favelas are located are wedged between beaches with tons of tourists, and middle to upper class neighborhoods or urban center downtown Rio. Unlike several cities in Brazil where slums and poor neighborhoods are more towards suburbs or the periphery of cities, Rio's favelas are packed in between the city center.
No one should be living there. And in fact, this would be the ideal scenario. There shouldn't be anyone living in those places because it's mostly illegal occupation. Favelas were built on top of mountains and places that are unsafe for housing, ecological reserves, in unstable ground. It's one of the reasons why sometimes they are not called "slums"... these are not poor neighborhoods with cheap real estate where families still try to pay housing taxes and whatnot. They are quite literally illegal occupations for the most part. People living there are stealing power with illegal connections, the infrastructure is all self made, there are no regulations, sewage goes wherever is more convenient, a whole lot of the trash is illegally dumped, a lot of commerce and services happens outside the scope of law and government.
Overtime, government had to provide with some basic services because the situation became unbearable, but it can't be done properly because there shouldn't be people living there in the first place.
This happened both because the government was incompetent and corrupt enough to not provide public housing for people who needed it back when this entire thing started, and because it also didn't prevent the spread of illegal occupation.
So what we have now is decades over decades of an irregular situation.
Tons of people move to Rio because it is a huge, famous, urban center supposedly full of opportunities. But it ends up being an illusion for the vast majority. And so, they end up in favelas. You have generations of people living there, people who were born in it, people who spent their entire lives there, and that will most likely die there. Perhaps victim of the brutality that comes with the place, or perhaps just of old age.
It is super hard, even for brazilians, to fully understand the complexities of places like favelas. And the portrayals of those places are often biased or often misses the point entirely. But I understand there's only so much you can do to cover things. Just people should know that you can't judge everything that's happening there by what little you have seen.
28
-
28
-
28
-
Prevention is always the best route when it comes to uncontrollable impulses. Thinking logically about people who feel uncontrollable urges that would lead them to commit any crimes, be it child abuse, violence against others, road rage, stealing stuff like kleptos, even problems like hoarding, suicidal thoughts, eating disorders and whatnot - if it's detected early and there is a line of medical/scientific method of prevention of ultimate criminal consequences, that should be the way to go, always.
It doesn't go only about pedophiles. How about people thinking of commiting mass murder? Rapists in general? People with mindsets of serial killers? Even if you are completely disgusted by people like that and would want nothing to do with it, not reason about it, not try to understand how the mind of these people work, if there are professionals willing to go there and prevent things from escalating, seems logical that it should be done.
If for nothing else, just for people to have some line of support and keep in control in their darkest hours. Sexual crimes of all sorts, and then specially against minors, got stigmatized to a level that it has become problematic even for prevention efforts. Because there is no rational analysis of it anymore. Just explosive reactions that produce nothing after the fact. Unsubstantial indignation.
If people are honestly against such crimes, I don't see why you'd condemn that line of approach. The world is big, and people are many. The more you understand the diversity that there truly is around you, and I mean not only of origin, skin color or sexuality, but in a broader sense of how the thought processes and mind works, the more you get that there is an urgent need for sets of people to be listened to, understood, and treated when necessary to live honest, fullfilling lives that are compatible with their societies and environment.
And I'm glad that there are doctors like that guy. If his work manages to avoid a single case of child abuse at all, he's already done much more than most demagogues out there. It largely seems to be that pedophilia has become a hot button topic that has been largely used as political platform of sorts to enact all sorts of immeasured and ineffective policies that never managed to actually curb child abuse crimes, when not used as a weapon to be fired against perceived enemies or political opposition. It's often going after the wrong people, with distorted reasoning, and shortcut-like ideas for lack of understanding what is really happening out there.
It's an ugly world that everyone tries to avoid looking too much into, and that's exactly why misconceptions come up. No one wants to hear that the vast majority of sexual abuse crimes comes from direct relatives, families, and/or people who the family trusted all their lives like priests, teachers and coaches. People who were thoroughly trusted with the child's safety.
And this way, the problem is never really solved. Children continue being victimized, the crime is never solved, and there is no proper reflection on what the process is that leads to it.
Incredibly enough, there's also a huge reality distortion field surrounding the subject. I've seen multiple times people accusing other countries, hobbies, cultures or groups of people of being "filled with pedophiles" and whatnot, not knowing that their own country, their own group of people, their own culture having record cases of child abuse. Like, people really don't know what's behind all this, because they cannot look into the situation properly.
People standing in false moral high grounds lobbying accusations against others not even knowing how bad things are in their own backyard. It's time to stop with this shit and focus on real solutions instead.
27
-
27
-
27
-
26
-
Not good Atlantic, just not good.
I don't blame mothers and fathers for the actions of their sons, specially in cases like these. Any mother or father will know how impossible it is to control or predict everything their kids will do.
But there is a very fine line between doing a piece like this to defend these mothers and alert other parents of the possibility of it also happening to them, and treating everything so superficially as if it's not worth pursuing ways to prevent it somehow. If you admit it can happen to anyone and just leave it at that, you are failing to look further into the reasons why it happened and leaving it to chance. That is not the way to go around such things.
First of all, for someone to be voluntarily recruited like that, he or she would need to be on a vulnerable position. Vulnerable enough to believe in promises and credo of someone he or she doesn't know online. Vulnerable enough not to understand that there are extremely dangerous things going around on the Internet, and that that person shouldn't be swayed by everything that is there.
There also needs to be a whole lot of anger at this point because these recruits probably know full well what they are voluntarily going to work for. The actions of fundamentalist groups like ISIS are very well known at this point, so they want to participate in that for some reason. And then, probably some totally immature sense of excitement and adventure with tons of misconceptions on a foreign land. And then, probably a sense of current worthlessness, since they are basically giving their lives away for some cause, which they don't see existing in their current situation.
Religion, like it or not, plays a big part on this. I don't mean to slam on religious people, nor to spread prejudice against Muslims, but a system of blind faith, radicalization, extremism and cultism is required here for someone to just up and go out of nowhere.
And yes, I do know that the absolute vast majority of Muslims would never act like that, much like I know the vast majority of Christians are not crazy lunatics blabbering about the end of times or something - but religion is a component part of this whether people like this fact or not. Because ISIS is a terrorist group, but also a fundamentalist extremist religious group. There is no escaping this fact. People who do not believe and agree at least in parts the creed of ISIS wouldn't be going there to join the cause.
It is also something not exclusive to Islamists or Muslims mind you. We all know that there still are and have been several radical religious factions of basically all religions through our entire history. Cultism, fundamentalism, suspension of morals and ethics in name of religion, blind faith trampling over critical reasoning... these things are very very common.
Disputes amongst religions have been notoriously bloody for our entire history.
A system of blind faith has several facets to it. One of salvation, one of catharsis, one of focusing someone's energy and attention all to simple causes, and one of ignoring everything around him or her for a cause that he or she sees as bigger than him or herself, bigger than the society he or she lives in, bigger than the relationships and social network he or she has, bigger than human rights, morals, ethics, principles and everything else. It is a very powerful tool of domination and guidance, and it can be used both for bad and good.
The more fragile a person sees him or herself, the more fragile the society he or she is in, the less morals and ethics he or she perceives around, the more corruption is felt all around, the more inclined someone is to follow a blind faith that seems to have all the right answers.
In all this lies the core of answers why religion based terrorist groups arise. Why cults come to be. Why recruiting seems to be so efficient. We cannot close our eyes to this. It is a fight, like any other, for rationality.
26
-
Back when it was very hard for anyone outside Brazil to know something, anything about Brazil, they knew about Pelé. That's why he's king... during a very long time all people knew about Brazil was Pelé, Senna, and perhaps something about Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer and Carnaval. If you knew just a few things about us, that'd be it.
His legend opened up the doors of the country for the rest of the world. I'm Brazilian, not even a football fan, but I know all of us owe him for how he painted an image of Brazil in foreign nations, his brilliant career, and how he continued humbly working throughout his life in so many different fronts, against racism, for better education of children, and for football as a sport of peace and understanding. We are orphaned now together with his family, but his legacy is forever. May Brazil, football and all his fans respect his legacy and may we continue striving towards his wishes and his fights!
26
-
Note - OBS failed on you Louis, all your screen sharing inserts ended up with the same page. :P Just so you know.
I'd never pay that much for a vacuum, and because local vacuum cleaners all have this problem of dying after a couple of years because there is no easy way to replace batteries, I decided to go with experimenting with Chinese copies of vacuum designs instead.
There are almost no options for Dyson style cordless vacuums down here... by which I mean the ones that have the entire build on the top of the handle. Most cordless vacuums locally are the style that looks like a car vacuum that connects to the underside of the broom attachment... sorry, can't explain this much clearer.
A few of the Chinese models use something like a standard cordless drill battery design to do the job. It's not perfect since there seems to be no solid standardization just yet (like say, all lighting gear using standard Sony NP-F batteries) which I hope happens at some point, but at least I'm spending about the same amount of money I would in the local market for better tech, and better compartmentalization of components.
I already had a couple of Electrolux vacuums failing on me with no way to replace the batteries afterwards, and I tried doing this myself but the design is so tight with everything soldered on that it just doesn't make much sense to do it given how much work it is.
Their models simply distribute a bunch of 14500s all around the shell of the vacuum all soldered interspersed with resistors and other components all around. There's also the fact that finding good Lithium ion batteries down here is kind of a hard thing to do... there is no good recycling centers to find that sort of stuff, if you go on stores what they have is the cheap Chinese batteries with zero testing and zero guarantees... but that's a different discussion.
I also looked recently into the local market of cordless vacuums with replaceable batteries, but not only they were extremely overpriced, the only companies offering an option were brands like Makita, mostly for industrial settings. Down here those can be as expensive as Dyson for whatever reason... I think it's mostly because there is no local production, everything available currently is imported, and so importation taxes apply, which more than doubles the original price.
The problem with Makita is that their batteries are insanely expensive locally, and I also heard that the brand also employs some firmware locking methods to stop you from replacing the 18650 cells inside it.
So, after weeks of looking into this, I just went blind and bought something on Aliexpress. Might've been a total waste of money, but I'm just tired of wasting time, money and producing eWaste by buying locally. I needed to try something different.
If this doesn't pay off, I'll just continue using my regular vacuum until things pick up here. But I hope the Aliexpress model works. But yeah, for me Dyson will never be on the menu. Their prices here range from 10 to 20 times that of a regular wireless stick vacuum, you gotta be in the 1% richest class of the country to even consider it. It's kinda like Apple products down here really - they are on the luxury category.
26
-
26
-
25
-
25
-
Do not watch or read Ghost in the Shell... unless you wanna go down that rabbit hole.
Despite being a futuristic sci-fi, what Ghost in the Shell really is about is the dualism between body and mind. The sci-fi action and investigative story is the pretext to go round and round in an exploration of the concept. Self identity, mind upload, memory interference, memory loss, creation of an entire persona, conciousness, hivemind, rise of conciousness from machines, plus a bunch of topics are peppered around the manga and anime plot.
The english name came from Koestler's The Ghost in the Machine, several of the TV anime episodes makes reference to books and philosophy works around the concept of the mind/body dualism.
And THIS is what most fans feel is missing from the live-action... but that's a whole other discussion.
25
-
Mixed messaging...
There is no support or sympathy to be given to movements that, while they have a fair big share of reasoning to be there, comes with strings attached to conspiracy theories and movements that are actively killing innocent people everyday.
See, I empathize a lot with this class of workers. I'm not from the US, but I have friends and extended family members that either worked or still work as truck drivers. It's a grueling job with all sorts of dangers that isn't paid enough and no one wants to do it, at least here in my country - seems to me that the US is just the same.
For my country you add horrible interstate and general roadway conditions, the vast majority of cities not built with them in mind which ends up in tons of accidents, damages to trucks and roads, and bad conditions overall. And then you also add the constant danger of being robbed and killed on the job, all too common an occurrence here that is often ignored and not reported.
So I definitely get protesting for better conditions, better wages, and bringing in regulations and laws that will make the job better for everyone, roads safer, and work conditions saner. Heck, there is a whole ton of devaluation going on for the most essencial workers, and I specially hate that seemingly all the new economy initiatives are only arriving to trample on this class of workers even further. The uncertainty, stress and anxiety caused by all these factors is palpable.
Problem is the polarization and introducing politics to it. I'm really sorry, but if the movement is calling for mask bans and taking an anti-vaccination stance, that I just cannot support anymore. Because that's not about truck drivers, workers, and conditions anymore.
I know it's tempting to appeal to the party that is easy to talk to because of all their promises and posturing (even though it really doesn't translate to anything more than that, and these people should have realized all that by now), but if it gets into negationism, conspiracy theories, and all this bullshit that the current GOP is going for - you lost my support.
Because then it's about a bigger more encompassing issue than truck drivers or a specific class of workers. In fact, it isn't about truck drivers at all anymore. It's cultism, radicalism, and trying to negate the reality that is right in front of them.
I can only vouch for changes for better conditions and wages to a class of workers, if the workers are also willing to take their civil responsibilities seriously. Which I'm sure most truck drivers do, so they need to keep protesting, but without getting entangled in GOP politics.
And it's not only about lives lost in the pandemic. If you are preaching on with anti-mask stances and anti-vaccination stances, what you are really doing is an injustice to yet another devalued class of essencial workers - hospital staff, ambulance drivers and all the people involved in the unprecedent mass vaccination campaign that have been arguably been more impacted than any class of workers in most countries.
So there you go, my two cents on the subject.
25
-
Most memorable things about my two visits to Japan were outside the regular international tourist route...
It's like, don't get me wrong, I loved my visits to Tokyo, I loved my visits to Kyoto, Osaka, and the main tourist attractions too... though the second time I visited Japan back in 2018 it sure was almost too packed to enjoy fully. My first trip there was back in 2007, and back then you could still see things better and enjoy more of the touristic places.
Nowadays, specially now that tourism is back, I can tell that the most famous spots will be too overflowing with people to enjoy freely.
But the real magic of Japan happens in places like that.... Ehime, the smaller cities in the east coast of Japan, or even smaller towns on the interior of the largest prefectures. It's there that you start seeing more of an untainted history and culture that came to modernity in a more organic manner.
There's also all these grand pieces of historical value that are not swamped by tourism, and yet there is great care to all these places, they are very well maintained, lots of environments that leaves you in kind of a contemplative state.
And we only got to visit a few of those places because of my ancestors... we were looking for possible towns and places my great great grandparents came from, seeing if there was still some remnant of the family there (most of the Japanese side of my family migrated before WWII, so it's a long way back).
Anyways, great showing from Vice! Wasn't expecting it... xD
I also wish I could speak Japanese as fluently as KTea. xD Never learned the language, the family teaching Japanese to kids stopped around my parents' generation...
25
-
I don't have a problem with life extention ideas and research, and I'm not religious, so I don't really have a faith based objection on something like this. But I do still have objections to this nonetheless.
It's all about your expectations, what you value in your life, how you face death, and what you think about yourself and your role during your lifetime - and what you consider plausible and effective for certain key objectives.
Cryonics, in particular, is such a far fetched concept that the belief of those bodies being recovered in the future to full shape and full form are more far fetched than the beliefs and faith of several religions. It's actually closer to a cult or something. And I'm talking about the future at all, much much less 100 years or so.
See, if you start analyzing past a very surface level of understanding on how we tick, biological processes, how we work, the complexities of the human body, how behind we are and how slow progress is in several key biological areas and all that, you begin to understand that bringing back those frozen corpses, which are what they actually are, is just not something likely to happen at all. People tend to think about near death experiences or stuff like targeted temperature management... or even other animals that hibernate and whatnot - but those cases are far more different to this idea of Cryonics than most realize.
It might sound like freezing people is preserving something there, but it's just preserving... corpses. Too much damage has already been done. It's not stasis, it's not freezing time - it's corpse preservation.
What I mean by this is that we'd have to reach a technological point where we could basically infer all sorts of things about these people becoming as feasible to recover them as it'd be to say... resurrect a mummy from some egyptian sarcophagus. Or even reconstruct from zero a person based on AI analysis of it's past. Build something based on DNA sample. If we had an incentive for that.
Not that I think ideas like immortality are absolutely impossible. It's unlikely that our species will reach it, but being overly optimistic about it, I think the most likely scenario for it to happen is just reaching a point in time when we can accurately capture every single bit of information that goes inside a person's brain, taking a full raw snapshot of that, and then keeping all that information stored until a time we have a working functional artificial body to go along with it.
But this isn't a hundred years in the future. If it ever happens, it's more likely thousands of years in the future, and humans won't be doing it... more like AIs.
But again, the chances that our species end a long time before that ever gets a chance of happening is just far more likely. You'd have to first believe that we'll survive long enough for extremely complex problems to be solved first. World hunger. Wars. Becoming a space faring civilization. Coming up with a close to infinite resource for power. Eliminating inequality. Etc etc etc. There are numbers and numbers and numbers of priorities.
We can't even come up with solutions to pass messages for distant future generations because we don't know what will be the state of civilizations there - like in the exploration cases of signs to warn future people of nuclear waste deposit sites, or seed vaults. Think about the chances frozen corpses will actually get preserved as long as they need to, plus the chances of future generations understanding that the intent is to bring those corpses back to life somehow.
With tiny chances like those and the bigger likelihood of those corpses just being dumped in the future when these companies fail, the money runs dry, or an event happens that lays waste to the places they are located.... I'd say your are better off wasting your money in a casino or on the lottery so that you'd have better chances of getting some RoI for it.
The distance between me believing in this entire Cryonics thing at the state we're currently in, and believing that in some distant future we'll just have infinitely powerful supercomputers that could perfectly emulate the entire past including ourselves (which we might be already currently living in), are so close together that it doesn't make sense spending a single cent on it.
I guess more importantly though, there is absolutely zero reason to go through a whole ton of trouble to resurrect someone like myself. There is no reason for me to live in a far future where my current knowledge will make zero sense, I do not have a role there to fill, no real purpose, so why bother? Why waste money, time, work, brain power or whatever going after something like this?
24
-
24
-
Very unfortunate... this case and several others happening around the world gives us a glimpse of things to come, with Climate Change and the desperation that the extremes will cause.
While the case in Iraq has largely to do with dams in neighboring nations, in the end it's all related. Countries that have the conditions will dam as much freshwater as they can to delay shortages, those downstream will get hit faster, and more drastically, they will blame governments for it, and from there to revolution and civil war it doesn't take much.
The real problem with Climate Change is just that - too much energy in the system, taking everything to the extremes. Droughts will become the most visible and symbolic, but excessive rain all at once, huge storms, hurricanes and typhoons, chaotic weather events and seasons... all of those will disrupt everything. Humanity is used to and depends on a certain regularity and steadiness of weather and climate, the problem with Climate Change is the speed of change.
May the Iraqi people find a way of relocating and adapting...
24
-
Ok, so, here's your YouTube lesson for today. This has nothing to do with Tested, Norm or whatever. This has all to do with YouTube's overzealous policies, plus making it ad-friendly.
If you are curious about the Boobiecap, it's easy enough to search it up on Google or something. Not a huge deal.
But if Tested put it up front on the video, they risk getting flagged, their video demonetized and/or removed, and a strike going against the channel, plus potential categorization of the channel of it not being friendly for some types of advertisement. Three strikes, you are out. As in, the entire channel is brought down, their source of revenue and all the hard work that they had is over.
Whether it's fair or not is an entire other discussion, but just so you understand that there's more to it than what you might be thinking.
24
-
Been saying this in news of several nations, but worth repeating: democracy is the most fragile government system that we have, and it is nothing short of a miracle that we reached the current state. Which of course isn't perfect, but it's a very uniquely human outcome. One could say that this type of political system is what differentiate us the most from everything else. Collective and community power that compensates for the weaknesses of one another for the betterment of the whole is our reason to exist. It's why we left the caves.
It's thanks to the hard work of numerous people who worked selflessly, some for their entire lives. It comes at high costs, and for most nations it could only happen after one major or multiple major disastrous situations that ended tons of lives. After being ruled by totalitarian regimes, after being trampled over by wars, after having all human rights erased... that's usually when democracy happens. It's because we are seeking better lives for ourselves, happiness, peace and prosperity that we ended with democracies.
So it needs constant maintenance, constant dedication, and constant support from the people to keep going. It also needs firm and strong defense. Too many people confuse the defense of democracy to authoritarianism. The difference between those should be plenty clear - it's the difference between force and violence being used by the hands of a few to impose their will, amass more power, and warp justice for their own benefit, and force being used to protect a system.
Democracy is not a system that can remain the same for too long, it needs constant reforms to fix and patch holes that proto-dictators are constantly trying to exploit. Fascists, authoritarians, and proto-dictators needs to be taken down from power, need to be put in jail, and need to be fought against if we care about defending democracy. By legal means I mean, which the system needs to have mechanisms for, otherwise it will always crumble.
We can see the advances of far right politicians, parties and movements all over the world in a negative light, but it's also an opportunity and clear sign that we need a democratic overhaul. We need to strengthen justice, political institutions, monitoring bodies and systematic mechanisms to improve our democratic systems. We need to continue persisting in the separation of church and state. We need to reinforce that a democracy is a rule by and for the people, and so protecting human rights of everyone needs to be brought back as the one priority.
It's a cause and effect problem. People tend to elect authoritarians to power, because those are the most interested in amassing power indefinitely. They will go overboard to take power and remain in power because that's in their nature. And so the tendency of every political system in the world is towards autocracy, dictatorship, totalitarianism.
People willing to protect democratic regimes needs to be forever vigilant against electing, giving power and giving money for these sorts of people, parties and movements.
Complacency and lack of engagement is what leads to countries falling to authoritarian rule.
The worldwide far right movement is currently trying to exploit flaws in democratic systems all over the world. That's the true conspiracy of our times. People that are hungry for unlimited power and money, sociopathic figures all over the world, are coalescing into a power grabbing movement that exploits not only the weaknesses and flaws of political systems, but weaknesses and flaws of people themselves - prejudice, hatred, ignorance, intolerance, nationalism, racism, misogyny, jingoism, and so on. It's exploiting the core major psychological weaknesses of people to advance their agenda. Fear, uncertainty and doubt, cult of personality, faith, use of propaganda, hate speech, scamming and grifting, all these exploitive tactics and more are being used by far right nowadays to maintain and steal more power from people, from communities, from entire nations.
More people need to be aware of this, so that they can at least understand why current or near future tragedies happens, and work on how to prevent it. We're still not there, and we are wasting the hard work and suffering of our predecessors by inaction, or by falling into fascists trappings.
24
-
24
-
Here's something to think about on the Silurian Hypothesis: if you take the size of civilization down, and imagine that they were just more sustainable in our modern understanding, it becomes plenty possible for them to have existed.
Time would compensate for lots of things too.
Thing is, we are limited in trying to understand, compare, and see things from our time and history perspective, obviously. So we tend to look for signs of life, civilization, cultures and what we generally call intelligence as reflections of our own. Perhaps there could be something else entirely different that we don't or can't understand in that massive period of time.
Of course, most likely there was really nothing, and we are just a tiny weird anomaly that will correct itself soon enough, just a blip in Earth's history.
24
-
24
-
Easier answer that most people would understand better, perhaps a dirty secret these companies trying to sell 5G so much don't want you to know - 5G is around the same spectrum as Wi-fi is. So, if you don't have a problem with Wi-fi, which you are bombarded by all sides specially if you are living in an apartment downtown or on a modern affluent residential area, you shouldn't have a problem with 5G too.
Of course, the extra technical stuff, multi band antenna strategies, power consumption, stuff like beam forming, software side details and a whole lot of other stuff makes 5G different than Wi-fi, but they are on a similar spectrum, and as people will see overtime when it gets implemented, 5G also has lots of limitations shared by Wi-fi - like limited reach, limited penetration power (hard time going through concrete walls), and other characteristics that essencially makes 5G NOT a replacement for 4G, but like a fast speed bump for people living within the very limited reach of 5G antennas.
Seriously, 5G is kinda stuck between 4G and Wi-fi. It's faster than 4G, but slower than Wi-fi, and it does reach further than Wi-fi, but not even close to 4G. You know those weird spots that cellphone coverage sometimes don't seem to get, or that 4G completely disappears? 5G will be several times worse for that.
It's nothing to worry about physical health wise. For that, just search for a electromagnetic spectrum chart. We have been living daily with an emiter of electromagnetic waves way more powerful and up the chart than cellphones for a very long time... can you guess what it is? Artificial lights. And the sun. Yep.
Another thing to think about - we have been living with cellphones and wireless landline phones for several decades now. Did the incidence of brain tumors and cancer exploded in that time? Nope. Look it up. We have detected more brain tumours because technology, and there might have been a slight rise over the years because of diet changes, living conditions changes and other differences of modern life, but if smartphones really cause cancer, brain cancer would not only be the number one cancer (which it isn't), but also the number one health problem. Just think about it. Cellphones are basically the one thing that most people probably have over almost anything else. I've seen homeless people, refugees, people striving for food and water, and whatnot still have a cellphone around. And I also know people who spends almost every hour of their days stuck to a cellphone.
Nowadays it's becoming more rare, but before smartphones there were tons of people who spent their entire day talking in the phone, quite literally.
If they didn't get cancer with a cellphone being almost like an appendage protuding out of their faces, anyone who makes calls once or twice a day shouldn't be that much worried about it.
23
-
23
-
Hmmm... so, this is an argument against some myth of Chinese efficiency (which I personally didn't know existed), but to the point of perfection, arguing that their strategy also has it's own problems...
Which well, I agree with. Though I didn't really heard or believed in any myth of Chinese efficiency... guess I'm too old, efficiency myth for me goes for Germany, Japan and... Switzerland I guess, plus a few other European countries? Which also isn't true anymore I guess.
What China has is like almost a fifth of the world's population, a totalitarian regime, and a leadership that is highly focused in big infrastructure reforms... sometimes over things that should not be overlooked.
Other than that, it's delineating a problem that basically ALL major rail systems have throughout the entire world, including some of the most famous ones, like in Japan. Sometimes for different reasons and scales I guess.
For instance, the matter of profitability, which was translated to efficiency which I don't totally agree with, the problem with urbanization tied to ageing population in Japan has been forcing several sections of railways in Japan to shut down due to lack of demand. Not just that they aren't profitable and in the red for a long time - they've been shutting down, completely.
It's being replaced by smaller buses and taxi/car services, because you get towns reduced to only a few retirement age citizens that already have government support for transportation to hospitals and whatnot, so it just gets more cost effective to close railways and have public service staff drive them around.
But other than the particular case in Japan, it's just a reality of railways to have major hubs with tons of people generating lots of profit, balanced with lines that are always down on the red, have always been, and were built with knowledge that they likely would never be profitable. Because the service is there not only for profit, but as a way to interconnect the country. And it is often subsidized by the government with an understanding of this - it's worth the investment, even when it doesn't generate pure profit, because there are several other tangible advantages in connecting different parts of the country like that.
Between a problem that some countries have, including my own, of endlessly planning, wasting millions to billions of dollars on planning planning, scrapping, starting, stopping, scrapping, returning to drawing board, inaugurating, re-starting, re-planning, stopping, getting trapped into endless corruption and mismanagement investigations, etc etc etc development hell... man, I sure would rather have it done, and if it doesn't work at all even with government subsidies, it gets scrapped once and for all. Keep the stuff that works, eliminate what doesn't, but at least do something.
The city I'm currently living in, the state, together with populous states in my country, a grand country wide interconnect system... it's a running joke everywhere for how long they have been planned, inaugurated, built parts and scrapped, going down the corruption scandal investigation route, being re-announced, re-innaugurated, only to go down the same path over and over and over again. Current city I live in have been on this development hell for well over 4 decades now, a handful of different presidents and governors have cut the tape so to speak on it, it never happens, insane amounts of money disappeared into it. The last time a fuzz was made for it was during the World Cup and Olympics. Guess what? It still didn't happen. And yes, public money was stolen again by corrupt politicians. I don't think I'll see it happening during my lifetime. The entire project could've done like 10x over with the money that disappeared already.
I mean, yes, I am all too aware of all the problems China is having nowadays with major infrastructure reforms and build up... ghost towns and apartment complexes rotting away, expensive roads, railways and whatnot that don't get used, plus of course you have to consider the appalling work conditions that led to all this stuff being built in the first place. The human cost that led to China's meteoric rise cannot be ignored, it's an insane price to pay... which is always good to remind people that most developed nations also paid, just in different periods of time.
In the end, yes, China has it's own problems and it's not immune to several problems big infrastructure have everywhere around the world. I just don't think it diminishes the significance of China's meteoric growth in the past few decades, nor it says that at least in some things, we should be following some examples.
And in matters of efficiency... I'm not sure what the intention was. There's the lack of efficiency of something that gets done but ends up not optimally serving a purpose, due to poor planning, lack of vision, mismanagement or other reasons, potentially getting scrapped or abandoned altogether... and something that never gets done because it's actually a money and time drain, if not a permanent source of money for corrupt politicians.
I personally think there is an inherent benefit in getting things done, even when rushed or poorly thought out. It isn't ideal, and may cost a lot, but it's at least better than doing nothing while still spending money and time on it. The extreme of this is endangering the lives of people so poor the project was done, which does happens at times in China, but I think it's not the particular case of the high speed rail system... it's just that chinese government is putting a lot of faith into it's continued growth and investing a ton into infrastructure projects that would ultimately be necessary if the country kept growing like it was for the past few decades. Just that perhaps it won't, and it'll cost them a lot to maintain all that has already been done.
23
-
Brazilian with japanese ancestry here!
How our parents and grandparents explain it (as well as history books and all), when they migrated into Brazil, traditional japanese ingredients just weren't available at all, and the ones that were kinda similar had a different flavor.
It's still hard or more expensive to get the right ingredients around here, but of couse back a couple of generations ago it was downright impossible.
So, what happens is that the more commonplace japanese restaurants here are not exactly going for authenticity, but more for an adaptation with more brazilian cuisine ingredients.
Also, as with what happens with lots of trendy food, they get changed overtime both to fit local tastes, but also to use local ingredients that are just cheaper to get.
Why you get some weird stuff like mango, salad ingredients and whatnot on makizushi, which brazilians understand as sushi here. Nigirizushi became popular waaay more recently, with the influx of modern japanese restaurants. I don't remember ever seeing anything close to nigirizushi back in the 80s or 90s. At least not in my hometown.
Since my family is japanese descendant, I've been eating makizushi since I was a kid in family gatherings, but the taste is totally different from japanese makizushi. And as a kid, that was what I learned as "sushi"... so when I first got to eat real japanese sushi it was quite a shock. xD Perhaps I'm biased, but for me personally, traditional japanese sushi is just way better. :P
I don't hate or mind the deep fried, overstuffed, weird ingredients that you find all over Brazil and other western countries to be fair... they are quite good. But like most people said - it's not what I picture as sushi. Flavors get too mixed, the taste of both fish and rice gets drowned out, so the impression is more of a matsuri type of food rather than sushi.
If you live in cities where there is a big concentration of japanese descendants though, nowadays you can find restaurants that goes more towards authenticity - imported ingredients, staff trained in Japan, restaurants that look more like a modern japanese restaurant, fresh fish that is at least closer to the taste of fishes used in Japan. Accordingly, you'l burn a hole in your pocket for the service. xD
This isn't too different from how pizza was adopted in Brazil though, and how Italy sees it. In Brazil, the average pizza place has at least some 12+ different toppings, there are sweet toppings, and all sorts of variations... I've heard of some that has over 200 variations. The most common pizza though, has a topping that was probably an attempt to adapt pepperoni pizza here, which also isn't traditional, but you know. But it isn't pepperoni... it's similar, but not the same.
22
-
22
-
Best dad! xD
Particularly in cases like the Minnesota community, small pockets where anti-vaccers thrive, specially in immigrant communities where people are more vulnerable, more likely to be influenced by quacks, and/or perhaps bringing cultural biases from countries that are still relying on shamanic cures or whatever, there needs to be education and actual doctors on the frontlines to clear doubt and spread knowledge.
I mean, this will never end. It's pretty much like cults. Vulnerable people will always be targeted, there will always be fanatism and extremism in the world, and there will always be a percentage of people willing to go against all logic and science for unfounded belief. The only way to convince people is through education, understanding, empathy and looking into root causes.
21
-
The inheritance of hell from this guy and many others lives on, because I remember quite clearly that the scandal of using non medical grade silicone for breast implants is a recurring theme that pops up in news every few years, at least here in Brazil (nice Mariana link btw... :D That's some good piece of investigation there!).
Sometimes it's about producers and distributors, sometimes it's clandestine plastic surgery clinics, but it always comes back at some point.
The thing is, the cosmetic surgery industry in several countries in the world have become so entrenched and their advertisement so predatory that there are several people who are treated less like patients or costumers, and more like a part of some cult. There is a large part of the cosmetic surgery industry that operates much like alternative medicine scams.
Costumers, or indoctrinated, will do anything and everything towards a cosmetic surgery blindly believing it'll solve all of their problems, and it's a sad sight to see.
Vice made a piece just recently about a mother in Japan submitting her young daughter to an eye lid cosmetic procedure that was completely unnecessary... hearing her speak on how this was going to change her daughters' life somehow was just heart breaking. It was obvious that she was convinced that if her daughter didn't do that at a young age, she would amount to nothing as an adult.
Behind closed doors some of these so called doctors will promise the world to them, boost their self confidence, serve basically as cult leaders telling how a surgery here and there will boost their images and open doors in all places, preaching how image is everything in today's world, and how there is no risk in any procedure they make.
It operates in varying levels of scam, but people will always be able to find at any price unscrupulous "doctors" that are willing to take the money.
Of course, there are legit reasons for cosmetic and plastic surgery... and in a way, the science has advanced a lot because of people who don't really need it throwing insane amounts of money in it. But man, I've seen so many sad cases of people getting into cosmetic surgeries they didn't need, either dying because of it or spending the rest of their lives with health problems because of those.
Rule of thumb for me? If it isn't a procedure a competent and trustworthy doctor is recommending, I'm out. I can live pretty well with being ugly and having imperfect whatever... nose, hairline, cheeks, eye lids, belly, etc. It's just flesh and meat. I don't wanna get into a relationship with anyone who can only judge me on those factors anyway.
Women are way worse off due to the pressures of the beauty industry and the general sexism that still permeates all levels of societies all around the world, but if I'm asked for an opinion, I'll always say don't do it. If it isn't a strictly necessary surgery needed for health related reasons, don't do it. If a doctor you are not too sure about is telling you to do it, ask for a second and third opinion, don't go into it blindly. And another thing I should mention - no, the time it takes to do it, the expected recovery time, the fact that it can be done without a full surgery center, the fact that the place looks more like a dentist's office... none of those things diminish the fact that an invasive procedure is a serious thing that can cripple you for life it not outright kill you.
The cosmetic surgery industry has worked hard over the years to mask it as a less scary thing than regular surgery, but it's still a serious procedure that can carry all sorts of potentially scary consequences in the long run, it doesn't matter how doctors and offices are trying to make it look trivial.
I don't wanna offend or incense people too much on this topic, so I'll just stop. This is only my personal opinion anyways, anyone is free to disagree. But modern societies should be making a better job of celebrating diversity and the uniqueness of each of us, not trying to box everyone into specific standards.
21
-
I remember the hot coffee lawsuit.... and I didn't know the sensationalist version got this exploited. In fact, even though I didn't have most facts shared by Devin, I remember the article I read the story had the detail that she had 3rd degree burns resulting from the coffee spill, at which point I sided with the woman immediately.
Sorry for people who are expecting lava instead of coffee, but yeah, I think restaurants, fast food joints or whatever do have a responsibility of safety with their costumers there, over demands of absurdly hot coffee because some people are complaining it gets cold by the time they drink it.
At the very least, it should be not dangerously hot for drive-through or takeout. Or, if they insist to serve it that hot, then tyey have a responsibility to put it inside a cup that won't easily spill. And this isn't because it's McDonalds la-di-da, it's just plain consumer safety standards.
21
-
21
-
It's a cultural problem. Guns are part of it, but only part. It's also a side effect of extreme individualism, a culture that fosters competition over everything else, an unequal society, no empathy or sympathy, my needs over the needs of the collective or those outside my group, a distorted sense of what it is to be part of a society, celebrity culture, among a miriad of other stuff.
It not only didn't get better, it got way worse, and the effects of that are happening right now and getting worse sooner than later. It might take close to total destruction for something to change, and the risk is that there will be nothing left after that.
US is trapped within it's own culture. It cannot and will not admit that other cultures might be better, most of it's citizens will never get to have significant contact with other cultures if any at all, and most of the population will keep believing that the US is the best country in the world until it collapses by itself.
Several of the political shifts, the recent turn towards nationalism and seeking apparently strong leaderships are closely related. It's not only about the US, you can read it in history books on other nation states too. It is happening in other nation states too.
We're inching closer historically to a shift in power and shift in leadership position worldwide. It will be tumutuous, it will be severe, and it'll cause a whole ton of hardship and deaths. But it is a fairly common occurance in human history. Seems we just cannot win against our nature.
The problem this time is how global and how interconnected the world has become. Plus how much destructive power people have, from an individual standpoint up to coalition of countries.
Everytime this cycle repeats it seems humanity as a whole is further affected and further self destructs. We might be reaching our great filter event. Enjoy while we last.
21
-
20
-
20
-
20
-
20
-
20
-
19
-
19
-
Here's the sad thing about all of this, and why I keep saying what the US really needs is stronger anti-trust laws, though this wouldn't solve Samsung's problems since it's not in the US anyways - Samsung won't be taken down no matter what public opinion does, and this is valid for all other tech giants.
Samsung is far worse than even Louis is saying there. They are a South Korean chaebol with an incredibly dirty and dark history.
For those who don't know, Samsung might be one of the companies that actually aided Imperial Japanese atrocities that happened during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Yeah, you who heard about all this bad blood that exists between South Korea and Japan because of comfort women cases or the atrocities committed during occupation, there are tons of evidence that some of that only happened because there was active cooperation happening there with South Korean chaebols, something that does not come up much because of how much power those chaebols have.
Samsung had two consecutive CEOs arrested (father and son) and put in jail for all sorts of corruption schemes. You have harrowing stories of young employees driven to suicide inside the company because of abuses committed against them. The grasp on power that Samsung has in the country is surreal, I won't be able to explain this in a single comment.
And yet, investigations on such matters are completely shut down by South Korean government because the company is too powerful, it alone controls an absurd portion of the country's economy. Samsung has hands in everything including banking, heavy industries, military complex, health sector... everything there, you name it.
It got to the ridiculous point that the current South Korean president, fearing the economic downturn of the pandemic and general global economy, basically pardoned the current CEO, gave him a get out of jail free card, and told him to get back to the lead of Samsung to recover the company, and thus also the economy.
This is not even bailing out hedge funds, banks and whatnot - it's literally pardoning a CEO that got in jail because of multiple white collar crimes because the country needs the guy to keep working to save the economy. At this point, Samsung's CEO could commit just about any crime imaginable and get away with it.
Can you imagine that? I mean, the situation with big tech in the US is already dire enough, but Samsung basically controls South Korea. Even more now that other chaebols like LG lost ground. That's a company that didn't only monopolize the smartphone, TV or other consumer electronic market - it controls so much of the exports and output of South Korea that it basically controls the government.
Now, with that in mind, you compound a general overlook of the current smartphone and other electronics market, then the scenario becomes even more bleak.
For most nations all around the world, if you try to get away from Samsung and look at the competition, what we're really left with is a bunch of brands and options that are just as bad if not even worse in some factors than Samsung itself.
It's monopoly from South Korea, vs monopoly in the US, vs monopoly in China. You go with this one that is trying to kill independent repair using it as proxy in a war against Apple, or you go with the other brand that has an impossible to enter walled garden with locked down phones, ridiculous prices for everything they do, and horrible costumer service practices, or you go down with these other brands that have spyware, mass private data collection that is sent back directly into the mothership, and are all at the risk of being another victim of a trade war which would make your device useless...
Options are so bad that you just end up going with what is plain more cost effective. People often say that I should go with a Pixel phone, but not only it's impossible to find Pixel phones where I live, Google has zero presence here, which mean I'd have to import via grey market at high mark ups, which no way I'm doing that with a phone that already had a bunch of costumer service and bad design scandals. Not to mention Google is just another big tech I really don't think is any better than the alternatives.
Brands that used to be alternatives are now in the hands of Chinese companies... such as Motorola. Apple and Sony are in the same category of unrealistic prices for the market. OnePlus is Chinese owned and was just recently caught in yet another scandal of collecting and sending private and personal data back to Singapore servers that have connection to the CCP, along with Xiaomi, Realme and other Chinese brands. I bet if Motorola phones were part of the investigation it'd end up in a similar manner, considering it's owned by Lenovo, which is based in mainland China.
There is no escape here. In the end, it seems the only solution is to get whatever phone you can, and root it. We're back to this once again.
19
-
The thing about "if someone wants to do damage they'll find a way to do it" is that it's a strawman argument. You are using this because of your confirmation bias, because subconsciously you are putting your right to own and carry weapons and the pleasure you have on it above that of the potential beneficial effects this can have for your community, and society of your country at large. You can chose another hobby or take another sport for the sake of your kids and community, right? I'd hope so.
See, no one is saying that legislation to regulate weapons will stop terrorism and that tragedies will stop happening. It's not about that. The call for it comes when tragedy happens, but the idea behind regulations is not as simple as "if we had them, this wouldn't have happened".
The black market will continue existing, terrorism and terrorist attempts will continue happening, and people will always get creative to do whatever evil stuff they have in mind.... as people are very creative doing good things too. It's about this general mentality though.
But it's exactly about making it harder, and doing something other than just crying and sending thoughts and prayers. Because in a country that mass shootings are quickly becoming a weekly if not daily event, it's clear that some action, any action, is better than just sitting around and seeing the massacres happen, the only reaction afterwards being to send thoughts and prayers. No situation changes with only that.
Assault weapons were designed to and have just one utility in hand - to kill living things fast and efficiently. You can use cars, knives, and other stuff to kill people too, sure, but it's just not as efficient, convenient, and inconspicuous as weapons are. More importantly, it's not made for purpose - weapons are. This might not sound like much, but it actually has widespread consequences.
The general problem with US mass shootings and domestic terrorism is multi-faceted. What the US really needs it a broad, reaching and complete cultural revolution to really start solving all of this.
It's not only regulation on weapons, mental health system reform, and rethinking of the entire police response system and training... it's even deeper and more tied to culture. The message that is going in TV news, what is taught in schools, what you see in movies and entertainment, what is glamourized or exploited and sensationalized in media, what people see as tools for resolving conflict as they grow up, what society considers adequate in conflict situations, all the way up to wealth distribution, discrimination laws, what the state does to guarantee the citizenry basic needs and rights.
There are reasons why people with deeply troubled lives reaches the conclusion that picking up weapons and shooting strangers in cold blood is some sort of way out... and it has to be fed through the culture they are in, or else a mass shooting epidemic would be present in every single country. But it isn't. Some countries that are even more liberal about gun ownership don't have it, as well as countries that completely forbids firearms ownership and purchasing with very few exceptions.
Problem is, a complete cultural reform such that is needed to revert what is happening in the US is even less likely than remediation measures such as imposing more scrutiny on who owns a gun. Put very simply, if the US can't even pass gun regulation laws to reduce the likelihood of those things happening, it cannot ever change itself as much as it needs to even start solving the problem.
No one should expect for better gun regulation to solve the problem completely, but the situation the US is currently in is that if you don't take any measures, any at all, to reduce the probability of these shootings happening - they'll just continue happening. In fact, they'll likely keep going up as other factors become worse. Racism, tribalism, political divide, prejudice in all forms, religious radicalism, all forms of extremism... if the outlet you have for people who are deeply troubled by all sorts of problems is mass killings, then when these things gets worse, what you get is more mass killings.
You have to try something no matter if it's not all that much effective, because your culture needs to signify in some better way that things cannot continue as they are. Because thoughts and prayers, telling people to stay strong, sending messages that your community won't stop being itself because of yet another horrible massacre, just isn't working. Gun reform is a start, and only a start. People have to get behind actions, not only being sad and empathizing in some insignificant useless level. Imagine if all that people did with the pandemic was send thoughts and prayers for the family of victims. The world is seeing a drastic reduction in deaths and cases because something was done about it... preventive measures and fast track vaccination system that came at extremely high costs and joint efforts of the doctors, scientists and researchers.
This is what mass shootings in the US should be looked at as. This is why some people call it an epidemic. Because it needs to be seen as something that needs action, real action and real changes to if not be solved, at least be better prevented.
19
-
18
-
18
-
18
-
18
-
18
-
18
-
18
-
Awesome video Greg, this eases up trying to explain religion in Japan.
The best way I came up to talk about shinto and buddhism with other people is explaining that you better see them in Japan more as tradition or culture than religion itself.
All countries have some sort of tradition or cultural part that came from religion. Some of them became divorced of faith or belief overtime, for lots of people in those countries.
They have value in several ways - cultural identity, society values, life philosophy, spiritual meaningfullness, personal guidance, expressing emotions, finding common ground in communities plus all sorts of other things. All of those are usually valuable in faith and belief based religions too, but I personally think, this is personal opinion, that they are better divorced.
Blind faith and belief are usually the worst parts a religion has to offer, specially when taken to extremes.
This is how I make sense of religion in general, as an atheist. It's not inherently bad to be part of it, people should be free to follow whatever they want, but blindly believing or putting faith in something that is bad in itself cannot be excused just because one is following a religion. I don't accept religion as scapegoat for bad behaviour or bad ideas.
I don't really participate in any local tradition with links to religion I guess... there aren't many counterparts to the shinto temple, matsuris and whatnot in the world, as uniformly practiced through an entire country like Japan.
I do follow my mom in some stuff around the Anglican church sometimes, which she is an integral part of. Even though I'm not much of a fan of the mass and faith based stuff, my mom grew up in a small town where the Anglican church was big, she is devout in it, most of her big family also is, and I don't find this bad because the Anglican church in particular here in Brazil is probably the most progressive Christian church in the country. It accepts people from all faith, it often has round table discussions from representatives of all faiths, positions inside the church are open to all sexes, you can be married, divorced, widower or whatever, it does not have a rigid structure, it promotes several things in the LGBT community, it's pro-action (mostly in helping the poor) instead of being just ritualistic or money hungry, and it doesn't impose itself or have any authoritarian stint... which is unfortunately why it's also kinda tiny in comparison to other churches. It's more a voluntary community rather than an obligation, a gathering place for likeminded people rather than the place you are forced to go to seek salvation.
Through it is where I came to understand how so many religions just became tools of oppression, mindwashing, cultism and fanatism. It is an unfortunate fact when it comes to faith and religion that sometimes the more oppressive, the more close minded, the more radical, the more rigid the structure of a religion is, the more it tends to attract people, the more people are willing to put their money into it, the more people are convinced about it. Fear and hatred are very effective tools to convince people to believe in something. Lots of people also consciously or unconsciously seek all answers in their lives to come from a single source, so churches often have to offer that because it is easier to follow and make sense of.
On the opposite end of it, the way my mom's church lost most followers was by promoting hands on work, being accepting of other religions, doing work with LGBT families and communities, electing women inside church positions, inviting poor families and people into church activities, and stuff like that. It's probably the smallest church in my hometown, it's always in financial dire straits, it's always bleeding out followers, being fractured, and whatnot. Nevertheless, I am very grateful that this is the religion that my mom chose to put her faith on, out of all other options available in Brazil. She pays a steep price to keep at it, along with another group she joined - Rotary International. But it is fullfilling to her, and I admire her a lot for that, because these days it takes most of her time and money to be part of both. It's a lot of dedication, a lot of hands on service, a lot of patience for close to nothing in return.
Something that I can't really say much about myself I guess. But I do hope to follow her example one day.
17
-
This is bound to happen to any sort of job that involves visual classification of content.
Well, it already happens for stuff like luggage, mail, faces in the latest cameras, and all sorts of industrial settings, so it's no wonder it'd eventually be employed in medicine.
But the bit in the end of the video is perhaps most important. Due to liability and just better medicine practice, this is a tool for docs, not a replacement.
It'll probably still cause some drastic changes around these jobs though. Radiologists and doctors will have to get trained or train themselves into identifying errors and problems in the AI analysis, and unfortunately tools that speeds up the jobs of certain categories tends to drag down their numbers or wages with it.
This isn't only about radiology too... eventually, it'll also get adapted to stuff like reading blood tests, all sorts of other examinations, and even monitoring surgeries to help in whatever manner possible. I think it's both true that this might be a threat to some jobs or overall stability of those, as it is that we needs these advances regardless, not wanting to sound cruel.
Thing is, this could greatly accelerate reach of modern medicine to places that still don't have good access to it. When you reduce obstacles for diagnostics down to having an Internet connected smartphone with a reasonable camera, some deep transformations can be achieved even in the poorest conditions.
17
-
17
-
You know what the saddest part of this is? The US would spend a whole lot less, or the same while providing some needed support, just welcoming asylum seekers, making the process easier to go through, and just in general treating them like human beings.
It would be a net positive in almost anything imaginable. There is absolutely zero grounds for all this fearmongering campaign once you actually stop to look at statistics and stop to think logically about it. We're not talking about unidentified alien lifeforms here. We're talking about fellow human beings. It is pretty easy to understand what's happening. You just need to put yourself in their skins. Think outside the box/bubble a bit. Think what you'd do in a similar situation, it's not that hard.
- It's rare for people to want to abandon their roots and move to another country willy nilly. They are going to a place with a different culture, a different language, usually leaving family behind, uprooting so to speak, with an almost naive belief that it's gonna be better on the other side, or a whole ton of fear on how this will come out but without any choice to speak of. Think how hard, and what sort of obstacles you'd have trying to do the same.
There are usually very strong reasons to do so, and most of the times it has to do with peoples' ability to live in their country of origin.
Sometimes people say they wanna leave the country and whatnot, but to actually do it is far harder than just saying. In most cases, you almost need to be willing to strip yourself off of everything you have conquered in your life, your identity, your grounds, your history and the history of your family, usually in the hopes for a better future for yourself, your kids or your family.
I'd be willing to bet in those cases it mostly comes down to family.
For most people, this would only happen past a point where you lost all hope that things can one day get better in your country. It's just too much, and you don't think you'll be able to survive much longer.
- If you welcome people who are in a situation like that, they will be eternally grateful to the country that welcomed them, and they will actively work to make their new reality better than their past one. Wouldn't you? It's easy enough to see that. Some of the most overtly and geniune patriots in the US are immigrants after all. Some of the most hard working honest people are. It's not that immigrants are some special race or that americans are too entitled and whatnot, it's the situation itself. Try to see this in a very normal way, with no bias towards on way or the other.
Some of them are going there because they are literally runing away from death, misery, slavery and/or oppression. Some are specifically going to the US to get a job so they can get money to send it back to their families who are in distressing situations. Some are escaping a society and country that is incompatible with their ideals, believing that the US is closer to it. Whatever the reason is, for the most part, the belief that US simply is a better country to be proud of comes as a bonus. It's a pre-condition to want to move there in the first place. Which leads to-
- Criminals. Of course there will be some bad people in the mix, and some good people that will turn out bad. But you see with statistics and with all that I said how it ends up that immigrants have far more chances of being honest upstanding citizens in a community rather than just people who were born in the US. There are obvious interests in being so, it again has nothing to do with some stupid sense of peoples' good hearts or whatever crap. Set aside both irrational hatred and mushy feelings, try to see it logically.
Asylum seekers and immigrants in general already had some pretty harsh experiences on their own. Several of them know that crime, violence, intolerance and other things are exactly what led their own countries to a situation they needed to escape from. Furthermore, like I said, a big part of immigrants are there to work and provide better conditions to their families who might still be trapped in their countries of origin. It is in their best interest not to do anything wrong in the country that is receptioning them so that they don't lose the opportunity. Which in turn, can be seen as even a kinda unfair way to exploit hard working people. But conditions like those do exist in the world, and we have to acknowledge it.
So, what comes from that? A whole bunch of hard working people that will absolutely want to do the jobs tons of americans don't want to. They often get some of the most borderline slavery wages for the most back breaking jobs. They have an interest in not breaking laws or be seen as bad citizens. They have past experiences of what isn't good for a country. They start with a moral debt for the country that welcomed them in. They often don't feel entitled for anything. Their demands are usually just a bit above basic human rights, which is something they didn't have in their countries of origin.
The question then becomes, then why do some immigrants and some asylum seekers go wrong? For the exact same reason why other minorities often go wrong in american society. Prejudice, mistreatment, persecution, abuses, among others. How do we make it better? By working on the stuff the country needs to work one way or another. Better justice system, better trained police, a more equal society, less violence, less prejudice, better educated people, more empathy overall.
A negative attitude against asylum seekers and immigrants might sound like a good strategy or some way to protect internal culture, but not only it ends up not working well, it potentially has some very bad consequences as well. It has negative consequences in image, in international relationships, in diversity, in tolerance, in empathy and ultimately in power. On a personal level, you get a whole bunch of people with their images of an ideal US shattered, replaced by the place that was even worse than the country I was trying to escape from. There is no opportunity in that land, only unfair treatment and hardship.
On a broader level, the country that sees everyone else as the enemy. The country that tells others to behave in a humane way, but can't set an example despite having the money an power to do so. It is a net negative for everyone. It turns the world back into a mindset of tribalism, rather than open societies. Specially when several countries in the world views the US as an example to be followed. You didn't ask for this, of course, but it's true nonetheless.
In turn, in an even broader view, this only leads to countries also closing borders, also adopting tribalist mindsets, also becoming more violent and more beligerent towards other nations and towards their own citizens. Countries have no reason to improve themselves and give better conditions to their own citizens if borders are closed down and you have no option to move anywhere anyways. There is no reason to improve when citizens have no perspective and no control to even take the ultimate choice to just move somewhere else.
And you know what the most counter intuitive thing is? America most likely became the country it is exactly by being accepting of immigrants, and too many people don't seem to realize it, or do realize this but can't make the connection with current events, which is just weird. Out of all developed countries in the world, the US should be the country that knows how much immigration has to contribute to the development of a society the most, as it was formed by immigrants from several origins.
I'd argue that say, a country like Japan has a far more closed up society because it has always been that way. They are fully reaping the benefits of opening up a bit more in recent years, but it still is a society that is far more closed, has a cultural unit that is more resistant and resilient to change, and didn't have as much interference from other cultures as countries like the US.
But for some reason, instead of acquiring an openness with it's historical perspective, the US now has numbers of people that somehow thinks exactly like japanese ultra nationalists. And it makes no sense. If you are not native american, your family came from somewhere outside the country. National identity is almost an illusion. There is no reason to believe that much like your own family, the newcoming immigrants and asylum seekers couldn't possibly go through the same process your own family also did, becoming fully fledged proud and honest american citizens at some point. But you need to give them the chance or it'll never happen.
All in all, it's a sad thing. It makes me lose hope in my own species. I don't think we are prepared to face the upcoming Big Filter, and we might never come around to populate other planets, become a spacefaring community. We can't become a unit among ourselves, we can't solve internal differences, how could we ever come together to face some of the most pressing challenges humanity will face in the future?
17
-
17
-
Great arguments, particularly the last part.
I'll just add something that perhaps people don't realize much.
It is indeed particularly troubling the recent actions from PCR regarding respect to individual privacy, freedom of speech, and the whole surveillance thing, as well as potential state sponsored cyber attacks, and it is a main reason to worry.
But something people have to understand that this is in no way exclusive to China, including there governmental provisions that forces private companies to handle user data of the government or justice system requires them to.
It becomes a matter of how many powers are involved in requests, and how transparent the government is about it's actions.
I mean, it should be obvious to americans by now, but apparently not many people connect the dots. The Snowden revelations, plus Wikileaks, and several attempts by american politicians to weake or create encryption backdoors - all of these effectivelly partially did what the government and people are so paranoid of PRC doing - mass surveillance on private data, including that of citizens, politicians, military and whatnot from other countries.
The only real difference I see is that one country is declared in it's intentions, and the other does it under the guise of defence or policying, with similar results.
And I don't think many americans actually believe that mass surveillance stopped with Snowden revelations andnother scandals. People just accepted this new reality and decided not to take much further action.
Particularly on apps like Tik Tok, if you think about the scope of the service and what it can potentially harvest regarding private data, you are bound to understand that the harm the app can do with data collected is far lower than what companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon and Microsoft can do. And you know that all of those 4 companies are directly linked to previous cases of leaks, mass data selling, insecure handling of private data, and whatnot.
The damage regarding privacy that american companies have caused to americans, including mishandling of extremely sensitive information, extremely private and personally identifying data, is so extensive that really, private chinese companies don't even need to go as far as being obliged to hand their data to PRC in order for them to fet what they want. From Equifax leaks, to entire hospitals databases getting into the wild, to sensitive military and politicians data getting out, what more do you really need? For mass surveillance, not much. For targetted attacks, there are better, faster, cheaper and more effective ways to get to it.
I mean, when you have young adults and teens managing to attack something like Twitter as an almost free for all thing, really, do you think blocking stuff from entire countries really do much other than a trade war and economic losses for all countries involved? What really needs to be done, and security experts have been saying this for the beter part of the past decade, is that we need to create steps, strategies and put up policies to streghten security.
What is the point of restricting access to foreign software and hardware when internal practices are so poor that anyone can hack systems developed internally?
Huawei is a particularly eggregious example. There is no evidence of foul play, and if anything it'd be far better in the long run to let them operate partially with american or western developed os and software, as long as all os and software are being activelly vetted and secured by local communities, experts and whatnot.
Instead, blocking companies like that, leads to a situation of ultimately restricting choice, creating a wall, and letting systems be developed internally by China for China and other countries, which will happen because China is just too big a market to be left out. When Google and Android loses grip on chinese smartphone market, then you are losing yet another leverage right there, for nothing. The further China isolates itself from western countries, the worse it gets.
Because the people there are going nowhere, China will continue being the most populous country by far and the second largest economy in the world for a very long time, if it doesn't jump to first.
Most of people who thinks these measures are effective probably don't understand China on an even basic level. It's size, it's reach, how dependent of it we all are, how far it's economy reaches globally, how much leverage it has against countries like the US. Better to start getting this fast and in a hurry before you get caught with your pants down.
17
-
17
-
16
-
16
-
16
-
16
-
Side connection, and horrific too - this totally also happens to humans, with an extremely similar story, and it was well known and well studied back in the 60s and 70s - the case of Kuru, a form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy caused by transmission of abnormally folded proteins (prions) in the Fore people of Papua New Guinea, because they had a culture of funerary cannibalism.
Yes, they ate their dead, specifically the brain of the dead, where the prions would be found in abundance.
It almost seems like an evolutionary mechanism to stop cannibalism.
The kuru case is where a lot of scientific and medical knowledge around prion disease comes from. It's also why repeated assurances that British meat is safe to eat from British politics is even more scandalous than it sounds... scientific community was keenly aware of the dangers there, because kuru was a disease that could go unnoticed and asymptomatic for decades until it started it's awful progress. Mad cow disease could also be like that among cows, and who knows how it'd manifest if it crossed the species barrier into humans?
I was a bit older than John when this happen but still a kid, but I still kinda remember the news of it despite not being from Britain... probably because the image of a mad cow sounded funny for kid me. :P Like some cartoon or something, but even young me could tell this was serious and horrible sh*t back then.
16
-
Very brave and very good that she's sharing the story... it's very sad that this subject needs to be in the midst of an ideological warzone. Yet another ill effect of an ideology of hatred.
To me it's quite simple - you give people options, period. And support should an error occur.
That's what freedom and democracy should look like. Censorship, obscurantism, and the government trying to micro manage every aspect of their citizen's life is not that.
Like what people strive to do in basically everything in their lives, identity is no exception. You can make mistakes, and it's ok to change your decisions if a previous one didn't work out for you. And yeah, I can definitely see how anyone would be worried that their stories will get weaponized by extreme ideologies these days...
It's just horrible that transitioning, gender affirming care, and these subjects have become such a minefield. It's hard enough without the zealotry and unnecessary hatred, there should not be extra burdens there.
For whatever reason, it has become acceptable for people to do all sorts of weird stuff with their bodies for vanity, as it is also ok to reverse changes afterwards, but it's not when it's about trying to match your body with your gender somehow? Why? When the former is the one that's optional and unnecessary - vanity plastic surgery I mean? None of this makes sense.
And then all the prejudicial crap that homophobes and zealots keep propping up... as if the absolute vast majority of sexual deviancy crimes, abuses and whatnot didn't predominantly come exactly from the communities often involved in anti-LGBT campaigns.
Ignorants asking if I would let my kid alone with a drag queen or gay person... you know what? Ideally I wouldn't leave my kid alone with any stranger, but I'd be several times more comfortable leaving him or her with a drag queen, a homossexual, or anyone who had to learn a ton about gender identity for their own struggles, rather than an uninformed ignorant priest or pastor, or their cadre of zealots that keeps equating minorities to the devil or something. Those are the real dangerous ones for kids.
Anyways, I'm getting off topic... it just boils my blood that people have to go through such hardships because of the ignorance of others, because of this weaponization of politics and ideologies.
15
-
15
-
I'm not argentinian, I dunno the specifics of this case, but I feel I have to talk a bit more about the other side of the equation since Vice only showed one perspective in this video, superficially. This can be far more complex than it initially seems, and it's a systemic problem in south american countries.
Again, I dunno about the specifics of this case, so perhaps it doesn't apply, but let me talk a bit about how things like these goes in my own country. And sorry if I'm gonna anger some people with specific political leanings, but at this point I don't care anymore, we need solutions, not division. And it starts by exposing what political sides aren't willing to put out clearly enough, or even investigate.
So, what happens in cases of poor, homeless people who ends up in camps like this is kind of a double victimization of sorts. Not for all cases, not all the time, but more than people think.
See, the obvious first aggressor which is explained in the video is the state. Often corrupt, often ignoring the social problem, governments get elected promissing to solve the homelessness problem, they promisse to give these people a place to live, but it never actually gets done. Once they get elected, the thing gets pushed down the priority list until it disappears completely. Even if the politician actually acts in good faith, does want to put more social homes available, and does want to give poor people a place to live, bureaucracy, the country's economy and other factors just becomes impossible barriers to overcome. But particularly in south american countries, the biggest problem tends to lie in corruption. The money earmarked for these sorts of projects "disappear" somehow, and that's the end of it.
And it has been this way since South American countries became democracies. It's a broken democracy. Because unfortunately, solving basic human rights problems and attending basic human needs often don't elect people, and often costs more than we can afford anyways. And then you put corruption on top, things get even worse.
That's the side Vice shown.
The other side of this is that also often, when you get organized groups, often political, around these camps, if you dig deep enough you find all sorts of bad actions made to exploit political, law and just sensationalist loopholes. It's very often not only poor peole looking for a home in there. You have a huge mix of interests that are often hidden from view.
I think Argentina has similar movements there, I'm not sure.
It's presented as a simple problem with simple solution. People lost their jobs, lost their homes, they were out on the streets, got together, found unused land, and occupied it. Then came big bad police, big bad rich private land owners, big bad politicians, and destroyed everything they had, kicked them out, left them with no choices. Easy to digest, easy become indignant of. But often, that's not what's really happening.
What I'm talking about? For instance, there are homeless camps taken in land that the leadership of those groups knew was the worst choice possible, knew the government would act fast and swiftly to remove it, and/or knew that it was actually productive land (productive as in farmland that was being used, land that is soon becoming a housing project, or just anything that people put lots of money in to become a legal private project)... but removal of people would look very bad for the current government, so they purposedly convince those people to go there for the political gain, knowing they will end up being removed by judicial decision. It's a place chosen not for the benefit of homeless people, but with second intentions in mind from start. The strategy is not to look for optimal places for occupation that can last and give people opportunity to recover, it's places optimal for political strategies, for politization, and sometimes personal gains.
In Brazil, homeless camps have been known to have sometimes several empty shelters whose supposed homeless owners actually had a separate house in their own private property, walked around in pretty expensive cars, and only showed up on the camp when TV crew was there for an interview.
Sometimes it's leadership positions, but there were a few cases, pretty exceptional but still there, with people getting hired to pose as homeless.
Why? Sometimes to try to occupy the land and get legal backing only to sell it afterwards. Sometimes it's to promote a certain political candidate. Sometimes to serve as party propaganda. Sometimes it's to claim money that government has for social projects and social help. Sometimes it's direct extortion and blackmail - you seem to be pretty well off, you give us this land or we'll make a scandal.
Groups have purposedly chosen places close to urban centers, TV stations, or projects that are well underway for exposure. Knowing that there would be judicial action, knowing that there are better choices for the homeless people's objectives, knowing that better solutions are out there.
Sometimes it's obviously contradictory. People in camps saying they want one thing, but they actually got almost the opposite of it. We just want land to build a home, stay, have some dignity, and live. But the land is private propety under construction near urban centers in a region that is being developed to accomodate overflowing urban sprawls, while there's plenty of governmental unoccupied land a few kilometers away.
Because it involves politics, and opposition parties with candidates vying for position, and with a flag and support that comes directly from people affected by homelessness, poverty, hunger and whatnot, some pretty dirty tactics and strategies were divised to give them prominence and paint the current government a certain way.
I'm not saying this is always the case, but it certainly happens more often than people might think. If you see people protesting with flags of a specific group and political party that is known for those tactics, you can already understand that there is more than just a homeless plead in there. And sometimes it's just predatory and unavoidable. As soon as a community gets around the homeless cause, political parties immediatly go after them, promise or give them a bunch of stuff - like food, materials to build stuff, money, etc - as long as they get together for protests carrying the party's flag.
And then, you gotta also come to the realization that corruption, particularly in south american countries, is not a thing of a specific politician or party - it's a systemic structural part of politics itself.
So we already have a few cases of politicians that got elected using this popular plead flag, the homelessness problem flag, the economic downturn flag, the workers rights flag.... that ended up being more corrupt, more dictatorial, and more abusive than the politicians they used to complain about. The party gets in power, and they end up in the same situation their predecessors were criticised of keeping.
Because obviously, if you are already willing to exploit the poorest for political gain, there are very good chances that you are willilng to exploit the entire country for personal gains, while completely ignoring those you exploited in the first place.
That there are so many people without a home after a crisis like this, it's shameful and a horrible human rights crisis. But the solution sometimes isn't as simple as it might seen, the victims might not only be those people having to leave the camp, and people who are exploiting the situation, getting their gains behind the scenes, and profiting on their suffering might not only be who you think they are.
I dunno which case this argentinian case fits. But I treated one sided coverage with high suspicion. It's just how things currently are in south america.
15
-
For those in doubt, here, let's use logic to see this so called "gaming addiction" for what it really is.
Around half of adult americans play video games nowadays. Video games have been around for... some 3 decades more or less now, right? There are definitely some gamers who do spend too much of their time playing games, yes, something that can also be said about just any form of entertainment out there - but they are not in the majority, it's not anywhere close to percentages of alcohol abuse, illegal drugs consumption, or something like gambling.
It's self evident. With the numbers of gamers out there, if it was anywhere close to other forms of addiction, you'd have entire communities, cities, and even portions of the country ruined by it.
Can immediate, short lived, and often biased studies find some sort of "brain alteration" related to gaming? Sure. Because with similar methodologies, you'll find "brain alteration" for every single form of persistent behaviour. Social networks will cause brain changes, playing a given sport for too long will cause brain changes, watching TV everyday will cause brain changes, having any sort of hobby will cause brain changes. This does not prove shit all. Just proves that we are humans, not robots, and that the brain is a plastic adaptive organ. If finding brain alterations automagically translated to mental disease, to addiction, to disorder, then almost everything could be diagnosed as a disorder.
The reason why there's been so much controversy around the WHO classification of gaming addiction is that for this particular case, contrary to stuff like climate change, there really isn't a consensus in the scientific community about it. The studies have been too few and far between, most of them have not been peer reviewed, there isn't much in terms of cross validation, replication and reproduction of results. In simpler terms, this isn't coming from proper scientific method.
Which is both understandable since widespread gaming is relatively recent, so there hasn't been enough time to create a consistent and solid body of studies to say anything, and it is also damning to the WHO. I really don't get how and why a organization like WHO would jump the gun on something like that, but it's very damning evidence of bias and potential dangerous politics being involved on WHO advisories which could entirely discredit the organization's work.
Specially when it comes to a real definition of the supposed disorder, and a proper distinction and need to separate into it's own category versus just being identified as an already existing disorder, such as obsessive compulsive disorder.
One might think that having a dedicated classification for gaming addiction or gaming disorder could be helpful for people who really have problems with it, but it can end up being damaging and just delaying proper treatment.
Case in point, people who will actively exploit supposed patients who have the disorder offering "cures" without any proof that it works or even helps, while they could've been successfully treated if they had been diagnosed with an existing disorder with proven treatments.
As we all know by now, there are tons of snake oil sellers scamming people with all sorts of mental disorders and addictions even when those problems have proper treatment and therapy methods approved by scientific community. The rehab industry is infamous for that. Now, the first thing that appears in the piece to respond to a so called gaming addiction is eerily similar to exactly those infamous overpriced rehab centers promising a cure in the very same terms.
And see that I'm not saying the people who got interview don't have problems, and don't deserve attention and help, but it's more than likely that what they need is not paying 30 grant on an offline bootcamp - they need to be properly diagnosed, and receive proper therapy, and potentially proper medicine to get out of it. With this bogus gaming addiction the risk is to miss out on really curing people, and leaving them in a limbo where they'll spend all their money chasing a solution that doesn't exist.
15
-
14
-
As a gamer who has been one since the 80s, starting all the way back with Atari and MSX, the thing is - if you don't care a whole ton about games anymore, I don't think you need to force yourself to be one, particularly given how complex it has become. And it's pretty hard to get in if you are used to what it was back in the 90s.
At the same time, I have to say that while what Louis is describing is definitely true for a chunk of the industry... it's also not true for any of the modern gaming I personally do. I never got into microtransactions, massive multiplayer games, games that try to nick and dime you all the time, pre-orders, and a bunch of this newer crap. And I still have way more games to play than time to go at it.
Thing is, the gaming industry is extremely oversaturated these days. To the point that you don't have to go for games of these big studios to have fun, you don't have to play triple A titles, you don't have to fall into these predatory practices.
You do have to care enough to look for stuff that don't participate in these though... though this is true to pretty much any form of entertainment you chose to go for.
But I also think it's a bit of rose tinted nostalgia glasses too. I mean, let's admit some stuff here. For instance, yes, the joycon drift crap is pretty egregious, but it's not like we didn't have all sorts of problems in older consoles and gamepads in the past too.
The NES with bad contact pads and blowing on cartridges, Playstation 1 laser head problems, XBox 360 RRoD, Nintendo DS snapping the screen ribbon connector at the hinge... there were plenty of design faults and problems, we just tend to overlook those overtime, or even become fond of it, or make fun of it.
And we had to do some level of research on games in the past too, because there were so many crappy titles. xD I still remember some huge deceptions I had in the far past... the Dragon's Lair NES game, Mickey Mousecapade, some other crap I waited an entire year to get a game on my birthday and it was pure sh*t. xD
Nowadays I have a thousand or more long Steam backlog, several games I know are good, I got them at steep discounted prices, but I don't have enough time to play them. :P
But again, it's all about what you want to do with the limited leisure time you have.
14
-
From Brazil here, Japanese descendant family, most converted to some form of Christianity all over... but up until I was younger, the tradition of getting the family together on new years' eve was kinda kept, in the way Japanese descendent families in Brazil kept it going somehow.
So the separation was, x-mas to be spent with your smaller nuclear family or perhaps the family of members that are not of Japanese descent, but new years had to be with the larger Japanese side of the family. xD I never went to big new years' parties or to see fireworks shows because of that. Some of my cousins when they reached adulthood just managed to convince their families to skip to celebrate elsewhere, but at least some portion of the family was always there with our larger group.
I imagine what we do is closer to what traditions were during the time my grandparents and grand-grandparents immigrated to Brazil, few years before WWII, so it looks nothing like modern Japanese customs, but getting the family together was a thing.
Up until my grandparents generation, we used to still see things like Kamidana, and a few more traditional things. We didn't have osechi, but it was a huge collection of dishes that mixed Japanese stuff with local and that of other traditions... I think early on Japanese immigrants tried to adapt and remake a ton of Japanese dishes using local ingredients which results in this mess of different things. xD
Someone makes nabemono, someone else makes mochi, someone cooks fish, some pork dish, someone orders or makes a bunch of sushi, and then you have an assortment of Brazilian dishes and other stuff so that people who dislike Japanese food had something to eat... xD It was always all over the place.
I remember back when I was a kid a few older relatives still gave otoshidama to kids of the family, but this also kinda died off and got mixed up with different traditions over the years... we also had Secret Santa style gift givings, years we did Bingo games and other types of games, plus a bunch of other different stuff. But the family gets older, the festivities get shorter, and things change.
One aunt of mine, the one we usually stay at, still does Ozoni in the first day of the year... but it's mostly me, my mom and her that enjoys it, most of the family either don't like, or cannot eat (case of my uncle who is allergic to everything sesame seed related... super unfortunate considering almost all Japanese dishes use sesame seeds, or sesame seed oil xD ). He's from Italian descendency though, so it's not like he cared all that much about Japanese food already. xD
Anyways, this will no doubt end in my generation. Most of the cousins my age or younger already don't care much about participating in all of this, most of them don't know the significance of most of these things, and most families of my parents' generation didn't care much about pushing, enforcing, and keeping Japanese traditions that came from their parents and whatnot... it just got so diluted and bastardized over the years that it simply doesn't make much sense. It's also the case like I said that most Japanese descendent families ends up going towards some form of Christianity, so there is little left of traditions rooted in Shinto and Buddhist origins. There are some stuff that I experienced as a kid that I only came to understand and realize where it was coming from after I got older and the Internet was here... xD
Over the years, the larger entire family broke apart, got separated, moved to different parts of the country or even abroad, and started celebrating new years and x-mas with family that is closeby. When I was a kid, we used to get together in either some rented place, a big farmhouse of some relative, or something similar because it used to be a huge group of 50+ people. Particularly when my grandparents were still alive, the larger family got together around them... because from my dad's side, it was 11 between brothers and sisters, and from my mom's side was 9 between brothers and sisters. So, huge extended family. But most of them only had one or two kids.
After my grandparents died and each portion of the family moving away to different corners of the country, it just made it harder to justify traveling long hours to get together... kids got older, lots of them didn't adopt Japanese traditions, and so things starts diluting away.
Before the pandemic we were getting closer to less than 20 people groups.... during the pandemic the core group was reduced to less than 10 I think. We weren't there because it's a long trip away, so I ended up celebrating me and my mom only. :P My mom and dad were the son and daughter that moved to a different state after graduation, so it has always been us to travel to the grandparents state... so from when I was baby up to now end year celebrations has always meant 16 hour trips by car or bus to visit relatives.
Anyways, just to give an idea how things are from my pov, and perhaps the experience of lots of Japanese descendant families. Some traditions were kept as much as possible for a couple of generations or so, but it's likely not lasting much longer than this. Well, apart from some of my cousins that got back to Japan and formed families there... xD
14
-
Wow, there are so many things wrong in this entire piece that I don't even know where to start.
Ok, here goes something. First and foremost, passkeys in the form of hardware keys have been around for at least a decade now, if we're only talking about the tech that is being used in this newer implementation of it. If we consider other forms it's even older than that.
So it's not "the future" of anything, it's an alternative to options that already exist.
The only thing really new here is that it's being integrated into smartphone OSs as a core function, by the OS developers - Google and Apple mostly.
Second, and this is part of an old discussion that already happened back when people were proclaiming biometrics were going to kill passwords - NOTHING will ever "kill passwords", because these alternative methods of authentication are NOT to be seen as replacements for something like passwords, but complimentary or alternatives to it. It's like general press and tech press cannot learn from past mistakes.
The thing people have to understand is that all of those different things - passwords, biometrics, passkeys, ToTP and other things all have different characteristics, different applications, different strong and weak points, different scenarios where they work better or worse. Security is not a monolithic thing, nor a black and white thing, you have different situations, different levels of security, different scenarios, and thus different methods to address the issue.
For this very specific application of passkeys, which is the use of a smartphone to hold the capability to authenticate into accounts, it's fairly obvious what the problem is. What if your phone gets stolen, broken, or is not with you when you need to authenticate into an account in a separate device?
It's obvious even in the door lock analogy given - if you lose your access card, you are SoL. For the keycode lock, it's a problem if you forget the code, but you don't have anything physical to lose there.
There is an intractable and unchangeable fact about passwords which is how you can just store it in your memory. Nothing can ever replace that, ergo all claims of something "killing" passwords are moot. It's the only method of authentication that relies on memory alone, or you writing something on a piece of paper and safely storing it. Almost everything else relies on you having a piece of software in an electronic device. Biometrics don't, but the difference with biometrics is that it's unchangeable. So if anyone finds a method to fool the system into thinking you have matching biometrics, the entire system is done. You cannot replace your fingerprint, your iris, your palm for another in case it gets replicated by someone else. You can replace a password though.
Now, let's talk about the portrayal of using password managers. First of all, it's not that complicated, you don't need all the maneuvering shown in the piece, and not all forms of a type of authentication method can be generalized as the piece makes it seem. I see the guy using a password manager is using two factor authentication with ToTP. That's his particular case, but it does not have to be like that. Broad strokes generalizations don't help here. This is arguably part of the problem for non-adoption - it's not the actual complexity of it, it's how it's portrayed.
But different to passkeys, you can have password managers in multiple devices of different types all synchronized, and they are not only useful for authentication, they are also useful to store all sorts of sensitive information, several of them have the ability to auto complete forms, a few of them have the ToTP part integrated into it, and important to some, some of them can be used offline and the entire data can be put into personal control - meaning you do not depend on proprietary stuff from a business for it to work. Most of those things are stuff a passkey cannot offer.
That is one of the potential big issues with the current idea of passkeys. It is considered very safe and very secure in general, because the underlying technology has been around for a long time and it has been audited several times over the years, but if you are going to use it in your phone, in the end there is some level of trust that you need to put in the phone's implementation of it, security around the function, plus whoever implements that in the phone which will usually be the OS developer - Google in case of Android phones, Apple in case of iPhones. So you are one way or another delegating the security of it to those.
Some security situations and some privacy and security focused people don't like that, they can't just trust big tech companies to do it right, so you need alternatives for that, which usually means passwords or password managers.
So, does this mean that passkeys are bad? No, they are not. Much like several other authentication methods, it's a balancing act. Passkeys are more CONVENIENT than passwords, but it's not a replacement. If it's well implemented following all the security standards that it has to follow, it can be a more convenient widespread way of authentication for the masses.
But all of this depends on the case, and it has, like any other authentication methods, strengths and weaknesses compared to other methods.
By the way, let me add this for people worried about security to consider. This passkey idea is derived from hardware keys that like I already said, have been in the market for well over a decade now. Most popular brand I know of is Yubikey. They launched their first FIDO Alliance compliant USB key in 2014. That compliance is what also guarantees the security of this new smartphone based passkey authentication method.
So, if you don't want to wait for the smartphone based solution, or want a separate device with the same level of security but potentially less convenient, you can buy a hardware key from that company and configure your accounts to be authenticated with that, for the services that allows it's usage of course.
That's also a limitation of passkeys. All the places you have accounts in needs to accept it as a form of authentication, or else you will be forced to rely on whatever they accept. That's another point in the problem of considering it a replacement. It's not only up to you, it's also up to the services and whatnot to accept and implement it's usage or not.
Of course with companies like Google and Apple adopting it natively more businesses will accept it as a form of authentication, but again, hardware keys basically use the same method, it's been around for a decade, and adoption still isn't widespread. It's not only because of some simple choice, but because there are costs involved in implementing and maintaining it.
So there you go. For those who want to be better informed about this, and not only swallow the hype.
14
-
14
-
Color me skeptical, but the idea doesn't sound neither radical nor feasible. Sorry if I'll come out as a naysayer, but I'm doing this because I'm trying to think harder on the problem than this just surface level world self-improvement speech.
Basically because a whole lot of things were oversimplified... perhaps for the sake of sending the message, but for those involved it ends up not helping. Not that I'm about to stop people from trying to contribute to a solution, but here's the thing:
1. Convincing industries to change. This deceptively complex problem is behind a whole ton of problems we face. Did you know that there are places in the world today that have standardized PET bottles made with recycling in mind? That this has been going on for a couple of decades or more now? That the only reason why industries in western countries didn't adopt similar measures is because they don't wanna deal with the potential problems of change? This is how truly petty these industries are. We are still a few steps behind in terms of plastic recycling, not because it's impossible to do, but because industries are not willing to budge anything towards it, because it's seen as risky.
They aren't willing to risk even low risk proven measures like this, let alone a high risk raising of costs for product manufacturing for an investment fund that they'll also need to monitor and keep checks, which in an optimistic scenario will create and entirely new unpredictable market. See that this isn't only about flipping a switch of changing few cents in the price of end products, this is about radically changing infrastructure, trying to stamp out an entire sector (of new plastic production) to feed another (plastic recycling), constructing new infrastructure to attend demand, firing a whole bunch of people and hiring a whole bunch of others, radically changing the entire map where raw materials comes from, where they get recycled, where it's produced, how far those will be from the bottling companies, etc etc;
2. Recycling plastics have become better over the years but it's still an incredibly costly and hard problem to solve. Yes, plastics are just a bunch of polymers, but the simplicity of the raw material does not translate to easy recycling. The standardization I mentioned in the previous item happened because you need something like that to recycle plastics as efficiently as possible. This means regulating and turning all industries of a certain category to using a specific type of plastic for their entire production.
If you ever visited Japan you probably know what I'm talking about - the vast majority of drinks that you buy on vending machines and convenience stores have all the exact same type of plastic bottle, save for very few deviations. They all have a removable label, and removable cap. The bottles are all the same type of plastic and transparent, no colored pet bottles. This is because in order for recycling to even be feasible, all of those have to be separated in categories. They each have their own processes for recycling, and they all have a set number of times they can be recycled before it becomes too expensive to do so. So no, it's not really a matter of upping the price of producing new plastic and hoping for recycling to be cheaper... it is faaaar more complicated than that, because recycling plastic is complicated in itself.
3. Infrastructure changes and the role of poor countries. It is dangerously naive to think that just because poor countries have huge amounts of plastic waste, that a switch in demand will suddenly change their situation there. Because plastic recycling is complex, and it's also pretty dirty, toxic, expensive to scale and have all sorts of other problems that are not as simple as they may sound. Abundance of raw material is not the only thing that factors in this sort of stuff, you need infrastructure support, close positioning to recycling factories, demand for product and all sorts of other stuff. What usually happen in changes like these is that those poor countries will start getting instead of plastic, if it ever becomes a profitable thing to recycle, they'll get the next non recyclable waste in the list.
And often, poor countries dealing with stuff like this ends up in a worse place. Big example, Ghana. There's a place in Ghana where an unimaginable amount of developed countries' eWaste turns up. Recycling it became a business of the poor, but it's not very beneficial to them. Entire neighborhoods turned into toxic wastelands due to using cheap processes to extract whatever little value they can from it. You can look it up.
4. Government and regulations. Industries setting the price themselves up because of origins of material is not something they really can do. No matter how little the price change will be for final consumers, this will come down to problems regarding price fixing, regulations, monitoring and how governments see the whole deal. Particularly because stuff like that tends to have ripple effects in entire economies, it ends up being easier to convince governments to impose taxes and regulations themselves rather than hoping for industries to self impose it.
If you wanna know more and understand more on the entire issue of recycling, plastics and whatnot, I recommend searching some more on YouTube and Google. Search for Ghana and eWaste, search for Japan plastic recycling, search for charts on types of plastic, search for videos about plastic recycling plants. It should give a better idea on how complex the issue actually is.
I wish it was this simple to solve. Unfortunately, it's better to understand the problem better and in a more deeper way to focus effort in real ways to solve it. I'm sure the TED talk was oversimplified to make the point across, so perhaps his solution is better than it seems, or at the very least worth trying, but I'm not very convinced.
14
-
14
-
13
-
See, for those who didn't notice, here's the lack of balance in the whole thing - laws and legislation should never be about "opinions", a democracy cannot decide court cases with religious precepts in mind, the only fair way to define where life begins is by looking at the scientific majority consensus, and if your legislators, judges and politicians cannot do that, you are not living in a democracy anymore, you are explicitly living in a theocracy.
For the rest of the world, there should not be any illusion that the US is still a democracy. The US is currently a Christian Theocracy, a Christian State.
The problem in America and several democratic countries with far right contaminated politics and justice is just that - letting far right groups, parties and people participate in a place they don't belong. What Trump and his ilk does is not politics, it's scamming, grifting, authoritarian rule, theocratic rule, and fascism. Those don't belong in a space of representation inside a democracy. Worse yet, they use church, conspiracy theories, lies, fabrications, nationalism, racism, and all sorts of hate speech for power.
Unless the Republican party reforms itself and goes back to it's root, this entire party currently does not belong inside a democracy, period. And I'm saying this not only in the US, I'm saying this in a democratic system, period.
The acceptance of the type of speech used by the party as it currently is goes towards the inevitable conclusion of a totalitarian dictatorship.
One of the biggest evidences of this is stories like this one. You have two fundamental women's rights curtailed by law and lawmakers that sees no problems in using their personal religious beliefs to take decisions inside a secular democracy. Doing that should have immediately disqualified every single politician and judge taking decisions like those in a democracy, because it violates a fundamental pillar of democracy, and the constitution itself. No representative power or judge in a secular democracy can make decisions that affect the electorate based on religious precepts or beliefs. This is at the core of democratic values.
So, this isn't just a "Republican problem", it isn't a Supreme Court problem, it isn't a state issue - this is a failure of the entire US Democratic system.
Now, of course, every single democracy in the world with a population that has some Christian religion as majority will have problems separating church from state, that is true. But what is happening in the US, right around when Roe v Wade was trampled over by a theocratic SCOTUS, that's the point when you know things have gone too far. At this point, the US ceased to be a democracy, and got actively in Republic of Gilead territory.
That was the point when action far stronger than just protests should've happened. That decision was reason enough to dissolve SCOTUS and rebuild it. Every single politician that legislates on paper with religion in mind alone should've been arrested for treason. Every single one of those decisions should've been stopped on a constitutional basis.
Every single judge that makes decisions based on their religious views should be arrested for attempting against democracy, disbarred, and disqualified. This is not a joke, this is what should've happened.
This is the reality of it. Democracy needs active and permanent protection against an autocratic mindset or else it eventually goes to ruin. Particularly when it's tied to scammers aiming to take power at all costs, using religious extremism if needed.
And the US will eventually come to realize this, but I'm afraid too late for a peaceful resolution.
13
-
13
-
13
-
So much wasted energy and stupidity for political candidates that don't deserve either...
I dunno why so many Brazilians decided to become political fanatics now, but it's just ridiculous. Probably because we consciously and subconsciously mirror the US so much, but it makes absolutely no sense, particularly when we have the current president running for re-election and an ex-president who already ran two entire terms trying to come back into politics.
The truth that seemingly no Brazilian wants to admit these days is that neither will be good for the country, both will mostly ally with old politics to continue stealing public money, and there will be no major changes in Brazilian corruptocracy. Bolsonaro won't lead a military coup because it doesn't benefit him in any way, Lula also won't turn Brazil into a communist dictatorship because that also doesn't benefit himself personally. The way both can benefit the most is by just keeping Brazilian politics as it is - a country that collects an insane record amount of taxes from it's poor population and gobbles it all up inside the over bloated state machines that is constantly giving itself raises while killing social programs, education, health and whatnot.
Between Bolsonaro's tens of real estate paid in cash, "rachadinhas", the revolving door of people he'd put his face to the fire that ends up being all corrupt, secret budget scandal, and all these correlated scandals, and Lula's own Mensalao, Petrolao, Guaruja Triplex, Atibaia farm house and numerous others along with so many corrupt people close to them, the real difference between the two is that one is aggressively far-right, and the other centrist left - public face only, because in practice they both practice the same old corrupt Brazilian politics that tries to do the least possible while stealing the most money they can. This whole cult of personality and propaganda crap they put up is a farce and for show, when they get back into their jobs its just more of the same old crap, because corruption in Brazil politics is institutionalized, stealing money from public coffers is the objective, and it won't change regardless of who is the president.
So it ends up that the real worst thing that is coming from this election is that it's proven how shortsighted and ignorant Brazilian electors continue being. You'd think that after decades of being stolen blind by politicians no Brazilian would fall into political fanaticism and extremism these days, but nope, here we are at it again, with both parties using some of the most sordid, surreal and even ridiculous FUD tactics to push one side against the other. Cannibalism, candidate voted by criminals, red scare, alliance with the devil... people getting convinced by that sort of crap, what are we, 17th century ignorant plebs? The selective memory reigns strong too... but of course, if people can't even keep track of things that happened during the past 4 years, asking people to remember what happened between 2003 and 2010 when Lula was president, in a balanced and non-biased way, is asking for a miracle. It was neither as bad as Bolsonaro propaganda say, but also not by far as good as what Lula's propaganda is saying too. And it's just absurd what people who went through both those periods but now have become radicalized will say to try to convince you to vote one way or another.
It's like dude, we went through all these years together, it's been the same sh*t as ever. Neither Bolsonaro nor Lula fixed anything of significance, both took money away from important basic services, both enriched themselves plenty while in power, both had multiple corruption scandals in their terms, but also Brazil didn't become Hell, a communist dictatorship, a military dictatorship, a criminal or Satanist paradise, or anything like that, because it's not in the best interest of neither, plus we have institutions to stop those from happening. Clear your head up from all the paranoia and FUD, vote in whoever you think is least worse, and expect for corruption to continue since you couldn't vote for something new.
All this bs is tiring. I just want for next Sunday to pass and people to get back to focusing on stuff that really matters.
This year's Brazilian election is already lost. We voted for corruption, and we'll get plenty of it one flavor or another.
13
-
Everyone involved in letting Epstein lose and continue commiting crimes should be in jail for accessory, and quite frankly, for using the justice system as their plaything. It demoralizes, corrupts and erodes confidence in the entire justice system.
You need nothing else to show how corrupt the justice system has become when letting high profile, rich and powerful criminals commit and keep committing some of the most henious crimes, while it keeps standing on a high moral ground on minor offenses. It is a complete and total shame for the US.
You add this, to all those catholic church cases with, again, the church has failed to give a proper response to as well as the justice system, along with several other systematic and structural problems that have been destroying the future of new generations, of course you end up with a corrupt culture with a president that doesn't even have the moral strength to condemn people involved in some of the most sordid crimes.
13
-
13
-
13
-
13
-
Yeaaah budy... because whale meat culture is 300 years old that does not mean that it cannot become an endangered species. Burning fossil fuels and coal is a practice as old as humankind.
To be fair though, I highly doubt that whales are endangered only because of hunting for food, specially if it's only about japanese people. I've only been in Japan twice, over a period of a month or so, didn't see any whale restaurants... then again, wasn't looking for it too.
Garbage and plastics, stress caused by noisy ships, environmental changes, whales hunted for other purposes, there are all sorts of contributing factors for certain marine life getting into the endangered species list.
Blaming it all on japanese eating whale meat, as always, is just sensationalism and/or scapegoating. It's the usual way how international press treats Japan as "the other" country.
But before people judge it too much, remember people... all countries have consumption or pet habits that targets endangered species one way or another, and it is not fair to single out this or that nation or people without considering your own nation's problems. All countries have problems with illegal pet trade, several have problems of hunting endangered species.
But it looks like whale restaurants are a dying breed. It needs to go away for our future, much like the traditional chinese medicine industry. While I understand why people value those things, and why some people don't wanna let go of those, humanity has to start making better choices if it wants to last. If modern practices are making things more sustainable, culture has to follow. People better live in societies that extinguished past unsustainable practices that are perhaps nostalgicly remembered, rather than getting extinguished because they couldn't let go of old ways.
13
-
Thanks for doing this video, it summarizes pretty well the arguments I'm having to repeatedly write to fight against the biases and misconceptions people have about chinese production.
I would have gone even further, because some of the rancid beliefs people have about China are really pervasive, rooted in racism, and dangerously blind.
It's not value judgement too, I'm not saying it's a good thing China has advanced so much with it's current government, I'm saying it's extremely dangerous to think of China in terms of technology as some 3rd rate country that only copies US and EU stuff. This is very far from the truth. It's been far from the truth for well over a decade now.
For instance, that extraction of rare minerals that is done in China? It is not a simple matter of having concentrated deposits in other parts of the world. It's about the technology and infrastructure China has developed over several years for extraction that is unparalleled.
There are some rare earth mineral mines in the US that basically mine the material, and then send it all to China for processing, because the mining company in the US just does not have the technology for refinement that China has, as well as regulatory barriers and whanot.
And this whole video is also valid for practically all other smartphone brands, because no other country has the output capability, mass production facilities, infrastructure for development and transportation that China has. If there is a concerted effort from electronic companies to start building replacement infrastructure elsewhere, it would still take decades to get anywhere close to what cities like Shenzhen can do right now... not to mention tons and tons of money.
Think of it like this - it isn't just about factories, it's also about the technology that was developed by chinese companies over several years, qualified workers, roads, incredible shipping infrastructure, trade routes, all sorts of politics involved, and after all that managing to attract all significant parties involved in making each tiny component inside of a smartphone which all have their own research and development cycles.
So, when Apple comes out to say they are moving production to some other country, what they really mean is that they are opening a factory or something to do a tiny point in the bible of things needed to put an iPhone together. It's final assembly of some product usually, because that is something that can be profitable if the local market can absorb it. Moving all steps necessary for a full smartphone assembly is outright impossible right now.
Also, about Google, closing doors and moving away software and services is waaaaay simpler than hardware production. But even Google is majorly regretting this, which is why the entire Firefly controversy came about. Because now, you have a country that has almost 5 times the population of the US that is living perfectly well without Google. They already lost that market to chinese companies, and entering the country today would be kinda meaningless. Microsoft launched Bing in China back in 2009, it's still the lowest performing search engine there.
12
-
Thanks for your kind words everyone.
Regarding the problem of gun ownership and the argument out friend ans7031 presented there.
Switzerland is among the safest places on Earth more because of it's size, history of neutrality, geography, economy, services and industries the country holds, and high GDP and education rates. Guns are a side effect of that, I'll explain why.
It also answers the other question about why would allowing people to legally own guns increase crime.
The problem with liberation of gun ownership without a stringent regulatory process is that a gun is not a stick. It's a tool designed to take lives, usually of animals or humans.
In order for anyone to use a gun effectively, this person needs to have training, be physically and mentally fit, meet a bunch of conditions to understand the responsibilities and dangers he or she is taking when owning a gun, needs to right posture and stance to have a gun, and a whole set of other things. Education and culture plays a part.
Switzerland in fact, has mandatory military service for men. They train how to use guns there, when to use them, and then a part of service members go back to civilian status and remain gun owners. But no, everyone in Switzerland does not own a gun, ownership there is extremely regulated far more than both Brazil and the US, and in fact guns in civilian hands have been dropping steadily for years now.
You can read more about it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Switzerland
But to give a more clear answer, the problem about gun ownership can only be looked into when you have the full context.
In countries where guns are seen as hunting tools, or the population has a historic and cultural understanding that it's something needed by people with military training to protect against foreign invaders, which are the cases for most developed nations with high gun ownership that does not translate into high number of crimes, shootings and assassinations, gun ownership can make sense.
What doesn't make sense is chaotic complete liberation of gun selling and gun ownership in countries where people have no training to use them, the culture is pointed more towards people who want to brandish and use guns to impose their will by force, criminals, and most of the population do not have access to those because they are too expensive.
Mass shootings, killings because of heated arguments, gun accidents, people brandishing guns around to threaten others inconsequently, people owning guns "because it's fun", paranoid people who own guns for the potential to overthrow a democratically elected government, or to persecute political adversaries... all of those things are signs of a culture, education and population that is mentally unfit to possess firearms.
Making a parallel that perhaps will make some people understand this better, you don't let a kid go out driving a car just because he or she can, right? You don't let regular car drivers to operate heavy machinery just because they want to. You wouldn't let any random person walking the street to do your heart surgery, even if he or she had a fully equipped surgery room, right?
This is the difference. People think that as long as someone can pull the trigger or get a backyard weekend course on shooting guns that now they are able to not only do it right, but also responsibly.
But it isn't like that. There are reasons why we regulate usage of some tools, of some practices and of access to some products.
It should be obvious that in order for you to operate a tool that was designed to take lives should have the highest standards of regulation.
I hope I answered your questions.
12
-
12
-
12
-
12
-
Most democrats are not anti-Israel, they are anti-Netanyahu specifically.
I have nothing against Israel citizens, Jews, and I'm staunchly against anti-Semitism. From the beginning I have also been appalled by Hamas attack against Israel citizens.
That does not mean that I'm about to support a genocide against people living in Gaza, quite the opposite. It's because I'm against the widespread violence in the region that I'm against what Netanyahu is doing there, as many Israel citizens also are.
In fact, a whole ton of people in Israel have been protesting against Netanyahu exactly because of his authoritarian positioning. And the guy is so vile that he's spitting on the grave of victims of terrorism to advance his genocidal agenda.
Now, Biden has become accessory to Gaza genocide. Democrats should kick him out and chose someone else to be their candidate for presidency. In fact, I've been in favor of another democrat to be the party's candidate since before Biden became president, not because of his age, but because of his own policy contradictions. I don't consider him a democrat, he's just a centrist with a right leaning.
This time, it isn't Trump extremists that are endangering US democracy, it's Biden himself. I know this basically never happens in US political history, but I hope Democrats wake up to what is happening, stop Biden's bid for re-election, and put someone else to represent them.
12
-
I spent some years when I was younger doing some recreative rappelling, nothing serious like cave diving, just buildings and a few rocks. Our equipment was barebones, but I do recall an incident that was kinda similar to the last story.
We didn't use specific descending tools, just figure 8s with a descending knot on it. Allowed for a pretty fast descent, but you had to use gloves just to be safe.
So, we had an afternoon descending from the 10th story of a half finished building that was abandoned for almost 10 years by then, it was a base of sorts for us, so we were plenty used to it. When we got to the 2nd floor or so, there was a large patio were people could either stop, climb the stairs back up, and do it again, or you could then go further down to a neighboring parking lot, 5 meter drop with a large wall where you could play a bit, do some spins, run on the wall. As the rope was anchored way up on the 11th floor, there was no risk of it getting caught on ledges and whatnot - we took care to anchor it far from the wall to avoid any damage to the rope.
You kinda had to climb a small ledge to further descent to the parking lot.
One time, I wasn't paying a lot of attention as I kinda got used to doing it, so when I got up the ledge, I didn't realize the descending knot came undone. It's always when you have slack above the gear that these things can happen.
So it's like the rope is still going through the loop, but it doesn't hold enough to stop the fall. I subconsciously held the rope with both hands still using protective gloves, and this slowed my fall from free fall to something a bit slower. It burned the gloves and reached my hands deep. Took a few months to heal. I also had muscle cramps and soreness for a week after it happened, so much force I subconsciously put into it. Fortunately, I was on that 5 meters down descent, so holding the rope that way with all my strength was enough for me to get a hard fall, but not enough to break anything.
So yeah... it's no joke. Been well over a decade plus since the time... if I were to ever go back to it, I'd start from zero. These sorts of procedural security steps have to be so ingrained into your practice that it becomes almost subconscious, but they really need to be there every time. If you have to think about it too much, there is a serious danger of missing something and the worse happening.
12
-
She is, quite unfortunately, just a perfect embodiment of something that's wrong in america, as well as in several parts of the world. It came out at the fracture Internet created and opened up for everyone else to see. It was always there, the Internet just made it more visible.
She has an extensive and rich history of fighting for a position that few get, but she apparently fails to understand how much she own others for it, how much of an importance and responsibility she has towards her fans, and how dependant her position is on the goodwill of others and image she makes of herself.
It's an isolationist look towards oneself that is blind to everyone and everything else. Like, what I do in public only matters to myself. People obviously should see and would see everything I intend as a joke as a joke, they cannot possibly take seriously the stuff I write, because everyone should know it's a joke. And since everything I joke about is known as joke, it won't negatively affect others.
There is a gap in empathy, in critical reasoning, in education and in humbleness there. There is a lack of putting yourself in others shoes. There is an apparent misunderstanding of public and Internet related behaviour that tons of people don't seem to get. There's a borderline sociopathic predatorial behavior that seems to be either culturally engraved or just a lack of understanding of consequence of actions in people like her, and most likely in people like Trump too, plus several of the politicians he has put in important positions. It's no wonder she would sympathize so much with him and his way of thinking, because it mirrors her.
She knows the tweet wasn't the only reason, yet she hasn't gone through the entire thing enough to realize this. Either that, or she's unwilling to admit it in public. This makes the entire punishment moot, because she can't learn any lessons from it. Not that it was specifically punishment for her, even though she doesn't realize this, it was just a sane decision made by a company that has a lot to lose if it didn't step up. Because the society she is living in and working for is diverse, is plural, and is not willing to take prejudice lightly anymore.
She doesn't realize it wasn't something like the tweet, like typing and clicking publish there, or just something about Internet - it's about behavior, it's about spreading prejudice, it's about being unnecessarily belligerent after all that society has already done for you.
Did she understand that several of the people she's offending with tweets and whatnot are exactly the fans that put her show back on top charts? Does she understand that a huge part of the people who worked for her to get there, a huge part of the audiences of the broadcasting companies that gives her the platform, and a whole part of the structure she is choosing to talk her nonsense is supported by the people she's offending?
It's just weird how some people who went through a lot in their lives and supposedly had more opportunities than the vast majority of the entire world still don't get it. We have a very long and problematic tradition of rewarding people and putting them in higher positions when they don't really deserve it. It's an unbalanced system. It's the sociopathic boss situation. It's giving power to the exact people who would use it to trample all over others.
It should be that the people we put in priviledged positions at least care enough to imagine themselves as others. To empathize and sympathize with those that can't and won't ever "make it". To act to make things better for all, not only for yourself.
There's an entire world out there Roseanne... perhaps it's just better if you remain part of that, in the background, as part of it, instead of being a symbol of something. And perhaps one day you'll realize this. It's just a better world when people who act like you are asked to step down their platforms, and perhaps give the opportunity to someone else who will not make racist tweet jokes.
12
-
11
-
11
-
This should be extremely simple - if the country you live in considers itself secular, there should be no law being passed based on religious concepts or ideals, period.
So, if all you have are arguments based on God, on preachings, on the Bible, on what Catholics have to say about when life begins, who has the rights to take it, among others... none of those counts.
Because a secular state has government strictly separated from church, no single church can say what is right or wrong, it cannot dictate policies or laws.
Contrary to what some people may think, states and countries are made secular not because of atheism or because they wanna disrespect this or that religion - it's out of respect for religious diversity. You can't have a single religion forcibly applying it's own set of laws and beliefs in a country that has a diversity of religions and faiths.
If you wanna stop abortion clinics and people from doing abortion, you will have to come up with arguments that are not about religion. Suggestion? Go to those clinics and instead of protesting, harassing people, and holding stupid signs, tell the pregnant mother that you will voluntarily adopt the child, pay for his or her care, and give him or her a home and all the conditions needed for him or her to grow up. Go tell the government that there should be a program that does that. Fight for better preventative education, and for child support laws that really work. Abortion is a risky procedure even when done in qualified clinics, if the incentives to have the child and still cope with it are higher, that's the path most women would choose anyways.
The way I personally see it, and you may disagree, is that you can only really treat something as murder when you have malicious intent and kill a legaly defined human being.
Afaik, the legal definition of human being specifically requires and is written as "born alive".
Don't trust me, look it up if you disagree. It's your law, not mine (I'm not american).
So, abortion cannot, by rule of your own country's law, be called murder, because a fetus is not legally considered a human being.
And this is why these bravado bullshit laws that Trump and administration, plus religious politicians keep putting up all gets rejected and repealled at some point. Because it does not fit the current legal and constitutional structure that your country was built upon.
So there you go. What is being done against these clinics is the real crime there. They have legal backing to exist, and it makes sense for them to be there under current law. Because abortions will happen one way or another, they are there to save women lives by offering specialized help with something they are legally allowed to do, period.
11
-
11
-
11
-
The truckers have a right to protest whatever they want, but Brazil has a direct democracy where every citizen is obliged to vote as a civic duty, Bolsonaro won't have support from military or any other governmental institution to force a military dictatorship or anything of the sort, he doesn't have the power not even as sitting president to do much, and his rabid loyal fanbase in Brazil is far smaller than most people think. The number of people on the streets celebrating the end of his government is far far bigger than a few hundreds at most truckers blocking roads in a few Brazilian states where he had a bigger base.
And as much as he won't say it outright himself as he doesn't want to loose his rabid fanbase, I highly doubt he wants to be involved in violent attacks against government buildings and candidates. What Bolsonaro likely has in mind is running again 4 years from now as his party got a whole bunch of state level positions, plus seats in congress and whatnot. His position will be weakened if he incites his base into violent action. Supreme Court and justice in general are not on his side here.
I'd say the majority of people who voted for him in this past weekend's election actually see problems in both candidates, as most who voted for Lula also did. So, while there could still be some isolated radical action against Lula up until he officially takes the position, a concerted effort to stop the certification, like Jan 6th US capitol attack is very unlikely. A few radicalized groups trying to organize themselves for extreme actions were already dismantled during Bolsonaro's presidency, and there doesn't seem to be big far-right militia style organizations all around.
Bolsonaro himself doesn't have many grounds to stand on with a pro-violence discourse too, lest people forget he was stabbed during the 2018 campaign himself. Worse yet, the guy who stabbed him was a crazy religious guy saying incoherent stuff like God told him to do so.
Of course people like himself sees no hypocrisy in the discrepancy of what they accuse the opposition of doing and their own actions, but still, I think the political divide in Brazil and the general mood for radical activity won't allow for extremism to take hold... and I hope I'm not mistaken. Brazil sheds enough blood of it's population without political divide already, it doesn't need one extra thing to make the population more miserable than it already is.
11
-
Well said and done.
People don't really want to see it this way, but cold analysis, relationships are contracts.
Overall, with rare exceptions, monogamy is basically the main clause of marriages.
What I mean is, if you are someone with expectations to fuck around and not value outside intimage relationships from one another, then, for this contract not to be breached, the condition must be estabilished beforehand. And I mean marriage not in the strict religious way, just the contractual one.
I mean, I can imagine a contract estabilished where it's previously expected from one or both parties to not be faithful in specific terms of sex. If both sides see a handjob, a blowjob, sex with other people as inconsequential, well then fine. The actual spectrum on how marriage happens probably varies quite a lot. People marry for money, for image, for power, for imigration purposes, etc. In the past people used to marry to avoid wars, to strenghten political positions and whatnot.
But if you are in a marriage in modern times were this wasn't previously discussed and agreed upon, it's safe to say that monogamy is the main requirement there, as well as stuff like trust, support, and sharing several aspects of life. So if you cheat, doesn't matter what exactly the cheating was composed of - because something you label petty does not mean the other side also do -, then you have no right to complain about a divorce. Since you are the one who breatched the contract, you are not allowed to complain about getting the full breadth of penalty.
And like Louis well said, once you forgive for something the other side is calling "petty", you can full well expect the behaviour to not only continue, but also be fueled by it. It's like an addendum added to the contract. You are the one who will be writting right there, "you are now allowed, in this marriage, to get a masseuse handjob, estabilished as a minor or non-offense".
Dan's discourse is basically a salesman pitch. See how he brings up an extreme false equivalence and comparison on his discourse. A divorce doesn't always mean you are discarding the whole family, kids, 20 years of relationship, etc etc etc. Most of the times, it actually means preserving it as best as possible after a disastrous situation in which the other side is to blame. It's often best for the entire family and to preserve whatever you got from several years of relationship to cut ties right now than keep forcing a miserable situation that will keep you unhappy for the rest of your life.
False equivalences: masseuse handjob a "petty offense" (because he's assuming just one side of the equation, the one in the wrong, in violation of marriage terms), divorce as destruction of 20 years of marriage, destruction of family, destruction of whatever was build in these 20 years of living together - it really isn't. Divorce is terminating a contract that was breached. None of that has to be destroyed. The side that violated the terms gets penalties, and the contract is terminated.
Your kids won't die just because you divorced your spouse, your family won't be gone, the 20 years that have passed won't disappear and be forgotten automagically and properties that were purchased during the time won't go back to the government or disappear in a limbo. It'll all be there, and will have to be split accordingly.
11
-
Gotta be fair here, clarify further and reinforce what was said so that people don't get fooled by this.
The Pinetab2, and V for that matter, should not be seen as tablets as we are used to knowing them... those are actually devboards in tablet format.
Pinetab 2 has a Rockchip RK3566 SoC in it... it's a pretty ok and modern SoC, but in the devboard category. Meaning it competes with a Raspberry Pi, not an Android tablet. They are much more powerful than your basic RaspPi, but nowhere close to Snapdragon, Exynos or even Mediatek SoCs that modern Android tablets have.
It has a quadcore CPU and is in the 22nm category. Should be fine for basic tasks, but you're not gaming in it... in fact, the company does not recommend this tablet to run Android, and it also does not have Widevine support.
Just to be very clear that this is not a replacement for an Android tablet, but you can run Linux on it and you should expect a level of performance better than a Rapberry Pi.
Pinetab V is even more meant for developers and tinkerers only, since it has a Risc-V processor. It's quite awesome for enthusiasts and developers that there's now a Risc-V devboard in tablet form to play with, but even if progress with the architecture has been phenomenal recently, it's just not ready for any type of everyday usage. OSs that support Risc-V are very much still in early experimental stages, lots of stuff that is still not working, lots of bugs, not super optimized yet, not a whole lot in terms of driver support, expect for most things you need do not work at all.
With that in consideration, depending on use case it could still work great for you... just be aware of those points. I'm a bit tempted myself with the Pinetab 2, because I don't really use a tablet for much, and having Linux run on it is super interesting.
If I had the money to spare I'd get one of those, and perhaps a Pixel 3a or Fairphone 4 to run Ubuntu touch.
11
-
10
-
10
-
Awesome stuff Greg!
Going there by the end of next month, last trip was 11 years ago. xD
Getting through Narita and I'll be staying with other 7 family members and relatives around Narita station.
Even though I mostly knew all of those, it's always nice to reconfirm the whole thing...
I already got myself a JR Pocket Wi-fi, will be getting the pass later this month, and I guess everything is in check. I also got a couple of Suica cards ready.
People also recommend having an external battery charger for your stuff, specially if you'll be relying on the phone for a whole ton of stuff... Google Translate, Maps, communication in general...
Quite different from the last time we went... no smartphones, calls with international pay phones only, but I already used a huge laptop and Google maps to print everything and carry it around back then. xD
I'm catching this video a bit late, but I imagine the next topic would be hotels and reservations... I did everything through Tripadvisor and Booking. I'd go for Airbnb but most of the people who are going with me are seniors, and they really wanted the conveniences of a hotel stay, so we went with that.
Oh, I'll try subtitling your video in portuguese later today... wanna show the info for relatives. Thanks! o/
10
-
The way I see it, there are two main ways to go around institutionalized corruption, and they are both bad for honest people trying to live through it.
One, is slow change, a whole ton of persistence, and a path that is not straight. You'll have ups and downs, but if you keep at it with enough persistence things have a chance of becoming better. People will suffer, but it's still the better route. It's the low risk low gain route.
The other is total revolution. Complete replacement of political body, sweeping reforms, blood on the streets. This is high risk, potential high gain - but also potential high loss. People will not only suffer, lots will die. Power corrupts the vast majority of people, so there are high chances of whoever replaces those in power just fall back to the same structural corruption that has already been institutionalized.
The biggest problem is the collective memory of people, the capability of keeping track of changes, and the persistence to go around it. Modern societies in particular are very badly equipped for this, because we have become highly individualistic and very bad on collective actions. Tribalism, polarization and stuff like populist movements are a symptom of that. People have become highly egotistical and self centered, so there is no effort to really make a country better for everyone, it's mostly effort to make the country better for a group of people.
Institutionalized corruption is a far bigger and more complex problem than people think it is. It's not only about this or that president, this or that party, this or that administration - it's about laws, policies, internal culture, systems and ideals that were put in place to support the corrupt institution. It either changes extremely slowly, far slower than it was built, or it needs a full reset with all the risks that comes with it, including becoming even worse. It is structural in a very literal way, as in affecting all aspects of how a country is run. There will be a large part of the population that might not even understand this, but a whole lot of things on their daily lives are affected by it, lots of it bad, sure, but what people don't get is that some of the good also will be, even if that part of the population is not corrupt themselves.
So yeah, complicated mess. I wish all the best for Ukrainian people, but I can't say I have much hope because I too live in a country that is devastated by corruption and that currently made some pretty bad choices to fight against it. Brazil. I don't need to tell most people how bad it is with the entire Amazon burning problem flashing in the news, but I will say that the situation is far more complex and intricate than international news make it to be.
10
-
10
-
10
-
10
-
So, lots of questions... seems like a good idea on surface, but let's see here.
First of all, graphene is mentioned as the conducting and emitting layer for this.
Graphene is a relatively new material, in particular to commercial applications, and it has been reported that it has potential to be not only toxic to human health, it's production is also difficult and produces a bunch of toxic stuff, and then when it goes to the trash it also does not break down well and can end up being a problem too.... was this solved somehow? Or are we just introducing yet another potential asbestos into the chain here?
Having a heating element basically bonded to walls, wouldn't this cause structural problems overtime? It's also plastered over, so how does it interact with said plaster? Doesn't it also have potential to heat and dry that plaster faster and make particulates airborne, which I imagine wouldn't be good health wise? If it doesn't become all brittle and require even more maintenance of walls and whatnot.
Of course, with this also comes the fact that wherever you install this heating layer, you essentially lose the ability to do anything with that wall. Can't put much in front of it or the heating element will get blocked, can't put a nail or screw there to hang photos or art or something because it'll both block and damage the piece... it just needs to stay a blank white wall for maximum efficiency. Hanging it on the ceiling may work better visually, but not in terms of efficiency it seems.
I imagine the heating efficiency in this to be pretty good, but how does it actually compare to heat pumps? Installing heat pumps are not that hard if you make it obligatory to build homes and whatnot with the necessary provisions to it, it's proven tech, and from the video is seems it's also cheaper. I can see the advantage of something like this when you absolutely don't have a way to install a heat pump, but other than the exceptional case, I don't see how paying more for something this new and unproven can be seen as a good idea.
I mean, I understand the angle of the piece to make switching to electric heating faster and then powering the grid with renewables, but I worry about making things even worse when you start introducing new unproven tech like that at large scale... this sort of action has often backfired hard. And I imagine studies have been done about the stuff I'm talking about, but I really don't like when new stuff like these comes out and people can only talk about it's advantages and how it's gonna contribute towards easing or solving climate change magically... it's like no one stopped to see what problems it may introduce.
10
-
So, basically, she admitted she's someone with a radicalized position trying to force her own worldview against others.
People can twist this however they want to, the fact is that pro life is not pro life at all.
It's the state prohibiting women and limiting freedoms based on flimsy, mostly religious based, beliefs.
And it is once again further proof that bills are being passed without any regard for statistics and truth, relying instead of baseless beliefs, faith and personal opinions of legislators that cannot look outside their bubbles.
If any study at all was made to know the reality of abortion in history, in other countries and states that went through rounds of prohibition, it'd be clear that prohibiting abortion does not stop abortion at all. It never did and it never will. It's just a convenient and useless way of rallying up ignorant people to vote for your stupidity.
It only takes the option of women from doing it in a safe environment with qualified people, forcing them to do it in clandestine clinics in potentially risky environments with potentially unqualified people who will put their lives at risk. That's the harsh truth of the matter, and no ammount of armchair legislation will change this.
So the entire thing is already a misnomer. How can you be pro-life when you actually are putting more lives at risk? It not only isn't pro-life, it's also anti-democratic. The state should have no rights to interfere with stuff like that. Not in democracies.
If people like Kristen really wanted to fight against abortion and be pro life about it, she would try to pass laws that would give support to mothers, ease up stuff like adoptions, separate a budget to effectively help mothers, come up ways to convince women considering abortion not to do it because the state would be there to help. That's the effective way to address this, not putting more useless prohibition laws that only backfire.
Americans have to force these people who are supposed to represent them to face reality instead of living inside their comfortable little bubbles with no contact with what is really happening in american society. You don't wanna keep being ruled by people who mandates their own isolated perspectives and opinions on subjects they have no contact with.
10
-
Here is the problem with people who terrorize honest workers like that farm owner: you are not exposing anything, you are not making any change, you are kids throwing a tantrum.
Put your energy in constructive efforts instead of trying to hinder working people who are not only doing their jobs, they are mostly not getting much for the essencial stuff they do everyday too.
The chicken farm industry exists for a reason, it supplies an essencial need for the country and population, and currently there is no better way of doing this.
By disrupting farms you are not only contributing nothing to society, you are making work harder for some of the people who already have some of the harshest jobs with crappiest pays in the country. Those farmers are often in deep debt, giving hundreds of jobs for the people that needs them the most, they don't need terrorists at their doors to make things harder.
You wanna contribute for free range chickens, probably a tiny fraction of current population, living free in the wild if not going extinct for not having a purpose anymore? Find a way to replace their role. Make your own farms with your living standards and compete in the market. Offer an alternative.
I hope the guy ends up in jail. This is not how we solve things in society. We have enough ecoterrorist cult-like mob groups already. We don't need more man and women child who were born and raised in a bubble in such a way they think they can protect all animals somehow because farm animals deserve rights equivalent to humans. It has never worked that way, and it never will. I'm sorry if I shatter the hopes and dreams of some daydreaming people, but it only takes living in a different few realities to realize that.
People should take trips, see the world, and understand a little bit more of it before radicalizing themselves and following single minded sociopaths or terrorist groups that always seem to put them against the world. Grow the fuck up a bit.
10
-
10
-
Not particularly interested in neither phones, but I do like the review style because it covers some stuff that so so soooooo many other reviewers don't, which is kinda aggravating.
Call quality, signal quality, bluetooth range, wi-fi range, regular usage speeds... the stuff most important for phone usability is often overlooked.
I'm also interested in some stuff that I can understand why reviewers don't talk about much, but it's also aggravating that not even manufacturers will put the info out on their technical spec sheets: Compatibility with stuff like USB OtG, MHL, Miracast, the actual transfer speed of the USB Type-C port, among other specifics. This is often hidden when even announced, and chinese manufacturers will often ommit such capabilities. Samsung has a good reputation on supporting stuff like that.
People looking for a more recent phone on the cheap that has stock Android, I'll recommend Xiaomi Mi A1 Android One international version. Granted that I still didn't fully test it, but it's an Android One phone that has a mid-range SoC (Snapdragon 625) which is still powerful enough to do just about everything, dual camera, an admitedly crappy selfie camera, but is cheap and works great.
Bought it for my mom, but I'm actually thinking of getting one to myself to replace my more expensive and more powerful OnePlus 3 because of all the crap the company has been doing lately. Stock Android by itself is a huge advantage over basically anything else...
10
-
10
-
Hey, brazilian here.
I don't necessarily disagree with most of what was said in the Vice piece, but like most pieces I saw produced by Vice here in Brazil, I have to say once again that the indigenous topic in Brazil is far more complex and far more difficult to navigate than the piece lets on. Or tbh, far more complex and far more difficult than what most international pieces lets on, because it's a very complex topic.
Let's start with the non-political easy part.
If you have a map of Brazil, this part is easier to understand. Look up for Manaus, see where it's located on the map.
It's the capital of the state of Amazonas here in Brazil, northwesternmost state... right in the middle of the Amazon forest. Manaus is stuck in the middle of it, which is all sorts of crazy.
It's among the most isolated capitals in the country. Access to it is mostly done by boat through the amazon river, little of it by roads which are treacherous, rare and non-trivial to navigate, and then plane, which is expensive.
It's unfortunately also among the poorest brazilian capitals, despite several attempts from successive governments to industrialize it (read more on the subject Zona Franca de Manaus if you wanna know). It's there because as you might imagine, it was a hub for exploitation of natural resources that goes back to when Brazil was a colony from Portugal. So it's really a city that sprang up for extraction of natural resources.
The northern states of Brazil are also very unfortunately the poorest, the ones with most corruption, crime, where cities are most far apart, where colony exploitation hit the hardest, where levels of education are the lowest, where federal attention and money reaches the least, and history is the bloodiest.
For someone living in southern states, where the biggest, most modern and more affluent cities in Brazil are, it might as well be another country altogether. It's far away, hard to reach, isolated, and the culture is very different... I've personally been there myself, visited several states in northern Brazil over the years.
Like the video showed, around Manaus, inside the Amazon forest, is where lots of indigenous communities live.
Now, do understand. It's not one major community with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of indigenous people living in close contact with Manaus and other cities... it's an untold number of small communities living anywhere from relatively close to cities, to deep into the Amazon rainforest with little to no access to other brazilian cities.
I think most people in other countries heard about this - we're still finding native indigenous peoples tribes that are uncontacted to this day inside the amazon forest. Tribes living inside this jungle who had never had direct contact with people from the outside. Can you imagine that? In the midst of globalized 21st century?
So, you have a wide range of different situations, different levels of communication, different distances from brazilian cities, different relationships between people outside communities, different degrees of education, civilizatory processes, aggressiveness towards strangers, interdependance, governmental contact, levels of understanding of what is going on outside tribes and communities, etc etc. You can have one tribe where most people speak and understand our language, have descendants who live in brazilian cities, have people who studied in brazilian universities, have relationships with brazilian organizations that take care of indigenous rights, culture and help... and one tribe that attacks anyone who comes from outside, who don't know what the situation is outside their territory in the amazon rainforest, who don't speak a language we can understand, who doesn't want anything to do with brazilians, brazilian government, brazilian culture and situation, etc etc.
If you live in a country that has a large population of indigenous people you'll know how complex it can get, but it's far more raw and intricate in comparison to several other countries around the world. Particularly countries like the US, Canada, and some other developed countries that had a colonization process and natives people genocide, I think people in general have a level of understanding how complex these relationships are, but in Brazil it's much much worse. It's a big territory that is not as explored as people might think. It's not outside the realm of possibilities to have uncontacted tribes inside the Amazon rainforest who don't even know about Brazil as a country, about colonization from Portugal, etc etc.
Thanks to this huge untamed barrier that is the Amazon rainforest, you still have several indigenous communities inside it with people who might not even know about Brazil, about the rest of the world, about the modern world at all.
Just recently, one of the biggest most prominent experts on indigenous people who dedicated his entire life to the cause got attacked and killed in one of his incursions while going after uncontacted tribes... by indigenous people themselves.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-54109584
They might not even know they killed a guy who dedicated his entire life to help them. But that's the sorta thing that happens here... because of how impossibly raw the situation still is.
So, these situations described on the Vice video are in big part, more complex and less one sided than they sound. The video is covering but a tiny, probably well doctored part of it.
For instance, early in the video they were talking about local medical stations that didn't get visits from doctors and staff for months during the peak of pandemic.
Sure, that might be true, these situations do happen. But on some tribes and communities, it wasn't just because of some one sided governmental stance aiming to cripple these communities, it wasn't abandonment, or treating like they weren't there.
Several indigenous communities themselves prohibited visitation from people external to the communities to avoid any chances of them bringing yet another white man plague, and they were given authority to take decisions like that. I dunno what the situation was in the specific community that Vice visited, but the way medical help, governmental funds, and general contributions to indigenous communities work is extremely complex and extremely hard to navigate, because it's not only about what the government or governmental institutions decide, it's about the will of individual tribes and communities.
This conundrum between going there to help, and not going there to avoid making the situation worse, really does exist to this day. And you don't really have a united consensus on what should be done, because it's not a unified community of indigenous people, but rather a multitude of hard to reach far apart and far away tribes spread everywhere, that can be in any level of education, community consensus, internal order, and whatnot.
You add that to the fact that lots of those communities are located in poor, hard to reach places, in a country that is still in development and doesn't have unlimited funds to dedicate to every problematic aspect of the country, it's easy to see how things can go awry. You see, attending all those communities and reaching out to help is a far bigger, more complex, expensive, and difficult task than it lets out.
Now, on to the political side. It's true that our current president has said several extremely ignorant and condemnable things regarding indigenous people of Brazil. He has admited by himself a very Trump like stance, strong man politics, with an insane ammount of fake news-like conspiratorial direction on the information he choses to consume.
More importantly, he is extremely pro agro business, because the agricultural sector in Brazil is the largest part of brazilian economy. He favors whatever large agriculture businesses lead him on because of lobbying, because of greed, because of corruption schemes, because of money speaking louder, and because he also has a stance of brazilian economy above everything else in a very dim ignorant analysis of the situation.
And he has put people in key positions of governments who either thinks exactly like himself, or they get immediately fired at the slightest sign of contradiction.
His minister of agriculture was caught on camera suggesting that the government passes several laws that the agricultural business suggested to pass during the pandemic because people would be paying more attention to the pandemic rather than environmental causes, indigenous peoples rights, and other related issues.
Now, all of this does not mean that the only problem, or even the biggest problem regarding indigenous people lies in this administration alone. It's not like if Bolsonaro wasn't there, the life of indigenous people would be all rosy and dandy.
10
-
10
-
10
-
10
-
10
-
This is the whole reason why people have been shouting for better privacy and security protections for years, while most of the global population has completely ignored or even belittled the need to stop social network companies and Internet based companies in general from collecting so much private data.
And understand, this isn't only about political dissidents and people who are in a position of vulnerability - this is about everyone.
Companies like Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Google all have huge teams of people as employees, several 3rd parties working for them with access to private user data, and they have little control to stop rogue agents from infiltrating their ranks and selling out data. Not only that, they just don't care.
It could be Saudi Arabia looking into information on former citizens, but it also could be just a stalker looking into info on his next victim, or some guy you got involved in a car accident with that is crazy enough that is now looking for your info on social networks to go after you. Disgruntled employees or ones who are just looking to make an extra buck will happily sell the info they have on hands to anyone.
The only way to stop all of this is to force tech giants and Internet based companies to not collect your data in the first place (force them to secure the data properly obviously doesn't work, we have proof and proof of this for over a decade now), and this goes against their own commercial interests. The real costumers of these corporations is not you, you are the product, more specifically, your information. You are basically the mine from which the material these corporations want is being extracted from, they will only do enough to keep the operation going.
The only people these companies are interested in attending the needs of is advertising networks, and investors, which will always vouch to collect more and more information from you.
My immediate recommendation for anyone who is participating in this perverse system is to get away from it if at all possible. If you don't need social network, don't use it.
If for whatever reason you need to, business reasons, personal reasons, communication, etc - try to find alternatives that are smaller, better localized, that puts an emphasis on privacy and security, and don't ask for nor collect your data.
If you can't even do that, you need to stay on the major platforms, then put as little information about yourself as possible, get into configurations and stop as many data collection points as you can, and always keep in mind that everything you put into the Internet, into social networks, is always at the risk of leaking out, being collected and compiled into a dossier, which could then be used against you by criminals, by rogue states, by government, by police, by crazy people, and pretty much anyone else that can go after you in the future.
I'll also add that no, just because your data already has been collected by Google, your smartphone or whatever, it does not mean making an effort to stop things now, or close as many holes you have in privacy and security, is fruitless. It's not black and white, it's a spectrum. Everyone living in the modern era has some level of privacy erosion and security vulnerabilities. You do as much as you can to close those so you can stay safer.
10
-
10
-
9
-
Great picks Chris, using or trying to learn how to use most of them.
Let's see here, more suggestions....
VLC, MPC-HC, OBS, Notepad++, 7-zip (just stop using WinZip already... :P ), CamStudio, ImgBurn, Irfanview, Lastpass (the free version has everything most people need now), Keepass, Veracrypt and all the Piriform apps (CCleaner, Recuva, Speccy).
I've tested around half a dozen or more free alternatives for video editing, and daVinci Resolve has been the easiest to go for those who learned it in Premiere, Final Cut or Sony Vegas so far... Blender has a basic video editor but it's pretty barebones and weird to use. Windows Movie Maker improved a lot in Windows 10, but it's still kinda basic. There were some others that were either outdated, or kinda wonky. daVinci works well... the only problem I have with it is the lack of support for some codecs, so you need to transcode some stuff.
It doesn't support .mp3 for instance, so you need Audacity to convert audio files to .wav when needed.
9
-
9
-
9
-
9
-
From the docs and what I've seen myself in Japan, Sherry is right on her guess... not sure if it the case there though. xD
The absolute most common thing for Japan regarding seemingly abandoned pathways, roads, tunnels... even entire villages and roadside venues like restaurants and cafes is simply because a more modern and convenient route was built afterwards, which lead to decline and eventual abandonment of what used to be an inconvenient but only way to go from one spot to another.
Which is kinda fascinating... it's sort of a weird side effect of a country that had a period of huge infrastructure investment specifically targeting the benefit of the majority. You don't see much of that in developing nations like mine. :P
Well, you do occasionally, but it's like the state of abandonment and how crude the original pathways were makes them untraversable... like, nature takes over, things break and deteriorate to a point you just can't go there anymore.
In Japan there are all these places that are either maintained by small groups or even individuals, or that were so well built in the first place, that they are still there.
Anyways, great finds as always Norm!
9
-
Mostly fine criticism BBC, apart from saying that "ironically", Bay Area wasn't translated.
So here's a lesson from someone whose native language is not english - names are usually NOT translated, be it for persons or locations.
The reason is quite obvious - if someone is looking for a location, they need to know exactly how it's called, not a translation that won't be found anywhere officialy - maps, signs, phonebooks, etc.
Sure, there are some translators who insist on doing it one way or another, but it's really a disservice in most cases. Think about it.
9
-
I think lots of people, particularly on Republican side, needs to grow up a bit and at least try to understand diplomacy instead of pouting and whinning everytime something doesn't fit their extremely limited worldview.
See, when you are dealing with countries like China, Russia, North Korea, most of the Middle East and whatnot, you gotta weight the pros and cons, or nothing ever gets done. Ask your private companies you are so proud of.
UN, WHO and other organizations that have to contend with opposing views in different countries are constantly having to decide what to do regarding certain countries to get essencial, sometimes life saving and world changing results.
First of all, we still don't really know everything about the origins of Covid-19 and it's initial spread. If you heard from anyone that it's certain it came from China, that Wuhan was the origin point, or whatnot - you got half the truth.
It's our best bet, but it's not certain. Particulaly because of how Covid-19 works in the first place, how there is a delay on symptoms to show up, how it may look like a flu when symptoms are light, how many people are assymptomatic, and how fast it spreads... yes, there are still chances that Covid-19 actually didn't start there.
But of course, WHO wouldn't dump a huge turd on top of China for no good reason... when it needed as much information as the country was willing to share. The opposite would've been much more damaging. If China decided to go hard ass totalitarian, shut out WHO, and not disclose any information they had on the disease, the rest of the world would be much more fucked than it already is. Many of the strategies to fight the pandemic also came from China, like it or not.
Likewise, the way WHO and other global health partners work on the ground is usually to concede to most regional government demands to do their work, as long as it's not totally unreasonable. Because you either deal with this, or nothing gets done. Covid-19 in particular has no boundaries, doesn't pick and chose political systems, don't care about your petty ideological conflicts.
This is likely why Trump also did his part and had some praise for China and it's government back then.
The true reason why Trump, his followers and the propaganda networks are going so hard against China and the WHO now is pretty clear - the flagrant failure of Trump's administration handling of the pandemic needs as big a scapegoat as it can get. FUD is the quickest and most effective tool in the propagandist tool belt.
Because 200 thousand people died. Because people are still dying. Because this is gonna cost the US an unprecedented ammount of money. There will be a lot of anger, frustration, sadness and revolt to contend with. So the scapegoating and misdirection has already started.
And let me tell you folks, if Trump or Trump-likes continues being elected in that way, the same will happen for Climate Change. It's already started. But as the consequences of climate change denial, and not dealing with the issue, becomes worse and worse, responsibility and scapegoating will happen in the very same way. It's bad foresting practices, it's nature's way, it's local government's bad practices... they'll blame God before taking any responsibility.
You gotta get rid of pathological liars in powerful positions or the price will eventually come with compound interest, and with all this confusion, there is no path for correction, remediation or even learning anything from it.
It is super worrying this tendency to elevate crooks into godlike standings. Sociopaths as bosses. Almost half of US citizens still vouching for a president that has basically destroyed several american institutions that took decades to happen, deals that took tons of money, endless effort, lifetimes worth of work, and sometimes lives to be formed, and finally turned an entire political party, which is half of american politics, into a cult of lunacy.
Are moderate republicans still voting for this shit? It's unbelievable. I cannot concede with the idea that almost half americans are as anti-science, as nationalist, as irresponsible and as unreasonable as Trump.
And if they aren't, how can you ever justify closing an eye to the stuff Trump is doing, and still vouch to vote for him?
Because democrats would do worse? You can't do worse than that folks. I have my doubts nuclear war would be as destructive. This is eroding the foundations of the US entirely.
I don't think people understand in how much trouble the US is, and how much worse it can get.
The country has a lot of buffer to go on given all the riches and all the prosperity it had over several decades... over a century of being the strongest global economy. But it's not invincible. You know this from history. Bigger empires fell.
Truckloads of global leadership positions were just given away because of dumb personal grudges, egotistical battles and other petty reasons. I'd celebrate if it wasn't for the fact that the global economy is entirely connected these days, meaning if the US falls, lots of other countries will be right behind, including mine.
China being the more reasonable diplomatic country in the global stage can't happen, not in the way it is.
This is an actual nighmarish scenario. China was the first country caught by surprise in this pandemic, and yet it fared way better than a ton of western countries whose governments chose to actively ignore the problem.
And it's not that the chinese government attitude got better too... nope, quite the opposite, in recent years it became more authoritarian, more war prone, less democratic, and less respectful of past deals... and yet, developed western countries fared worse because politics are dropping off a cliff. Denial, ignorance, anti-science sentiment, active dismantling of good institutions built overtime.
It's the worst thing that can happen. Authoritarian government looking better than supposedly democratic ones, not because it is actually better, but because democracies are falling apart. Do we really need to go through yet another cycle of hell to learn forgotten lessons once again?
9
-
9
-
Not interested right now, but yeah, it's quite possible that in the future I might buy one of their cars... or some other Chinese brand.
The answer is simple and also the main reason why Tesla was poised to fall behind: price.
I'm from one of those countries that China has it's eyes for the EV market.
To get a Tesla here, even used and even the cheapest model, it'll set you back the price of a small apartment downtown of a big city, just for the car itself. Then you put taxes, bunch of extra costs on top, it become prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of the country. The cheapest EVs are a third the cost or lower, so Tesla is only competing here for the luxury market.
But right now, even the cheapest EVs are just too expensive for me to even consider. That added with the lack of a charging grid, mechanics that know how to deal with them, and all sorts of other problems.. it's just not happening.
I'm not a car guy so I dunno much about all the factors here, so excuse me if I'm wrong, but I kinda see Tesla somewhat like Apple - you are paying a lot to get into a sort of ecosystem. So the advantage there would be also getting a Tesla charger, perhaps some other options. And then it'd be about being able to enjoy Tesla Supercharger grid and whatnot - only we don't have those here.
In fact, our car charging grid is basically nil, and I don't expect it to grow at the rate the US has. So Tesla kinda never had a chance here, you want the EV to charge on regular plugs or the rare generic charging station. Even installing your own car charger on your garage, or say putting this up against and apartment building, is just too expensive.
So, if you take the top cheapest EVs here, lots of them are Chinese. Caoa, BYD, JAC, GWM, Seres.
What counts for BYD though is that, while it's not the cheapest EV you can get right now, when compared to all models on the cheapest list, it's a far better proposition in the one spec that people look at the most - distance of travel in a single charge.
Likely because of the battery tech.
And then there's the factor that Dagogo mentioned in the video: we're likely getting a BYD manufacturing plant, which could drop the prices further... or at least get better support for their cars. They are basically swooping into automotive factory spaces that closed doors in the past decade or so, like Ford and whatnot.
Do I trust a Chinese company car? Well, honestly, in my country there are far more Chinese electronics and products going around in comparison to brands of other nations anyways. From everyday small stuff to bigger more expensive stuff, you almost cannot escape Chinese brands here. And I do mean Chinese brands, not only stuff made in China. It's everywhere, and people who will pay more for something with a Japanese brand, an US brand, even South Korean electronics, are a diminishing crowd.
My personal preference would be an EV that is the least dependent on Internet connectivity and complex electronics. If there's gonna be a bunch of crap calling back home, spying, collecting data, and whatnot, it doesn't matter much to me if it's an US company or a Chinese company - but I'd rather have no one doing this. Reason why I stuck so long with my current very old junker of a car. Also one of the reasons why I'm wary of buying any new car right now. I just don't want all this hassle... I very much like the extreme simplicity of my completely disconnected beater. As one might notice, my interest in cars is taking me from point A to point B cheaply and giving me the least hassle possible. And I think the majority of newer generations think like me. I really don't care about any of the fancy stuff.
And I guess this is the story for lots and lots of countries. Tesla might have all of it's big name and publicity globally, but it's cars are less global end consumer stuff, and more the choice for those who can afford it. It's multiple ecosystem advantages disappear if you don't live in a country that Tesla caters to, and Musk's fame isn't helping much too. In fact, I think that at least for a portion of the market, the relative distance between the car maker and buyers actually kinda helps.
So, unless huge catastrophic accidents and stuff like that pops up, these Chinese makers will likely win the race here.
Thing is, at this point, I've read far more stories about Tesla fatal accidents, recalls, shoddy work, fires, and whatnot. I haven't heard much about those Chinese brands. Tesla could've capitalized a lot with their early start if it had done well, but right now, we're at that point the company is being so scrutinized that it actually starts looking worse than unknown brands.
So, we'll see. For now, Tesla is already right out, and I don't think other more traditional car brands will be able to compete if they don't drop prices here. In that top cheapest list I'm seeing Renault, Peugeot and Hyundai - everything else is Chinese.
And if I'm not mistaken, Caoa and JAC already have a head start here, because they have been selling gas cars for a while now... they are not the majority on streets, but I'm already seeing quite a few of them, particularly among new cars.
9
-
Cris, you were too gentle with those drives... xD But nice test!
These days, flash drives are more likely to get destroyed by themselves with poor quality chips and whatnot than physically... so I think it's best for people to chose one by reliability.
Unfortunately, I never heard of tests made for reliability like Backblaze does for HDDs... if anyone knows, please share! Personally, I just go for well known brands.
There must be some statistic out there on failure rates by brand.
Overall, I also think ruggedness in flash drives are kind of a scam.... well, not completely, but bare with me. Tiny small drives don't have enough weight to damage themselves if they take a fall. Cris could've tossed those as high as he could and let them fall into concrete floor, I doubt it would've damaged them. Funny enough, the most likely one to be damaged would be the heaviest one.
Water ingress might be a problem, but all those solutions could be easily reproduced with a rubber case or something like one of those plastic tubes used to protect matches in camping gear. I don't think there's anything special about them internally.... perhaps some conformal coating, which doesn't cost a whole lot. Potting the circuit of a drive like that would probably cause some thermal issues, so it's a no go.
That Survivor Stealth in particular is kinda ridiculous... it's basically a pendrive inside an aluminium tube with rubber gaskets, right? I bet you could get a regular pendrive plus an aluminium tube with rubber gasket for less. :P Put some foam in there and that should be enough.
I am curious though about pendrives with internal encryption, fingerprint readers, and other security systems that also kills the drive if someone tries to tamper with it. But those are waaaay more expensive.
Perhaps I'm a bit biased... but from personal experience, I have never lost a single pen drive to damage or even corruption since the very first one I got that must've had less than 2Gb capacity. Heck, don't think I ever lost any of the SD cards or MMC cards I got that were under 1Gb too. I think I still have my first MMC/TC card (same format as SD, but older) that I got on my first MP3 player... an ancient Diammond/Rio Nike edition thing that came out way before iPods ever happened. Oh, I remember... it was a 32Mb card! xD
Well, I do take good care of them, but accidents have happened. :P
Speed is a whole other discussion though... if you want reliable speed, then you'll have to see reviews and really go into it. But personally, if it's not for mission critical usage, meaning I don't really need the pendrive or SD card to be that speedy, I just get cheaper slower ones... they are slower, but they get less hot because of that, so there are even less chances of chip failure.
But of all the problems pendrives and SD cards face today, the biggest one remains on sales of those with fake capacity and modified firmware to display a size bigger than it actually is.
I have fortunately only got one bogus microSD card so far, and Amazon refunded me. But that's only because I already knew about the problem and had the software to test it. Always test your new sd cards and pendrives people, with the h2testw software. You really don't wanna find out that your sd card is fake during a photoshoot or something...
9
-
9
-
So, having followed those cases a bit, here's some considerations on the summary.
Stormy Daniels case. As far as I understood this case, the problem isn't the fact that he paid her and the tabloid to keep quiet. I mean, it's a problem for a presidential candidate to do this, it's immoral and unethical, but this is not the main meat of the case.
I heard this hammered over and over again, not sure why you guys chose to mischaracterize it like that.
It has all to do with how the payment was made. Trump used his lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, to make those payments in his behalf concealing it as payment for his lawyer, using campaign funds. Michael Cohen went to jail for that, and later he said himself that Trump directed him to do this.
So we're not talking about a hush money case here, we're talking embezzlement and fraud with campaign money. Trump put on paper that the money he used was for his lawyer's service, but it was actually to pay hush money for Stormy Daniels and some tabloid there. And it wasn't his money, it was campaign funds. I dunno how the law works in the US, but here where I live this would be enough to put a candidate in jail and for him to have his right for candidacy suspended for a period of time, usually two terms - 8 years. I understand it's different there, because likewise a presidential candidate cannot run for presidency in jail here. A convicted criminal also can't.
The secret documents case. Quantity aside, add how Trump denied several times, then refused and then fooled agents who were there to retrieve things by moving documents around, which in my opinion should qualify for an entirely other level of crime in comparison to any other public servant who also found secret documents in their possession and returned it promptly, be it president, vice-president or whatever - and then, what about the fact that he has shown those documents after he was already not a president to journalists and that Australian Billionaire weirdo? Doesn't this make the entire case another level above in severity?
Those were US government secret documents, with afaik very sensitive and secret information.
I'm not an US citizen, but looking from outside, this sounds like straight treason to me. Aside from selling it out to countries that are direct enemies of the US, this mishandling is basically one level bellow the very worst thing that Trump could've done to them. So it's quite impressive to me that Trump wasn't taken to jail over this alone.
And then you guys forgot the case he just lost recently which adds over 300 million dollars to his penalties - the New York businesses and real estate case. You know, the one he almost lost the right to run a business in New York, but didn't.
It's like, the first time Trump got elected, you could say it was mostly voters fault that got a whole ton of people by surprise and was a real f*ck up.
This time, if he gets elected, the fault lies not only in voters, it will also lie in US justice system, in Biden's administration inability to address what happened properly, and in people who knows what Trump represents to US democracy and still failed to act. This isn't about Trump's charisma or electorate stupidity anymore, it becomes about a democratic system that has failed to defend itself.
I've been saying this for years now, on Democrat or neutral channels and whatnot, that US Democracy has been on it's death bed for a while now. If someone as transparently corrupt and unabashedly fascist as Trump can raise to power like that, whether Trump wins or loses this round, it's just a matter of time until someone like him, but perhaps not as stupid, takes over US government and turns it into a dictatorship or theocracy. Trump is almost like the worst type of character to try this, and he is right about to do it.
These constant affirmations that he won't go to jail because he is a former president is just an indication on how things are already warped in people's mind. He is a f*cking sh*tty president that attempted a coup, and is using friggin' Nazi rhetoric in his pre-campaign speeches. It's like the US is begging for democracy to end. All the while, the only other party who can elect a president is basically trying to fight in the election with a rubber stick, which is Biden, as if his politics of trying to be a middleground candidate didn't already fail.
The US is truly and really f*cked. I dunno what else to say. I don't see a path towards correction there. I only see a path towards self destruction with the options for a faster or slower route.
9
-
9
-
Technocracies and corporatocracies, this will be our undoing.
I'm obviously not in favor of a Facebook cryptocurrency... but further, I'm not at all convinced about cryptocurrencies in general. Blockchain technology has potential for lots of stuff, but I don't think societies in general are ready for descentralized payment systems.
A whole ton of crime fighting and upholding laws are centered on centralized payment systems, for the good and bad.
If we were living in societies that were more equal, had more stable grounds, in cultures that were more organized and thinking about the common good, perhaps some of these new ideas would work.
But societies these days are so out of wack, so individualistic, so self centered and egotistical that I don't think there more libertarian ideas could be implemented without extremely ill side effects that could potentially bring entire countries down with them.
But back on topic, yeah, like Facebook deserves any trust or respect these days.
They just keep talking the talk, not walking the walk. All the company has done over it's entire lifetime is promise to get better, say they recognize the problems, give vague PR sided discourses, and NOT act on anything.
Judging by what the company did instead of what they say, there hasn't been a single true development towards privacy or security in almost the entire history of the company.
It is by no coincidence that all the CEOs that had some privacy in mind regarding Facebook bought companies all went out.
I have to always remind people that both founders of WhatsApp, the ones who were really focused on privacy, left the company because of Facebook's constant threats of violating WhatsApp privacy policies. One of them left WhatsApp to start the Signal foundation, a privacy focused non-profit around the encryption algorithm that WhatsApp adopted when it was still fairly independent. This speaks volumes for me personally. People working with Facebook that had privacy in mind all jumped ship over the years.
The entire totality of tests we happen to hear about that has been running behind the scenes for Facebook new features are all extremely invasive. Ads inside messaging apps, the platform asking for e-mail and password for some new users, limp threats against 3rd parties who violated Facebook's terms... it's all a bunch of bullshit from a company that obviously don't know how to handle privacy in any way, shape or form.
The guidelines for this recent "shift" to privacy that Facebook has declared is nothing more than things that organizations for privacy have been shouting full lungs at Facebook and other companies for decades now. It's nothing new, it's vague, it's privacy 101 without any plan for real implementation. Too little, too fucking late.
We should not miss this rare oportunity to migrate to something else. And I'd like to thank all the privacy concious developers and people who are trying to come up with alternatives to the current corporations that are running on a parallel economy of mass private data collection and mass private data sales. It's an uphill battle, but one definitely worth fighting for.
9
-
9
-
9
-
8
-
8
-
8
-
8
-
8
-
Interesting subject... I kinda loved the selection of convenience stores in Japan, not only 7 Eleven mind you, but the variety of other ones we found during the trip. It is mostly 7 Eleven and Family Marts all around, but there are still some smaller names here and there, which were interesting in themselves as they seemed to be trying to differentiate themselves from the model and trying to offer something different.
At the same time though, I also kinda wondered about the domination and ubiquity of those everywhere we went as a sort of potentially harmful monopolistic or oligopolistic practice.
In my country, for whatever reasons, the convenience store model never caught up. You have some chains of what people call convenience stores here that are mostly operating inside a gas station, but it doesn't come close to offering the selection of products a Japanese convenience store does. It's often cleaner and more sanitized in comparison to mom and pop shops, but as prices are often more expensive, it's not a place people go to shop for daily necessities... it's more like stuff you pay while on trips. Some even carry imported stuff for those wanting to splurge a bit, or to buy a gift for relatives they are visiting, stuff like that.
What the US would consider bodegas, or just smaller general markets are still surviving here, but really major chains that are consolidating are the big supermarket chains... Walmart is a big one here, but each region of the country has some local brands that went big.
There is a huge mix of things that stops there major international franchises from entering the country I guess. Labyrinthic bureaucracy, high importation taxes, established local brands and names, how local commerce works, and perhaps some part of law against monopolistic practices which I'm not too aware of... don't think that's it, it's mostly the complexity of the market itself.
Oh, my country is Brazil btw. There are some notorious cases of giant international monopolies not getting a big hold down here. Amazon, quite ironically, never quite caught on down here. I shop online locally with relative frequency, and among the big brands I have to say Amazon is the one I use the least, if at all. The company came down here pretty late and only offering books (both physical and digital), it took them a while figuring out how to sell physical products which they do these days, but they still don't cover most things that the biggest online retailers in the country do.
One thing that caught on because of Amazon down here though is third party market sellers, but the local big brands launched that before Amazon basically stealing the concept, so Amazon got left behind there too.
There are a few Starbucks down here, but it seems much more like a novelty thing rather than seriously trying to attend most of the country. That has a little more reason to happen though, as Brazilian taste for coffee simply does not match what Starbucks is trying to sell.
McDonald's, Burger King and Pizza Hut came early on and they are far more widespread and integrated in our culture by now, but I think we face them differently... fast food in general isn't considered very cheap down here. Most of them are confined inside shopping malls (yes, those still exist here), which is a place middle to upper class goes to eat. They are kinda expensive in comparison to local restaurants, bars and whatnot. Pizza Hut in particular is very expensive in comparison to most other pizza places in Brazil, which we have by the truckloads... but I think it survives because it is markedly different to our style of pizza. It's almost double the price of other places I order from regularly though. Domino's is like that too.
There are lots of other big franchises that either didn't enter the country, or have a way smaller presence... another one that comes to mind is Ikea. Not sure if we have none, or if there are a few in major capitals.
Sometimes I miss those, but sometimes I also think it's kind of a blessing in disguise, because this allows for smaller local names, and even mom and pop shops to continue surviving, which not only allows for the flourishing of small businesses, but also from a consumer standpoint, allows for more diversity and options, so you are free to go for the ones that fits you best. I live in a relatively small capital city right downtown, some 4 blocks away from a couple of mid sized supermarkets, but I buy mostly of my grocery from a smaller shop one block away from me that has the best selection of produce for my tastes. Also 6 blocks away from a Japanese products shop that is half import, half local, and they also sell grains and other stuff by weight which is also great.
My mom and some relatives who went on the trip to Japan with me back in 2018 were complaining exactly about that... they liked the whole convenience market concept, we visited a bunch of them, but they missed having different options for produce, fruits, and whatnot that they are used to here in Brazil. xD I think we should've visited some open street markets and fairs... thought I'm not sure if they have many of those selling produce specifically in Japan.
8
-
He did a great job, but arguably the misinterpretation of results of his work is exactly why I don't watch TV anymore. Given that I don't live in the US, but in Brazil we have a similar system that has dominated since TV's inception.
It has pretty much guaranteed that TV content never changes, and remains pure sensationalistic garbage or empty brainless entertainment through and through. The soccer matches, the soap operas, the crap tv shows, the horrible comedy shows that have been repeating jokes for over 3 decades now, the sensationalistic news... you watch TV for a week, you've watched everything you need to watch for your entire life, and possibly for the entire history of brazilian TV.
It's not the data though, it's what tv conglomerates do with it. If all you care about is catering to high ratings, the content automatically excludes anything else worth of value for society, education and culture. It gets trapped into a routine that dares not evolve or risk anything new.
Because if people wants to watch the cultural equivalent of paint drying and a front loading washing machine, that's all that TV is gonna provide.
What you often end up with due to how mainstream works, the tyranny of the majority, is regurgitated crap for people to consume without any mastication, if you get what I mean.
Despite all it's trappings and problems, I always hold a positive outlook on the Internet. It has saved me from living a zombie life. Well, at least to a point.
8
-
8
-
8
-
Great job Bobby, and again Greg with the great editing in a more behind the curtains role! xD Really felt the style coming through.
This video made me reflect a bit on my own family, particularly grandparents.
I dunno how it is for other countries, but small family run shops nowadays, at least where I live, are kinda rare. It's either small shops entirely run by hired staff, which are often just doing a job they don't really care all that much about just trying to make a living for themselves or as a step to something they really want to do in the future, or big chains and big business that implemented all sorts of rules and whatnot so that it runs to a certain standard and never strays from it - for the good and bad.
But I remember my own grandparents because they ran a small bar/candy shop/coffee shop mix business in a tiny rural town where my mom grew up in. It's really small, always fluctuated between 2000 and 5000 inhabitants. My grandfather always prided himself about some stuff that he took great care in the shop. I got to enjoy some of it when I was a kid, along with cousins of the same age.
The business was entirely family run, and it was actually an extension of the house they lived in. My great grandparents had a small ranch relatively close to the town.
Long gone memories because everything changed.
When my grandparents died, the then already almost abandoned small ranch got sold to the usual owners of large tracts of land for big agribusiness because my uncles who still lived closeby just had no way of doing anything worth with it, my grandparents too old to do anything with it too. There was no reason to keep it, because a small ranch like that couldn't compete with anything as a business.
The town business itself also closed down, as one of the few last remaining businesses that attended that portion of town, which used to be the central part of town. But at that point, it was already mostly abandoned because of a change in demographics.
My uncle at that time was, if I'm not mistaken, working as an immigrant in Japan. He came back when his parents, my grandparents, health was worsening, and just stayed here as the conditions for immigrants working in Japan also weren't as great as when he initially went there. He spent I think almost 30 years of his life working there, mostly industrial work like making and installing shoji panels, among others - together with brothers, and at one point a few of his daughters, my cousins. Though my cousins only stayed there for a couple of years or so.
As for the change in town, the kids of families who had a business there mostly moved away to neighboring bigger cities in search for work, education, better health infrastructure or some other reason. Eventually, entire families also moved, as they aged. The core original inhabitants and families of the town just moved away or passed away over the years.
Newcomers into town were mostly poor families searching for jobs in the agricultural sector, lots of them were temporary work, or people who worked at neighboring bigger cities looking for a cheaper place to live. As they moved into the town, they mostly went to live in the opposite side of town where new neighborhoods were popping up.
This resulted in the town center shifting away, all the commerce either moved close to that side, or just closed off and newer shops opened up there instead. Small city like that only needs a few markets, drugstores, and whatnot. When older commerce started either moving or shutting down, the entire city center went with it.
The bar portion of my family's house converted into a garage. Old furniture and general furnishings of the bar either got back into the house or were sold, gifted to family members, or just trashed. I think one of my cousins still has an old wind up all wooden clock like the one Ohkuma-san has in his Cafe.
Then after several years, my uncle passed working in a painter job. Too much heat, he had a stroke, it was very sudden. His wife still lived for more years in that house, along with a couple of my cousins until they married and also moved away. Then, because of ailing health issues my aunt also ended up moving with one of my cousins to a neighboring bigger city just a couple of years before she also passed.
And their old home, a multi story ancient house that my uncle had built portions of it by himself, is now there, left as inheritance to my cousins.
It's too old, a lot of it was poorly built, it has foundation problems, and it's in a part of the town that is largely abandoned nowadays.
There is a huge part of the extended family that loves that house because it was the place everyone gathered in end years festivities since the family is all spread around the country, so there are lots of memories there. In my childhood, we made visits bi-annually, and then later at least once a year - we live quite far off. It's the home, town and environment my mom grew in.
But the reality of it is that other than sentimental value, the house isn't really worth anything. Hard to rent, hard to sell. Probably the reality of several of the inaka houses in Japan. It's too big, it's setup in a multi story fashion, and no one wants to make a family business like that nowadays, particularly in that side of town.
So it's been abandoned for several years now. Along with many things that used to be from the time it was a bar/coffee shop/candy shop. It'd likely already been sold if it wasn't for the fact that no one wants it. I think it briefly got rented for a while, but the tenants were criminals doing some bad stuff there, which happens a lot in these types of situations. Cousins were worried about people invading and occupying the space, which also often happens in these cases in my country, but thing is that the town is so small, and the house in such an abandoned part of it, that it never happened so far. There is also a dispute between cousins wanting to sell it and not wanting to sell it because of financial reasons... it's all complicated, as you'd expect.
And I think the story of my family reflects a bit the changes in society. It might reflect the story of some family owned businesses in Japan too, and some situations with inaka homes.
o/
8
-
8
-
Nice, stroll through memory lane, back at the time I used to build PCs myself... xD
Nowadays, even with the ressurgence of PC builders, I just buy them ready to use.
Here in Brazil there was a quirk back in the 90s and early 2000s for anyone who lived close to the Paraguayan border - it was waaaay cheaper to buy parts and build your own PC.
That plus me being a tinkerer who broke lots of electronics as a teen and early adult, I'm familiar with a whole ton of stuff Cris is talking about.
I started opening up desktop cases to see what's inside back at PC-XT times... but my first builds were probably back at 386 DXII desktops. I think that went on up 'till Pentium III, which I had a Slot 1 cartridge for. Perhaps a bit longer than that.
From that time on things started getting super complicated on the ram memory side.
There was a transitioning period that had lots of motherboards that were only compatible with certain RAM memory brands and speeds, things got a heck lot more confusing, and worst of all - poorly documented.
So what you effectively had to do (which I did) was talk a lot with people working on stores to know what combination worked and what didn't. As they assembled multiple desktops a day, they knew what worked better and what didn't. They had lots of headaches with assembled desktops coming back from costumers because they weren't working properly.
You gave a base configuration of what you wanted and they took care of matching brands and whatnot so that the build would work.
Things I don't forget from that time... the moment RAM memory prices crashed down, which was almost unbelievable at the time, and the moment RAM memory speeds became a thing, which was the point assembling your own desktop became too complicated - like I said on previous paragraph.
From that point on I never went back to building my own desktops. It doesn't make economical sense anymore these days here in Brazil... difference in price isn't that big anymore, parts are harder to find, and warranty plus paying in installments just makes buying a pre-assembled branded desktop the better choices nowadays.
But the benefits lives on. My current desktop is over 5 yrs old now. I got a Dell. But I put an SSD in it right after buying it, most people didn't even know what it was. And I'll probably replace the aging graphics card and push it for some more years before retiring...
8
-
8
-
8
-
8
-
It's amazing how politicians, not only from the US mind you, seemingly forgot why, and what it means for a state to be secular. There are all these signs flying everywhere of the bases of democracies crumbling down with people thinking it's just another day in politics.
But we keep steadily marching down this route that completely ignores the history, the sacrifices and the foundantions that made some democracies what they are.
We have all these amazing tools for communication and information these days that were hijacked by people to misinform, to radicalize, tribalize and give power to groups that not only don't understand how we got to the point we did, they also use taxpayer money to try to destroy every little accomplishment societies had over the years to become closer to real democracies.
We're condemned to being the generation that not only chose to look away from the real major problems the world is having right now because it was too complicated to understand and care about, but also the generation that is destroying key important legislations, ideas and standards to crawl back to eras when a single church controlled the state, having all the power, all the evil, and all the corruption imaginable under the cross.
8
-
8
-
1. It's a trade war. After years of accusing Huawei of using telecom equipment to spy on foreign countries, not a single proof was presented so far, zilch, nada. Nowadays it is trivial for any of the hundreds of security research groups to monitor and verify if there is substance to these allegations, and yet we've seen none of it.
2. If the worry is about equipment made by chinese companies that have some relationship to the chinese government, then developed countries can start packing their shit to move back to the past century or so because all, without exception, major american and european tech brands have stuff made in chinese factories that all do have some level relationship with chinese government. It's as simple as that. If China wants to leverage private companies to spy on foreign countries, there is no escape. They can attack at all levels, from consumer side devices, all the way to enterprise level servers and Internef backbone.
3. 5G will never be much more than a complement to 4G, for a good decade or more, so this is really much ado about nothing. It wasn't designed to replace 4G, it has huge reach and penetration problems, it was over advertised to hell and back, but for several years the only people that will benefit from it are people in big urban centers at close proximity to antennas. The real problems people have with celular internet connectivity is not related to technology, but rather to anti consumer practices by telecom practical monopolies (be it actual monopoly, oligopoly, mob rule/collusion practices or whatever). The absolute vast majority of people would do fine with good 4G signal without datacaps and traffic shapping practices, and those two are not going away with 5G because it's not a technical limitation: it's a policy enforced one.
So yeah, both the US and UK governmeng can keep going with their smoke and mirrors to keep fooling ignorant people. If you don't want to be spied, you will use the necessary software and encryption steps regardless of equipment branding anyways. And quite frankly, it's much more likely that the US government will be spying on you rather than China. For China it's speculation and accusations with nothing to prove. For the US it's real, proven and flagrant how much US politicians and national security forces wants to spy on everyone even going to the point of enacting laws that wants to fundamentally break encryption and give a backdoor on everything for them to use willy nilly.
8
-
8
-
I still fail to understand the point... it'd be far more understandable if we had this incredibly unbalanced scenario where rain was happening only on top of oceans, like we had tons of cloud running over land that always ended up only raining when it reached the oceans, and we had to find ways of forcing it to happen on land instead. This sort of scenario would make more sense to go after this tech and spend a lot on it.
But that's not exactly what happens, right?
Places suffering from a lack of rain also suffer from lack of clouds and general humidity, we don't have an unequal distribution problem - Climate Change is rather "powering up" focused events instead - more isolated heavy rains, interspersed with period of hard droughts. I don't hear much about places that have drought problems being always covered by non-raining clouds...
If it was a very pinpoint, accurate, surefire strategy... I guess sure, it could help, even with potential for contaminating water and whatnot - which we already do anyways.
But with this much uncertainty and being reliant on a number of other very specific conditions to be in place so that you just perhaps give a little helping hand for a little bit of rain to happen?
Like, you spend millions to seed clouds so it showers a bit in this place, but chances are it was gonna rain anyways just a bit further away, in places where it's still needed, because it's not only about water falling down, but going into water reserves, groundwater tables and whatnot.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's bad as a subject of research. Trying to imagine positive results... well, we already cover a whole ton of air space with planes, so perhaps a global strategy for seeding clouds in a semi-autonomous manner in the future could help alleviate drought problems related to our miserable Climate Change future. So it's important that we check if the idea of cloud seeding is worth developing and going further into. We don't really know how bad things will get and what sorts of emergency measures will need to be taken to preserve ourselves decades from now.
Then again, this is where the problem lies. Imagining it'll stop in only positive result of localized rain is the exact sort of idealistic, utopic, shortsighted way of seeing the subject, that led us to the current problem we're facing.
You don't just mess up with million years old natural systems developed mostly during a time we weren't even here, that we understand very little of and cannot predict long time consequences, expecting to only have short term good results from it.
The natural rain cycle might be kind of a random thing, but it probably works and happens this way for several reasons we still might not yet understand fully. And since cloud seeding is expected to do very little, we'd need to practice it in a global scale for it to really have supposed positive effects... only with global scale application a whole ton of global scale unforeseen consequences might also be coming down the line.
This is in general why I don't like anything close to geoengineering. It's the combination of our ignorance when it comes to extremely complex natural systems, and the huge potential for unforeseen consequences and side effects that might only accelerate us further towards extinction.
8
-
Answers for people asking.
Afaik, no, it's impossible for regular pagers to explode like that. It's also impossible for regular lithium polymer batteries, which most smartphones have these days, to go off like that.
The most you can do with regular lithium polymer batteries is perforate them with a conductive metal object, that will make them puff and potentially catch fire... the fire will be extremely hot and hard to extinguish, but it'll also not last for too long.
Nothing like what was shown in the video though - for that you need an explosive charge to be implanted inside the device. You cannot make any regular electronics to explode in that way, doesn't matter if devices were hacked or not. The pagers got modified to basically become remote controlled bombs.
For something as small as a pager to pack that much punch, seriously injuring and killing people, this is most likely a coordinated state action, as it's not that easy to put your hands on advanced explosives like that, nor coordinate such an attack.
Meaning that yes, this was likely Israel. A genocidal nation that is already using the dirtiest tactics in the books to go after it's enemies, doesn't matter if civilians gets in the crossfire.
Not a surprise for a government that is already killing tens of thousands of civilians on it's quest to eliminate Hamas. The question is how long are people going to justify such actions in the name of "protecting" Israel and other excuses like those. What amount of innocent people losing their lives, their families and their way of life is enough for people to understand these actions are criminal. And how many centuries more of sectarian violence Israel's current actions will bring forth against it's population by trying to erase Palestinians from existence.
8
-
The more I learn about Tokyo, the more I understood rent there isn't very expensive at all... xD
I mean, sure, if you have very specific demands, you could be looking at ridiculous prices... like those apartments Sharla and Chris visited.
But on average, rent prices in Tokyo don't seen to come even close to the ridiculously inflated prices of some medium to large cities all around the world.
Heck, I've seen prices that were cheaper than comparable places in large cities in developing nations, such as here in Brazil... well, back when the currency exchange wasn't as bad as it currently is. But leveling it out with cost of living and minimum wage, it just sounds several times more doable for an average worker to live in Tokyo metropolitan area in comparison to an average worker managing to live in, for instance, Sao Paulo metropolitan area (outside a slum, that is).
From what I understand, this is due to some quirks and specifics on how real estate works in Japan... but I dunno a whole ton about it.
8
-
I'm absolutely not an expert... or even an intermediate in any of these areas, but from whatever little I know about computer vision vs lidar, from start I always found puzzling Tesla's decision to go with the former.... or rather, abandoning one in favor of the other "just because".
Also the reason why I just can't believe FSD is coming anytime soon unless really major changes happen in the field that would likely require Tesla, Google and others NOT being at the helm of it because their philosophies on the matter don't fit what is required for it to really happen.
Let me elaborate a bit. It seems to me, from the time I was experimenting with AR markers back almost 20 years ago during my CompSci course up to today, that there is an almost impossible problem to solve with computer vision, which is 100% accurate object identification. This is what leads to false positives which leads to phantom breaking.
The tech evolved a very long way from back then, but from stuff I've seen and read on current tech, at least the ones that are open for public like the nVidia Jetson nano devboard stuff, you can have a high accuracy for identifying things, but it's still nowhere near perfect. And it'll likely never be by itself.
Which sure, human drivers also won't be... but an autonomous driving system and a driver will always be attacking the problem at different angles, and so it becomes a problem.
Lidar, though far from perfect and having it's own set of issues, eliminates some of the misidentification problems by basically seeing everything as volumetric shapes.
But this ends up being also a source of problem... Lidar is able to see in 3D, but it has problems telling what things are and setting the boundaries exactly since it's basically sonar with light, so it might mistake, for instance, a flurry of snowflakes or a bunch of insects flying close together to a person or a solid object.
This is kinda why the mix of both was needed, but also the reason why combining both ends up accentuating false positives of both. Say Lidar identifies something in front of the car, but computer vision tells you it's just a bunch of dust, so it should keep going without hitting the breaks... but for both to work in combination like that they'd need to individually work almost perfectly. If they can't, they'll always go on the safe side and break whenever one or the other detects a problem.
The situation you get at is not as bad as it may sound, but it'll always look pretty bad for us. Why? It's a bit like AI - autonomous cars will be far better than us at some things, but also completely incompetent in comparison to us at others. Because it looks at the problem of driving in a different way, and it has different strengths and weaknesses in comparison to a human driver.
Now, I was saying I could see FSD happening without Tesla, Google and whatnot, right? It's a moonshot and even harsher attack at the problem by looking at it in a different way, far more costly and drastic, but because of the tech involved, I currently see it as more feasible.
What we'd need is something closer to what you may have seen in Minority Report ages ago... 20 years ago if it's the Tom Cruise movie (yeah, it's that old already xD ).
By which I mean, dedicated car-only lanes, with a perfect communication system that is both isolated and secure, in which individual cars can see each other in a digital map.
Now, of course, this poses all sorts of side questions and different problems in itself. For instance, if we're going to go that far, it just makes far more sense to perfect public transportation instead, not end consumer cars. Making roads and lanes dedicated to only cars where you can't have pedestrians crossing and stuff like that is close to impossible... we'd have to rethink everything related to transportation and urban planning.
Then comes the matter of a means of communication that is both all encompassing but also secure, which we are basically walking further and further away from as time passes.
The more likely scenario is that we'll continue going the way FSD is already going, people will end up conforming to what it is, and we'll make the tradeoffs along the way.
Just because even if accidents will happen which we will have to pose the question whether it'd still happen if a human driver was behind the wheel at the time, on the collective autonomous cars will still cause less accidents. I dunno how the matter of responsibility will be solved, but it's already being dealt with as we speak. Values will change overtime.
For instance, this ghost breaking case. Say all cars there were driving autonomously. If one of the cars breaks all of a sudden, shouldn't all other cars break too - if they were all autonomous? Or perhaps not even be driving too fast due to conditions. Autonomous cars will continue being a cause of headaches and issues while you have the mix of human drivers and autonomous cars on the roads, because the way we drive is always fundamentally different to, and often in conflict with the way autonomous cars drive... but if you only have autonomous cars on the roads, things become a bit more predictable.
So we're back at dedicating lanes or roads only for one type of driving versus the other, which is pretty harsh. But this is basically the only way I can see problems like these solved... until then, we'll have to deal with accidents like this one, if people continue accepting this path towards autonomous driving that is. There are big chances that not long into the future we'll have an autonomous car crash or a series of them so notorious and so bad in the public eye that everything will get scratched. This has always been the biggest danger for the tech in general, and haphazard treatment of it like Uber did and Tesla does by overpromising, using misleading names, and sometimes trying to hide facts from public view only increases the chances of that happening.
8
-
@bushy9780 I kinda thought about the 50/50 split not on countries, but more along the lines of population... and that's mostly because China already has close to a fifth of the global population already... so if you count in Russia, North Korea, a few other Asian nations plus some middle eastern, and lots of countries in the African continent... well, there you have it. I dunno where India would fall in that equation... neutral perhaps, but that's another huge portion of the world population right there.
In number of allied nations US and EU still have it, and they'd stick together. But in absolute population numbers, I think the split is closer to 50/50, though I'm not sure of implications. Guess I only thought about it that way because I also think a total trade breakdown like that would pretty much redefine lots of lines on the map... the level of destruction and rebuilding would likely unite several nations and also create stronger divisions along continental lines.
Long term, I agree somewhat. Devastation first, survival later. US would localize production and readapt, as would most countries I guess. Well, those that survive.
But on immediate terms, it seems to me China has the upper hand.
See, I think it's too much of an oversimplification to look at Chinese imports as outsourcing for cheap labor and mass manufacturing these days... this used to be true some 3 to 4 decades ago, but these days things are way more complex than that.
Like, the time when it was feasible to bring the jobs back per se, bring back industries, bring back production... that time has passed long ago. Now it'd be more like starting from scratch all over again. At least that's my personal theory and perception...
The way production, industrial processes, commodities extraction, logistics, plus a bunch of other things went over there for several decades now means that those not only stopped happening in the US and other nations, they also stopped being developed as processes themselves. So, it'd take time to get to the point China is today, not only on creating the entire infrastructure and logistics needed to fill the void, but there is also a huge technological gap that most people don't consider.
I read an article sometime ago on... I think it was lithium or some other material mining or extraction was closing doors soon in the US because it cannot compete with the tech of production developed in China. Or it was something about trying to re-open mines that are still useful, but they couldn't because they cannot compete with China. It wasn't only about labor costs and stuff like environmental regulations... it was about the technology and machinery China developed that wasn't available for those mines in the US. Something like that, sorry, couldn't find it.
Mass manufacturing is only a part of that technological gap, though it's the one mentioned most frequently. For basic operations like commodities extraction and automation, China has tech developed for purpose on site that most other countries don't have - because they don't need to produce in volumes and a rhythm that China does. Decades of the crazy rhythm China has on mass production allowed or forced them to adapt and create at unprecedented levels... that will be extremely hard to reproduce anywhere else in the world. Stuff like how Shenzhen (and several other Chinese cities) was built around optimization of industrial processes and logistics.
And then, as China both used extreme protectionist measures to stop foreign countries cultures from entering, created it's own internal systems for several different things, often "stole" western companies technologies to produce their own, and control large portions of industrial productions plus logistics in the entire world... they are just in a better position to cut ties and function independently.
Of course, their own problem would still be huge... because basically, it's a country that grew up as fast as it did and maintains large portions of it's entire economy because of production made for export to US and allied nations, so much so that if it loses it's main clients they just stop having the means to support these large scale infrastructures. Like, what is the use of being the industry of the world if the world is not buying from you anymore? There would be both major scale downs and collapses... just the fact that they already have infrastructure, logistics and production of most of it gives them a leg up.
Super oversimplification of things because these webs of trade are impossible to unravel fully, but China's side would mostly lose demand, while the US side would lose supply, with a whole ton of breakdowns on things that depended on trade between both to function.
But in general, I think there is a large lack of awareness on how influential this mutual trade really is. People tend to only think about immediate products and services available to themselves, not considering all the dependencies that are usually hidden behind.
Getting down to basics alone, we tend to think about the core necessities which we usually can localize - food, energy, raw materials for infrastructure building, transportation, etc. And those are mostly localizable with replacements needed to fill in gaps of commodities that are only available on the other side. It can be done, but you know, devastating effects.
When it starts going just a bit over that though, I think there's a whole lot of things that depends on Chinese imports that people don't realize. Even on basic level it interferes at some level. It's all the components that goes into vehicle production, it's the machinery that is used to build stuff, it's computers and electronics that all of those chains of production rely on everyday, it's component materials and tools mass produced in China that are needed to provide services and do small scale manufacturing... some of it is available locally, or has a history to recover, but cost of production and it not being originally a mass industry means we're basically an order of magnitude behind the curve.
Sorry for long response, I do this because I'm also munching and looking into the topic myself... so I tend to write both as comment and just for myself. xD
8
-
7
-
7
-
Great piece!
The way societies and politics are set now, it's pretty predictable what will happen to this site, and several others spread around the world in many nations that face similar or even worse situations.
It'll stay there until it starts leaking, at which point people will be evacuated and left without their homes, they family history, their places of origin.
And it'll happen this way because of what this piece has shown - even in modern affluent developed nations, the problem is that you get a string of politicians promising to take care of the problem, but never delivering it because it's too costly, and too controversial to touch once they are in power. It's a system set for failure, as is many other large scale costly problems that several nations face.
So you can only let things get to a point when the problem becomes impossible to ignore. And then it's reaction and remediation, rather than prevention.
You can find many parallels to this - including the one thing that might exacerbate this very issue - Climate Change.
The way out systems of governance, justice, politics and whatnot works right now, in several modern democratic nations, points out clearly to the inevitability of letting things escalate to ultimate consequences so immediate measures are needed.
This is particularly true for public infrastructure failure.
So, and I'm very sorry to say this for the poor people who will be directly affected by this, the most likely scenario for places like that in most nations, is that they mostly depend on luck for living in those neighborhoods, and even entire cities.
At some point in the future, the inevitable will happen - radioactive material will leak on water table and contaminate the environment, a large area around it will be deemed unlivable, and then people will be left to scramble to save themselves. That's if the country is in good government hands, depending on who is elected people might not even get any warnings and just find out what happened when it's already too late.
And then this zone could be chosen as a dump site, if well contained, because what else could you do there?
This is the whole story of places where radioactive waste, toxic trash, and dangerous stuff ends up in.
People encroach on it because they don't know, or because they ignored the warnings, and then generations later others will be paying for it.
Problem here is that governments, even when they are competent enough to understand the size of the problem, won't touch the thing with a 10 foot pole because it is bound to make them unpopular one way or another. If they spend the money to do it, this will have an economic impact to the nation as a whole, and people unsympathetic to the problem will complain. If they say they won't do anything, then it's the electorate worried with the problem that will attack them. It's a loss no matter how you see it. So they will knowingly or not, try to ignore it as much as possible.
And unfortunately, for all the good that the principle of alternance in power can have in funcional democracies, one of inevitable consequences is exactly the type of short term thinking that stops politicians from looking at problems for the long term.
Even if we pick Germany itself, there is a contradictory move right there that shows this. And it is directly related to the topic of this very video. You see, despite this very case serving as food for anti-nuclear power types to say that we cannot safely use nuclear power for energy production, the anti-nuclear movement and how it convinced Germany's government to shut down nuclear power plants operations, turning to Russia gas production instead, is partially behind the whole crisis that the country is facing now. So, premeditated reaction based policies that are fueled by FUD will often end in a worsening situation. Which in turn gives and excuse for government to be slow to take action. Which also only worsens the situation.
This whole system is why I'm making the prediction that I did. It can sound a bit alarmist and radical, but there are reasons why I think it's gonna go that way.
What the people in that town, the site itself, or people vouching for a rational solution need is kind of a kamikaze politician committed to solving the problem no matter what even if it costs him his career, his life and everything else. In other words - a radical. That is very much unlikely to ever be elected. Because this is a problem that the majority of people in the country can continue living their lives ignoring, turning their backs to, and living their everyday lives not really worried about it - until the worse happens. Just like Climate Change.
7
-
Man, I'd still rather have the Chinese model for infrastructure rather than our crappy fail model.
China - Build fast, have corruption problems, no forwards thinking, end up with an unsustainable model. That's bad for sure. But also, become news all around the world, an infrastructure national symbol, enough jobs to go through a global economic crisis unscathed, plus a whole ton of good, albeit short lived, positive results. Might be bad in the long run, but it had positive results at least for a while.
But try build as slow as possible, spend as much time in planning stage as you can, have corruption projected in from start to finish with added ones in every opportunity and no one getting punished for it even if they get caught, no forwards or actual thinking, total mismanagement from start, multiple changes ending in increasing amounts of corruption at every step and every time a change happens it lowers the functionality and usability of the project, end up with an entirely useless boondoggle that serves no purpose because it has always been a poor idea from start. That's Brazil's model for you. xD
Just look a bit into the biggest Brazil city (Sao Paulo) and it's BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) infrastructure projects. You'll be hard pressed to find a government led infrastructure project that has so many corruption and mismanagement issues that has run as long, and resulted in something people absolutely hate in the end.
It's decades and decades of corruption, misnamagement, bad ideas, constant changes, accidents, billions spent on a project that was downgraded and downgraded multiple times in every step, resulting in an outdated and partially broken lesser alternative for a transportation problem that wasn't there in the first place because the project starts and ends in places that didn't need it.
It's almost like the entire deal happened mostly because the government was trying to find creative ways of stealing public money, which is probably what it really was. In a city that has actual hundreds of thousands of infrastructure problems to solve.
Brazil is filled to the brim with moronic projects like these that anyone with half a brain would identify as being incredibly stupid from start, but it's because it's always about corruption and short sightedness rather than an actual project to benefit the public in the first place.
Take the city I'm currently living in. Some 5 years ago a scandal went viral because someone in current mayoral administration decided it was a good idea to pave the sidewalks of the richest neighborhood in the city (which he obviously lived in) with marble slates. That all in a city that has attrocious sidewalks in the entire city because it's trying to "preserve it's history"... sidewalks in the entire city are made of irregularly cut stone that turns into slick soap like surfaces everytime it rains, which it does all the time the city being famous for it's year round downpours. The cost of the project was astronomical, and people only got to know it was happening when construction was already starting... so as soon as the thing went viral, it got entirely cancelled, but not before most of the money for the project was already gone.
Very same city has had a project for urban train and metro public transportation system for almost 40 years now, "innaugurated" by some 4 or 5 different presidents, promised in time for the World Cup, for the Olympics, and several other events... this one that would really benefit the population only resurfaces every now and them to get more money from public coffers and end in nothing useful because it'll be entirely discarded to start over again in some future administration, likely with some family member connection to the companies doing those projects in the first place.
Oh well... banana republic gonna banana republic.
7
-
7
-
7
-
I'm glad the Israeli population is not being fooled by political maneuvering, be strong and fight for your democracy.
It's just an unfortunate fact that Netanyahu was re-elected, but for anyone that is still wondering - the only thing that stops far-right movements from taking power is force. Better if it happens in numbers and overwhelms them, worse if violence is necessary to overcome numbers, but they leave no other options.
I really wish there were better ways to handle these people, who are essentially radicals, but time and time again they prove that there is not. Left to their own devices, they'll overturn every aspect of democracy to take power, and unfortunately it seems most modern democracies failed to build themselves proper defenses and proper effective laws and institutions to deal with anti-democratic action fast and in strong enough terms to stop proposals like these from surfacing.
If the people want to stop far-right figures from using all their weight in politics to turn it into an authoritarian dictatorship, trampling over any democratic structure, institutions, laws, rules and whatnot, it will have to be by force, because they are also willing to use force, power, money, violence and hatred for their purposes.
There is an ongoing weaponization of politics, of misinformation, of FUD and hate speech, conspiracy theories, along with racism, prejudice, sexism, puritanism, religious zealotry and other factors to take power going on the far right, and they have been gaining territory with it.
If people don't fight against it now, they will take over and dictate the future, which is a quick path for extinction.
7
-
Great intro... this is something I always try to explain to people who keeps using racism, jingoism and general ignorance when they talk about "the jerbs they stolen" and whatnot whenever people start talking about industrial complexes operating in countries like China, India and other Asian nations. Plus when it comes about defining the industrial revolution era.
The ugly truth about globalization and "modern" times is just what John talked about in the intro - the horrible work conditions in factory floors of the industrial revolution era never truly ended - it just got offshored, so that consumers get to enjoy a degree of separation from it. Plus cheap labor and zero regulations of course.
It all got neatly packaged and sent to countries like China and India, and now that China is becoming a modern nation, it's being further offshored to countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, perhaps some African nations, a lot is going to Mexico, Brazil, and so on.
So the reality is that whilst the industrial revolution era and it's complete lack of worker rights, child and slave labor, horribly dangerous factory conditions, industrial toxic pollution, and all sorts of bad things are rare in developed nations these days, it never truly ended, because it only got offshored to poorer nations. People should try keeping this in mind when they complain about product quality coming from these nations. Or when people complain about these countries "stealing tech" from the big brands who treated workers like cheap industrial revolution era labor.
I often hear the response that, well, at least they have work, yadda yadda. I'll tell you - that's the exact type of mentality that justifies abuse in every level. I bring food to the table, so I can beat my wife all I want, because without me she would be miserable. I can give whatever education I want to my kids, including no education at all. If it wasn't for me opening a factory in this poor nation, they'd be all working in the fields and going hungry.
Understand the problem with those? Privileged people don't get to set the rules and standards, that's what human rights are for. People don't need you throwing poisoned food on the table just because you are in the status quo, just because of your goddamned money or privilege - people need basic human rights and dignity. You don't get to play the white knight while trying to profit from human misery.
7
-
7
-
Awesome series... always wanted to see a bit more on the real cold part of Japan in everyday life instead of only snow festivals and attractions.
Being from a tropical country, the whole thing is totally alien to my own personal experience... been only a few times in places that snowed and for a short period, so living with it is a very foreign concept to me. xD
We almost went up to Hokkaido on our last trip back in 2018... ended up with not enough time to go though, and I'm not sure if all the extra expenses on clothing and whatnot would justify spending just a couple of days or so there.
We think it's just like hop in the train and go there, but depending on climate it seems there needs to be a bit more preparation.
For us, even for the not too cold days before hanami in Tokyo, we end up having to buy clothes and whatnot there because we simply don't have the types of clothes needed. Tropical country where it never gets bellow zero, even the winter clothing we have and take is inadequate... I only started realizing the importance of different types of layering to block wind, rain, while also being breathable, absorbing some moisture and all this stuff when we went to places that got really cold.
But perhaps the next trip with more time to spend... hopefully, my gang will be healthy enough for the next one. xD I joke because both trips I made to Japan is with a group of relatives that are almost all at retirement age.
7
-
7
-
Happens all over the world, it's a failure of government and state to put priorities of the people over priorities of billionaire individuals and corporations. Regulations to keep gentrification at bay and stopping rich people and corporations from using real estate for speculative market is just not there, and not likely to ever be implemented because these people also control politics.
In the case of my city, mega churches are the ones taking over. You have mega temples and tons of empty real state all over downtown. Because churches don't have to pay taxes and are allowed a wide breadth of licenses in name of faith and religion, they are hugely responsible for the real estate hyper inflation and for purchasing and owning a whole ton of real estate inside the city that is mostly empty or occupied by key people inside the church.
I don't even like thinking about it much. Every Sunday caravans with dozens of buses carrying poor people from all over the state take over blocks surrounding these mega churches and unload all these people that will give a big part of the hard earned money they got, for a promisse of getting richer, some form of justice, cure for something or a place in heaven. That money gets all funneled for the riches of the church. Real state isn't even the beginning. Imported cars, yatches, private jets, helicopters, mansions and a life of luxury is what most of these church leaders get. Megachurches also control over half the public TV stations nowadays. Those that are not controlled by it never go against them out of fear of also being bought over and converted.
The followers not only don't see that as a problem, they actually support it. Faith and belief are powerful tools, and they can be terrible when applied for evil gains.
People have been claiming for decades that the government should impose taxes and be more strict about church enrichment schemes, to no avail. And now, it's basically too late. There are tons and tons of politicians that were elected by followers, and comes directly from those churches. They will never let regulations and law pass that would endanger the enrichment schemes of churches. And they are smart enough not to violate too much on secular state rules so that they can keep getting richer but not risk a revolution against them.
This is the entire problem with czars, churches, and the elite class nowadays. They are still in power, but they learned to moderate it to a point that there will be no revolt against them. They hide, give away some, go to extremes of being discrete, opaque, make the statistics and economy as confusing as possible, and just win by playing the long game.
What we see in pieces like this one are just the failures. If the guy was better prepared to handle the situation, it would not have escalated. Keep renting the place for the punk bar owner, keep the price as it was, maybe it would be a minor loss, but it would've avoided the protests.
But even with the protest, there's really nothing concrete there signaling change. I doubt a referendum would really provoke all that change people are talking about. It's gonna be stoped at it's tracks at some point. And if it doesn't, the billionaire will just find another place willing to take his money. That investment family/group could also just spread purchases all over the world without any place for attention to be focused at. Like I said, play the long game.
7
-
I've been watching a bunch of documentaries about Japan recently, I have to talk about something pretty uncomfortable here because I think it's important to put things in perspective, so here we go.
Karoshi, or Karojisatsu, are pretty well known japanese terms both culturally and from a foreign outlook, and it's covered A LOT in documentaries covering Japan from international media, particularly on western countries. It's almost a default topic when you wanna cover japanese culture from a foreign perspective, like a token issue or a trope, like weird fetishes, cleanliness, yakuza, samurai, pornographic comics, big letter technology, decline and aging of the population and others.
Death from overwork and work related suicide are horrible phenomenas, no doubt about it, but what perhaps lots of people don't realize and most documentaries also don't show, is that it's really a mix of a few things, not only something that is happening, that is new, or uniquely japanese.
There is definitely a distorted sense of pride coming from Bushido philosophy there. Loyalty, humbleness and seeing work as an integral part of life is definitely a japanese thing. It's not uniquely japanese, but it's a prevalent cultural way of thinking there, perhaps.
So there is this weird relationship of knowing it's a problem, but also holding it up as a badge of honor of sorts.
But, and this is something everyone watching this doc should know, it is also a bit disingenuous or even malicious from the part of international coverage to stamp this as something that happens only in Japan, that it's uniquely japanese, or that it's this huge problem Japan only needs to pay attention to.
It ends up feeling like a half critical half admiration outlook on the "weird" Japan, the other country, the fable, the myth. Which lots of international coverage position Japan as, be it because it's the norm, be it because they don't really understand the country as much as they think they do, be it because they are always trying to use this angle that Japan is not like any other country. A superficial understanding with tokenism embedded to it.
It's a token subject to show this weird and fantastic country that is so different than ours, that has all these foreign concepts and magical different ideals and culture that are completely different than our own.
The truth people should know, that I have been spreading around these docs, is the multiple other sides of this that it's not often talked about.
First, suicide as a whole and suicide from overwork as well as death from overwork really is a problem in Japan. But a problem that is being solved, and a problem that is way older than some documentaries may imply.
Japan's government enacted several laws, regulations and measures to first, look into what is happening, diminish cases, and work on the issue.
Overall suicide rates in Japan have been dropping since it's peak, which was in the early 2000s. Death from overwork particularly is a newer topic, and it's also been going down. Businesses have been changing and modernizing. It's a slow pace change, but it's happening. Not that you won't be able to find workers and people who have gone or are going through the worst there, but in statistical data and general population numbers I mean.
Second, for people who thinks this is a foreign concept, think again. Documentaries often try to reinforce this by saying there are specific words in the language to address the phenomena, wrongly saying that this is a "new worrying trend", or using other superlatives to sensationalize the topic, but this ends up being a disservice for the subject at hand.
You should know that suicides have been growing fast and hard for most western countries, particularly United States. You should also know that it's also worrying the trend of work related suicide or overwork in most modern societies, not only Japan. You should know that aging population is a problem in most developed countries. You should know that most countries have groups with weird fetishes, produces pornographic comics, or have in some level all these characteristics that are often talked as uniquely japanese. You should know that black companies, bad bosses, boss-employee relationships that sounds like abusive partners relationships is likely a very big problem in your own country too.
As for death from overwork or work suicide, here's the thing - it's also a western phenomena, but we're not even at the quantification stage yet.
It's just too weird and too anachronistic to consider it as a separate topic to the point of not making the actual cultural translations.
Depression, long work hours, poor health and constant high stress, leading to death from overwork or suicide at work... those are not foreign concepts at all. What do you think a workaholic is? Have you never heard of harrowing stories in your own country about people having to almost live at work 24/7, specially in low paying jobs?
It happens more than you think in your own country, but the country hasn't yet decided to quantify it as well as Japan does, so we are still one step behind taking concrete measures.
While I like the doc and like the way it's talking about japanese issues, after watching one too many of them, I can't avoid noticing it ends up falling in similar traps of so many others. We need more balanced coverages that talks about these issues, but bring them to a bigger, more diverse context instead of fetishizing it as an uniquely japanese phenomena.
It's not that the problem isn't there, or that the problem isn't important, but by not drawing the parallels to our own cultures it ends up being a disservice to it, and it draws an exaggerated/sensationalized, otherness, alienizing image that neither Japan, nor your own country deserves.
7
-
I think that experimenting with UBI isn't bad per se, but the discussion around it is in a pretty bad shape.
Both sides praising and criticising the idea of UBI are coming up with:
1. extremely grandiose (or apocalyptic) and stretched assumptions;
2. very broad generalizations;
3. parallels and comparisons to other countries, specific regions, cases and cultures that are completely different from US in general;
4. predictions that would put even the most confident (and majorly wrong) futurists to shame;
5. extreme oversimplifications, reductio ad absurdum, ignoring a whole ton of factors as well as overestimations and just these surreal conclusions taken out from... either lack of understanding, or just I dunno where.
It's just too much to address, but I'll just put out some stuff that appeared on the video to follow up and give something for ColdFusion and people to further think about.
- the idea that hundreds of thousands of jobs will disappear overnight. No matter how magical and incredible people might think AI, robots and automation is, this is not what actually happens in real life. Not only all that stuff has to be developed, built, tested and adopted, as with any major technological shift societies went through, there are limits in scale and adoption that will always be there. We have individuals, societies, countries and further that are still living in pre-industrial conditions to this day. All this incredible robotic automation has to paid for somehow, and businesses have to get that money from somewhere, so if it was even possible for such a quick overnight shift to happen, the most likely scenario is that a whole ton of companies would go broke because no one has money to pay for their products anymore;
- a robot tax is not all that much different to a big business tax, or a cut in tax incentives for the rich, or other ideas around taking more money from the rich, and alleviating tax burden for the poor and working class. The government has majorly failed so far to balance this equation, and the vague threat of future robot automation sounds like a weak argument to pass through all the political levels needed. I don't wanna be too negative on this, but easier ideas to eliminate the wage gap were proposed in the past and it just didn't pass. And ultimately, if you analyze this entire discussion with a broader view, this isn't about an apocaliptic AI and automation takeover... it's about income inequality. These discussions seems to always be talking about a future where jobs aren't there, where people are being paid unfairly, where people don't have enough money to pay for basic needs, where owners of business with high levels of automation and AI concentrates all the money, etc etc. That's just... reality. It's not coming in some theoretical future, it's been here for some years now;
- giving people basic human rights is an old old concept. The US in particular has failed on several components to reach this by trying to see it as it being all about money. This is what things like student debt, the state of healthcare, capitalism and liberalism on the extremes, and a whole bunch of other stuff is really about. Several of those cannot be fixed by putting yet another bandaid on top, in the form of $1000 dollar bill. What work in other countries that have different politics, different culture and different ideals cannot be seen as something that will be the same for the US. It's extremely dangerous to see things like that;
- Major policies like these will have as many positive as negative consequences. The stuff talked about taken from Yang's propositions seems to contain a whole ton of estimations and predictions for positive change, while ignoring or masking all the potential negative ones. Again, I'm not saying UBI shouldn't be considered at all, but it is dangerous to think like that, because it's also what triggered most crisis. We identified and considered the problems that lead to those crisis from our perspective because hindsight is 20/20. What if the government spends all that money, people instead of spending that money keep it? What if the scenario of incentives for seeking education and keep looking for jobs fail? What if the majority of that money goes nowhere, or in bad spending? There seems to be a huge ammount of blind "faith in humanity" or something like this there that is pretty dangerous. Did this whole deal consider safeguards and actions if things go awry?
I'm drawing parallels to stuff like geoengineering. There are overly optimistic people thinking of grandiose schemes to react to seemingly imminent catastrophic scenarios that are not capable of considering that this solution might be even more catastrophic in itself. But what led us here in the first place is the sort of magical thinking that is also inconsequencial and shallow in analysis.
And let me close my comments by saying I am currently unemployed myself, despite my higher education. Oh, I also don't live in the US, so I actually don't have much stake on this.
If I think about this in a shallow and overly optimistic way, sure, I'd love to have a financial incentive. In fact, I'm of the opinion that for certain countries that have a majority of the population living bellow the poverty line, a strict, limited, and temporary version of UBI is almost necessary - because hungry, destitute people are essencially trapped with no chances of improving their own lives by themselves, by fault of the system and not of themselves. Still, it is a waaaaaaay more complex issue than just this. And while I think it is important for more people to think about it, for the discussion to keep going, and for experiments to be made, if we're not gonna breach through the surface and really go deep into it considering consequences to all sides careful enough, a country wide plan with no safeguards seems like a pretty dangerous way to go for.
7
-
7
-
It's so weird to see all of this happening on the macro scale... because it always seemed kinda obvious as to what would happen in these scenarios.
For instance, has anyone had any doubt that whatever deal BoJo would come up with would basically be a weakened version of May's deal? Of course it would. The more time passes, the logical path a deal would take is like that. If more and more times passes after now, the deal will become so completely disadvantageous for the UK that no deal will just be better. Or just rescinding Brexit altogether. Which is likely what the EU wanted in the first place.
On the macro scale, what I interpret that happened is more or less like this: UK was part of a economic group. It decided to get out suddenly without a plan, and in a very disfavorable position.
An advantageous position would be if this was extremely well planned. For instance, if the UK made a deal with several other EU countries to all get out together, and perhaps even form a new economic block to compete together against the EU. That would have been a master plan. Or even plan an exit backed by several other non-EU countries, that wouldn't put UK's economy in doubt if they exited the block. Switch alliances but keep most of the economy intact since it does not depend so heavily on EU countries.
But instead, it was decided via referendum to just get out. If you do that, it's kinda like... cancelling a service contract one sidedly. A well put contract will probably have a whole lot of bullet points there to make it very hard for you do breach it without heavy penalties. Worse yet, if you are very dependant on deals between countries that are already inside the economic block, without some sort of very well thought out plan on how the dependancies will be addressed, your country kinda falls apart. It's like taking a chainsaw to the surgery table.
And so, this is what is happening. Every extension UK asks for, gives more leeway for EU to give up less and less on these negotiations. There's probably no deal that will pass right now that would be better for the UK in comparison to what May had already came up with.
If the current BoJo deal also doesn't pass, which is probably what will happen since it's weaker than May's which was already rejected, then it's either extension or no deal. There is a very slight possibility that the other side, seeing no way out of this and no way to make anything better than this, would just accept BoJo's deal because nothing better is on the horizon. But when it comes to politics, the ego battle probably speaks louder. For an opposition party, between giving a half assed victory for BoJo or going the full way to no deal and proving in practice how bad consequences can be is probably the better option.
Another extension won't make a deal any better for the UK. Because EU clearly has the upper hand, they just won't accept anything less beneficial than May's deal.
Ultimately the best EU option at this point is forcing UK to reconsider and not leave EU at all, which would be an almost catastrophic victory for them.
And then, any other option will be disastrous for the UK at this point. No deal, for the entire UK economy. Because if you think logically about it, no deal is just a way of saying there will be no wide reaching country wide accords, and everyone will be left to their own devices to make deals by themselves. UK companies, businesses, corporations, industries and sectors that have import/export interests will be going against a large economic block, which again, is a very disfavorable position. EU countries will demand even more than if UK was part of EU, because that's what economic blocks are for. Illusions of unity aside, the entire reason economic blocks are formed is so every single country that is part of the block has a strong position against other individual countries.
Cancelling Brexit altogether would in turn have disastrous political, international relations and social consequences for the UK. It will create an even deeper divide in the country, tons of brits will see this as a betrayal of democracy, and even those who will be relieved that this didn't happen will still have to deal with the consequences of all the money, time, and attention wasted with the entire charade. Nothing less than 3+ years of time, money and reshapping of politics that was spent on this. It will radicalize nationalist and populist movements even further, parties and politicians will be heavily discredited from all sides, and there will likely be some heavy protesting.
I'm not from the UK... unfortunately never had the opportunity to visit the country too. And don't get me wrong, it's not like I hate the UK or have any problems with british people too... it's just this entire situation is so weird to watch happening. It is similarly as weird as watching what is happening in the US under Trump. It's like, the entire thing about corruption and radicalization of politics in my own country I can understand. It's a "shithole" country with politics that have always been corrupt, never worked well, education has always been complete crap, so it's relatively easy to understand how so many people in my country falls for populist or nationalist propaganda. I always kinda thought that this would be somewhat different, more difficult to happen in developed countries. Democracies being more resistant to such things. But turns out these past few decades proved me wrong. It's so weird...
7
-
7
-
Due to this immense diversity and disparity amongst communities and tribes, you should also understand that yes, there are indigenous tribes and people who directly contribute to Amazon fires, deforestation, exploitation and whatnot. It's not all of them, obviously, but the number might be way more significant than what you might have heard on international press.
And it's only logical. You see, imagine if you lived in a community or tribe isolated inside the Amazon. The first contact you had with people from outside was perhaps criminal people coming in to exploit a natural resource, open up land for agriculture, chop wood down to sell, capture animals, etc etc. They tell you that this gets them a lot of money and goods. Obviously, there will be a a lot of native or indigenous people, perhaps living in very poor conditions in spread out communities inside the Amazon, that will see this as an opportunity to upgrade their living standards.
You will have relationships that goes anywhere from going to war against criminals trying to exploit the environment, to actively contributing, competing, trying to copy, and everything in between. It's not as clear cut as one or the other side will tell.
I know international press loves to portray these indigenous communities as nature loving peaceful people who would never do any harm to the Amazon forest, would never harm others, that they all dedicate their lives to preserving their surroundings, blah blah blah. But that's a highly romanticized picture of reality that doesn't really translate what you see there. You do have tribes and communities where people work their entire lives in preservation and environmental causes, you really do. It is an admirable thing. You have tribes that are very well integrated to brazilian cities, well organized, with people who studied at universities, that are experts in several subjects related to their surroundings, that have high levels of education. Probably the case of one of the interviewed, and the community that was visited.
But in this mix, you also do have communities that have a culture of painting themselves a certain way for tourists and foreigners to see. You have tribes that depends on NGO and tourism money that have agreed to behave a certain way for people from outside to see, so that they can get the resources they need. You have communities and tribes that are totally outside this range, they don't have people that speaks a language we can understand, they don't behave in predictable ways, they don't see the environment in a way that conforms to anything we understand, and the internal culture is not as romantic as people would like. The range goes from extremely primitive and insular to just another relatively modern community with unique cultural practices.
Indigenous people are just that - people. And given their often precarious conditions, their cornered state, their contacts with the rest of the country or the world, and their own state of mind, they can see their environment and nature as sacred, but they can also see it as a natural resource to be exploited for personal gain. You have people there all the way from wanting to stay inside their communities and preserve it, up to wanting to do anything needed to improve their living conditions and get the money to modernize, and perhaps even leave their communities entirely. It's not that hard to picture the struggle if you understand that in the end, they are just people.
And so, it also gets easy to see how there can be some of these communities that are very in favor of Bolsonaro politics despite all of what Bolsonaro has already said and done. You can understand how some indigenous peoples' communities could be exploiting natural resource, causing fires, and even directly cooperating with big agricultural businesses. You can see how several indigenous peoples and communities also didn't take the pandemic seriously. How some of the negationist and bad information around the pandemic also infiltrated those communities. They are as vulnerable to pseudo scientific fake news crap as most people are, if not more.
Lots of those tribes, understandably, are very much against any form of modern medicine. It's a very complicated relationship with doctors coming from the outside. There are lots of communities and tribes that are extremely against stuff like vaccination. They have their own rituals, witch doctors and whatnot who they trust more than people coming from outside the community.
It's not really an uniform consensus amongst those tribes that you need to reach for external help, you need to let doctors examine them, you need to follow what these doctors are saying, you need to take the medicine, etc etc.
The community Vice showed is but one single case in an extremely diverse and complicated universe. But it's usually the view that is presented on international news coverage, because it's simpler and easier to follow, even if it's often lopsided to attend a very particular perspective on the entire issue.
People should know though, that despite the current government standing, between governmental agencies, NGOs, private groups, universities, scientific research groups and whatnot - a ton of brazilian and international resources are dedicated to the indigenous cause. Because you know, much like in any other country, just because the current president in Brazil has a certain way of looking at things, doesn't mean we all see it the same way. In particular, local governors, mayors and whatnot might and often have an opposite opinion.
There are lots and lots and lots of people, brazilians and foreigners, that dedicate a substantial part of their lives, their means in support for indigenous people in Brazil. But like I already said, it is a very complex subject. And it'll likely stay this way, because there is no single thing that can be done here.
And so, I ask of people not to oversimplify this topic. Understand that nothing here is as black and white as what you might see in press coverages, particularly international press. That yes, there have been injustices commited, there are communities that need and accept help, and it's important that we preserve their culture, and collaborate. That our president have a very negative view on the indigenous people situation, but that most brazilians don't agree, and that foreign countries would do better by trying to help rather than just criticizing our president. He won't change his mind, but what goes through his mind doesn't matter much.
So there ya go... sorry for the long text, but sometimes it needs to be this way.
7
-
Myanmar is, quite unfortunately, one shining example of what happens when you let social networks take over with inflammatory hate speech leading to a takeover of political power with an oppressive violent military regime that will justify any of it's actions as being a war against "the enemy", it being whoever dares to speak against said regime.
Keep in mind that all countries that are heavily reliant on communications via social networks runs at the risk of falling to a similar fate. The fundamental problem there is that democracies, as they are today, were built with fundamental disadvantages against pro totalitarian, pro authoritarian, pro hatred, FUD fueled, harassment fueled ideologies.
Because democracy was built on foundations of protecting freedom of speech, these same protections gets abused up to their limits to allow all sorts of discourses to be had on channels like social media, and because social media is so poorly monitored and poorly maintained, it's too easy for them to become gathering space for radical groups.
The reality democracies are facing today is that they need to be much much more protective and defensive about attacks against itself than they thought they should. Freedom of speech cannot continue protecting speeches against democracy, against freedom of speech itself, against actions that leads to the downfall of a democracy. It needs to be even more rigid and severe against pro coup speeches, particularly inside the ranks of government and public service.
In the case of Myanmar in which the worst consequence already happened, it's gonna be a long road and a difficult strategy to remove the military dictatorship and get back into democracy... there's no way around it. It's obvious that the governmental machine is being leveraged against regular citizens who speak against the military, probably by the military itself, who can now leverage public funds against the public itself.
For other democratic nations, particularly the US who is housing some of the biggest tech giants behind social networks, what needs to happen is a break down of tech giants behind social media, anti-trust lawsuits that results in real consequences, and creating a space of actual competition limiting social networks to manageable sizes where monitoring by real people and local authorities can be done. An algorithmic approach hasn't been enough since these social media platforms reached their catastrophic sizes, and it will continue being insufficient to stop the worst types of actors inside them.
It should be obvious by now that monopolistic social networks handling millions to billions of people all at once do not have the competency to stop hate speech, even when they genuinely want to, which I highly doubt is the case for most of them.
Until this isn't put to a definite stop, several countries in the world will continue running at the risk of becoming yet another Myanmar. We got pretty close to that in some of the biggest and most well educated, powerful democracies already. If no action is taken soon, the consequences will become inevitable.
7
-
Good and interesting video overall, but the tips at the end are kinda weird.
Don't leave your device unnatended, true. If you give your phone for someone else to access, people who know how to do it could install a stalkerware app in a matter of seconds without it being too conspicuous. This is also true for connecting your phone to someone else's laptop or desktop, depending on your phone's configuration.
Don't use biometrics... I'm not sure where that's coming from. It should either be "don't use biometrics ONLY", or just be aware that some phones have weak biometrics systems. In general though, this sounds like bad or incomplete advice. It's better than not using it, or better than using weak pins or patterns... or worse, not using anything.
In lots of phones, it's very very hard for a thumbprint to be used without your knowledge. Nothing is unbreakable, of course, but for well implemented biometrics systems you'd need a fairly involved and sophisticated process to break it.
As for cybersecurity software, be aware that this is only valid for reputable companies. It is not unheard of spyware being hidden inside so called cybersecurity software from shady companies... because those pieces of software usually demand a high degree of access to your phone, to run diagnostics. So yeah, do use it, but not just from any company.
More important than all of that though, is completely outside your phone. Establish early on the limits of your relationships. Smartphones should be for a single person, a private device. Do not share it. If you absolutely must, do some research on how to create a different profile for others to use without compromising your main account. Even with a different profile this still isn't a great thing to do, mind you. Smartphones and computers in general were not made with sharing in mind, just the way it is.
Think of it like underwear, your diary or something - it's just not something to share. Don't try to be the cute stupid couple that shares social networks accounts and whatnot, that will only work against you in the long run, guaranteed. If you are ever in doubt, try to physically block cameras and microphones somehow, shove it into a purse, put tape on top of lenses. No, it's not paranoid to do it, this works. Have a burner phone or backup phone and keep it to yourself.
Outside the phone, extreme jealousy and possessiveness are usually signs that your partner... or perhaps parents could be willing to do this. Understand that it doesn't take a highly technical person to do it, just having access to the right information as stalkerware apps nowadays are very simplified and easy to use.
If you ever do want, for convenience or security purposes, to share a bit of information with someone else like your location, do not use 3rd party apps for that. Google Maps has the function integrated in it, and implemented in a way not to be used for surreptious spying. You yourself will give the permission and time limit for the function, and you will always be prompted everytime the other party accessed that information. I don't actually recommend doing this, but if you are going to do it one way or another, go for Google, Apple official apps instead. You'll have more control over privacy this way.
As for people who are thinking of using stalkerware, let me tell you something. This will probably become a crime pretty soon, and in court it could probably be used against you. Doesn't matter if you are a jealous partner or overly preoccupied helicopter parents, this comes down to basic rights of a human being to privacy. If people did not gave you explicit permission to collect data on them, and there aren't very good reasons to do so, you are violating an individual's rights. It might be tempting to use these sorts of apps, but that's your insecurity speaking, not the problem of others. If you chose to do something like this, in the end it'll be all on you. So think before you do something like that.
7
-
7
-
Let me ask people something that so far I didn't see Vice explaining or covering: what these yellow vest protesters are demanding - is it even doable or possible?
Like, Macron resigning and France electing someone to replace him via a referendum.
Is that due process? Legit question, I dunno how France's political/legal system works.
Here in Brazil it's plain impossible for something like that to happen. Impeachment happened twice, one of the presidents resigned immediately before the impeachment decision, which was sure to be positive, came out. But in both cases, corruption crimes were commited and rounds of votes happened before coming to that.
Then, the vice president assumes... there is no referendum there. The current political system and constitution just does not allow something like that. It follows a chain of elected politicians. Referendums are reserved for last case scenarios, and decisions on law when a split happens (for instance, gun laws). And in both impeachment cases we got royaly screwed over because the vice president was even worse.
That is, of course, outside merit of cause, and how reduced this movement already is right now. It sure looks impressive with close coverage like that, but from what I can gather, this protest exploded initially, and very quickly died off. Like several things without organization and haphazardly bunched together via social networks I guess. It's usually all steam and no substance, attention seeking but frivolous, and done at the heat of the moment with a bunch of people very weakly tied to it ready to give up for any reason.
Proof in the pudding, the previous coverage showed that guy who gave up on the movement as soon as police started using tear gas and smoke grenades to contain it.
Oooh, the police is willing to use tear gas and smoke grenades for unruly crowd control. No shit Sherlock. People were sacking stores and commiting all sorts of crimes against private and public property. Tear gas and smoke grenades are the absolute minimum.
The guy is talking about keeping the movement alive, together and whatnot, but see for what it is: 10 to 20 people blocking a private company someplace in the outskirts of Paris. The only way these people got some coverage was because Vice is sending reporters to the fringes, with people making absurd comparisons with superficial understanding of history.
Afaik, 43 people fired is just another business day in companies that are struggling financially. Well, it's another business day even for companies who are not struggling financially. It is meaningless without context, and quite probably meaningless with context too. People are getting fired by the hundreds of thousands everyday by corporations because of the changing economic scenarios right now. Is he really that impressed that 43 people got fired from a single distributor? Holy shit, if that's enough to be impressed, the outskirts of Paris is probably a paradise in comparison to US and other developed countries.
Middle Ages? Dude, if you were back at the middle ages you'd be dead by now, not by the "Sheriff", or the "King", but by mercenaries hired by that company you are blocking entrance and exit. The only reason they got to protest without being massacred is because they live in 2018, in a modern democracy. You think shit like that would pass in some other countries, not even needing to go to extremes like war torn countries.
And while yes, wage gap is a problem in pretty much all modern countries, that protest camp there seems a whole lot more comfortable than the conditions citizens of several other democracies have to deal with in their daily lives.
I'm not saying they are not entitled to protest for better conditions and for the president to listen and work with them, but quite honestly, I think the situation for french people can get much much worse than it is right now depending on who replaced Macron. Better, I wouldn't be so sure.
And about putting taxes on fuel and whatnot, let me tell people something. I also don't think it's fair to tax the poor and working class for them to take the entire burden of environmental concerns, this has to be done by example with all classes taking a share of responsibility, but if people are thinking this is bad, just wait when automation and other trends arrive.
I dunno if people understands this, but we have got to start moving workers and jobs overall to other sectors somehow so that these changes don't happen suddenly.
Particularly for developed countries, we're quickly getting to a point where automation will kill tons of jobs one way or another. Not make wages lower, not impose more taxes, but outright kill the jobs. Kaput. Finito. You are not needed anymore because we now have a system that works 24/7, no complaints, no risk of strikes, no union, no politics in the mix, no need to pay for healthcare, no benefits, no retirement, etc etc.
Is that fair? Nope. It will be catastrophic for entire classes of workers. It's gonna deepen and widen the wage gap even further. But make no mistake - it's happening. It's not theoretical, it's not in the far future - the services are already being implemented small scale (by Waymo), or in later stages of testing for several other companies.
The way things are going, we will end up with huge protests throughout the entire world, because that will suddenly displace huge ammounts of workers worldwide. It'll be an ugly mess that then has true potential to put us back into the middle ages. And these workers will be treated like the plebe. I'm not talking about what I want to happen, I'm talking about what is most likely to happen.
But this? This isn't it. Particularly this group that Vice showed in this piece? Heh, that's not even an angry mob. 20 people max. We have very local protests asking for police presence in neighborhoods of my city bigger than that every weekend here.
7
-
The comments would be hilarious if they weren't just... sad.
On one extreme, it's all the folks saying this doesn't solve the issue, as schools should be made to pay for it. Ever heard of a compromise? How about addressing one part of the problem that government can actually do something about, instead of getting into yet another lock and block situation amongst interested parties where no one gets anything and taxes are wasted into some other crap? Education has a late stage capitalism issue, for sure... as health and other areas. Past administrations promised to solve the problem and either didn't do it, got locked out because of political infighting, or just made things worse. Whatever opinion you have on Biden or Democrats, it's just a fact that he managed to work these problems way more than any of his predecessors. Is it gonna solve the problem entirely? Of course not. At this point solving these issues in this short of a time would require a full scale revolution, eat the rich style... you Americans are so entrapped into the late stage capitalism thing that I blame no one for not seeing a way of getting out of it. And worse, it's set up in a way that I can see a president or political party making things way worse, but not much better. So, instead of trying to push for the impossible, perhaps attack it from a different angle.
On the other extreme, MY TAXES and INFLATION people. See folks, first, this is a pretty reasonable way of using taxes for what they are designed to do - solve societal problems. It's a major apparently long forgotten role of government to try to balance things out and address the major issues a nation has... by spending taxes on it. Keep unhinged capitalism under control, or at least deflect it's worse effects.
Or you are gonna tell me that handing the money over to the coal industry, telecom giants and big corporations is the way to do it? Like that has worked great to bring jerbs back in the past administration. Jobs isn't even the problem anymore, it's supply chain and people outright refusing to work for wages that don't pay their bills and debts.
Wasn't the complaint in Obama years about the inaction of the government? Would it be better to sit on the money, let students stay on their permanent debt situation often getting into endless hell circles of loan and debt? Those are the people who will be sustaining the economy when you intend to retire, you know?
Also, if you don't have the problem, doesn't mean it's solved for everyone else. So if your complaint is that you already paid yours, survival bias is not the way you should look into a problem you used to have. This is exactly the sort of ratchet situation that ends in late stage capitalism in the first place... middle class and rich people can only look at their own problems living inside thick bubbles, and cannot see the problems of the majority rest of the nation, so they want taxes to be spent on their issues, instead of addressing the issues of the poorest, which only makes the situation worse, and drags even more people into poverty. The biggest social problem in a country that has a portion of the population under the poverty line, are the poor. Taxes need to be spent to address it - not all of it, but at least a considerable portion of.
Inflation... I'm just gonna go ahead and say people talking about this have no idea how inflation works, what strategies are available and proven to solve it, and how macro economics works in general. I suggest looking for more info on the matter. I also don't know a whole lot about it, but I'm at least not at the point of relativizing everything and assuming government spending is all to blame for it - that's just extremely ignorant and missing the target by a mile. Protip - look for economists explaining the subject matter, not clickbait alarmist videos saying it's the end of 'MURRICA yadda yadda. Because truth is - inflation is an extremely complex problem that has all sorts of things influencing it because it's really a matter of expectations. One way to address is by giving people hope that the economy will get better overtime. And one way to do that is be reducing debt for people who will be entering the workforce soon. But for this particular moment in time, it shouldn't take a lot to figure out that most of the problem with inflation that is affecting all corners of the world today have all to do with a supply chain issue tied to the pandemic, plus all the myriad of consequences coming from the war in Ukraine. Both have knock on effects that de-estabilize global economy that we've been reliant on for several decades now, and both are unprecedented in their own manner for modern times.
If all these bets Biden is making will pay out in the end, that I won't predict or jump to conclusions... because no one can, and those who say they can are just lying to you. It's a pretty good bet though, better than any other we've seen in past administrations, which mostly sums up to... betting on nothing and let the opportunity fly by. You can either sit and wait for things to go wherever they get, or do something.
There you go. Want a suggestion? Try being a little bit optimistic about it... you don't have to like Biden, become a democrat, or God Heaven's become a soyboy or some sh*t. Perhaps a strategy of forgiving loans for the poor, working on Climate Change issues and taking other active measures that this administration is doing, just perhaps is better than spending on military, big corporations, denialism, failing coal and oil giants, telecoms and whatever conspiracy theory the alt-right is worried about.
It could like... accomplish nothing in the macro scale, perhaps even make things worse. I dunno. But doesn't the thought that tons of students striving for a better life will have a huge burden taken off their backs make you at least feel a bit good for your country? It's an injustice that while it's not being fixed or solved, at least your current government isn't letting people hang to dry completely.
Just last FYI before I start getting attacked - I have no horse in this game. I'm not an American citizen, I didn't vote in your past election nor will vote for the next, and I have my own government to worry about, which is far more corrupt and also has it's own spending problems.
I just find it very weird how some arguments will go in stuff like this. Do people in the US even knows how much tax money is spent on the many other areas of government and administration that serves no direct purpose? It's so weird to hear people complaining about tax money getting spent on the exact problems government should be addressing, finally.
I personally think that it's because Biden attracts no goodwill from any of the vocal sides, so there is some sort of instinctive hope he doesn't accomplish anything.
I am personally glad, for the first time in years, for the American people and American government finally taking bold stances on spending and on what issues it's trying to address. If the bets don't pay off, at least you'll know what the bets are in the next administration, and not stay in a permanent state of gridlock where everything proposed gets stuck between partisan lines.
And I hope the same thing can happen for my country too, in the next administration, because we basically mirror what is happening over there with a little delay.
7
-
7
-
6
-
Something on the first question that bothers me a bit, which I know Henry and Nathan frequently touch on, is this - you should never think about privacy and security in a monolithic manner. As in, you either get it or you don't.
It's not a black or white thing, it's a gradient, a scale.
You will often see this popping up in the most common dismissals of security and privacy that tons of people use.
Like, "My smartphone already knows everything I do, so...", "I'm already forced to use a WIndows PC at work, so...", "Apple already gets all the data they want from me so..." or the infamous "I have nothing to hide". In this case it was "I assume Windows is already collecting my browsing data". Way more subtle, but worth thinking about.
People constantly assume that everything they do is being collected anyways, so why should they care, but reality is that you still have a lot of scrutiny on these companies. And yes, they might be collecting everything and we have no way of knowing because of closed source code and whatnot, but it's just more likely that they will only collect stuff that will justify the cost of collecting it - be it in technical terms, or in product image terms.
So, looking at it as a monolith is the wrong way to see things. The better way is threat modeling, putting things on a scale to measure stuff like convenience vs privacy and security, or usefulness vs privacy and security, and by knowing that even if you are forced to use something that breaches your security, privacy or trust, doesn't mean you need to add more to pile if you can prevent it.
It's like, the more measures you take to secure your stuff and maintain privacy, the less chances of your data being breached or abused. You will never get perfect privacy and security, and hopefully also not complete lack of privacy and security - everyone is somewhere in the middle. And also, of course, the way different people or companies will use or exploit what they got from you can be very different. Sometimes the only interest is really for advertisement and telemetry only. It remains internal, which you shouldn't feel comfortable with, but it's less damaging. Sometimes they'll sell it to the highest bidder. Sometimes they'll actively exploit it for scams and criminals schemes. And so, with that in mind, and no real control over, all you can do is take whatever steps you can to protect yourself.
Specifically about the case though... I'm not sure if it's true Windows collects your browsing data regardless of which browser you use.
This is more likely to happen with Edge because that's a browser integrated to Windows. Other browsers can have embedded ways of mitigating data collection by the OS, if that's a point of worry.
And then there's what the guys are talking about - take time to review settings. I know that it's hard to believe messing with settings in apps and software you already don't trust seems like a waste of time, and there were certainly times that people proved that switching toggles and disabling stuff effectively did nothing - but again, these companies are under constant scrutiny, and the security and privacy community have devised ways of detecting when these companies are blatantly lying. So it's worth spending a little time on it because it might just work, even if you don't really trust the company to do it properly. At the very least, your name could get into some class action lawsuit for you to get a few bucks from. xD Yeah, I know...
6
-
6
-
6
-
6
-
Awesome, I love it!
Also agreed that not the entire country should stick to rules like those, but more historical cities should think of urban planning like that all around the world, not just Japan.
I knew there was some preservation effort in Kyoto so that it remained closer to it's roots, but I didn't know they took it this far... explains a lot. xD
I also imagine that codes and rules like those are what makes even neighborhoods so distinct from each other in big cities, and at least in my eyes, it definitely pays off for a country that's becoming more and more touristic over the years - both internally and externally I mean.
I'd be far more interested in visiting cities in my own country if there was such care about preserving the ambience, historical value and aesthetics in general of some of them.
It's also quite the feat to enforce and maintain things that way in a city as big as Kyoto... I can imagine this being done in smaller cities and towns, but managing a city the size of Kyoto must require several layers of cooperation and true will to enforce stuff like that.
The city I currently live in has a bit bigger population than Kyoto... around 500 thousand more people, it's a mid sized capital. There are some preservation efforts on the old part of downtown, but it's just done in a dumb way. It's mostly about the streets and pavement, which are just horrible. Paved with these slippery and hard stones that are just fall hazards whenever it rains, or even with it's not raining. It's less historical preservation and more like the mayor not wanting to invest and receiving kickbacks to maintain things as they are - namely old, useless and horrible.
Meanwhile, decrepit old ugly buildings dominate the landscape, and there are no aesthetic restrictions to anything, so it just looks like a dirtier run down part of downtown instead.
Next time I visit Kyoto I'll pay more attention and value how beautiful the place is even more... :D
6
-
6
-
Brazilian here.
Again, while it's true that Bolsonaro is behaving pretty much like a poor man's version of Trump, probably because he gets his news and information from similar circles that Trump does, the absolute vast majority of governors and mayors which do have the final say in preventive measures such as use of masks, lockdown status and passing laws regarding the pandemic are mostly not following Bolsonaro's recommendations, using WHO guidelines instead.
While several states and cities in Brazil have re-opened businesses, they have done so in a limited manner, several of them including obligatory usage of masks while in public spaces. The worst hit northern cities in Brazil have implemented full lockdown with hefty fines for those walking or getting out in public if they are not working in essencial services.
International press often ties Bolsonaro news with the severity of pandemic in several states, which gives a skewed perception. Not that I agree with what Bolsonaro is saying and doing in any way, shape or form, but just so people understand this better, the reason why some cities and states here are getting hammered badly has way more to do with other factors, not the president't opinion on the matter.
Manaus is an isolated city, yes, but it's also among the poorest brazilian capitals. Sao Paulo is the most dense urban cities here, and despite being economically affluent, it's a city where the wage gap really shows. Rio is a bankrupt state. Mapping the way the disease is spreading will also give a clearer understanding of the situation. Inside the cities, for most cities it is spreading like wildfire inside favelas and poor neighborhoods, where a mix of lack of information, people who have no choice but go to work and risk it because they have to put food on the table, and the general infrastructure of the region just does not allow for preventive measures to effectively take place.
These are the neighborhoods and places where people working in supermarkets, sharing economy stuff like Uber, food delivery, public transportation drivers, cargo, cleaning services and a bunch of others live. Favelas have tight streets and housing that is just a bit better than shacks, with half a dozen of people sharing spaces the size of a single room often. Sometimes they don't have running water, a working sewage system, or electricity. Police, ambulances and public service have a hard time getting inside them, and they are mostly ignored by politicians.
Obviously, it'd be better if the president had scientifically backed sources for his information, and we had better national unity for policy making, but it obviously wouldn't make the situation not even close to ideal.
In fact, for me personally it is wuite surprising how this pandemic didn't hit us even harder. I'm currently at self imposed quarantine with my mom in my hometown, since the beginning of the crisis, so for almost 3 months now. We had 2 deaths and little bit over 1000 cases here in the city. I think hot weather and a record dry season are contributing to not make things worse. But winter is coming soon, so things are bound to become way worse.
6
-
Humanity as a collective simply wasn't ready for global 24/7 interconnected communications.... racist and hateful people were, are and will always be around. It's just ignorance mixed with prepotence, misguided feelings, faith or fear.
They are a minority for most developed countries, and that was fine as long as these individuals lived isolated in their own communities, families, or whatever.
I had an uncle that was like that. He never talked about it, he wasn't vocal, I've never heard a single racist thing come out of his mouth.
But then, one of her daughters started dating and eventually married a huge black dude. As far as I heard, he was staunchly against it during the dating period, he became more and more accepting overtime until the marriage, and I have no doubts that after his granddaughter was born he had flipped 180. As he should, because really, he couldn't have asked for a better husband for her daughter. I am proud to have him as part of the family, because of his character and what he had to endure. Skin color makes no difference.
Stories like these are repeated all through the spectrum around nationality, skin color, gender and whatnot. It is hard to be against any other vaguely defined people group once you know them better.
But what the Internet is currently empowering is, paradoxically, not the sort of rich interactions, community formations, and gatherings that would dispel this ignorance, but rather the formation of groups that are willing to weaponize this sort of ignorance, entrench themselves further into it, and start coming up with reasons and myths not to give away that position.
It's weird. Turns out, the Internet can be as much a tool to educate and expand people's horizons as it can be to trap people inside their ignorance circles and radicalize, contract people's horizons, and form an ambient of tribalism.
It wasn't that long ago that the Internet was an open space to experience all sorts of stuff without all this hatred and negativity, for the most part.
Honestly, I think these big corporations have to go. Facebook specially, but people will soon see how Google, Apple, Microsoft and others are all the exact same.
Because it's not an inherent problem of this or that brand or corporation, it's how they came to be this big, the compromises they had to make, the parallel economies they built around their businesses, the bad unethical practices and the problems that comes with large scale.
It's a whole other topic, but if you look deeper into it you'll know.
The way our societies were built, the way people think and function on a daily basis, the way our ideologies, ethics, morals and philosophies were constructed do not fit global communications on a large scale. Not yet. Potentially never. The way current cultures, societies, countries and communities work are just better fit for communications in a smaller scale. That way, responsibilities and monitoring can work in a distributed way rather than needing the help of generalistic, innacurate and non-human algorithmic filters and censors.
Anyone who has moderated channels, communities or group pages that were up to few hundred or few thousand of people will know this. It's already hard enough to manage something like that, millions to billions or people is just impossible. But at smaller scale with proper moderation you can keep hate speech, life threats, general violence if not away, at least muted enough to keep things going.
6
-
Brazilian here.
First of all, people should know that the situation is WAY more complex than what BBC is trying to pass with this video. It is not as simple as it might seen.
Some of these indigenous people who lives inside the area actively contribute to deforestation inside their own designated land. Why? Because money of course.
Look carefully on the people of the tribe. Most of them are wearing modern pieces of clothes, and speaking fluent brazilian portuguese.
There are people in tribes and presenting themselves as natives that not only cooperate to deforestation, they take government money, and sometimes have a home outside the territory.
Because monitoring situation like those can be extremely complex given the size of the area and how many people there are to do it.
Are farmers and the president right in berating and making things even worse for the Amazon forest? No. This is territory that needs further policing, farmers need to stop trying to take over that land, and deforestation has to be stopped. But like I already said, the situation there is much more complex than the video is trying to put. It is super disingenuous to just take sides and think it's all explained like that, or tackle all the fault of the current situation to the current government. This is a historical problem that has been going on forever and that won't be solved by this or that president.
The amazon forest inside Brazil has been going on a process of deforestation for centuries now, basically since Brazil's colonization period, it is nothing new, and the previous governments that was opposition to the current certainly didn't make things better there. In fact, the governmental organization responsible for monitoring both the native people and the area over several decades have been riddled with corruption scandals and misusing the money they take.
So yeah, what I'm saying is that this piece is shallow, one sided and biased. Not that I agree with the current president position on the issue or some of the crap he said, but it's maliciously disingenuous to use him as scapegoat to a historical problem like that.
6
-
Great work guys... this actually goes more towards what I think would be, still a very hard sell, but the actual way forward.
It's not only about misinformation, fake news, and political divide by itself. This does have an influence because of positive reinforcement, but aside from very few people, you don't really have full radicalization full spectrum. What you actually have is a ton of people in doubt because there is a lot at stake, and people who even believe on the non radicalized grounded arguments of the "green side", but feel trapped because they see no alternatives to keep going.
It's about tons of people whose families, ancestors and whatnot gave out their entire lives dedicated to a career that was hard work, dangerous, to the point of probably having relatives or parents that sacrificed their health and lives, now having to worry about their entire livelihoods and way of life taken away by what they see as an intangible fear, uncertainty, doubt. They just cannot connect with people who never lived that sort of life, and are suddenly coming out to attack what they always saw as a sacrificed life for greater good, which coal mining has always been.
This all is not about denying our ancestry, the hard work of people who sacrificed their lives to get us here, the value of industries that still provides power for the vast majority of the world... it's just about the realization that change is needed for us to at least keep and honor the progress we made so far, it's about saying that change is needed for it all not to have been in vain. Protecting future generations from having to start all over again, if they even survive the side-effects of an industry that up until fairly recently in the history of the trade, was seen as a mostly necessary if not outright good thing.
It reminds me of another doc on that town that still lives mining... asbestos. F*cking asbestos! You had a whole bunch of townsfolks with relatives or even themselves with some of the worst cases of mesothelioma still defending the mines, the way of life, the practice and material. Exactly because denying it would be tantamount to suicide for them.
And really, the only way forward for people in situations like that is offering a shift in focus. Very few coal miners like mining coal, they see it as a necessary sacrifice for the most part. It's very clear in interviews not only in this video but many others. What they like is the fact that it provided them and their families a livelihood, a community, and that the result of their work provided power and a vast chain of jobs and progress for their communities, nations and the world in general. It's just not something you should deny anyone of.
Most coal miners also know about the health issues, a lot of them have at least some suspicion that coal mining cannot be good for the environment because they've seen the destruction happening right in front of them, and that the world eventually needs to come up with cleaner methods of power generation and whatnot. It just shouldn't be at the sacrifice of their jobs, livelihoods, towns, people, communities and plans for the future.
This is even more serious than just plain NIMBY. You come out to me and say I have to sacrifice the livelihood of my loved ones, I'll tell you the entire world can end tomorrow, I won't do it. Because my world is my community, my family, my city. Worries about "the rest of the world" comes after it, for most people at least.
There needs to be a counter proposal and action from representative and leadership positions to, if not make change attractive, at the very least soften the blow enough that it won't just have the effects the interviewees are talking about - towns flattened to the ground, communities dying, entire families left with no prospect for the future. And it just so happens that lots of those places would be great locations for renewables in one form or the other.
We have a wave of environmentally conscious people using the fact that we need change, to spew hatred on those "on the other side". This is just plain wrong. If baseline we are just fighting for the future of our existence, and a cleaner future overall, it shouldn't be like that.
First and foremost, we only got to this point where people can recognize the side effects of fossil fuels, coal, and other forms of "dirty" energy , only because those forms of energy allowed a measure of progress that would be outright impossible without them. We understand now that dependency on coal and fossil fuel is bad, because coal and fossil fuel allowed us a degree of development to actually reach that conclusion. Which is a bit paradoxical, but it is what it is.
Everything from industrialization, transportation, and all sorts of things achieved with modern machinery, electronics and whatnot only got to this point because we had those forms of energy generation in the first place. Scientific understanding and consensus would not be this advanced without our traditional methods of power generation. Societies wouldn't have evolved this far, the ones that had the privilege of evolving I mean, if it wasn't for those forms of power generation.
The only thing is that all of that doesn't mean we can get even better, by cleaning things up. It just cannot be at the cost of erasing history, shunning those who sacrificed themselves for us to get here, and ignoring the consequences huge changes like these always have in societies.
Even if you have people radicalized against the notion of climate change, or specifically man made climate change... I don't think anyone will argue about efforts to clean up things in general. Forget all these modern notions and arguments... say we are trying to achieve less pollution, less harmful emissions, and forms of power generation that are just plain safer and cleaner for everyone. Lots of people are willing to sacrifice at least some for only that, then it becomes a matter of how much.
6
-
Always important to reinforce - the lake doesn't care, the planet doesn't care, everything will remain fine for those... preservation, conservation, all these things are purely selfish human endeavors. The only thing that really happens in places like Great Salt Lake is if no action is taken, it'll dry up, and everyone who depends on it will have to move elsewhere, which is often a catastrophic event for all the people there. It'll be far more costly and far more disastrous for the country and for people to have to uproot and find some other place to live rather than just trying to change things to keep the lake going. Another reminder - everyone in the country pays for it, directly or indirectly - it's just a matter of how much. Conservation can be costly, but the lake drying up is exponentially worse, not only for the people living nearby which will pay the most and suffer the most, but for the entire country as a whole.
And with Climate Change, this will obviously start happening everywhere over the years.
That's what truly is at stake, it's just us, our survivability. Should we fail at efforts like this one, the planet will just keep going - without us. As it did in the past.
6
-
It's just too sad to see this brand of cult of personality and fanatism for an individual that so obviously do not deserve it. And this isn't even about politics and Trump specifically... when will people learn to avoid these sort of traps? Celebrity culture and this notion of elevating other humans to godlike status, while treating others worse than trash.
On this pandemic, probability and the very special care only the rich and powerful get might work out for them, I heard Trump was pumped full of every potential medicine there with the exceptioj of the stupid crap he recommended because those would've killed him, but it will come a time when populations at large will pay an even bigger price for politics made out of ignorance and pseudo science. Amazingly enough, this is happening in the strongest economy in the world. How could it come down to this?
It's like multiple 9/11s happened, and people just kept walking as if it was nothing. Let's praise and adore the guy who watched it all happening and not only did almost nothing, everytime he opened his mouth it only made things worse via his influence on fanatical crowds.
I don't wanna call for revolution, because we all know how much worse things can get after those, but there is much analysis and much introspection to be had there... it's just not something that should be hapenning in a modern, well educated, rich, developed and enlightened society. Well, supposedly at least.
6
-
Ok, I talked big, but let's back it up with numbers, because otherwise there is no fundament to what I'm talking about.
Did you know, for instance, that in raw numbers, the suicide rate in Japan nowadays is not so different than that of the United States?
https://www.who.int/mental_health/suicide-prevention/Global_AS_suicide_rates_bothsexes_2016.png
How about this statistic on suicides per job in the US?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1096828/working-male-suicide-rate-by-industry-us/
Here are some statistics from the UK that should shock you, if this doc also shocked you:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-data-reveals-suicide-prevalence-in-england-by-occupation
One more article from UK:
https://www.cieh.org/ehn/health-and-safety/2019/october/work-related-suicides-excluded-from-hse-death-statistics/
You should look at the numbers in your own country, if there even is an official number. Because it becomes really hard to look at Japan with a critical eye on this phenomena, when it seems most of the western world can't even know how much this problem affects it. If we can't go past the fetishization of the topic, we gain nothing from it. Just groundless superficial entertainment.
Now, let's pinpoint a few things on the doc. Did you know that crying therapy, or "therapeuthic crying" also exists everywhere in the world. Oh, you thought this was weird Japan again, didn't you?
All these unique things that you are presented to as "only in Japan" are likely not unique to Japan at all, and very likely they weren't even invented there. Keep this in mind everytime you are watching a documentary about Japan made with a foreigner perspective, particularly american perspective.
Pressure for recently graduated to be employed as well as some other anachronisms presented? Well, you should know that Japan has among the highest employment rates worldwide:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_employment_rate
So it makes no sense to say recently graduated either get a job during shukatsu or their chances afterwards is "next to nil".
The pressure you see there and the huge expectations do happen... mostly for a small portion of the population that are graduating on prestigious schools, which you will know is not uniquely japanese at all.
Work attire is perhaps a very japanese thing, but it does have a reason behind it, as wondered about in the doc. As anyone can imagine, it's part practical, part ethics and part cultural. It's really not all that much more than an extention of rigid dress codes of jobs that you probably see in your own country, like lawyers in court, or service staff in fancy places.
I'm sorry but I'll also have to bust the work for life myth.
I think in many countries, there is the recommendation of job prospective to enter a company and stay there for the rest of your life, or for a very long time, so it looks good on your resume, but it's not the reality anymore, not for western countries, but also not for Japan:
https://www.tokyoreview.net/2018/04/japan-numbers-permanent-employment/
Read the last paragraph and pay attention to the numbers of the article above.
See that it's different to talk about working in a single company for the rest of your life, and talking about self employment numbers... it's confounding status and factors there.
Self employment numbers are likely not lower because people don't work outside the traditional system, but more because there are more companies and associations that would not classify as self employment. I think it's rare for an architect to quit a firm and become a street musician just about in any country in the world, but several common cases and categories the western world sees as self employment, just are not classified as so in the japanese system. Small businesses, independent work, creative jobs, what we see as freelance, it mostly gets classified as employment in some way, not self employment.
From movies like Lost in Translation, to big news networks documentaries from the US, to BBC docs and others like Japanorama, always keep in mind that purposedly or not, they are trying to sell you a story, and there is always an angle to it. Unfortunately, more often than not, it's this particular "they are different in comparison to us" angle. You notice by pieces trying to make fun of or put some humor with quirky music and puzzled expressions. You hear in vague terms like saying there is this practice, but not telling how many people do it. You'll see when they bring japanese terms that looks uniquely japanese, but with no attempt to culturally translate it.
And I'm not saying you should hate everything because of this. I loved Lost in Translation, I like several of the docs I've watched, and this one also isn't bad per se - but it only offers only one, pretty common, and pretty biased perspective, which Ifind unfortunate. It's not that they are not telling the truth, but it's still a pretty myopic view for anyone who is really trying to understand the country as a whole.
Also understand that I'm not trying to defend Japan or say it's better than everyone else, or at least as bad as us. What I'm trying to say is that Japan really is more similar to other countries than these docs try to pass. Japan also has big problems, as our countries to, but it also has free thinkers, non conformists, good work ethics, non suicidal people, etc etc as all other countries also do. There is a general mainstream culture, and a general perception of the population, but there are also individuals, different groups with different ideals and beliefs, and different ways of doing things there.
International coverage tends to fall into certain stereotypes, tropes, fetishes, and sensationalization strategies, perpetuating some misconceptions, giving and often superficial and shallow overview of a country, because of several factors. It's not only out of malice, it's sometimes lack of understanding, lack of research, a specific objective of pieces, or just a structural rigidity on the way these things are done. But if you really want to understand a country, you will have to look past that. This is far far from enough.
6
-
If people didn't know this was going to happen, they haven't been paying attention... it's basically the end for Argentina. From this point forwards, it's either revolution with a civil war there, or going back to a violent dictatorship. And yes, we'll have a calm before the real storm, because the strategy includes this from the very beginning.
Anyone who has ever seen his plan for the nation should know this, and those who voted for him also should know this, particularly those with veiled interests. Behind all the showmanship and theatrics, what Milei is doing is basically trying to auction Argentina to the highest bidder. Showmanship and theatrics are part of the game because he's trying to send a message to interested parties.
He'll likely get a ton of money for this, and then he'll either flee or try to stay in power indefinitely when things really go south. This will mostly depend on the population reaction when the situation suffers a complete collapse. Several nations, particularly in Europe, that are living under proto or de facto dictatorships went through similar dynamics in politics, but perhaps none have been this transparent about the general strategy. Milei basically said the quiet parts out loud, and still got elected.
It's often pretty hard to see the underlying strategy in countries that went this way, but Argentina will become an international macro scale economics 101 in history books in the future.
There are some statistics and numbers that will deceptively make his policies look good, because it is a very predictable effect of what he has announced.
I'll give you a few examples to understand what I mean - if you sell or privatize all state assets, cut a whole ton of governmental agencies responsible with monitoring and keeping up regulatory laws, cut off all sorts of social welfare programs, suppress every single addressing of social justice issues, use your currency solely as a tool to attract foreign investment ignoring every other role a currency might have, and push legislation through with decrees rather than a regular democratic process, this is a guaranteed way of causing a huge cash and power influx for government in the short term, at the cost of the livelihood of the middle to lower class.
It's not rocket science, it's simple logic. The objective is to turn government into an authoritarian power to control the masses, while capitalist actors sweep in to exploit the population. Removing all safeguards from the population so that it can be better exploited without regulatory obstacles.
For the short term, Argentina's economy will look like it's doing great, in the very same way that if you sold all your assets today like your home and car, letting go of your personal higiene, health and general care, you'd have money in the bank. The problem is what happens afterwards. Because as much as Milei voters and sympathizers will say Argentina was already in a complete crisis situation, there is nothing bad that cannot become much much worse. The people are basically the family member of the person who did all that, and the intention is to force the entire family to endure those conditions with their mouth shut or else...
For the long term, you can think of this as forcing Argentina to become a country like China was back in the 80s and 90s, and betting on the country going through similar transformations it did to become an industrial center of the world. Removing all sorts of potential regulatory and bureaucratic obstacles that international interests might have with the country, and putting a huge portion of the Argentinian population in absolute poverty conditions, so multinational corporations can flood in to exploit cheap labor at basically modern slavery conditions.
It is a huge risky bet that has huge chances of not working out. It's just not the right timing or right global conditions for something like this, Argentina cannot be forced to become a country like China back in the 80s, and this smells like looking at unique cases like China and ignoring all the other examples that failed and crashed hard following similar strategies, so chances are much higher that eventually Argentina will just crash and burn, becoming yet another failed state to be exploited by other nations.
With what Milei was clearly saying he was going to do before getting elected, to summarize things, it's a strategy to auction Argentina to the highest bidder. It's as neo-liberal and late stage capitalism as it can be. It's bound to make things look better (for the general country economy I mean) for a short period of time before Argentina falls into the real precipice that will be coming from all those changes. The economic wage/income gap is already going towards a chasm, but we're only at the very beginning of this effect. It'll probably come down to people dying of hunger with crime spiking insanely high before the country really entering a complete chaotic phase. But the whole thing is really transparent. People should take notes on it, we might not have anything similar to Argentina's case in the future.
But I've been saying this before he was even elected. You just have to think about the effects of his proposals carefully from a neutral stance. What good can come out of it, what is likely to go wrong, and what could be behind of it.
6
-
6
-
I went to Japan 12 years ago, and then went back this year with the same crew (7 family members, only one friend of the family couldn't go unfortunately).
So, expectations vs reality completely different, but here we go.
We really noticed a dramatic increase of tourists, specially chinese tourists.
Spots that were already popular like Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto, Ueno park in the last days of sakura, Asakusa Kanon temple, and even at hotels or Narita airport in busy times - it was almost unbearable with that many tourists. I think Golden Week gets pretty packed all around, but probably with less foreigners.
Next time I'm thinking of going way earlier (before sakura blossoming) for some quieter visits.
I wouldn't say it was disappointing, and I'm not blaming all chinese tourists, but sometimes it was pretty bad... like guides screaming full lungs in chinese, groups blocking streets, stuff like that. Some foreigners are super rude... you do encounter the occasional rude japanese I guess, but I gotta say that most of the times we had problems were with foreigners. Nothing dramatic though.
In Kyoto I kinda got some info completely wrong (don't blindly trust the Internets people), I wanted to go to Arashiyama to see the bamboo forest, but we ended up in a completely different temple way in the boonies that we had a very hard time getting back to Kyoto station. Some of my relatives will disagree, but for me personally it ended up being great... because it had almost no tourists... in fact almost no one. Shoden-ji temple, had only a relatively small zen-garden in a dilapidated temple. It was a really nice break from the crowds...
Like I said in another post, I'm a smoker myself (sorry again), and I did expect to see more smokers around considering that Japan had a lot of smokers... still has? I was surprised by laws forbidding smoking in public, by the rooms and specific spaces made for smokers, and how few smokers I saw during the trip overall.
And I honestly agree with the entire thing... I kinda wish to have a "smokers room" just like the one that the first hotel we stayed has. Equipped full of filters and whatnot.
The only place that was really packed with smokers was Akiba, in the place reserved for smoking I mean... and a good part were tourists.
Hmmm... what else? Oh, Suica is super convenient. xD It's been 12 years, so of course lots of stuff will change, but some places we went in the first trip and went again this time were almost unrecognizable - specially around Tokyo. Two places I really regret we didn't make time to go - Fuji-san and a Tokyu Hands store. Then again, this time I could spend almost 4 days in Akiba, so can't complain. Guess that's more or less it.
As for the first time we went, it's pretty much the same as Greg's relatives, and that's probably because of international coverage of Japan. There's a huge bias in trying to portray the country as a weird, exotic, packed and out of the normal place when it really isn't. 12 years ago was even worse... we thought we wouldn't find food to eat well, we thought trains were always crazy packed (depending on the time and place they really are, but not all times), I thought I was doomed because I didn't know any japanese, etc.
Oh, something that still surprises me is on diversity of spaces and the incredibly defined boundaries of them. Like, you get out on a train station that is modern, urban, tons of salary men waking in suits all around, etc... then you walk like two blocks and suddenly you are in the middle of an entirely empty, calm and quiet park. In Kyoto around the central stations you are surrounded by these huge modern buildings, lots of big brands, bunch of cars running around some large streets and all.... take a turn you are in an all pedestrian (Gion) street with old historic buildings and whatnot in an entirely different mood.
At times it's super weird, like you went through a portal or something. The different Tokyo neighborhoods are all kinda unique.
Oh well, wrote too much already. Anyways, great video!
6
-
6
-
6
-
6
-
6
-
6
-
6
-
This made his entire campaign, for people who were on the left or were undecided and not following indoctrinating channels, look extremely shallow and artificial. His usual strong man personality cult rhetoric wasn't there. His political propaganda seemed no different in comparison to any other candidate.
He tried to paint this utopic vision of Brazil that helped the poor, helped workers, invested on education, invested on the future of children, yadda yadda, when he just spent an entire term actively destroying social programs, being vocally against student movements, cutting funding for all sorts of programs, and funneling taxpayer money into opaque secret budget projects that were all going into corruption schemes. The whole thing was so visibly fake it was completely ridiculous. Only the indoctrinated believed in his campaign propaganda.
The only reason why Bolsonaro got a tight run against Lula is because of FUD campaigns about Lula, the ones that were spreading out in social networks, chat groups, and word of mouth campaign that was done in that manner in order not to directly implicate Bolsonaro, his sons, or his political followers. It had to be word of mouth and kinda grassroots because political institutions and the justice system, plus press was already following his every move, looking for a reason to impeach him, almost from the beginning of his term.
Personally and anecdotally, I never met a single person who actively supported Bolsonaro and believed in his bullshit. Particularly, no one that believed the military should take over and reinstate dictatorship. Most of the people I know that voted or supported Bolsonaro only did it because they believed Lula was going to be worse, because of FUD and conspiratorial thinking. The discourse was always "our current president is bad, but things can get worse with Lula".
Of course, it's also because Brazilians have plenty of reasons to be suspicious about Lula and his party, PT. There are lots of Brazilians who don't like the fact that Lula is becoming president once again with plenty of justifications for it, so you add that with FUD and you get a ton of voters that will vote for re-election because they prefer the troubles they are already closely familiar with, rather than the return of old troubles they might not be too familiar with. President Lula is not the saint he and his followers are painting himself to be, but fundamentally, he's not running on a campaign of hatred and radicalism too.
Anyways, I'm getting outside the scope of my comment... there are key fundamental aspects of Bolsonaro's strategies during his term and on the electoral campaign that connects it too well with the American alt-right, current Republican politics, and Trump's strategies for it to be pure coincidence. Mind you, I'm not blaming America or Americans for the creation of Bolsonaro or Bolsonarism... I'm not even sure where all of this is really originating from, if it's just Steve Bannon, if this really started in the US with Trump, or where this actually all comes from, but there is some obvious coordination, some detailed playbook moves, some system that is being followed behind the scenes there. And it is a threat for countries all around the world, because Brazil is not the only country where these sorts of strategies in politics are happening.
People, voters, institutions, judicial systems, organizations, educators and press needs to understand that this strategy is a thing that is being employed to take over the political system of entire nations, and act fast against it. We need to punish, accelerate justice efforts, allow for a counter attack to happen, and reinforce democratic cornerstones to stop this global strategy of terror.
Because the underlying objective of this nebulous playbook seems to be power and money at all and any cost. At the cost of democratic power, at the cost of the well being of minorities, at the cost of advances in equality, using hatred, faith, FUD, and conspiratorial thinking as tools for their objectives. It's a global scale grifting scheme, to put it simply.
See how even Putin is using similar strategies to justify his war and actual genocide and war crimes. I don't think that's a coincidence. There are chances the playbook is being used there too, if not parts of it being co-opted and copied for similar gains in Russia. I don't think it's too far fetched to think that's another thing that is happening. There are chances that there is a status quo that is extremely rich and powerful that is moving towards a more totalitarian stance for fear they are losing room for democratic regimes. It is worth considering by anyone who values true democratic freedoms.
6
-
Amazake nonde kaeru ka... xD
I guess Japanese culture would have more Christian inherited habits if it wasn't for the persecution back in the 17th century and earlier. Not sure how much it would have influenced though given that other religious inheritances went over a millennia far back...
There is some distinction to be made though, a bit nitpicky. A whole lot of the habits and customs inherited from Buddhism and Shinto in Japan have become part of the culture, and practiced by anyone independent of them being part of any faith or not. Not as a religious thing, but more like a cultural thing.
Western nations also have those, markedly through all the Christian related holidays and whatnot. But also, lots of different types of celebration, food culture, pilgrimage, down to small gestures and habits that relates to Christianity somehow.
But I guess there are a few things that are still reserved mostly for the followers of the faith, even though in Japan there are way fewer people left that actually believe and have faith on specific sects. So, stuff like cleansing rituals, meditation, shrine maidens, dances... well, there are some that are more reserved for practitioners, and others that already fell into general Japanese culture. Festivals, amulets and divination, kamidana...
6
-
This sounds like a great start for a series! There is a whole ton of cosmetic procedures that needs better clarification for people to truly understand what they are really doing to their bodies before going ahead with it. Cosmetic surgeries in particular, I think there is a lot of misinformation and lack of knowledge around some procedures, often because you will get it from the party interested in taking your money for it, so you never get the nitty gritty details...
Would be very interesting to see a Kurzgesagt video on botox, liposuction, etc. These topics are very hard to condense in a short and easy to understand video, but if someone is able to do it, it's the Kurzgesagt team!
Oh, btw, I have a few tats made over 20 years ago... xD I'm not criticizing anyone for doing any of those things, I don't regret my tattoos personally, but it's awesome to be better informed. :D
6
-
What's not very good for democracy, sorry if this offends, is right there.
Voting for figureheads that will promise and say whatever floats their boat, blame everything on politics and politicians, and make no compromises. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
It's good not to remain divided among political parties alone, but it's not gonna work if you are instead going to rely on gut feelings and empty campaign promises. Gotta look more towards history, aliances and alignment, and what these candidates have done.
As for the sexual abuse comment, this is something that should be set in stone already. There isn't a "believable" timeframe for coming out with them. That guy repeating 40 years over and over again is just the stupid kinda attitude that does not help. There are plenty of reasons why people don't share these kinds of stories, and you having someone who has experienced something similar is not the same as you having experienced it yourself.
It's much more than this, but the environement alone in which the victim is inserted already has huge influences on whether he/she will come out publicly with the story. And it certainly doesn't help when you are effectively living in a highly patriarcal, puritanic, religious society where over and over again women gets constantly victim blamed.
More importantly though, the fact that Dr. Ford came out publicly with the story right now does not mean she didn't share it in private with family and friends before. It only meant she felt it was important to sacrifice whatever reservations she had about it to present in public at this moment. The fact that people don't understand how severe it is for an individual to tell a story like that in public does tell about a failure of society. I'm not sure if people realize how hard that can be... some would prefer to be publicly stoned and burnt alive on a stake or something.
If most people are convinced by it, the only thing that's left is to decide whether not having substantial proof was enough to let Kavanaugh get his position regardless. Because that guy will be deciding a whole bunch of future legislation for the entire country.
And it doesn't bode well for a democracy to have a tainted justice system. I think it's already bad enough. You can't have imparcial judges with declared non-secular leanings in supreme court.
6
-
6
-
We have to keep repeating this because Vice already decided which side it's going to go with, so let's better inform people.
First, notice how Vice took a video from when Bolsonaro was far younger. That interview was from some 10+ years ago. Yes, he had some radical ideas and still have some now, which is reason to worry, but more recently, he defended democracy, brazilian institutions, freedom and our constitution. You don't have to believe him, of course, specially given his rethoric. But his discourse has changed.
He has particularly said that he wants to shield and strenghten brazilian justice so that the current investigations on politicians' corruption schemes keeps going on unfettered, which is something the other candidate not only did not do, but he also was actively pursuing to reverse. Because of course, he ran in replacement of ex-president Lula, for who he has acted as a defense lawyer, who is currently in jail for corruption crimes. He ran on a platform to free Lula. He had explicit intentions of weakening investigations like Lava Jato, has accused the press of being unfair to the workers party, before he became a candidate he tried all forms, including some very dirty ones (using judges afilliated to the workers party for instance), of legitimating Lula's candidacy.
The problem Bolsonaro has with the military dictatorship is reflected not only on young voters that never lived through it, but also for old people who did live through it but were not involved with the left, with socialist movements, with political student bodies, among other political organizations. While I also agree that the military dictatorship was a dark period in Brazilian history with government sanctioned torture, cultural censorship, tons of violence, and a whole lot of lies, as some might imagine, it's not as simple a matter as people will put out there. Oversimplifying history with one side in mind is just as bad as oversimplifying it for the other.
Crimes were commited by the left lead resistance too, something people should also know. It was in response to the dictatorship, sure, but it happened. This resistance had everything from guerilla tactics similar to what you see on FARCs today, all sorts of crimes, kidnapping of political figures and even assassination/terrorism attempts. Does that justify what the military did with journalists, artists, students and whatnot? No, it doesn't. But let's stop pretending that it was a complete one sided thing. It was warfare based on ideological postures, and it was a ramification of the cold war climate, the red scare paranoia.
Foreigners might not know this, but our impeached ex-president Dilma was an active part of left wing guerillas back then. Among the stuff her group commited are crimes like robbing banks, stealing cars and two bombings. Military people were killed during attempts of arresting groups like those, because of course those groups knew about the indiscriminate torture that was coming for them if they were arrested. If you want to know more about this, here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilma_Rousseff#Guerrilla_activity,_1968%E2%80%9369
Both her, our ex-president Lula (who was also an activist during military dictatorship days), and the workers party in general ran on platforms against the "political elite", promising to end corruption and fix the country. They actively used their positions against the military dictatorship as a platform to run for. They ran on campaigns of being activists during that period to justify their fight against a supposedly corrupt elite that exploited workers and whatnot.
But that's not what happened. As we all know today, workers party is as corrupt if not more corrupt than the so called previously estabilished elites. Several of their political leaders and political figures have formed alliances with some parties they previously accused of being corrupt to form an even bigger corruption scheme and consolidate it through brazilian society. They have become exactly what they were previously criticized.
Weirdly enough, the workers party period was very similar to what happened during the military dictatorship the left hates so much, without the dictatorship part of course. There was an initial growth spurred by positive thinking that this time the country was on the right track, only to be completely crashed by corruption schemes and mismanagement caused majorly by the very party who was supposed to fix things.
The other thing that Bolsonaro keeps bringing up is that Brazil's economy grew tons during the military dictatorhip... which people might not like to admit, but it did happen, for a few years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Brazil#Military_Regime_(1964%E2%80%9385)
It does not negate the horrors that were commited by a corrupt military regime and all the injustices and crimes that happened back then, but it is simply true that the military regime in it's early days managed to reverse and salvage a deeply sinking brazilian economy.
So while it's easy enough to find families of people who had members that were tortured and killed by the military dictatorship, because indeed those are numerous, it's also not hard to find people from older generations that remembers the initial military dictatorship as a period of miraculous growth for brazilian economy and stability for their families.
I'm not saying the dictatorship was a good thing, but you should not trust any publication that is trying to tell you that there is a consensus among brazilian population, specially one trying to divide and polarize it among uninformed younger generation and an experienced older one. It's easy enough to find tons of people who lived through the dictatorship willing to ignore all the crimes against humanity the dictatorship did to tell you that actually, this was a very good period in their personal experiences.
Does the initial economic growth of early military dictatorship days justify the horrors, the torture, the persecutions, the censorship, and the corruption that came from it during it's days? No, it doesn't. But this story isn't as simple as some will tell you. Does the military dictatorship justify the crimes commited by what essencially was extremist left lead terrorist cells? For some it does. For some it doesn't. It usually depends on a case by case basis.
What is important to understand right now is that Bolsonaro is the current democratically elected president. He isn't leading a military coup. He did not come to power by force. He has several wrong ideas, but he's actually been part of brazilian politics for years now. He has been a de-facto politician for over 20 years now, most of it as a congressman who has proposed upwards of 100 laws. Several bad ones, some not so much.
He has some very bad ideas, and some very bad posturing, but the opposition he was running against was NOT his exact opposite. In a way, the current workers' party has some very similar ideas to Bolsonaro, only in the other spectrum of the ideological leaning and not as explicitly declared. The workers party, for instance, has supported what happened in Venezuela. It's politicians are always defending left wing countries that proudly support a socialist/communist agenda, regardless of the actual state of the countries. Several of the current populist leaders in South America have received support from the workers party, including some that are way closer to actual dictatorships.
Bolsonaro has also done the same, often defending oppressive leaders that are harsh on crime or have a sort of militaristic/beligerent personality. He defended Duterte and his ultra violent attack on supposedly drug related crimes, for instance. He has defended Trump because of aligment with some of his own ideas.
So, the better choices was left behind. We had 13 candidates for president, but people voted for a run between Bolsonaro and the workers' party proxy candidate - Haddad. Pros and cons on both sides are way more balanced that people will admit, and the press will cover. There is a whole ton of vilification going on in both sides. It just strikes me as odd how some of the international press chose to cover the vilification of one candidate, but absolutely ignores what has been written and said about the other as if this was an election with one candidate alone.
And let me tell people so that this doesn't pass. Both candidates had voters in all age categories, of all portions of society, with all sorts of ideological backgrounds. Bolsonaro also received votes from people who are adamantly against a military dictatorship. He has received votes from the LGBT community, from rich and poor, from women, from groups that he has made some very crap affirmations against. Voting in Brazil is direct and obligatory, different from the US there wasn't a side that just didn't go to voting polls. It isn't a case of one side just not caring enough to vote. The majority of brazilians did indeed vote for Bolsonaro.
So I'd just advise people not to take shallow analysis for granted. If you are really interested as to why this happened, it's better to take a more nuanced look into it.
I don't personally agree with a whole ton of things Bolsonaro says or positions himself for or against. But he was legitimally elected as our next president. And this is poised to test a whole ton of things brazilians position themselves as in the next 4 years. The past 16 years we have lived with presidents from the workers' party. We'll see what the opposition has to offer.
6
-
6
-
5
-
What the lawyer is saying is right: This is where you go if you never wanna be found out. The only thing he got wrong is the part where it necessarily makes someone a "criminal".
If you can trust both the police and the justice system to always be on the right side and never: be corrupt, be paid by someone in power to plant evidence, misuse technology and tech devices, mishandle the data collected, use it for their own profit, lose control of the power and let information leak, unfairly target minorities and people who can't defend themselves... then go ahead. Let them do whatever they want.
You'd be wrong as all of those things already happened in recent times, but go ahead.
Just be aware that this is exactly how many countries devolved into violent dictatorships that ended up with millions of people dead.
Cameras and microphones inside every house, mandatory, no way of turning them off, with a speaker on the side and 24/7 surveillance so that the police can tell you what to do and what not to do. Safe and sound from the dangers of the world, until you are targeted for some reason and can't complain about it.
One more thing: the flawed argument used in this case that technology created some area that the police can't reach? Bullshit. If there wasn't an Amazon Echo available, there would be absolutely nothing different about this case other than this particular controversy. Amazon Echo didn't contribute to whatever happened there. They are just overreaching their power to force a company to provide data that might or might not help to solve the case, without any regard for the future consequences of their actions.
Privacy and avoidance of police overreach, for those who did not make the correlation yet, is all about balance of power. Police and justice system is there to serve and protect, not spy, control and babysit. The lesson is in history: power corrupts.
When it comes to matters that affects privacy and security for everyone, people should not look at single cases and single matters, but the entire picture. It is unfortunate that some criminal cases will be left unsolved, but it's the price we pay not to put all the power in few governmental sections because history has shown that this is exactly the way that people lost their rights and lives to corrupt governments.
We have a government that has alread tagged the press as an enemy, is actively targeting minorities, and preaches a strategy of power, egotism, hostility towards everything foreign and apathy towards the needs of the people who need it the most. The last thing you want to do right now is giving away privacy.
5
-
Jessa, I missed your "YAAY" when the iPad got fixed. xD
Thanks to her, Rossman, iFixit and some other sources, instead of throwing away and buying a new one, I fixed my previous and my current phones after their screen broke. From scratch, little to no experience previous to it.
Not exactly component level or water damage repair, but watching the videos had a demystifying effect that made me want to open things up, and try replacing them myself. Local shops didn't want to deal with them or charged way too much to be worth it.
They reconnected me to my curiosity around electronic components that I had abandoned in my teens. It's something society needs. Beyond "just" the electronics trash issue, which is a big problem in itself, it's about learning at least a bit more how these things we use in a daily basis work, what those internal components are and do, if what corporations and companies are charging is fair, plus a bunch of other things that people need to understand for all sorts of low to high level decisions.
5
-
5
-
5
-
I'm sorry, but I really don't like how this channel keeps trying to oversell de-Googled phones, which is costly not only in terms of money but also learning how to use, as the be all and end all of privacy.
Rob knows this, and I know he knows because he made other videos that didn't keep trying to push things this hard, but every now and then it seems the narrative needs to be pushed to 11 for whatever reason and then here we are again, pushing FUD that shouldn't be there.
The conflict of interest always looks bad for this channel even though I like some of what Rob has to say. I agree with most of what he says, but this spiel about deGoogled phones and the constant FUD just is not it.
Let me be clear about this for people who don't know - you will NOT have guaranteed privacy with a de-Googled phone, and it might not be worth the money and time you will be spending with one whatever little privacy you get back from it. The only guaranteed thing you'll have from deGoogled phones is the headache of having to work without Google for your everyday life stuff - nothing else is guaranteed, it's all hard work and a whole ton of knowledge to really make good use of something like that.
You lose most functionalities that a smartphone has to offer that is well known and popular, it is incredibly hard to avoid having some of your data collected even if it is using AOSP, and most people won't want to deal with any of it.
Give you an example, if you don't want Google tracking you, you won't be able to use YouTube with a personal account, you won't be able to use Google Maps, you will have to mostly get and use apps from outside Google's Play Store while avoiding malware, no social networks, none of the major games, no weather apps, and this list goes on and on. If you are not willing to do even one among those, a deGoogled phone is not for you unless you are willing to pay extra to have an extra phone - with which you won't be able to do any of that.
A very small niche of people might benefit from getting a deGoogled phone because it closes up some venues for direct access to your data, but that very small niche will be very much into the security community and will need to have a reasonable degree of expertise on the matter. Those who are not part of this niche will be trading money and time for perhaps a tiny bit of protection that is likely not worth it.
First of all, Google and Apple are not the only ones tracking you. Your ISP and mobile network also are, as well as several other services and businesses you have an account in, your bank, your credit card provider, all social networks, some games, and some software/app developers, your browser, most commonly used webpages, and the list goes on. So yes, if you want guaranteed privacy and no tracking, the only solution these days is not having a smartphone at all, not having credit cards, doing bank transactions in person only - the bank will have your data, but won't be able to track you. In fact, stay away from the Internet altogether, become a hermit and go live in a hut in some isolated forest.
Since the very basic very primary company that will be tracking you is the smartphone service provider in the first place, your mobile carrier, be it with detailed GPS data or at the very least with cell tower triangulation, it doesn't really matter if Google isn't directly tracking you - they can just pay for the data and now they have it. Complete with the other data points I mentioned.
In fact, it's an open market. Nowadays you have multiple data broker companies buying and selling private and personal data that multiple corporations have on people. And understand - all of this is completely legal in the US. ISPs and mobile carriers were already caught selling costumer data, they were not punished for it, and you simply have no control over this. Some of them can "promise" not to sell it, but you really have no guarantees. They have the data one way or another because it's needed to provide you service, and even if they don't sell it, it can always leak.
What little legal privacy protection US citizens had was terminated during Trump's administration, and things are only now slowly moving back towards more protections... but they are extremely far from being even significant in any way. It's just the sort of thing that happens when you have telecom stooge at the head of regulatory bodies.
I dunno how much you care if the data is being harvested directly from you, or just taken via middlemen, but if all you care is that others have it, then again, you should just give up on owning a smartphone, period. There is no absolute privacy no matter what type of phone you have, if you are using it for everyday life stuff.
Now, this doesn't mean you should just give up on everything and stop caring altogether. Privacy and security are not black and white, it's always a spectrum, and you can do a lot to protect yourself without spending more money. In fact, paying for it is likely the weakest strategy here. You need to learn and understand how things work first before putting any more money into it. So no, don't just get a deGoogled phone, pay for a VPN plan, or hire extra services that you don't really know how it works just know they are promising privacy to you. You need to know what exactly those will give you, what you are trading off, and what exactly you need from them. What they can offer and what are the limits of it.
Only then you can start applying certain measures depending on scenario and on what you are trying to obfuscate or hide. There is no magic bullet here.
5
-
Hey, brazilian here.
Lest people get the example Kurzgesagt gave and fly with it with the wrong idea, I'd just like to say that contrary to what some people might think, Brazil is actually surprizingly big on renewable power.
I know the current ethos around what Brazil is doing looks pretty bad in the international community, what with the Amazon burning and the incredibly sad fire season, but you really need to put some stuff in perspective to make a good accessment of it.
Look it up, don't trust only me with this info. But afaik, Brazil, in terms of renewable sources of power, is actually on top of most countries, particularly most developed countries.
Countries like the US and France, for instance, along with others like Germany and China, are well bellow 20% renewables. Brazil is actually over 40%.
Now, that is not to say the example doesn't work. Sure, we do have poor areas where people are still burning wood to sell kebabs on the streets, and we do have poor areas that rely on burning fossil fuels for lots of stuff.
The fires are also in big part a problem of lack of education and old practices that didn't change in the entire history of the country - it's yes, part guilt of our current administration, but much more it's a combination of the old practice of farmers burning land to clear for pasture because it's the cheapest way to do it, lack of ecological consciousness, and climate change bringing desert like conditions to several places that have never seen those before.
Now, this isn't to say Brazil is super eco or anything like that. The main reason why Brazil has so many renewables is because the country has the ideal conditions for it. A big part of it comes from hydroelectrical power, because we just so happen to have a few great places where hydroelectrical power made more sense than any other alternative even back in a time when climate change still wasn't a big thing.
We don't have huge endless easy access oil and coal reserves, so we had to search for alternatives.
But also, Brazil is a huge country. So yes, we do have poor areas, but also, I have seen both solar farms and wind farms in action here... usually where they make the most sense.
It's also always good to point out that, despite current administration being as denialist of climate change as current US administration, because Bolsonaro seems to like being a Trump wannabe for some reason, the origins of the Paris Agreement started here in Brazil, with the Earth Summit of 1992, aka ECO92 - which in time turned into Climate Change Convention, then Kyoto Protocol, and finally Paris Agreement.
I understand the video was just pointing an example, but I think it's important to put some perspective on these matters because it seems like some world leaders and some international press coverage are lacking some perspective on the subject at times. This is not to excuse current bad administration, just to point out that Brazil is much more on the forefront on this subject than most people seem to realize, even if it wasn't totally intentional.
5
-
5
-
Bad science.
Sorry people, but I think this is one of those cases in science that you need a far bigger study, or rather a body of studies, far more diversified material, and several types of control to entirely dismiss the bystander effect. Also, reporting it like this is just bad scientific reporting. This piece address almost nothing about what bystander effect really is, and it makes no mention of what science has estabilished about it.
I don't want for people to be hopeless on this, but you'd need first to understand how and why the bystander effect was theorized in the first place. In order to disprove that the bystander effect is a thing, you gotta address the multiple studies, cases and examples that made it a thing in the first place.
Now, of course, we could say that modern societies are making it less of a thing, cultures are making it less of a thing, or that changes in how we see ourselves and relationships with others are making it less of a thing. Or that perhaps the theories on how bystander effect works and why it happens are wrong.
But observations and statistics taken from a collection of CCTV footage are obviously not enough.
I understand making a piece with hopeful ideas to brighten the friday of people who wants a boost in belief in humankind, but do not mix scientific terms lightly there. This kind of shallow denial of science might look motivational, but is the same sorta crap the leads people into conspiracy theories.
5
-
5
-
5
-
5
-
Here's how I imagine things will go in the upcoming future.
At some point in this century, the effects of climate change will get so bad that several countries will get torn down and destroyed by wars triggered by stresses brought by climate change.
Mass migrations happening because of climate change related catastrophes, coastal or island cities getting flooded several times a year, desertification and killer droughts, potable water becoming an increasingly scarce commodity, entire portions of countries becoming completely uninhabitable, a shift in ocean currents causing severe changes in global climate... in summary, fast changes that humanity isn't prepared to deal with.
The problem with climate change isn't, weirdly enough, about climate changing itself. The problem is the speed. Human societies are not equipped or built to deal with fast changes. We have developed into the stage we are today during a miraculous period of time where global climate kept pretty stable... so our mentality nowadays is based on this stability.
If it was a couple of degrees increase in averages over say, a millenia, we'd probably handle it better. In a century this not only means we can't develop adaptations fast enough, we might also have too many extreme events that will kill tons of people and leave parts of the planet almost impossible to live through an entire year.
Imagine parts of the US you can only stay during certain months, having to move outside of it everytime storm season comes, or everytime forest fire season comes. It's kind of already happening.
Give it a few more years for it to affect even more countries and awareness finally reach it's peak.
If we're not already neck deep into trying to remediate all the problems that are already happening, perhaps out of desperation we adopt a massive geoengineering plan. Something that requires massive funding, massive ammounts of people working, and cooperation of several different countries.
I can already imagine we botching one of those up real good, creating massive side effects that will be even worse than climate change itself, which kills a huge percentage of all life on Earth. It is the most likely scenario given how little we actually know about doing something on that scale. It's something that might have killed past civilizations, or have left societies in very dire straights during our own history. The only difference is that we don't see them as "geoengineering".
For instance, if you change perspectives, climate change might be seem as geoengineering. Through several apparently unrelated processes, we increased the greenhouse effect by pumping a whole ton of gases from deep into the Earth's crust to the atmostphere.
There are vast tracts of land in several countries that we rendered infertile due to massive agricultural projects and whatnot. There are some theories about ancient civilizations going extinct because of processes involving large populations that changed the local climate and conditions that weren't predicted.
Humanity will be left in such a shape that it'll look like either post-apocalyptic scenarios or one of those zombie movies without zombies.
Pandemics will also come and tons of people will die, even though we could have saved many with research and development... just that we won't be able to reach or finance the costs of curing most people.
By the end of these very dark times in our species, we'll either be left in a state like previous to middle ages, or in a direct path to extinction.
At that point climate change won't even matter anymore, it'll only be about survival.
Geoengineering won't be attempted anymore because it will be considered too dangerous, and there won't be funds to do it anyways.
And then, we either start over or just let go...
5
-
Overhyped is the right word there, and tech people have known this before 5G was announced to the world with a whole ton of extremely unrealistic advertisement made by mobile telecoms.
It's all down to very basic physics principles, particularly the electromagnetic spectrum.
In short, 5G operates somewhere between 4G and Wi-fi. 4G has a long reach, can go through walls, but is limited in speed. Wi-fi can go very fast, but you'll often lose signal as soon as there is a wall between you and the access point, or you go too far away.
5G can go faster, but it actually operates in a spectrum going from speeds that are marginally better than 4G, up to several times faster. What the overhyped market campaign was showing was the optimal best case scenario with mmWave tech that allows for speeds several times that of 4G... but in practice, in order for you to get that you'll have to be no more than a block line of sight away from a 5G antenna, I'm being generous. If anything gets in the way, or you are over that, you'll either get your speed stepped down or completely lose it depending on antenna configuration. Heck, you could lose signal by just turning away.
Implementation of proper 5G coverage that gets anywhere near 4G coverage will take multiple times more than 4G did, by which I mean potentially decades, and it will also reach much less of what 4G did, because of this range and penetration limitation.
You know how you lose 4G signal when you get into an elevator? For fast 5G speeds this will happen when you get inside... anything that doesn't have a 5G antenna in it. A single tall 4G antenna could cover an entire neighborhood and more with ease, now imagine how many more 5G antennas you'd need if you want the fastest speed given that it can't reach you if you are a block away in clear line of sight.
No matter how much you got hammered by misleading ads, the truth of it is that 5G is at most a complementary tech to 4G. It'll likely never replace it fully, and coverage will mostly be limited to large city centers with plenty of utility pole space to install 5G antennas at. Indoors, it'll only really become a thing if people start using it to replace regular Internet connectivity such as fiber, cable and ADSL, and this is likely not happening due to different pricing schemes and it being a divided market shared between huge oligopolies. One way or another, all the artificial limitations and anti-consumer measures applies, so you end up not being able to rely on a single solution. There will be exceptions of course, but they'll remain mostly that - exceptional cases.
Well, that's for western markets I guess... in countries without huge telecom monopolies, this could go better. Without the marketing lies, 5G can be a good thing. It's just not really replacing 4G overtime like 4G/LTE did with 3G.
5
-
5
-
5
-
Agreed on the insurance answer, and the reason why Henry or anyone else shouldn't feel comfortable with it being decided based on all these private and personal markers is pretty logical if you understand the basis on how insurance SHOULD operate (it's not how they operate anymore, but it's how they should).
Basically, it should be a shared piggy bank or rainy day fund.
Lots of people put money on it, and insurance companies makes their profit and pay for operations out of it, but for the few people that something bad happens, the money is there to compensate for participating on the fund.
Overtime, the entire concept got corrupted by greed, because that's what the whole data collection thing and treating people differently really is. They charge more for people who might make use of the fund, and charge less for people who likely won't, but this is really mostly for their profit.
I wouldn't feel comfortable about sharing personal and private data with them because if it is about profit, eventually insurance companies will find a way to also monetize just that. In part, they already do. Insurance agency data is already used in some countries and some instances for credit scores, evaluation on other things, and who knows what else more.
It's not supposed to be that way, you know? But we're far past the point of making a course correction I guess...
The other argument that I'd put from what Nathan has said, there's a big issue there also related to profit and monitoring apps - you don't control the way the insurance company is calculating things, it doesn't sound very transparent at all, and so why would you trust a profit driven enterprise to honestly give you discounts for good behavior?
It is quite possible that they manipulate things behind, gives discounts only for a tiny fraction of people so that they can say it works, and for the rest they'll give some lame excuse that the app or the algorithm is not working correctly for you, and just keep charging you up to the limit that they think they can scalp you.
So, it's an issue of trust with what they do with your information.
Then finally, I promise the last argument on this topic. It seems that if you agree with these sort of surveillance tactics, the only route for this in the future is that it'll become worse and worse over the years. They know where to and how you drive, they'll soon want to include more details. Who are you friends with? What sorts of stuff you do on your daily life? Do you have any potentially dangerous hobbies? Do you have strong political and ideological opinions that might put you on a risk list?
See where I'm going with this? And insurance company can not only justify the collection of everything and anything you do in life on basis of calculation of your premiums, once they have all that they could just sell it to advertisers because that's exactly what advertisers also wanna know.
Just stay away from it if possible.
5
-
This video is a bit better than the one talking about Google achieving Quantum Supremacy, but it still does a very poor job on demystifying the field with too many sci-fi like predictions and scaremongering.
First of all, people need to understand that quantum computers are NOT a progression of regular computers. This needs repeating over and over and over again because this thing never seems to go away, but once again, here we are.
It's a fundamentally different system that, while being exponentially faster at some tasks, might be completely worthless at others that regular computers do.
Poor analogy perhaps, but think of it like comparing a knife to an industrial plasma cutter or something. Sure, the cutting power of the plasma is incomparable to a knife... try cutting a block of steel with a knife. But at the same time, you don't really want to cut your vegetables for dinner with a laser cutter. Unless you are a live streamer... *cough*. Again, this is a poor analogy, but just to understand that one does not replace the other in most tasks.
The part explaining Qbits and superposition is fairly good, it's what is mostly used to try to explain the concept. Also quantum entanglement by the end of the video. But right before that, there is another statement that is just not accurate. The part of one million times the processing power of all computers in the world today combined.
Again, this is misleading and a huge oversimplification. A quantum computer could theoretically do some tasks in seconds that it would take the best regular computer more than the age of the universe to do, but again, this is for very specific tasks that quantum computers would be optimal for, not everything.
In the case of Google's Quantum Supremacy achievement, which only means their quantum computer was able to do a task that a regular computer would take an impossible ammount of time to do, it was all about analysing the quantum effects of a random number generator. Not very useful for much of anything other than achieving quantum supremacy. Which is still a milestone and impressive achievement, to be clear, but it's not anywhere near being practical for anything.
D-Wave, the commercial quantum computer (people who watch LTT probably seen their visit), comes from a Canadian company. Lockheed Martin is a client of the company, as is USC, Los Alamos National Lab, Google and NASA. But Quantum Supremacy wasn't achieved with it, it was achieved with Google's own internally developed quantum computer - Sycamore.
It's also good to note that there isn't a single quantum computer architecture out there... the one D-Wave has works in a different way that the one Google used to achieve quantum supremacy, and others like the one IBM and Intel are developing are also different.
From the stuff I said so far, you'd understand why Microsoft and other companies are developing and "entirely new programming language". It's not because some fever pitch, it's because quantum computers need an entirely new programming language to work. They cannot work with regular programming languages, because the architecture is completely different. So that shouldn't be a surprise.
What goes implicit in this is that, because it's a new programming language made specifically for quantum computers, it's fairly limited right now, and once it gets developed further and further it'll look nothing like a regular programming language. It can open several doors to develop new stuff based on different logic, but it might also be completely unable to do some of the most mundane stuff.... say, C++ or Assembly does today.
For those who studied programming, think about logic-based languages, only even weirder and more far removed in comparison to procedural or object oriented programming.
Ok, now onto the most egregious part of the video. Quantum hackers, omg, we're all doomed!
Actually, that part is all wrong. Not only we already have existing encryption methods and steps inside encryption algorithms that are fairly resistant to an attack that a future quantum computer could do (which is still far into the future, I must remind), it still only applies to a very small subset of hacking attacks that are not employed much by hackers for breaches - brute force attacks.
The encryption algorithms we currently use are fairly vulnerable to a supposed quantum computer brute force/decryption attack, sure. Because they are based on prime number factorization, quantum computers could theoretically do it almost instantaneously for a password with an extremely large number of digits, that would take years, centuries or millennia for a regular computer to do.
But there are already alternative encryption methods that could be employed to make things way harder, and encryption algorithms that are basically quantum computer hack proof are already in development. So this alarmism is just completely unfounded, specially when tied with pretty weak implications against the scientific community of another country that has nothing to do with it.
Some chinese private companies did spy on foreign companies to steal industrial secrets, but this also doesn't have much to with straight brute force hacking, and it also doesn't have much to do with intellectual property. "Hacking" intellectual property also doesn't make much sense, not in this context.
Some other stuff to consider, much like installing a million dollar impenetrable lock in a door made out of styrofoam doesn't do much for you, so is the case of encryption in general. The vast majority of hacking attacks, specially the ones in the video, bypassed encryption entirely. Between social engineering attacks, to gaining physical access to unlocked machines and installing stuff there, to exploiting zero day vulnerabilities to install malware, rootkits and whatnot... I don't think any of the cases shown relied on brute force hacking to exfiltrate data. And encryption is also not the only tool people have to secure computers and electronics in general.
End too long comment disclaimer - I am not an expert nor work with quantum computers. So if you know more than myself, feel free to correct or explain the stuff in my comment better.
5
-
5
-
5
-
5
-
5
-
5
-
5
-
LOL, I can empathize with the girl Dogen said that looked japanese but was born in the US.
Went twice to Japan so far, both times with other 6 relatives.
3 of them (including my mom) can speak a bit of... like, pre-WWII japanese. So, newer words borrowed from english and other languages are right out. Which generates an insane ammount of confusion, let me tell ya. xD
One of my cousins has a medium level japanese reading and writting, mostly because he learned by himself, has been several time to Japan, and has friends and relatives living there. Other 2 relatives and myself knows practically zero japanese... I at most pick up some lose words, spoken, can't read anything. Basic of basics.
That's because I'm 3rd generation brazilian already, despite my parents and grandparents all having japanese descendancy. My mom was taught japanese when she was young, but didn't have much contact with it during her adult life. My dad was taught even less. So when it got to me, there was no such thing as speaking japanese at home. I tried learning a bit when I was younger, but it never caught on, specially because as a kid I really didn't have much interest in Japan and japanese culture at all, honestly. Weirdly enough, interest in Japan and japanese culture came much later on in life, when I was already 19 or something.
Before that, it was all about english as a foreign language. Which I know way more these days than say... spanish, which is a very close language for brazilians.
Anyways, in both trips, as we look plain japanese, we also had a few cases of "why the heck you don't understand what I'm saying?". To the point that on the second trip I considered carrying around a small brazilian flag, or wearing a gaijin/brazilian button or something. xD
No traumatic experiences I guess, as the tourist experience is far more forgiving. Most times, we quickly said we were brazilians, got some surprised looks, and then a total relaxation on the conversation - because people were attending us as tourists of course.
One thing I remember is that this mostly happened with taxi drivers. xD Some of them suddenly became super interested, having a hard time believing we were basically from the other side of the planet, still having a hard time believing that we simply couldn't speak or understand japanese. xD
5
-
The death of international franchises that replaced perfectly fine small businesses or even local franchises all over the world is a blessing, not a problem. It lets local businesses flourish, stops market monopolization, and allows for more competition. No country needs McDonald's to be there in the volumes they are, not even the US.
But obviously McDonalds being replaced by a local brand means nothing at the face of the widespread and huge sanctions Russia is suffering... food is the lowest common denominator, and the country will find a way around it be it by reshuffling sources or routing it through countries that are friendly to Russia and still have relationships with the western world. Primary resources aren't what people should be worried about. Well, it is what the world is worried about since Russia provided a ton of it to the EU and other nations I guess, but things will get readjusted overtime.
The problem of those sanctions are complex unique products that relies on production in western nations. And it will take a while for the damages to really get there, thanks to logistics and stocks. We'll start seeing the real effects of all these sanctions in a few months to years.
Which, to be fair, is not as huge a thing as some may think nowadays... most electronics these days are done in China, and if China decides to sell their share to Russia, there's nothing much western countries can do other than complain and threat pulling out, which they won't do because most countries in the west are reliant on Chinese production one way or another.
But there are some specialized products, industrial and tech related stuff, as well as scientific equipment that businesses and institutes in Russia will have a real hard time getting their hands on. Also, because of the huge devaluation of the Rouble, market tends to prioritize exports towards countries with more stable currencies... and in times of shortages of everything everywhere, Russia gets shoved further down the list than it already was.
So the reality of it is that Russia will probably continue functioning more or less like it was, but taken down a notch. Not quite North Korea, but still poorer and less cosmopolitan than it was. Which I'm sure is something lots of Russians couldn't give two sh*ts about, but it's not a situation you'd want to be in if you had the choice.
5
-
5
-
This is an often repeated fallacious stereotype that paints a specific type of image often reinforced by international news coverage that is both weird, disconnected with current reality, and drawing an image of "otherness" for the sake of fetishising another nation. It might have had some ground truth decades ago, but it just isn't reflected in current statistics, far too judgemental, and one sided as heck.
It's almost like it was made to put an extremely negative spin on working in Japan somehow... huh.
I feel this is particularly bad because you'll find tons and tons of pieces just like this one that goes through the exact same talk points without presenting any actual statistics or not digging any deeper into the subjects. It's just one sided speculation without substance and without reason to be there. International press fluff pieces that limits themselves on repeating the same old crap that has been repeatedly said about Japan for some couple or more decades now.
The first thing people should know about work in Japan is that the country has record low unemployment rates. It has the lowest unemployment rate among developed countries, which puts a bigger diversity of people inside the mix.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rate
Karoshi is often invoked to tell about the hellish conditions of japanese workers in Japan, but actually, the numbers dropped quite a bit in the past decade thanks to changes and policy implementations:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/622325/japan-work-related-suicides/
Because of the specific naming and how international press talks about this, people might thing karoshi and work related suicide is atypically high in Japan, but just so people know, in countries like UK and US this particular topic is treated in a very similar manner and the numbers are not a whole ton lower as you'd might expect:
https://www.who.int/gho/mental_health/suicide_rates/en/
http://www.hazards.org/suicide/suicidalwork.htm
Perhaps some people will also be surprised that the US is not that much better on the list of suicides in general in comparison to Japan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
I think anyone who has ever heard the term workaholic and know about western culture of overtime will probably take this idea that japanese people work too much with a grain of salt already, but here are some statistics just so people get this a bit clearer:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/01/the-countries-where-people-work-the-longest-hours/
Just to put it into words on this comment, the US has a higher average rate of overtime hours in comparison to Japan.
Labor shortage is a real huge problem in Japan, but the reasons why and what could mitigate it as put in the video is a bit speculative and potentially misguided. Here are the statistics:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/07/countries-facing-greatest-skills-shortages/
I'm saying a bit speculative and potentially misguided because immigration and robots might not be the solution the video poses it to be. First thing people should know, labor shortages are never spread out neatly among work areas... and in Japan case, there are lots of shortages in areas that require people to speak japanese fluently and have a whole lot of training.
As for robots, it's a huge kinda disingenuous myth that Japan uses robots to replace workers everywhere. I mean, it does, but not substantially more than any other developed country. A huge part of the things most people have seen around robots in hospitals, care centers, perhaps stuff like Asimo, fancy toys and whatnot - they were mostly showcases, exceptional stuff, or just research related projects. They are not being widely and hugely adopted and used throughout japanese society.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/robots-workers-countries_b_9992960
In reality, Japan is a country that is very much a mix of old with new. Much like other developed countries. You will have huge modern japanese companies still using fax machines for communication while doing research on robots, meek somewhat niche implementations of modern robots running inside a restaurant or something, but for the most part what you see in everyday life operates on the average. Japan is still a society that uses paper money far more than most western societies, there are lots of things that are done in a very old fashioned way from western perspective.
The reason for overtime and long work hours plus almost mandatory happy hour obligations also stems from tradition and culture that is still behind the curve. Traditional japanese companies are structured vertically. It's based on seniority. Workers don't wanna leave work if the boss is still there also working, and in a collectivist society this means that if everyone behaves that way, you feel pressured not to go against the grain and also stay at work, sometimes doing nothing there, just because the boss also haven't left.
This has positive and negative sides, but most important for people to know - not all japanese companies operate this way anymore. This is reflected in the statistics I have posted. It is the way most japanese companies operated for a long time decades ago, but things are changing there.
A tip for CNBC and other mainstream news networks - it is time you stop repeating this mantra, stop fetishising Japan, stop making biased pieces based on old information, and dig a little bit deeper to see what is really happening there if you wanna inform people correctly and not create weird tropes and weird superficial images that do not translate to reality. Japan is a country like any other. People there are just people. The culture might be different, but there are roots and reasons for it to operate the way it does. It's not some immutable magical lala land that you pick up at times just to bash on points of how different it is from where you live.
5
-
5
-
5
-
5
-
I dunno how there are still people who thinks Brexit is a good idea somehow... it's kinda laughable how there can still be such ignorance about certain topics.
You know how Boris, in every single opportunity he has and in every interview he does recently, he pulls the exact same gesture while saying "The PEOPLE have voted" with his fists together and all that?
He's fishing for plausible deniability. It's not only there, it's in his entire interview... which once you watched a few of them, you watched it all. He's just repeating keypoints by keypoints without any changes not to compromise the strategy there. This happens when the argument is on top of very tenuous lines. Any deviation can make the castle of cards crash down hard.
It's weird to think that even in the UK, there are still enough people who are ignorant enough that they are unable to read in between the lines in such an obviously poorly fabricated strategy.
Seems the biggest thing current democracies failed goes around education and critical reasoning. It's not about polarization, tribalism, political division and whatnot. It's far more basic than that. It exposed how ignorant people can be. How small minded, how given the right strong man or authoritarian tone, democracies fall to their feet. And how we failed, even with history at our hands, high level education, and plenty of current examples to go for, how we failed to educate enough people, how we failed to create a good enough level of critical reasoning in the masses.
See, when Boris reinforces time and time again that they were elected to deliver what THE PEOPLE have voted for, and keeps reinforcing that they are doing everything to deliver what THE PEOPLE have voted for, it is all for plausible deniability.
With a deal that cannot meet even the lowest expectations of EU, in this particular case the Good Friday Agreement, it's obvious that it's not gonna pass, and no effort was made for it to pass. Pre-conditions weren't met, and so it's not obviously gonna happen. "But hey, at least we tried".
Which leaves a no deal Brexit, which even the worst possible economists out there with little to no understanding of UK and EU will tell you that it'll lead to far reaching damages on UKs economy. This isn't about UK or EU in particular, it's just what always happens when a country unilateraly decides to leave an economic block without a real concrete and extremely detailed plan with several allies backing it before even considering the break.
If any country ever decides to break up with an economic block, you can do it, no problems. But before announcing to the world your intentions, you should first secure alliances with several countries which would at the very least land you in a similarly strong position once you leave the economic block - by entering another one. If that cannot be done, don't even consider it. Wait for a time that you can. THAT would be the proper way of leaving EU. Go around asking other countries what would take for them to form new deals and a new economic block in opposition to the EU, particularly on the laws that you don't like. Given the current global scenario, there were bound to be several countries who would agree. But it is absolutely necessary for this to be done before the break up... after it it's too late, you already put yourself in an extremely fragile position ripe for exploitation.
But nope, this entire thing was done in pretty much the worst way, most stupid way possible, and you can bet that Boris is fully aware of this. It is by no coincidence that he never says that he's doing what he or his party wants or has promised, it's by no coincidence that he never mentions the stuff he put out as a Brexit party during campaign, it's for very obvious reasons that everytime he talks about deals or no deal Brexit now as MP that he always invokes "what PEOPLE voted for" instead of "the stance OUR PARTY took"... because that's the discourse an executor, a bouncer, an insurance agency or a costumer support staff denying support always takes. It's standard plausible deniability. It was not ME or MY PARTY that wanted Brexit, it was the PEOPLE, our inconsequential bosses, the order came from an upper stance, I'm only trying to do it with the least damages possible. I didn't want to do it, but THE PEOPLE asked for it. I knew it would result in all the problems we have not, but THE PEOPLE elected me for it. I don't regret it nor I feel guilty about it, because I was only doing my job.
The only thing lacking in his artificial sympathetic tone is downright saying he does not want to do it, mainly because he campaigned for the whole idea. It'll come up once the damage is done, but for now he just can't say it.
He was elected because he said it was a good idea. And he's trying his best to make people forget that fact. No one wants a legacy of being responsible for destroying a country's economy, of course, and when problems start propping up, there will be a witch hunt. This plausible deniability that he's building up might not completely save him or his party, but it should create enough confusion for them not to hang. Which is all that rich powerful people really need. They can avoid most of the economical problems a country has if enough of a safe space is given to them.
The interesting thing of this whole case is that we're watching it happen in slow motion. Like one of those slow motions videos of a bullet going through an apple or something. The bullet is getting into the frame, but there are still people thinking the apple will ricochet it somehow. It's just so fascinating.
Obviously, it's useless if people don't learn any lessons from it, and it seems a large portion of humans are still incapable of doing so, or else we wouldn't be in such a situation. Therein lies the problem of history being circular. All this new technology that came to oversaturate humanity with information was useless, because it lacks in quality, and most people are still not paying attention. We'll end up with entire countries ruined, democracies destroyed, new forms of tirannies, dictatorships and autocracies, wars and extreme losses of lives, because we still haven't figured out how to make people learn from what has already happened.
5
-
@aardeng First of all, this is about choice and body autonomy, you keep trying to deviate from the core aspect of the discussion with secondary results that are not guaranteed and not even the majority of cases, as if they were automatically true. You cannot legislate on what can potentially happen, you always legislate on certainty. Abortions can also be done with both sides consent, as long as it remains a choice. It isn't always traumatic to the man, and not all cases are done without the man's opinion on it.
Second, people "force" trauma on others everyday - laws were not designed to prevent that, specially because there's no way of predicting and knowing what will cause trauma on someone else. You cannot legislate on feelings alone.
Third, if you are really advocating for laws to be crated to prevent every single bit of potential trauma one person can cause on another, what you are really asking for is a totalitarian nanny state that control every single aspect of it's citizen's life, which I cannot vouch for. That's neither sane nor realistic. The state isn't an overprotective parent overlooking every single aspect of it's citizens life so it can never experience pain, hardship or trauma throughout his or her life - we live in society, and those are needed in order for us to learn and get better by ourselves.
Addressing the question:
Yes, a man losing his child CAN be traumatic for him if it is done without consent or conversation, but again, this is not what pro-choice people are asking for - they are asking for the choice itself. Non governmental interference, privacy, the right to have a say.
Let me ask you something since you are at least willing to talk, thanks for that - what do you do when you want to avoid trauma? You treat the action that can potentially lead to trauma with respect and care it deserves.
Any major decision in life that can be beneficial to you or you and your significant other that you make, which is a next step for your shared life but which can also carry traumatic consequences if not handled carefully, all you need is care not to go the wrong way. Conversation, understanding, empathy.
Bearing a child is probably the most significant of all, but let's think smaller. Getting a loan for a home purchase, starting a business, moving together with aging parents, uprooting to another country because of job opportunity of one side of the couple... all these major life altering decisions that can carry long term consequences and trauma if things go wrong, they can either be made by the couple responsibly, or one sided and carry trauma, separation and whatnot to the other side. This doesn't mean that the state needs to legislate every single case creating extra burden or even forbidding people to do it to one side or another just because the other doesn't agree.
Terminating a pregnancy can be seen as a way higher decision in life than those others, a matter of perspective. But ultimately, it falls in the same category. It is a matter of choice, privacy and autonomy of what individuals (in this case women) can do with their own bodies and lives.
The problem you are highlighting that you have here is potential for trauma on men, which yes, can happen. The problem pro choice people are highlighting is about not having control on what women can do with their own bodies because of unjustified state interference based on extreme religious views (plus politics bias) and nothing else that justifies it.
5
-
5
-
5
-
I think it's good to reinforce, even though it is on the description of the video already, that this is about foreign workers IN TOKYO. Specially because the video is talking about wages and living expenses.
Much like any other capital in other countries in the world, the ratio between living expenses and wages in Tokyo are far more strict - rents are higher, wages are lower and food is more expensive. Not as absurdly as in some other countries I might add, but still.
In exchange, there's far more convenience, the general bustling big city life, more opportunities and whatnot.
This interview would've gonne very different if it was in a smaller city... but Hiroko would have a far more difficult time finding them too. xD
I should say though, that given the size and population density of Tokyo, and how it's the economic and political center of Japan, it is far far faaaar more reasonable in comparison to most capitals of the same size in the world, particularly in developed countries. You'd think that at this point Tokyo would be almost like living in Manhattan or something, but it isn't.
I have lots of relatives who went to work in Japan a few decades ago... during the peak era of brazilian migration. None of them went to Tokyo. They were mostly in Aichi prefecture, or cities like Kobe.
Most of them worked very hard, lived in very basic conditions in factory lodgings, had to get pretty smart around not being exploited, but they came back with a whole lot of money... apart from one or another uncle/cousin who had horrible spending habits (wasting money on expensive cars, sound systems and a bunch of other crap). Enough to pay for big houses plus real estate, cars, and open their own business here. Some were pretty bad with money, borrowed it away, and lost it all. Which just goes to show that having more money doesn't mean you'll automatically learn how to spend it better, but that's a whole other discussion.
Of course, this also has to do with stuff like currency exchange rates and whatnot... our currency is very devalued in comparison to US dollars and japanese yen, but still.
So, it ends up being that if you are going to work in low skill jobs, Tokyo is a pretty bad place to do it in terms of return and savings - because the living expenses in Tokyo are high. But of course, it's also the city where you'll have most job openings. On the countryside you'll probably pay half the price of rent and things are gonna be cheaper, but you will have a harder time finding a job, and you'll probably be left even more estranged specially if you don't speak japanese.
Another thing to consider is that most foreign workers are already in a particularly difficult situation. Not only on cultural difference, not knowing much of the way of the land to save as much as they could, but also most foreign workers will be sending money back to support family, pay debt, and have extra trip and communication expenses. Having family, relatives, friends with similar backgrounds and whatnot to support you locally is an invaluable thing.
In any case, this is a great interview that I feel is missing in general from YouTube, thanks Hiroko and Asian Boss. Here's the thing - I love a lot and am very grateful for several channels telling how it is to be a foreigner in Japan, but the absolute vast majority of it comes from current or former interchange students coming mainly from US, UK, Australia and few other countries. It's definitely better than nothing, but it's still a very particular view of foreigners working or living in Japan. It isn't a very good representation of what most people are looking for.
Most importantly though, it doesn't accurately reflect the reality that people should know about for the workers Japan mostly need from other countries. Japan is opening up to get more foreign workers into the country, but it's not about english teachers and interchange students - it's heavy labor, low skilled work, and everyday life jobs. Of course, it's the exact type of work that leaves no time to make a YouTube channel, so interviews is the only real way to go.
5
-
Anyone who knew even the basics on how autonomous car tech works already knew years ago that these are not coming anytime as fast as predictions made it to be.
The reason why those predictions happened were two fold. First, tech press ignorance. People who don't really know what they are talking about swallowing press releases whole. Second, because of e-peen escalation... if you have one company lying that their tech is almost there, every other player has to say the same to satisfy their investors. And the problem is, we had at least two companies with CEOs that loves to overestimate their capabilities while living in a bubble where everyone around them just claps and congratulates them - that's Tesla and Uber.
It's really a less unrealistic version of flying cars, but ultimately with similar problems.
Uber got out of the race after a fatal accident which should be preventable with a level 2 autonomous car, plus several other non fatal accidents.... because they were basically using public roads as a test lab. Not to mention a huge part of the tech was taken from Waymo, and they were doing everything they could to catch up with testing and training...
Tesla continues doing so, with fatal crashes only worsening the trust in the idea of autonomous driving, because it's big ego does not allow the company to call what they really have as what it is: advanced cruise control. It's not autonomous driving, it's not autopilot, and the fact that Tesla faithful and cult followers keep using those cars as if they were autonomous only results in more accidents, which sends the adoption of technology further into the future.
You know when we'll be a couple of years from autonomous cars going mainstream? When regulations and laws are already in place, when the tech is standardized throughtout the auto industry, when the option to have it is almost as cheap as getting just a regular car, when the tech can drive autonomously anywhere, in any condition. Then we'll be two years from widespread adoption, it'll be the two years that the tech will prove itself.
Of course, as some might already have thought about and asked themselves... autonomous cars really are kinda like the whole hyperloop idea. Meaning, not only it's far harder and far less feasible than most people think, it's also questionable that we should be going this hard for it.
Efficient, clean, widely available public transportation should really be the target for future generations, because ours is already f*cked.
See, it just doesn't add up. Even if all autonomous cars were widely adopted and strictly electric, the grid wouldn't be able to take it.
We'll either realize and change this for ourselves, or the change will be forced upon us via wars, droughts, famines, constant blackouts, rationing and a huge ammount of people dying 'till the end of the century.... and I suspect it's gonna be the latter, because societies are too slow to change and adapt.
If you think the worst that can happen with autonomous cars and whatnot is 10% of the workforce losing jobs, just wait and see how much worse things will really get as climate change keeps it's steady escalation. It just sounds more and more that we'll really have to get to the brink of extinction for things to really change. At that point, autonomkus driving will be jist a dream of the past, when we were too naive to realize what was coming for us....
5
-
5
-
Interesting stuff, never heard of something like this.
I'd be interested to know if there is such a program in my own country, which I'd guess there isn't - Brazil.
Around a decade ago, a few low cost airlines started popping up in the country landing in relatively small scale airports in mid sized cities.
It didn't last long. They went bankrupt and stopped service altogether.
I know this because my mom's hometown, which we go to every xmas, has a population of only around 6000 people. The nearest neighboring city 40 minutes by car has a population of 250 thousand people. That city has a tiny airport. It's less like an airport and more like a landing zone for crop planes, but they adapted it somehow.
For a couple of great years, instead of taking a 9hr bus trip there, I paid up to double the price to take a 40 minute flight instead.
For the most part though, if you live in a small to mid sized city in Brazil, without strong tourism, or some other reason for there to be an airport there... it's fuck you, drive or take a bus to a bigger city, and take the flight there. :P
5
-
5
-
5
-
That practice of putting a link in a contract for the purpose of being able to change it at a later date should be enough to put down that company in any lawsuit that comes against it. Louis is right. Problem is the entire legal process. Whole lot of shady businesses betting on exploiting people who will not be able to pay the legal fees to take them to court.
I'm not sure how US law works, but to me it sounds like misleading or deceptive conduct. That's some grade A bullshit right there. Shouldn't be allowed at all.
I imagine there are some acceptable usage of links in contracts, like when it's related to an international standard, or something that can't be arbitrarily changed by one side of the contract for their own benefit... but in this case, it's quite clearly a scam.
People who were damaged by it should group together for a class action lawsuit.
And it's not as simple as "read the contract" sometimes, as some are saying. What scammers specialize in doing is using legalese, layers upon layers of content, 20+ page contracts and whatnot to burry the information so deep that not even experienced lawyers would find it. Which is even more convenient when the service constitutes a local monopoly or something - they know you don't have other choices.
I read something about this, there's even some related terms people should know: unjust enrichment and quantum meruit. It's sort of a last line of defense, but there are some provisions in law to deter businesses from making contracts that abuse their position, exploiting people who don't have a choice or didn't understand the contract properly.
But of course you should always try to understand the contract as best as possible, and do exactly what Louis did: background check on the company you are making business with.
Thanks for sharing Louis!
5
-
5
-
5
-
A celebration of diversity is always welcome, and I do think we need more space for people of all fits and sizes to feel liked and not ostracized... but to be completely honest, I think beauty pageants for plus-sized women, at least from a certain perspective, is not all that different from a good part of the current beauty pageants out there, or regular fashion models - where some models have to starve themselves in an unhealthy manner to even compete. Because both are not very healthy. Bad tendency to celebrate extremes, not very good showing of examples to follow.
So, while I don't see anything wrong with this as a counter culture positioning considering how warped current culture is, it'd be more accurate to say I don't like several aspects of neither this, nor "regular" beauty pageants.
But just so people know though, prejudice and offenses solves nothing. And in a way, beauty pageants are not really there to promote health, they are simply there to celebrate beauty.
So, if people are searching for something to set an example as health standard, it's better not to look at this entire industry altogether. Why, in the first place, would women need an institution that basically objectifies people to be scored like cattle in an arbritary value based contest? Isn't the entire concept wrong in the first place, and if so, why keep promoting it? Just food for thought.
Also, people should not feel pressured to be a certain shape or size... specially if it's to the point of hurting yourself. But everyone should strive to be healthier. Not because of what others will think of you, but because it's something valuable for yourself.
5
-
5
-
I kinda imagined that at some point Apple would do something like this...
Just so people really understand what is happening there - this is active, and super shady sabbotage.
Why would Apple purposedly introduce component part identification where the only incompatibility effect would be weird malfunctions instead of a clear warning?
It's just so that the company can reinforce the message that independent repair is not reliable. It both has the effect to denigrate honest businesses, cement the idea that independent repair is not reliable in the publics' mind, and serve as an argument point in lobbying efforts. Look how many people took their iPhones to independent repair shops and now they cameras are not functioning as they should anymore! Nevermind this is only happening because of us.
They surreptiously introduce an artificially created problem that will only appear if someone takes their phone into an independent repair store, it gets correctly fixed in every way, but the phone itself is pre-programmed to become defective because of this scheme.
Man, that is some absolutely disgusting, nasty strategy. If you needed to see something even shadier than the famous planned obsolescence, there you are.
And I totally agree with Louis. No one will care about this. It doesn't register as something as nefarious as it really is. And if we're being honest, consumers and citizens have lost far more with even less excuses... people just don't realize. It'll eventually come to bite everyone's asses eventually, but by then, it'll already be too late. What with Apple being a trillion dollar company.
5
-
Several countries in the world have separatist movements. What we mostly hope for is for these movements to never get enough hold to cause a civil war. Same thing for nationalist movements. Unfortunately, misinformation on the Internet age, extremism, tribalism, hightened individualism, wage gap and several other problems are managing to somehow turn the tables on this. Radical platforms are getting hold of a very powerful platform of communication these days that is not being properly vetted, and what we get as result is throngs of ignorant people being swayed one way or the other without control.
I won't pretend I know what the situation in Catalonia is, because I don't, but I will say this - most of the times, separatist movements comes from a point of inconsequential prejudice, ignorance, sense of entitlement, moral superiority, lack or empathy, huge networks of misinformation, and a lack of willingness or trust to work with the general government plus some ammount of fanatism for the local one.
And then, what you'll often see are all these middle to upper class folks preaching all sorts of stuff while being completely ignorant of the situation in general, and the full breadth of consequences to what they are asking for. It's weirdly confusing how some people who are supposedly highly educated, qualified professional in their own areas, very capable people being fooled by a sense that dividing a nation will only bring benefits to themselves. And very often, they cannot see that the priviledged position they currently occupy is most likely a result of an unbalanced nation that allowed for this priviledged class to be created in the first place at the cost of more impoverished regions that paradoxically would never consider separatism an option.
People who have struggled their entire lives will often have some sense that isolation, separation and selfishness is not a good route to go for. They've already been there, they know it doesn't work, they know that alone they have no power. People who were born rich and surrounded by priviledges often don't know about this. They think they themselves are the source of everything that is good and morally right, or that the group they participate is superior and the cause for all the priviledges they enjoy, so they will often lash out on whatever they consider foreign as the cause for all problems.
Catalunia, I dunno much about, and to be honest I don't really care all that much. It doesn't sound like separatism is a good way to go for there, there are other ways to legitimize the portion of the country while still being part of the country in general. But I do hope that in my own country, the current separatist movement never takes hold. We'd end up with two countries that would both be more in shambles than they already are.
5
-
5
-
Yeesh, I get it that Vice has a drugs kink to it and wanted to paint a pretty picture on this one, but it just comes off as inconsequential at some point.
Here's the thing about cults, communes, these self estabilished societies that always claims it's all about freedom to live how they want: be it funded for religious purposes, for philosofical ones, to negate societies as whole among other stuff, you are often bound to find inside these places, often hidden behind some show off talking all about the good life there, the people who are brainwashed and as oppressed as in any other society taking the blunt (no pun intended) of the problems.
You have people that are there for good reasons, like addicts trying to cure themselves, or people with traumatic past experiences which led them to escape somewhere else... but just as much you have people that could potentially be there for all the bad reasons. Convicted criminals, people with such a bad history that they don't have anywhere else to go, people who escaped social responsibilities, people who are commiting all range of crimes protected by the relative privacy that these places will give you... you just never know.
And for every supposedly good camp as far as the reporter could see and know about, because of course they are not going to show the bad side of it to a reporter that is there to create an image of the place, there are tons and tons of bad cases peppered through the entire history of societies to talk about. These commune like structures tend to be extremely volatile, and more often than not gives rise to all sorts of problematic behaviour because the people there often chose to "escape modern society" of sorts for reasons. While it's for consuming illegal drugs... or natural herbs if they wanna see it that way, it's all good.
I'm of course not saying that modern societies are better in all aspects, nor that there's nothing there to make an example of, nor that people shouldn't do it. But this video paints a very specific, focused, biased and misleading image.
5
-
5
-
5
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
Few things to point out from the outset:
Being popular doesn't automagically mean being fair, competent, or generally a good leader... it can be a positive indicator though, that needs to be considered among a whole list of other things. After all, being extremely unpopular means you just can't do anything in a democracy, so it's best to be around the split or upwards.
Impossible to have a common thread there as there are too many variables. Popularity ranges from cult of personality stuff, being the opposite of a very unpopular predecessor, the current state of politics in a nation, being very attuned to mainstream opinions, general charisma stuff, down to minute things like one major recent decision that gets the approval of the majority.
People just have to keep in mind that lots of decisions that politicians could make that will affect the future of a nation can be incredibly unpopular because it directly affects citizens... particularly when it comes to either boring stuff like infrastructure reforms, all the way to economic reforms that affects the entire population negatively but might be essencial to avoid a collapse, those leaders will be unpopular even if the measures are necessary. And then there are decisions that needs to be made because of external factors, like being part of an economic block, and stuff like that. The ill effects of some of those could be tackled against a leader simply because he or she would be the convenient target.
But we can look at extremes. I'm willing to bet that if an honest non-manipulated survey could be conducted in North Korea, with honest independent opinions not shaped by government, dear leader would still be extremely popular. Not because he's doing a great job as a leader, but because North Koreans grew up conditioned to see him as a living God on Earth. He's divinity to them, much like religious people see their own saints and Gods.
That is the extreme of cult of personality of course... people working to death, skin and bones from hunger, watching the country as it trails this route towards total and complete destruction by a future war, will still adore their leader because they don't think they are in a position to judge. Further, they don't even know what having other leaders would be like, there is no basis for comparison, and they usually don't know enough of what happens in leadership, in their own nation, or outside of it, to really tell things apart.
4
-
4
-
There are plenty of reasons to be against 5G, like I was and still am, but it has nothing to do with health.
When 5G came out it was basically a propaganda campaign promissing all sorts of magical leap stuff that simply were not true, with the sole purpose of pushing governments and enterprise to spend a whole ton of money on stuff that ammounts to nothing. I was suspicious from the beginning, with tech press swallowing the lies whole just like they did with Bluetooth 5.0 and other "magical" upgrades. You could only read about advantages, with no drawbacks pointed out.
The simpler way to think about 5G is to think about it being closer to Wi-fi rather than celular networks. The tech is different, and there are tons of newer tech involved in 5G, but to put it very simply, it enables faster speeds at the cost of range. You get speeds closer to Wi-fi, but the range is even worse. You know how your smartphone will lose connection to Wi-fi when you are behind a couple of concrete walls? Well, with 5G half a concrete wall will do. Perhaps even a wooden wall, or drywall will make the signal worse than 4G.
All the promises of ultra fast Internet connections comes with the caveat that in order for you to get those speeds, you need to sacrifice reach. You gotta be close and in direct sight.
So, the millimeter wave speeds of 5G needs almost two orders of magnitude more towers to cover the same area. And it gets worse the more obstacles you have in the way.
I dunno the exact numbers, but yep, it is this ridiculous. You need something like hundreds of towers to cover the same area a single 4G tower does inside a city. One for every block or more.
Now, if you are old enough you might remember how many years it took for 4G not to be totally spotty throughout your country. 5G towers are smaller, cheaper and easier to install, but still, given how many more are needed, how fast the signal gets weak, and knowing how telecoms operate - unless you live in a major metropolitan area downtown where a 5G tower is likely to be installed close and at view, you are certainly not gonna enjoy any 5G speeds soon.
This is a tech for the less than 1%. Likely less than 0.1%.
Now, yes, sub-millimiter wave will improve incrementally over LTE, but it certainly isnt the miraculous improvement that was promised, it does not justify how much taxpayer money was already put into this, and it wont solve celular networks worst problems in most countries that have problems with it... because most problems people have with 4G have nothing to do with the tech itself, but all to do with bad practices frrom the networks themselves.
This becomes very clear if you ever visit a country with good implementation of 4G LTE... its almost like some alien technology that you never experienced before. Fast, reliable, and enough for most needs. The difference is in how its implemented and managed.
Its not about the celular network tech generation, its about old infrastructure, inadequate sizing, not scaling equipment and infrastructure along with the increase of costumers, artificial limitations such as traffic shapping, datacaps and stuff like that.
The other thing 5G networks could cause problems with is weather satellite systems, GPS, and a few other stuff like that. Interference is something to worry about... well, it has always been, since radio waves.
So there you go. Conspiracy theories regarding 5G are ridiculous, but theres plenty to not like about how 5G implementation and propaganda was done.
4
-
It's fascinating stuff and all, like many other TED talks inspirational, but I think solar cell companies have to shift the tone from an environmental standpoint - which is of course important but people are kinda tired of hearing -, to a more economical one.
Because that's the thing building owners and construction companies will be convinced by and will invest on. It's a sad reality, but it is what it is.
And I think the entire solar cell industry is mature enough and has been around for long enough to just put it out there.
Put simply: how much investment we're talking about for a standard size building, how much more production has to scale to bring prices of those processes down, what sort of savings will those buildings have on a daily basis, what's the ROI, how much extra in construction costs we're talking about, what are the numbers for examples given, what's the maintenance cost, etc etc.
And I know there are trappings in solar power production. It simply cannot generate as much power as more traditional technologies, but if it gets to a point where it makes sense to invest, then it should be enough for lots of people to adopt it. But it has to be presented in hard numbers. You need to get hard realistic studies of effects out there. Yes, solar is less poluting and all, but by how much? How poluting are the processes of creating said cells? How it's expected to scale with mass production? What are the advantages of having buildings producing solar power (like in an outtage, building will retain the ability to produce some power). What about batteries?
And then stuff like, how much less CO2 is being put out by building a city full of buildings with solar panels? What jobs will it generate? What systems people are using to connect to the grid?
Even if the answers are not totally great or favorable, people need to know. I think lots of people wouldn't mind a less efficient paradigm, and/or something that costs a bit more, given the benefits.
4
-
Thanks Greg, for yet another great video that compiles and brings nuance to a discussion I've been having for years with people curious about Japan! xD One more to use when trying to unravel the complexity of it.
You generally have two camps of people on this. One side, people who have heard about the complexity of trash separation for recycling, plus perhaps a doc on that zero waste village that "recycles" "everything", and thinks Japan is a paradise of recycling or something, and the other camp who heard about double and triple packaging of Japanese products and/or how a ton of trash gets burnt and finds it all appalling... it is often hard to explain how none of it is black and white, and reality is more or less in between like in several other developed nations.
But I think there are some models in Japan that are worth thinking about and adopting, sometimes I wonder why it still didn't happen. One is the standardization of product packaging, particularly for companies that already operate in Japan (which is basically most, as it has basically become a global oligopoly), they have no excuses on not knowing how to do it.
My understanding is that while not perfect, particularly for PET bottles, Japan evolved recycling efforts a whole lot in the past couple of decades. And it's not only about recycling... in more general terms it's also about usability, education, awareness, culture and more stuff along those lines.
Standardization and bottles that are clearly made with recycling in mind, with care put into how to clean and break them apart for recycling, by itself educates people towards better disposal practices... which doesn't happen in my country because bottles continue coming in all shapes, consistency and sizes, with paper and plastic labels completely glued to the bottles with zero consideration on how to take them off, an assortment of caps of all materials and qualities imaginable, no standardized shape, etc. You can see from the offset that it wasn't made with recycling in mind, and so people just don't give a damn.
In fact, by comparison, the standard vending machine Japanese tea bottle is so well made (in comparison to local stuff) that I often see people using it as a reusable bottle... every now and then I get some in an import shop and it becomes a bottle to take on trips and whatnot. The bottles of stuff bought locally are so crappy that it often ends up in a state you can't really clean up and reuse.
The whole idea that bottled beverage manufacturers needs to keep changing and messing with bottle designs as a marketing ploy has to die in the west. Well, what is left of it in Japan also has to go, because I know that despite heavy standardization, Japan also has a bit of that leftover.
I also think that for quite a few places, there needs to be some consideration about controlled burning of trash with carbon capture methods and whatnot. While it might sound bad at first because of emissions, it's a whole lot worse if all this trash ends up in a landfill which contaminates the water table and rivers, and all of it ends up breaking down and becoming a source of greenhouse gases anyways, while also adding up to ecosystem damages and microplastics problem. For countries like Japan where there is a lack of natural resources for energy production, and a whole lot of emissions and costs involved in importing fossil fuel energy anyways, at least for me it seems more than logical to burn trash for fuel. It's not a perfect solution, and it might not sound great, but it sure sounds better than just exporting trash and importing even more fossil fuels to fill the gap...
I do agree though that there should be better ways to handle some types of packaging... I do like the practice for cleanliness and food portioning reasons, plus the entire culture of gift giving, but I guess it's time to start applying more forcefully usage of alternative materials, or reusable stuff, rather than just keep using mounds of plastic that will end up being burned away.
In any case, I'm not in any position to criticize or complain. My developing nation still didn't get even close to such considerations. Trash ends up everywhere here, even well educated people have no idea how little of our trash gets recycled, in general people also have no idea how to separate recyclable trash from the rest properly, we are nowhere close to having an uniform system for it, there is little respect for standards and labeling regarding materials and how to recycle them, and our landfills are all problematic in their own ways... I won't even start talking about industrial trash, commercial, and stuff like mining because it'd be an endless complaint stream. :P
The only thing that saves us from going the complete opposite way when it comes to environmentalism and fighting climate change is that most of our power generation, thanks to the lucky geographical conditions we have, already leans heavily towards renewables. Lucky for us, because if it depended on government and people's will, we'd be contributing increasingly more and more to worsening Climate Change, and against the environment in general. But there is a lot more to be done, and it needs to start by taking away the idiot president in charge, replacing with someone that at least doesn't put industrial cattle farming and whatnot above environmental concerns. Realistically though, even if we elected the most radical environmentalist possible, there is only so much that could be done to solve all the environmental issues here... but I think a proper start would be regulating things properly and forcing huge industries to commit to better practices or start paying all the fines they should already be paying for environmental damages.
4
-
4
-
Anecdotal personal experience confirms this... sorta I guess. xD Not sure if it really reflects number because this was back when I was a teen, which means this was over 20 years ago.
My hometown is a Brazilian touristic city that is just not well known internationally... it's very far from the major urban centers of the country but it has one of the major global marvels of nature, one of the major engineering marvels of the world and it's a frontier city to two other nations. I'll let you find out what it is, we'll see how many people know about it.
So, back over 25 years ago more or less my dad brought back home a tourist that was a bit lost in the city. He was... Australian.
I didn't know enough English to talk and understand everything he was saying back then, but through my father which knew better English than I did back at the time, the guy was in his mid 20s or something, and he was explaining that he worked as a carpenter in Australia.
He was explaining that after working for a few years without vacation, he decided to give himself a sabbatical year to travel around the world. And that's how he ended up in our city... he really liked nature so he was specifically targeting major natural wonders in different nations.
Mind you, this was before the Internet era. Almost unthinkable these days I guess, but he was going around to see the world, not to make YouTube videos, Instagram stories or whatever. :P
Of course, the jaw dropping thing for us is how someone working as a carpenter for a few years managed to make enough money to travel a full year around the world. Carpenters in Brazil barely make enough for basic necessities, let alone take a full year off to travel around the world. It was quite a clash.
This is obviously anecdotal and reflects nothing, but the video made me remind of this... if you take the Australian minimum wage and convert it to our currency, it's upper class if not downright rich here. The medium wealth 200 thousand something dollars, currently with currency exchange makes you a millionaire here. xD
4
-
Here's the weird thing I don't get about all this - of course these countries don't get affected all that much by global scale crisis... it's exactly because of their dependancy on commodities.
Because most of the past global crisis were all products of speculative market - like housing crisis, dot com bubble crisis and others - countries that have economies highly tied to speculative markets will be affected way more than commodity dependant countries, of course.
Problem is, to accelerate economies you have to enter the speculative market somehow... investment in technology, startups, attracting foreign investment, putting more money on stock market, etc. But this also means the economy will become more unstable, since it becomes reliant on speculation. I imagine this to be valid for most of the countries listed.
Countries in development that are highly dependant on commodities might be majority poor and have economies that cannot compete with developed countries, but they are more resilient to crisis because they are based on commodities.
For us (I'm brazilan), I have to say that both BRICS and Mercosul is alive and ongoing... but it's kinda obvious why it isn't for most developed countries. Instead of something to improve the image of countries for foreign investors, it has switched to partnership between developing countries for trade and negotiations. Circlejerk outside the global stage if you will.
Like the CNBC piece puts well enough, the developments in those countries in the recent past didn't go well with the global tone. And I have to agree with accessment. If I was a foreign investor, I'd see no reason to put money in countries that are violating international agreements, completely riddled in corruption, becoming more beligerent over time, growing at the cost of human lives and other stuff like that.
I can't say much about other countries apart from what I heard on International news, but Brazil almost got destroyed by the institutionalized corruption that took over politics from small towns all the way to federal government and presidency. We have cities, like my hometown, where 90% of politicians from councilors to mayor all got arrested on corruption charges. Even worse, absurdly, we had to watch councilors getting out of jail to sign their term renewals because they were re-elected before getting arrested and are going to keep their jobs even while being behind bars. Yes, things are this bad.
The only good point from all this is that they are finally getting arrested. Because corruption is not news for us, it's been happening ever since Brazil became a democracy (34 years ago - we had a military dictatorship before that which lasted almost 21 years), but now politicians are finally getting arrested. Some have charges mounting all the way to a couple of decades ago or more. Families of politicians who have stolen money from tax payers over 2 or more generations.
But if I'm being honest, I don't have faith that even this will be enough to solve corruption problems in Brazil... we need a hard reset, not an anti-virus. Corruption here is so ingrained and so entrenched in politics and culture that the system itself became breeding grounds for it.
We have structured politics here in a way that by itself, it breeds corruption naturally. The wages of politicians in Brazil border the absurd in comparison to the reality of average brazilian workers, it attracts people that are out for money, it puts them into a bubble when they get there, and the bureaucratic machine of the state stops any development towards improvement of brazilian public services to a point that it makes the likelihood of politicians becoming corrupt even higher. Reforms are a bandaid that solves nothing.
Justice system is strong here, strong enough to put some very big corrupt politicians in jail, but you see, in order for them to be this strong they also have absurd power and money, so aside from few exceptions, it's another system riddled with corruption. It can only do so much.
We were lucky to have some key justices in place that were not in cahoots with the big political parties and that were willing to clean up at least part of the political system, but it just isn't enough.
It has gotten to a point that people in Brazil decided to switch from a socio-democratic populist party candidate and system to a conservative military religious proto-dictator. And I don't blame anyone who voted for the current president despite his flaws - it was basically him, or a continuation of the same thing that drove Brazil into the hole it's currently in. No lesser of two evils here, it's only evil of different types. People voted for something to change, even if it was changing from one bad thing to another bad thing of a different type.
So yeah... while I can't hate too much the country that I came from, that supported me for this long, and that I had a place to grow in, if it wasn't for family and other ties I have here, I'd have left long ago. The relatively comfortable life I live in today and the access to education I had is not so much because of the country, but because of the numerous sacrifices my parents and relatives had to make so that I am here. So I can't leave them and go away by myself, because the debt is deep, not financial, but moral.
The disconnect is real though. I don't feel part of this country, this culture, or this way of life. Several of the problems we have are products of our own culture, it's deeply rooted and often times feel impossible to change. Thick molasses that is constantly trying to pull you down. I wanna stay on surface long enough 'till I either convince my parents to leave the country with me, or until I'm by myself and decide to leave once I have no connections left here. Sorry for the long rant.
4
-
"inspiring speech"? To me it looked like a boss telling their associates or employees that they will have to work almost as slaves for the success of the company. Which is most likely what really gave rise to all these chinese tech giants - people working to death as slaves for a company's global position and profitability.
You see, that's the whole thing about explosive success in totalitarian countries. Lax regulation, a dodgy relationship with human rights, no worker protections, no welfare, and people being used as slaves or tools for corporate domination, construction of infrastructure and whatnot - it's really effective. It's undeniable. Several of the engineering wonders of the historical world were build in systems similar to those, and several of the marvels in the modern world also happened that way.
You have an unlimited supply of resources to be exploited to it's absolute limits (people), it's not all that hard to turn a profit.
To be fair, this is obviously not only about Alibaba, or about chinese companies only. A whole ton, if not the absolute majority of successful businesses, companies and corporations in the entire world are but a front of similar systems being applied in the very same way. Whether they are exploiting workers in China, Africa, Vietnam or any other country that is poor and/or controlled by a totalitarian regime, or exploiting the systems in so called democratic countries, the base idea is the same.
The question is if these are the people, businesses and well... almost cultural phenomenas that we really wanna be looking with some sort of admiration or aiming our targets at.
I don't wanna sound too overly judgemental or pessimistic, and I specially don't wanna sound like I'm targeting a successful individual like Jack Ma because he mostly just worked with what he had at hand, and he really has achieved nothing short of success in comparison to other people considered big geniuses and leaders out there in the private sector.
But with all these tech giants, unicorn startups, and the entire culture we have these days around businesses and whatnot, I cannot avoid feeling the stink and mess that's perhaps coming at the tail end of an exacerbated money hungry capitalist system.
And no, I'm not a socialist, but I can't avoid thinking that perhaps there's something better than this endless hellish cycle.
4
-
4
-
4
-
Another piece of information that is always good to remember both for the case that Apple had to be forced to adopt USB-C on iPhones, and now that they are messing with the standard just so they can continue selling proprietary cables - Apple has been and is currently a board member of the USB Implementers Forum, they are part of the group who defines what the USB-C standard is, how it's identified, what is allowed and how they enforce the standard.
So, if the Apple justification for doing something like this is that there are too many poor quality USB-C cables in the market that puts their precious devices at risk, they are just pointing at themselves for doing a piss poor job as an USB Implementers Forum board member. This whole confusion in how USB-C cables, chargers and whatnot should be done and who should get the approval to do so, this is the USB-IF's fault, which Apple is a board member at.
And then, of course, for both discussions, there's always the fact that Macs have been using USB-C ports for.... what? 8 years now? Without any need for proprietary chips that will only allow certain features if you use Apple approved USB-C cables.
Like Louis already said, could be just a rumor and won't actually be there, but we have to talk about this because, you know, it's Apple. They've done sh*t like this in the past.
This is also the case for Bluetooth you know? For all the Apple bitching and complaining that the standard wasn't good enough for their precious platform, Apple has been a member of Bluetooth SIG (special interest group) since 2015.
So, it's something they've definitely done in the past. They are part of the groups that defines these universal standards, but instead of working to make them easier to use and better implemented, they use those as a launching platform to create proprietary crap to corral their users further into the walled garden.
Fine if you are ok with getting products from a company that will demand you to get further and further into their own proprietary ecosystem where they can dictate what you need to buy and use for optimal performance, for me it's the reason why I don't get anything from the company. I might have the money to pay for an iPhone in a given moment, but I don't have the money, time or disposition to then get into the Apple spiral... oh, now you should also buy Air Pods, a Mac will work better with your iPhone, how about also getting an Apple Watch, you should also get an Apple Pay account, these brands of accessories works best with your Apple stuff, yadda yadda into infinity and beyond.
F*ck right off with that sh*t. It sure is more convenient for those who want... easy guidance I guess, at a price... but nope, that's not for me.
4
-
4
-
4
-
ROFL, look at all these commenters misreading the event... hoo boy.
You know why this worked with Trump? It's because Trump has a similar mentality - that of a brash proto-dictator. These two are on a similar tune. Plus because Kim Jong Un and North Korea politics in general know full well how to deal with presidents like Trump. It goes more towards Putin or Xi Jinping, rather than democratic countries with presidents that have a posture of defending human rights and democracy.
You know why past US presidents refused to do any sort of peace talk or visit to North Korea? It's because they didn't want to further legitimize the regime. It's not a matter of failing to advance some sort of peace talk, it's about not allowing a totalitarian regime to have a stage in the first place. It's a country with multiple human rights violations and that is both bellicose and backwards thinking by historical nature. Leaders usually want to distance themselves from it, as it doesn't represent what they are about. The only thing that will come out of this event is North Korea reinforcing the internal propaganda that it's leader is so powerful that it can tell the US president what to do.
You guys need to look further into the past diplomatic relationship with North Korea to understand how it works, Kim Jong Un basically just replicating the way his father ran the country. They go through periods of indicating small openings in relationship to appease foreign countries and ask for easing up of sanctions, directly to periods of nuclear missile testing and breach in relations. It is a fine tuned machine that will be adjusted to each and every leader of other countries, with the sole purpose of maintaining status quo. That's basically all North Korea cares about - keeping the dictatorship lineage and power, do more business with other countries, as long as other countries close an eye to what's happening inside their country.
People go all oooh, look at what Trump managed to do blah blah, as if he did something that other presidents couldn't. Truth is, he did something other presidents did not want to do.
Now, to be fair, Trump was put in an entirely new situation, so he's being forced to act one way or another. The fact that he did this isn't necessarily bad depending on how this follows up. Because since Trump became president, the fact that North Korea either has or is quickly advancing towards nuclear ICBMs changes the whole scenario. For years this was just a vague possibility.
I won't judge if this was a good or bad thing, because it depends on the follow up. But don't misread this folks. It has the potential to be as bad as it has to do good. And it can flip on a dime, as it already did in the past.
4
-
4
-
4
-
It's a great story, and I like the elements of it... but I also feel it's leaving lots of downsides off.
While Gene feels empowered and sort of part of this positive feedback loop with social media, I personally felt the opposite.
I started sharing runs with these apps some 7 years ago more or less with apps like Endomondo and a few others, but the more I kept doing it, the less I ran.
Because you feel pressured to do it on a regular basis, and because you think you need to keep getting better, you start unfavourably comparing yourself to others and to yourself, the burnout comes fast and badly.
To the point, I never was close to being an athlete, I had no intentions of being one, and the most I've ever ran personally at huge pains was 12 miles. Nowadays I do closer to 8, at a slow pace in comparison.
This is a classic case of survivor bias. For every Gene, there are hundreds if not thousands of people who will never get any recognition or any Vox video piece for their efforts. It can be dangerous to link an activity that you do to improve your health to stuff like social networks, fame, competition for competition's sake, or whatever. It can work for some, of course, but it's dangerous because it might have an opposite effect.
For most people, it can be an unecessary step, or even an obstacle in the way of getting in shape or getting fit. And at least for me personally, ultimately it was just better to keep things separate and simpler. Privacy worries are of course serious and a huge issue in itself, but it's not the only downside by far.
I also have friends who got so much into this idea of positive feedback loop that the priority became social networks, and they ended up injuring themselves in the process of beating their own records, dropping by the sideways and never being able to go back.
After my stint with GPS tracking and health apps, at some point I just gave up and got a bunch of weight back. It was only after some years of not even trying that I decided to go back, this time without GPS tracking, without all the gadgetry, without posting on social networks, without the "quantifiable self" trend, just running for running sake's, just for my personal health, just because I knew it would make me sleep better, drop some weight, and relieve a bit of stress.
So take this comment as you will. Social networks, oversharing, and the quantifiable self trend has huge potentials to push you towards a better and healthier lifestyle, sure, but it can also go the exact opposite way. And I might say it probably is bad for the majority of people, because only few can succeed.
It can be dangerous to relate one to the other. It can be specially dangerous if you, like Gene, feel like you need all your gadgets to run in the first place. It puts control and power at the hands of gadget companies, and it makes you dependant of something entirely separate to do your activities. Perhaps it's better than nothing, but still not a very good situation.
If the trend passes, these companies go backrupt, if your social circle folds and stop paying attention to your exercise routine, if you get in a situation where you don't have the money to pay for the next big trendy gadget, and stuff like that, would running lose meaning for you?
4
-
4
-
Ok... first and foremost, before people start criticizing Japan and japanese culture, you should know that very likely, your own country is similar or even worse when it comes to children abuse and harassment in schools and youth sports. Look it up before criticizing, you'll probably be surprised.
In countries like the US, some statistics say that 1 in every 10 students say they have been bullied, abused or harassed. Reports of teacher related violence and abuse are on the hundreds of thousands yearly, and on the rise for the entire past decade. This is a problem of the majority of developed countries, not something exclusive to Japan.
Because I hate how much international press coverage loves to fetishize japanese culture problems, while avoiding putting a mirror to see how badly things are in their own country. It's often a footnote, if even that. The focus is on bad bad Japan that has all these problems that are so foreign to our culture - bullshit.
You don't just go selectively fishing for cases that happened in the past decade around the entire country to make it seem as if it was something that happens everyday. That's incredibly biased.
Imagine if you went full 7 years collecting exemplary cases of child abuse in US schools throughout the entire country. It'd be an endless list of cases. Pages and pages and pages long. Did you need to pick another case from back in 2013 to correlate with this one? Did you look up for governmental measures taken against bullying and harassment problems which helped lower suicide rates and school bullying over the past decade? Did you look at statistics to tell your story or the objective was to vilify or use japanese culture as a pinata in the first place?
Other topics often covered like suicide and overwork also often falls in the same category. IT'S RAMPANT in Japan.
And then you look at actual statistics, you quickly see how it plummeted in recent years while the suicide rates in countries like US, UK, and some other European countries have skyrocketed.
Or worse, the so called weird Japan... weird fetishes, subcultures, and whatnot. People don't even realize that their own country likely has even weirder or problematic fetishes and subcultures, often hidden, active tabboo status to this day... it's just more comfortable to close your eyes to your surroundings and criticize countries and cultures that are on the other side of the globe, particularly Japan, the linchpin of the west.
Now, understand - it's not that this isn't a problem in Japan, but it's often covered as if it's something exclusive to japanese culture when it really really isn't. And foreigners love to feel entitled to criticize a single aspect of a culture they don't understand, they don't participate in, and they only get a one sided analysis of.
That's not what people should be doing, and that's not a proper way of covering a different culture and country.
The only reason why this is so shocking is because it contrasts a lot with a country that has little crime, and violence is kind of an exception. Yes, japanese schools historically have a problem with bullying and abuse, but statistically, other countries have it way worse. In some cases, unimaginably worse.
And I'm not talking about masked governmental statistics, I'm talking about independent ones. It's just that in general, people don't think the situation is as bad in their own countries, because they don't get this specific type of treatment or tactic while treating uncomfortable topics that the international press uses to picture foreign cultures.
So think a bit about it before making labels and criticizing other countries that you don't really know a whole lot about.
Ok, with that said, this comes from cultural elements, from vertical structures, from permissiveness or conformity, seniority chain, family structure, the importance education and teachers are given in japanese society, and other factors. Which do understand, are also factors that have influence in other countries.
But often, the problems in other countries are different, but the results are the same or even worse. Everything from racism, sexism, abuse of authority, religious influence, paternalistic culture, broken family homes, cultural permissiveness, mainstream pop culture, among several other things can and often result in cases of children abuse in schools, suicides, etc.
It's good to be critical of particular cases that happened and the vices that are being kept instead of solving and making sure they never happen again, but this is different from slamming an entire other country, feeling superior, and criticizing the entire culture when your own culture allows for worse to happen.
Cases like these needs to stop happening. Abusive teachers have to be arrested, parents have to monitor their kids better, and there must be a way for a culture of better monitoring and reporting to arise there.
And like I already said, it's not that nothing was done so far. Anti-harassment and anti-bullying laws have been introduced in Japan (look it up), there have been actions to scrutinize schools and teachers better, and changes were made - it just wasn't enough for this unfortunate case. And perhaps, the system will never be perfect. But more can certainly be done. It's up to japanese people though, I won't pretend I know enough to judge.
4
-
4
-
4
-
I largely agree that this is a significant problem for any economy, it´s just a bit weird to single it out as a chinese problem...
Afaik, the demographic collapse problem is a problem of most if not all developed nations, and predicted to be or alreeady also a problem for several countries that are currently labeled as developing too. You do have some variation, of course, with US age graph having a bit more leg room there, but its still characteristically bell shapped.
It´s only "still not a problem" in poor countries, because life expectancy is low, birth rates are high, and the age graph looks more like a pyramid. That´s of course, isolating and only look at this single aspect of demographics.
So while yes, it counts as a huge obstacle that China will have to deal with soon enough, as this problem will also affect the US and several other developed nations, it kinda sounds like things will level out throughout.
If what is being put in question is the idea that the next "age" will be about the eastern civilization, looking at that aspect of demographics alone, wouldn´t another way of measuring it be looking at absolute numbers of people and perhaps countries that have better or worse shapped age graphs and average it out?
I think Japan with it´s inverse pyramid will put a pretty big burden on the eastern side of the world, but I´m not entirely sure if it really makes it worse than the western side of the world... there are a whole lot of European countries in similar situations. Perhaps South America plus Africa still gives the west a leg up, but there are a whole lot of developing or poor nations in Asia too....
Another thing about the whole idea is that it sounds a bit like cherry picking... even inside demograhics itself. Sure, China has a more pronounced negative birthrate problem in comparison to the US. Another thing that is also true is that China has a bit over 4x the US population.
That number is so staggering that you start seeing how much of a difference it makes. For instance, proportionately speaking, the US has a far bigger middle class. But because of the difference in population, in absolute numbers the chinese middle class is probably already bigger. Not because China is richer, it still isn´t, but given absolute population numbers, even if the US has a majority of the population above the middle class line, and China doesn´t, it still has more people in absolute numbers.
Also, because of those huge numbers, you have stuff like a slightly lower life expectancy mattering more than it perhaps should.
But I get this is an analysis of specific, perhaps less considered points, in an ultra complex universe of stuff to be considered. Politics, diplomacy, self sufficiency, world standings, technological developments, and a whole ton of other stuff also matters.
Gotta be honest here - sometime ago I´d consider the idea kinda absurd. That is, of world power shifting away from the west to the east.
But lately, I´m just not sure anymore. Pandemics response, effects of lalte stage capitalism, democracies falling to tribalism, this unprecedented rise in populism fueled with science denial and a whole ton of other effects of social networks and tech giant monopolies... it really shook the core structures.
But anyways, not to go out of subject, I think the next episode will be a stronger argument and truly a horrible exclusive chinese reckoning... because the way chinese culture and China as a country structured the whole real estate thing already is and will become an ever growing problem.
4
-
4
-
Is this channel related to Cheddar? Sorry to criticise, but I feel I need to: the text, title and content has the same hyperbolic sensationalist tone that Cheddar uses, and it's a disservice to the topic rather than helping.
Hidroxicloroquine wasn't "debunked", multiple studies just didn't find evidence of it being as effective as previously thought. Early studies might've been wrong, but they weren't myths, and methodology wasn't poor, just limited.
Using words like debunked, poor, hype and whatnot IS politicizing the subject, so don't accuse others of doing what you just did.
Game changer and saying it's been hailed as the biggest breakthrough blah blah is the exact problem hidroxicloroquine had: you are amplifying and exaggerating too much on the topic. This is counterproductive and the same tactic conspiracy theorists use.
The steroid is an effective treatment for some terminal cases, but not always effective. The actual numbers given in several articles, pieces and reports (which don't appeal to sensationalist titles) is something like reducing deaths in a test group in 20%. It also increased the virus count for some non terminal cases. Because that's how steroids work.
Further you throw some non quantitatives in the mix that just makes the information inconsistent just to help the narrative. It can't be considered science if you keep manipulating information to give it a more positive spin than needed. The world isn't black or white, you know?
You say people don't usually die from the virus but from ARDS, and the repeats again that sadly for most people it's the case. But what are the actual numbers and what are your sources? The studies I have read estimates it so far at an 81% of deaths have traces of cytokine storm, or identifies it as ARDS, but it is all preliminary and not a surefire thing. Having traces of cytokine storm does not guarantee people died from it.
I understand lots of people are likely dying from results of a cytokine storm, but we don't know how much just yet.
Put simply, yes, the usage of steroids to combat ARDS is a good thing, but it's not game changer since it's been known as a treatment for ARDS for a while now, it's not miraculous as the video tries to put it, and politicizing the theme in another way is still politicizing it. You guys need a better writter to avoid these fallacy trappings.
4
-
4
-
4
-
That's the entire conundrum of the tourism industry, and I hear parallels everywhere.
It's particularly bad for national parks and park staff because that type of bad behavior can be extremely damaging, worrying for the safety of people and wildlife - but together with Climate Change the danger is amplified even further.
But curious parallels abound. My own hometown is a touristic city with a national park in it, not in the US though. I guess we don't have as many issues because despite the park being world famous and well visited, it's still relatively hard to access, the tourist area is fairly isolated, and a fair amount of infrastructure was built to forcefully limit access to areas tourists are not supposed to be. It also doesn't have as many sensitive geological structures that people would think of getting close to, but I imagine this also has to do with forcefully limiting access... big problem when it's a park as big as Yellowstone, too big an area to cover with fences, and bigger structures that also pose a risk of damaging the area.
The problem with ignorant, idiot tourists and "influencers" remains though... and part of the complaints is not unlike stuff I heard from the other side of the world - Japan.
The thing I heard the most during the pandemic coming from citizens there goes something like - closing up Japan for foreign tourists has been incredibly damaging to businesses, particularly ones in popular spots, particularly for cities and businesses that had foreign tourists as main source of income.
But also, that it's been kinda nice not to have foreign tourists causing all sorts of problems there. Not even just ones causing problems, even those who behave well and follow guidelines, the sheer amount of them going through historical places, temples, paths, even commercial neighborhoods, ends up overloading things. It's just too much.
I heard testimonials from staff in shops and temples saying that while they don't like the economic effects with people losing jobs or having to close up shops, the calm, the ease of handling local tourists only, the way tons of systems became less overloaded... that sure is better than what they had before. To the point some people there have been dreading the re-opening of the country for foreign tourists.
Having visited the nation almost 15 years back in a time there weren't as many foreign tourists, and then again in 2018 right before the pandemic seeing how overloaded with foreign tourists several places in Japan was... I can understand that. As a tourist, I was only contributing to the problem, but man, the difference was so much that it seemed we were going into a different country altogether.
I am all for harsher methods of educating people, harsher fines and treatment, and building restrictive infrastructure to protect national parks whenever possible. People yes, should be free to visit national parks as they are public and financed by taxpayer money, but also people have to remember that we pay for national parks to protect them, not to turn them into amusement parks. There is this conflicting responsibility to give people access to enjoy parks, but also a responsibility to protect them, that is intrinsic to it. National parks and national park staff needs more control and funding from government to keep them going, local economies also shouldn't become too dependent on tourist money. But you know, those are the ideals... reality usually doesn't follow behind.
4
-
AHA! Thanks for digging up the explanation for this board Chris, now it makes sense.
When I first heard about this, I thought Intel was getting rid of old stock or something like that, it was just too cheap for components. But this makes much more sense.
For those who don't know, this class of Atom Cherry Trail CPUs was in a whole ton of the tiny Windows sticks and boxes that were popping up in droves few years ago. Kangaroo PC, early GPD Win models, Intel Compute Stick, Gole PC, and a whole ton of other stuff. But they were all around the 200 bucks mark.
The trend fizzled out when Intel decided to shut down development of the Atom line (which I still think is pretty unfortunate), but seems they kept up going with Core M3 and M5 lines. Those are even more expensive though, 500 bucks and up depending on what you want.
I'd get one, but thing is, I already have both a Gole1 and a Kangaroo PC... that are juuust a bit above those specs already. X8500 instead of X8350. Not devboard, but for what I'd want to experiment with, better overall. I've been curious to see the difference between these and the M3 CPUs that replaced those though... particularly on the Intel Compute Stick. Too expensive for my pocket though. xD
4
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
Aegis here too!
I kinda went in blind... wanted to get away from big tech companies, and wanted something open source and different to brands of other stuff I was using at the time.
I had Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, and even Lastpass Authenticator in the past (dodged that bullet), but I wanted something from F-droid, and Aegis was the first one I tried. There are a few others that I hear are fine too.
I hadn't even heard about the app before, so that shift was kind of a bet, but I'm glad it worked out.
But yeah! Has been working perfectly since then, I've nothing to complain.
The new Google Authenticator feature is pretty interesting in theory, but it's also very weird.
It's... convenient to be able to store keys in the cloud and use in multiple devices, but it kinda goes countersense to the idea that ToTP is something you have on a device alone.
Major thing about this type of 2FA is that it cannot be stolen online, because it's confined in one device. You have to have access to the device to get it.
I guess this point has become weaker now with the whole authentication cookie problem.
But then, security auditors found out that Google was transmitting and storing the whole thing in plaintext... man, that's just on a whole other level of defeating the purpose...
4
-
4
-
4
-
To note - this is a problem, a sad one, in several other countries, and it'll become worse as negative birth rates starts pressuring societies more and more. Japan is obviously on the forefront on this, but it's far from being the only one, and most developed countries are following a similar trajectory.
The reason why we hear more about Japan is two fold - first, because of how international press decided to label Japan. It has basically become the linchpin country for topics such as negative birth rates, a society of elderly people, weird fetishes, suicide and overwork, cleanliness, punctuality, among others (it's not all negative).
What most people watching content like that don't often realize and are often not informed of is that their own countries might not be as different in those terms as they'd think. Because you should notice, pieces about Japan almost never make any comparison to other countries... it's almost always about highlighting something about the country itself without comprehensive global context (Japan is different, let's not talk about how different in comparison to other countries it is).
For most of those topics Japan might be in the top 10 or 100, but it's almost never number one. And there are some egregious topics that Japan is kinda average despite always being selected as a bizarre extreme of some sort - such as long work hours, or suicide.
I know people won't believe me, try searching for updated global statistics.
The other fold would be how relatively easy it is to cover such subjects there in comparison to several other countries. Kind of a weird mix perhaps, but the way I understand it is more or less like this: Japanese people are very reserved, they don't like to complain about their problems, they don't like for these things to be out in public, and there is a higher degree of being privacy conscious there. Comes from a collectivist society that is vertically structured, seniority based, with lots of people that are very status conscious. This leads to a whole ton of different problems, but it's the way a collectivist society usually behaves.
But on the other hand, if you are an external element to the community trying to understand and willing to discuss problems they care about, while still preserving privacy, they will expose everything that is needed to you, no problems. As long as you are not plastering their faces on videos and publications, lots of japanese people will discuss and talk about everything they find relevant regarding societal issues.
In any case, it's a sad topic. People are living longer overall in the world, which is a great thing, but most societies are not propped up to deal with the explosive growth in elder population.
4
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
And this woman, somehow, still isn't arrested? Plus all of her followers? Yes, she is a cult leader. Extreme cults don't necessarily have to follow a religious structure, because it's not a religion that is at fault for most cults, it's just the structure of power, often for exploitation.
You know what the real problem in modern democracies is? Permissiveness. Or an extreme lack of clarity in boundaries.
It's reflected perfectly by people who justify their actions by claiming "freedoms" of the countries they are living in.
I think this loaded word is a huge problem, but perhaps now it's just too late to change it to something else.
What democracies need to educate, enforce, and make sure every citizen understand is that these supposed freedoms democracies have, do not equate to anarchy or chaos. It's not a free for all, nor a free for anyone in particular.
The freedoms you have is a guarantee that the state gives you under certain conditions and certain obligations. It was created in a scenario where countries had classes of people who didn't have access to basic human rights or even were considered humans at all.
It's a social contract, it's not something pulled out of thin air. It is not to be considered sacred, immortal, or permanent too. A social contract still is dependent on you doing your side and the government doing theirs. And one of the dangers of this constant abuse and testing of waters that these lunatics are doing is to have freedoms taken away once again so we can restructure society.
People need to understand the concept of democratic freedoms better so we can preserve them.
Freedom of press and freedom of speech should never be freedom of responsibilization or freedom to commit crimes. This should, and I believe, will at some point need to be made abundantly clear so that we stop these abuses. Freedom of speech in modern democracies should never include freedom to incite violence against others, freedom to threat the safety of others, freedom to question government and authority without proof for it (aka libel). Libel laws for democratic institutions needs to be made stronger, more enforceable, and more strict.
And the most important part of those freedoms is somehow always left aside, which is that your freedoms end where mine begins. Your entitlement to freedom cannot ever be at the cost of violating the freedom of others.
Because thinking of freedom as an absolute concept that respect no rules, what that is really called is violence. If the mentality you have is that you can do whatever you want because freedom, then what you really have in mind is not freedom, it's violence, it's having your way by force, ignoring those around you, and doing it at any cost.
I'll say even more on this subject. Anyone, specially this so called "queen", who attempts against a democratically elected government, governmental institutions and rules established by a democratically elected justice, should be considered a traitor by definition, and criminally prosecuted for it, together with all of her followers taking any sort of supportive action. I'm not kidding here, that's what is needed to be done to preserve democracies.
And this is only the beginning of her criminal charges.
Depending on the level of action, her statements, her incitement to violence, and what she is telling her followers to do, I'd personally upgrade her status to full blown domestic terrorist, with a dangerous domestic terrorist group, that should immediately be arrested and prosecuted.
I'd go so far as saying that citizen action might be necessary for those cases, so they don't get strictly limited to police or intelligence action. These groups are dangerous, and they need to be dealt with as fast as possible, else we let them become like so many huge cults making several victims every single day worldwide.
This is a problem that all democracies around the world need to work better, faster and with way more dedication to stop.
And this is going through the base idea that yes, you are entitled to believe in whatever bullshit you may want to, but when your beliefs turn to action that affects anyone else other than yourself, then you have a responsibility as a citizen, as a person, as an individual towards the society you live in, that will have consequences for yourself.
We can deal with potential distortions and misuses of such concepts in a democratic way overtime, but things like this "queen" of Canada case cannot keep going like this.
Let me also just say that this also applies to QAnon, neo-nazi, a huge portion of the alt-right and other fringe groups. Because violence. Because this misrepresentation that freedom equates to violence. Because of it's anti-democratic structuring. Because it wants to autocratically enforce their beliefs by force and by use of violence. Because of how antithetical it is to a democratic system.
There needs to be extremely strong and visible action that such things are not allowed in modern democracies, even at the risk of looking like autocratic actions in the eyes of such extremists, because democracy needs it's own defenses too much like any other form of government. And the only way we can really spread the democratic ideals in fast response to this explosive growth in authoritarian thinking, is by setting visible examples up.
I am very much of the opinion that modern democracies need to be reformed to strengthen it's defenses. It's because the defenses we currently have are all ill fit to modern times. The structures we had on communications, information, the shape of the social strata, values, ideals, cultures, psychology of the masses, and all sorts of things are undergoing a very deep transformation that is putting several pillars of democracy at risk. If the system of government does not adapt to the changes society is going through, we're once again at the risk of it getting the system toppled over.
I really hope we don't need a full change of system that will need to go through a bloody revolution to understand this. We grew too used and too accommodated with the idea of democracy always being there to protect us. But it's not a guarantee any longer. There needs to be real action to keep it going.
4
-
There is no economy of scale in these sharing economy businesses, the so called gig economy, they'll end up sucking tons of money from investors, being target for huge speculative rounds and scams, and be yet another vapor style stock that is mostly there for manipulative practices and exploiting the livelihood of people while skipping all sorts of estabilished welfare and worker protection laws for the benefit of few.
It makes no logic sense for companies like those to replace estabilished businesses, unless the intention is to skip all sorts of worker protection laws and welfare, in a historical reversal of several things that were conquered over the years to end unfair exploitation.
For the most part, businesses like Lyft, Uber and others are replacing the role of slave labor and unfair work practices. They are the modern era replacement of fair jobs for extreme exploitation of people. We are letting it pass because of it's new coat of paint and modern sounding buzzwords, but it's not much different from sweatshop factories, slave labor mines and farms. It's just a bit more glamorous and modern.
The conditions and the reasons why this is happening remains the same. We have a huge number of unemployed people who cannot find jobs or don't have the proper conditions to work on stable jobs, they get squeezed and pressured into working in whatever thing that conveniently pops up and so the environment for exploitation is created for any company willing to fullfill some conditions to it.
You wanna understand how these companies work better, stop watching overly positive YouTube videos and news about it and go talk to the people working there. The most common thing you'll hear is that it's just a temporary job, that it's in between, that they need it to pay for some debt, etc etc.
The name ridesharing is incredibly deceptive, it's like calling a miner a minesharer.
It's fine if you can't afford anything else, and that you like the service of those companies. But people have got to stop being blind about it and start looking at these things as they truly are.
Because supporting corporations and economies like those will have consequences in the future, much like letting all industry jobs be rellocated to foreign countries, much like shipping all trash to foreign countries, much like letting companies outsource everything also did.
Gig economy and sharing economy are enormous reasons behind the wage gap and income inequality. We are putting the livehood and future of tons upon tons of people at the hands of fewer and fewer corporations that are standing in more fragile and unstable grounds.
It's fine while things are working, while investors think they can bank it, while workers are keeping their heads down, and while governments are turning their heads away from it.
But those are the perfect conditions for yet another economic bubble that will land yet another generation of people living in poverty and misery.
We keep repeating these cycles, learning nothing from them, and making things worse in every turn. Not much hope for a future if things keep going that way.
4
-
4
-
Logically and ethically speaking, I can't personally see why the heck an impeached president should be able to occupy a political position ever again, much less the presidency itself, considering he or she was taken down the office usually with pretty grave criminal charges. I'm not talking about Trump alone, talking about politics in general.
I do understand exploiting legal loopholes and whatnot, but this one is pretty clear to me. Afaik, for the most part, impeached presidents are traitors to their positions and should never be considered to occupy it ever again.
I know that this isn't what happens in practice.... I'm from a country that had a president who resigned last moment before getting impeached, basically fled the country, and has now decades later been elected a senator again, which I find ridiculous and why my country is neck deep in shit the way it is. But if we are going to pass laws and constitutions that guarantees so much power for corrupt politicians, how can we ever expect competent honest people in office?
4
-
4
-
Great list Chris... most of which I already use, and that's why it's great. xD /jk
Adding some others:
7zip - don't get the free trial forever Winzip, get 7zip.
mplayer - if for some reason VLC is too heavy for you, or you get some weird codec problems in some ancient movie files, try this one.
Media Player Classic (MPC-HC) - same as above
Notepad++ - popular alternative to notepad more towards coding
Keepass - password manager with local storage
video production stuff - shotcut, audacity, OBS, GIMP, Camstudio...
This one may sound a bit weird and you do have to take extremely good care for getting it from a reputable source, but afaik, it's kinda unique in what it does:
h2testw1.4 - it's a small software designed to make a hard test on the size of USB pendrives and SD cards. Something that became necessary because the market is flooded with fake pendrives and SD cards that are actually small sized, hacked to display on Windows as large sized ones... like an 2Gb pendrive that shows up as a 128 or 256Gb one. The only way to really know is doing what this piece of software does - copying a bunch of filler files there until it reaches capacity.
The hacked ones will reach it's true capacity and start deleting files... I've gotten fake stuff from Amazon and other websites, so people really have to be careful. It's the first thing I run on a newly purchased pendrive or sd card, and Amazon staff accepts this as proof that it's a fake product (at least on the only fake one I've got so far, they did).
Oh, I also recommend checking all the other stuff made by the company that does Recuva - Piriform. It's all good.
These are the ones I can remember right now...
4
-
It's just more of the same, despite what you'll hear from Brazilian fanatics from both sides. Something which I as a Brazilian quite frankly find ridiculous... people with an entire lifetime watching what happens in politics still thinking it's a good idea to be fanatical around one candidate or the other when we have an entire history of corruption coming from all parties and all sides to contend with.
Both Lula and Bolsonaro governments had corruption scandals, both kowtows to status quo parties, there are no radical reform propositions coming from either side, it's all the same empty promises and superficial marketing strategies tailored for Brazilian population that we hear on every single election.
This time there was some cross pollination with the US far-right, with Bolsonaro ridiculously being an unashamed fan of Trump tactics and persona, taking a lot of stuff that makes no sense down here, but the discourse has been there since the past election. It appeals to authority, has a revisionist tone on our past military dictatorship, and barks loud. But in the end, most of the support around Bolsonaro has nothing to do with this stupidity, it has more to do with an FUD campaign against Lula, which is not only caricaturized and foolish, it also uses a weird mix of tactics like red scare, extreme religious concepts, and of course corruption, as all other politicians do. Every party says they'll be the party to eliminate corruption in Brazil, all of them have histories of corruption themselves, none of them explains how they'll do it. It's just a joke for anyone with half a brain.
We had candidates with newer ideas but they are all single digit percentage votes or under, as it always happens in every election... there cannot be change if we keep voting for people who are already accommodated to the way Brazilian politics works, in which corruption is institutionalized and integral part of.
You have Lula with his annulled sentencing on one side, but obvious links to public companies, some extremely expensive real estate that was never truly justified, friends, family and close political allies suspected or provenly involved with corruption scandals themselves, plus a whole ton of dirt that was never cleared up on one side... and then on the other, the Bolsonaro side, you have tens of real estate ownership purchased in cash, political deals that put billions of our currency into shady undeclared and opaque government spending, opaque parallel government sectors that acts in the shadows and don't put up their decisions to scrutiny, family members, friends, political allies and other figures also extensively involved in corruption scandals some of whom he came directly in defense saying stuff like he would put his face to the fire for those people, and all sort of other crap that, again, is too similar to what Lula did, but only in a louder tone.
Bolsonaro talks big, he tried to appeal to the cult of personality crowd, has some far-right and overtly religious ideals, but in the end, if you compare action and governance instead of just talk, his government was not too dissimilar to Lula's own. There is a difference in discourse, which I do think matters, because it depends on where you stand on all the ideological standpoints - abortion, guns, environmentalism, military spending, social aid spending, liberalism, economical concepts, etc etc... but honestly, in practice I don't think their governments would be much different from each other, both because neither can really change things too radically considering how bloated politics already are in Brazil, but also because the executive branch has much less power to act at a whim here.
Both were governments that in terms of accomplishment, tried to focus on the poorest part of the population - because this is needed in a country where the majority of people are poor, they are the real electorate. Both governments also has a tradition of claiming responsibility for things that had nothing to do with who was the president, both skirt responsibilities for corruption schemes and bad results to other sectors of the government, conveniently targeting politicians not aligned to themselves.
It's just the same old story. On the other hand, this is also why I think there is no taste for a coup here. Bolsonaro may shout all the crap he does for his own base to inflame them, but publicly for a wider Brazilian audience, that's not really his discourse. His entirely political campaign has been on keeping the government social plans at the same rate it has been during the pandemic, with overtly optimistic views on how Brazil is doing currently, Pollyanna style.
Because he knows his conspiracy theories holds no grounds, and the general Brazilian public is not in a mood to engage with radicalism. I'm not talking about voters alone, I'm talking about our institutions, the judiciary system, legislative, most of the military, unions and professional sectors, industry, etc. They have repeatedly and constantly put out official statements again and again that they will not support an attempted coup, they do not support conspiratorial bullshit that Bolsonaro is constantly putting out, and that democracy, the electoral process, and our values are above any authoritarian wannabe discourse.
So we'll see... but apart from isolated protests going violent, and potential incidents that happens in every single election, I don't think we'll have a Jan 6 here, if Bolsonaro loses.
4
-
4
-
I've already went through my adventurous phase in life, fortunately without any major incidents, and now I'm totally a couch potato. xD
Suggestion for anyone too enthusiastic about the outdoors: live a bit in a tropical nation... you will lose that willingness pretty fast, I guarantee. :P
I personally have zero interest in engaging with nature further, even after retirement, I don't care. I have lots of relatives and friends who dreams of living closer to nature when they retire, small farm, beach house, stuff like that. I don't want any of that. If I live long enough I'm still a few decades from my golden age, perhaps I'll just retire in some VR world. I want the isekai route. xD
I never really had it in me as some friends did, but the experiences I had were enough.
Just try daring to go even a little bit too into the "outdoors" here, some forest, some state park... it's not gonna be like in US state parks, some of which I went in myself.
Well, this might be because my hometown has a national park in itself, and I had the opportunity to go in there a few times...
I guess that's part of the reason why there's such a ramp up in willingness of people to go into national parks in the US. Not that it's easy to hike any trail like that, nor that accidents can't happen, but because there are such prompt emergency services, prepared terrains, general facilities, gear accessibility, plus a bunch of other stuff... people just kinda do it for the Insta shots or bragging rights. You go into a nature reserve here for the Insta shots, you could end up insta killed. No emergency services rushing to your rescue, people end up dead in those places all the time here.
Even if it is a semi-prepared location with frequent visitation and whatnot, you're still gonna have a bad time. The wilderness is much less forgiving, routes are not as open, terrain is extremely broken and harsh, you won't reach trails on car most of the times, and you always need to be prepared to be devoured by mosquitoes and end up with some sort of tropical disease... it's like nothankyou.jpg.
But that's great. Because you can see how things would get just by the state of our beaches. People have zero education and leave trash everywhere they go. Just better for most parts of the wilderness to remain inaccessible.
4
-
If a country cannot solve even the problem of gentrification, this thing about AirBnb and the whole shitty sharing economy also won't be solved. This will be taken to the extremes until it replaces all aspects of current culture because there is zero awareness of the problems it leads to.
Of couse the next step in touristic economies would be turning the entire city into a place for tourists only. It happens everywhere. If AirBnb wasn't around, this would eventually become just a real estate thing.
Problem is, these places will become soul less, devoid of character, and just oriented to take as much money as possible from tourists. And then the fad dies out, the place goes bankrupt, and you are left with an empty husk of a city.
In the first place, the entire reason why cities don't have locals living there is because of market inflation in uncontrolled capitalist societies, and a whole ton of city centers and touristic cities already having been taken over by investors, multi billionaires with tons of money to spend, and huge corporations using real estate as a form of investment and security. Things are just following a very logical progression.
See how the guy has been renting the place for 14 years? If he owned it he'd at least have a choice. But he couldn't own it probably because it was already ultra expensive to buy a place in a city like that. So this isn't just about AirBnb. This is about wage gap, rights gap, accumulation of money and power in the hands of a few. Valencia is nothing in comparison to city centers like Manhattan. In those, you can't even afford an AirBnb anymore. It's a month's rent for a single night.
Here in the city where I live I know that real estate became premium and empty because of how much money mega churches are putting in it. You'll have entire city blocks with empty buildings because of churches laundering money.
My own building is over half leased, already with several AirBnb apartments. For almost a couple of years the building was half empty, because it was built with leasing in mind. Half of the building apartments were either retained by the company that half assedly built it, and by investors. They just waited for us, the owners who are living in the apartments, to fix all the shit they left behind so the building became more attractive for lease. And it worked for them.
4
-
3
-
3
-
Perhaps I'm leaning on the positive side a bit here, but on all this doom and dread talk about AI replacing humans in jobs, I still imagine that we'll fill up those spaces with other types of jobs.
The switch won't happen without it's bumps and obstacles, but it just feels to me that if we were to look at human societies overall as an organism, it seems that this organism is highly adaptable and can change itself to handle plenty of shifts, even though the individuals who compose it not always notice.
Taking a bit from history, humanity has faced this whole story before. Industrial revolution, the mechanization of agriculture, computers outright killing several types of jobs that were required in the past, the internet replacing other forms of communication... there's a lot to relate from our past history.
Can you imagine what someone from half a century ago would think about people who made a living by playing games and sharing the content over a world wide web? xD
Not that millions of people won't suffer the impact of such changes, but it seems to be an integral part of humanity itself.
If all goes well in the transportation automation front, I imagine that several generations from now, drivers will be seen as technical jobs... much like we see nowadays people who operate heavy machinery. Because they will be needed for some cases, but in a completely different scenario as how nowadays every adult is kinda expected to learn how to drive.
We'll eventually reach some point where people overall will be given their basic needs to live regardless of having a job or not. If we draw from history, less abled people who couldn't fullfill some basic tasks were left to die... even though we still have huge disparities and wage gaps in the modern era, things were way rougher in the past.
I'm taking kind of an utopic approach here, but research, influence, and creativity will become the dominant areas for jobs, as in thinking and working on stuff to fill the void AIs still can't do.
And then, if we ever reach an age where AI and automation can fullfill all possible needs, humanity will be there to take a step back and try to provide something AIs cannot. We can see glimpses of it these days... people will dedicate huge chunks of time to explore old tech just because. Photographers going back to film, musicians going back to old instruments and old formats like vynil records, stuff like that.
3
-
3
-
I used to build them myself over a decade ago give or take, but nowadays I buy pre-built albeit from companies that let me configure it as much as possible.
This is very particular to my corner of the world, but for my particular case, it was all about availability - something that people in the US, UK among other countries would never consider. :P
Back when I built desktops for myself and friends, it was more or less like this: you either built a good gaming PC yourself, or you bought an expensive crappy desktop which you'd have to open up, void warranty, pay more to get components that weren't like 2 or more years old, and then you'd have a desktop to play the latest and greatest, or do something like video editing. Even still, some components of your desktop would innevitably be outdated, or belonging to the lowest models.
That was the reality of it... you basically had no pre-build PC brands and companies that had their latest models available in Brazil. They were all models that were 2 or more years old in comparison to the US market for instance, all overpriced, so you couldn't rely on them if you were planning to do something substantial with it.
Then again, building your PC from scratch is another type of hassle here. We don't have many computer components parts stores here... at least not official ones. It's all grey market (contraband). You don't have a whole lot of warranty even for the specific components. And because of these conditions, you can have newer hardware or less sought off components marked high up, way more than they would actually cost if it was the official thing.
There's only a handful of big brands known worldwide that deals with pre-built desktop to this day in Brazil, and most of them takes months to years to start selling their latest models.
Directly importing them is another option, but again, it's another kind of hassle. They get stuck into the importation process, which can delay delivery for up to half an year depending on what it is. And then, of course, there's the importation tax itself, which can go up to 120% of the original price. That plus currency exchange rates... you can imagine why so little people is into building their own PCs here.
Over the years though, at least one brand that I know off started bringing more updated and flexible configurations to brazilian markets, and that brand is Dell. I wouldn't call them exactly cheap, but you can pay in installments, and the hassle to find components at good prices one by one plus all the individual component problems that might arise when you don't have warranty made me turn to pre-build.
Other brands I know have an official presence in Brazil are: Acer, HP, Lenovo, Asus more or less... but the last time I researched on those (couple of years ago), all of them still had delays for bringing their latest stuff ranging anywhere from half an year to a couple of years. Most of those brands never even try to bring their high end/enthusiast lines.
If I lived in the US or UK, I'd probably be building my own desktop PCs up 'till now.... because the way I got my previous Dell XPS desktop, was exactly the same as building it by myself: I researched on every individual component, customized it as much as I could, and when it arrived I opened it up to install an SSD, and will probably replace the graphics card soon. I know it inside out.
But it's just too sad to see how things work here in Brazil. There are reasons why the country never advances in tech, why population seems to be locked into a previous era, and why technology related companies have the harderst time succeeding here. Government is short sighted as hell, and being a fan of tech related stuff here is a step back for your life. Everything is difficult, expensive, and counter-cultural. Society as a whole doesn't care much about it because we can't have access to it.
Back some 3 decades ago, South Korea was in almost the exact same position as Brazil was. They invested heavily in education and tech, while we remained a backwards country with protectionist laws that made it difficult for technology to enter the country. The difference became evident. Our country is behind times, it's wasting talent and creativity, and the most successful brazilian people working in tech are working for companies outside the country. Our biggest exports are all raw materials and primary products. International companies dealing with tech have the hardest time flourishing here in Brazil, and brazilian technology companies are reduced to assembling foreign components to be used here, usually two steps behind the rest of the world.
Dang, sorry for the long rant, went completely off topic. But oh well, there you go.
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
Hmmm nice! Kudos to Pine and of course to Chris for bringing this to us...
Is this the most powerful SBC you've ever had Chris? If I'm not mistaken, this represents a whole other step in evolution for single board computers/dev boards.... opens up a whole host of possibilities, at very reasonable price. If not for the raw power, at the very least for the PCIe x4 port... pretty awesome, didn't think they'd get there. Also at a pretty interesting price point. xD
NAS, very competent emustation, HTPC, security cam hub, pretty competent secondary Linux box. Could be used to drive specialized applications depending on how the PCIe works... multiple USB Type-C interfaces, BD-R drives, some network stuff. Very exciting stuff!
3
-
Great video Greg!
Yeah, this problem is replicated in lots of places around the world... I heard about the wild pig problem in the US, and have watched a few older docs on similar problems in other countries.
The wild pig problem on first look also seems to have a simple and clear solution - let's just eat them! xD
But it ends up in the same general obstacles... logistics, regulations, chain consequences and whatnot.
And this all has to do how we do things. Before humanity was around, nature and evolution found it's way towards balanced eco systems over millions of years... but then we came and messed everything up. xD It's not always particularly malicious too, it's sometimes just a consequence of things we did to occupy spaces, cultivate enough food for us, or even protect ourselves like in cases of elimination of predators.
We have lots of international news focused on African nations, but that's only because western developed nations see those countries as their personal safari grounds.
It ends up in lots of cities, towns, villages and whatnot trapped between protecting themselves, protecting their agricultural lands and keeping things as is for tourism and for their international image.
It's an extremely hard balance to achieve, I'm glad Japan is finding a way to balance things...
3
-
There's a fundamental misunderstanding on the matter of illegal immigrants in all of the developed nations that are getting flooded with them - no change in local laws will ever affect the flow, none. If you think this matters, you fundamentally do not understand the mentality of illegal immigrants, and thus you haven't even got to the start of devising a real plan to effectively deal with it.
Which is predictable since rich people living in a bubble won't ever be able to understand these sorts of struggles, but there should be a strong effort to at least understanding it on paper, or else the situation will just run over you someday.
For the UK in particular, people are getting into deadly crossings, crappy dinghies, selling everything they own to pay for it, risking everything for that trip. They know how many people are dying there, they know about the risks, they probably know people who died trying.
They couldn't give two f*cks about UK laws. They didn't give two f*cks about Trump's walls, the prison torture conditions in countries like the US, the horrible slums that were built to house these people in Europe, the multiple international reports of how many human rights were being violated for people trying to illegally enter other nations.
Think about it. If you were motivated to flee away to another country enough that you were willing to abandon your family, your country, your friends, sell all your property, give all the money away, purposefully get into a shady situation where your chances of survival are not great... if you already made the decision to go through all that, would it matter to you what the laws of the place you are going to are now? Specially if people there were saying they are changing the laws because they wanna stop you?
Some new law that some politician made to deport or to arrest people getting in through the channel, the risks in that are nothing in comparison to the risks they are already taking to make that crossing. It's nothing in comparison to whatever forced them to make that extreme decision. It's already basically do or die trying for them.
I'm gonna say something inhumane that is not a suggestion and not what should be done in this situation, but logically, if you wanted to stop people that is running for their lives inside your country, the only effective way to stop the flow in the short term is to make their situation worse in your country - by which I mean shooting to kill on sight and torturing people, becoming a country where death is guaranteed, or at least more likely than in their own nations. That's the cold logical route. Anything other than that will not stop the flow.
So, what can developed nations actually possibly do to stop illegal immigration? You work with the other side. The diplomatic route here is the only effective one, if you are not willing to become a criminal nation that does not respect human rights. It is also the hardest route, but you will only see a real change when this happens.
You either discourage immigration by making the nations of origin safer and better for people to stay instead of fleeing, or you collaborate with other nations for them to be attractive destinations and share the burden. And btw, it's not "we'll just fly them there" because that does not work and is not sustainable.
I imagine that no developed nation wants to sh*t in it's own plate to make it less attractive, so what you do is cooperate with other nations so that they are equally as attractive instead.
And let me tell something for British people, citizens of other developed nations, Americans and whatnot - the thing I'm saying here, you and your respective nations better learn fast so that better strategies can be devised. Because time is running out. Immigration, legal or not, will only increase over the years, exponentially so. A portion of the world will inevitably have to absorb and deal with people fleeing from Climate Change, wars, famine, resource scarcity and whatnot. The less prepared for this countries are, the more chances of absolute chaos happening there.
People will say it's not our fault, it's not fair for us to take this burden, we have enough problems here without people from outside coming in, our society is too incompatible to these people, I don't want our taxpayer money to be spent into this, and on and on you go. None of this matters. You may be right on that, but it does not matter. It's real life, it's one planet, and arguably, the inequalities that exists in this planet is the shared responsibility of all it's inhabitants. These things happen because we have a division between rich and poor countries. Because we live in political and economical systems that allowed such disparities in wealth. Because we didn't prioritize basic human rights for everyone.
Of course, the warmonger criminal corrupt dictator of the country next to you is responsible for it happening, far more than yourself, but it's all connected, we are all connected.
3
-
Adding some info to the video.
In case you missed, the Great Smog of London happened in 1952... so it took a smaller event and 4 years for the Clean Air Act, and then several years for it to really take hold, and it wasn't mostly because of the Act itself - it's because the source of pollution got exported.
The whole reason why China and other developing countries has had such problems with air pollution are ironically the same... industrial revolution conditions never stopped, they just got outsourced.
People tend to focus on lack of regulations and whatnot, but developed nations know full well that the lack of regulations plus lack of welfare and human rights conditions all leading to cheap labor and industrial production is the whole reason why factories producing stuff for them are located in those countries.
So you really can't complain much about the pollution of China, India, and other developing countries - the pollutionis there because they are making cheap products for export to countries like the US, UK and other developed nations.
China in particular, when it started becoming the industry of the world, just went for the cheapest, fastest source of power possible - coal. It's also cleaning up in record breaking time recently.
It's not that doctors, governments and people in general are ignorant of the problem or didn't know it was gonna get bad... it's just economics.
Near future, you can bet that the most polluting countries will be in Africa, poor Asian countries and whatnot. Because that's where cheap polluting industries, with cheap labor and lax regulations will be going to.
3
-
Notes to help some folks. xD
Whatsapp has backup encryption... not sure if this is an universal feature though. It's opt-in though, and wasn't always there, but if you wanna check: go into the options and chat backup configurations. There should be a checkbox option for encryption right under the button to do a manual backup. And it also gives you the option between encrypting with a password, or using your encryption key to do it.
Just so people know.... Yeah, I know it's still owned by Facebook and all, and Whatsapp still gives away everything it can, like metadata and such, but I think it's often lost in the message there that Whatsapp still is more private and secure than some other options out there. Like Facebook Messenger itself, and I'd argue that on several points, more secure than Telegram too. This has all to do with the past history before being acquired by Facebook, and nothing to with Facebook itself, of course.
3
-
3
-
3
-
It's not about the material, it's about how it's used.
Single use is the key word there. Every non consumable single use thing we make becomes a problem. It's not only plastic bag, it's also stuff like fast fashion, electronics, wrapping materials, among several other stuff.
Of course, there are materials that are more recyclable than others, more biodegradable than others, less toxic for the environment than others, so it all goes into the mix.
But in general, the more stuff lasts, and the less things become garbage, the better. Unfortunately, we ended up in a culture that goes exactly against that. Nothing is built to last anymore. For rich people, fast fashion and electronics that are getting close to a yearly upgrade cycle are the norm. For poor people, it's all extremely low grade stuff that will break down one way or another super fast.
3
-
Reality of it is, the pandemic isn't over, and all countries should be doing this to each other... but China's case is indeed particular because there is no confidence from the international scientific community in the data the CCP is providing, and there is a lack of transparency on what is really going on inside the country. Whatever the reason is, whether it's propaganda, or simply a lack of capability to keep statistics on so many people, probably a mix of both, the fact is that we don't have a clear picture of what is going on there.
And with large population comes a high potential for Covid to mutate into other variants, doesn't matter if it's China, India, US, Brazil or whatever. If you don't have close monitoring and transparent reporting on that, extra measures to stop spread are justified.
Also, the country just shifted from a strategy of overbearing control and curtailment of citizen movement towards a more open approach, so there are lots of questions on how this is gonna affect the health of everyone, including tourists visiting other nations.
So, even if the Chinese government is complaining about the measures, I see plenty of reasons to do so. Each country has to decide for themselves how to deal with an increase of influx of tourists of any given nation in the end. Until we have zero Covid active cases, this will always be the case.
3
-
This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. It's lipstick on a pig strategy.
I don't know exactly what people expected, but if I assume the leadership in any nation, cut off all government spending on social programs, education, and other sectors, announce that I'm going to privatize all public companies, and basically sell out all public assets to whoever gives me money, this will obviously fill government coffers, attract investment (particularly of the vulture kind), and make it look like the country is getting "better" by consequence of those.
See, it's no different to you as a person just selling away all your stuff and stop spending on everything. And other people might think you are getting richer and whatnot by that, plus all the vultures around you expecting you to sell them valuable assets and control parts of your life.
The problem with this sort of right wing neo-liberal politics isn't this sort of "reform", if you can even call it that, "working". The problem is the mid to long term consequences of doing all that. Because the social programs you had to work with core issues in your nation ceases to exist, the sellout of public companies means you will have a quick cash grab but then you'll stop having alternative sources for funding, it means government loses any control it might have had of the market with public companies, and next you'll become dependent on market woes and monopoly schemes dominating basic services and whatnot. You know this to be true because all developed western nations have problems with those.
You have a large portion of the population, and this is true for most developing nations, that now don't have any of the protection programs not to fall into debt, absolute poverty and whatnot, that for most people is what was preventing them to go into crime. Programs that were there to reduce historical problems with structural racism, sexism, homophobia and whatnot stops working, and so you can expect rises in hate crimes, in poor education, and in violence in general.
This is quite literally the calm before the storm. In Argentina's case it's more like they are just going through the eye of the hurricane. Country was bad before, it's going to get apparently better now because of the cash influx, but ultimately it'll crash as soon as that cash influx disappears and the exploitation by private companies and monopolies begin.
Make no mistake - Milei's reforms are meant to make the country look like it's recovering, particularly for international onlookers. But that's all that it really is. And Milei himself will get dirty rich for that, because he's selling out the nation for the highest bidder. But this strategy is nothing more than, again, lipstick on a pig, even if the lipstick costs the livelihoods of millions of Argentina's citizens. But it doesn't change the fact that it's a pig. It's not really solving any of the country's real issues. And make up, no matter how expensive it is, will fade away overtime.
3
-
Whenever you have a situation where politicians have pushed away scientific consensus and selectively put people in deciding positions because the political views of themselves matches going contrary to the overall community opinion, what you really have there is an autocracy, which is exactly the sort of government that conservatives mean when they talk about "communists and socialists". It is the same mechanism used to censor journalism, you just replace dissenting opinions with ones that for whatever reason matches the ideology of the government, regardless of scientific studies and scientific community consensus, which should be the gold standard, and not something to be trifled with. It is why democracy has arose, why separation of church and state happened, why we consider the age after the enlightenment the age of reason and so forth.
This sort of sh*t political manipulation should be what separates democratic countries from autocratic and theocratic regimes. Florida is shifting towards a ruling more similar to Russia with it's state media manipulation and middle eastern countries with their fanatic extreme theocracies, and people still fails to understand the cognitive dissonance between their discourse/preaching and how they act. You should not get to rule based on your own ignorant biased uninformed opinion, let professionals tell you how you should understand health problems like gender dysphoria, it is beyond your area of expertise and you are not a qualified professional. I wanna see people thinking like that let "opinionated morons" handle the construction of their homes, handle their finances, handle their health and security in a similar fashion.
Also, let me just add: The sh*tty ignorant ill informed opinion of stupid people that seems to be living in the 18th century that gender dysphoria is just a phase, a trend, or some sort of passing opinion is the same stupid way people used to think about depression, stress, anxiety disorders, most psychological and psychosocial related illnesses, along with stuff like obesity, several pathological diseases, cancer, heart diseases, diabetes, and almost all the stuff you expect treatment when you end up in a hospital today. The ignorant masses go with "well, it doesn't affect me, I can assume whatever I want" and push it against others. This is how you got witch hunts, belief in the four humors and other crap like that.
And a government that sees fit to keep blocking access to healthcare for minorities who are diagnosed with actual, well documented and studied diseases on basis of their own personal and political opinions will eventually land in health issues you have, because the message there is that government has better things to do with their money than protecting the population's health. You build exception on top of exception until only major diseases are covered, and you get to pay private or tax based healthcare that you'll get treatment only for a very small selection of problems.
US healthcare is already crap as it is, with this laughable fragmented sh*tty "public help" system as if healthcare isn't a core basic thing any rich country should provide to it's population, let alone the richest country in the world. You are becoming the richest country in the world only for the less than 1% crazy fast, and you are stuck in infighting because of stupid ideological and political differences.
And now you are letting politicians, not doctors, also nip in the bud of whatever is left because of political discordances? Richest country for the rich only, and it's getting further along those lines because people are stupid. It doesn't matter if you don't care for trans rights, if you have no dice in the game, if you think you wouldn't make use of those benefits, if - God forbid - you or your friends and families found themselves in a similar situation you wouldn't "need" or "want" for healthcare interference - which is just insane. At government level what you should be worried about, as a citizen in the richest nation in the world, is that it should be providing healthcare at the level or above of that of any other rich country in the world. I just cannot believe how US government and system is so broken there are areas of basic human rights it has fallen bellow that of some extremely poor countries by comparison. Single digit percent of your total government spending should put all of those well above that of any other nation, but it doesn't happend because of political bickering and infighting, plus the total ignorance of large portions of the population.
What is happening there is that states like Florida, with untold amounts of riches collected in taxes and who knows what else lobbying and other crap that goes behind the scenes, are getting to impose political opinions over scientific consensus for their own benefit, and the money that was going for healthcare is likely going for stuff like tax cuts for rich people, discretionary spending, and other crap that has nothing to do with basic guarantees and human rights. In this case it isn't even about taxes anyways, it's about what government backed healthcare programs have to cover. The answer should be EVERYTHING that doctors, hospitals and general health consensus has agreed a health issue is. You should be aiming at a higher bar, not an ever decreasing one.
To me, and I'll just add that I'm not an American citizen, the way American politics is warping and distorting such simple concepts is just maddening. The way the American people is being manipulated into these political traps is just insane, you were supposed to be smarter and more prepared than that. For a bunch of people who keeps shouting they need free access to weapons because of a potential scenario that you'll need to fight a rogue government, which is laughable considering how much the US spends on military, you sure seem to actually want that scenario to happen with all the incentives to put government against citizens' best interests. But in the end, part of the problem is the sense of entitlement. Not entitlement to basic human rights and basic citizen guarantees, but entitlement to keep shouting about stuff you are completely ignorant about. It's a large portion of people who have never studied those issues being incensed and rallied to raise torches and pitchforks, for the profit and power of a few. There are huge portions of the richest nation in the world being scammed, and man, you are gonna feel bad about it later on.... I mean, if these people ever realize, probably better to die ignorant about it.
3
-
3
-
The land of convenience... xD those are awesome, I'd love to have a service like that here.
We do have frozen meals here, but it's like half a dozen types at most, they are super expensive (sometimes more than just paying for restaurant delivery), and they generally don't taste great nor are very healthy...
If you count lasagnas as a meal, several of them still have trans fat added. The stuff you find on supermarkets are generally bad... it'll do to fill you up, but there always seem to be something wrong with it. The rice comes out kinda raw, the pasta ends up mushy, meat has the consistency of rubber...
You know when food is poorly frozen or it taste like it has been unfrozen and frozen back again? That. You can never trust supermarkets, restaurants, and delivery services to preserve the thing as they should.
I have seen a few app based delivery restaurants offering frozen meals made by them, not industrialized, but they are really hit or miss... the better ones are labeled as "healthy food", and accordingly comes with the healthy food tax - by which I mean, they are too expensive for what they are, and portions are small.
And I've never seen anything offering this much variety... the restaurants that offer frozen meals made by themselves at most will have some 4 or 5 choices based on the standard everyday brazilian meal. Rice beans and a few other stuff, beef stroganoff, feijoada, and then all sorts of pasta... the most common here are spaghetti, gnocci and lasagna. It's really made for those in a hurry, not for those looking to enjoy a meal.
Though I think if I lived there, I'd just do a quick run to a kombini everytime. xD I mean, with frozen food you don't even have to leave home, but really, the only reason why I consider frozen food here is because there is nothing like kombinis around where I live, restaurants are expensive as heck, and everytime you go out you gotta have safety in mind because depending on time of day, you always have a chance to get mugged or something. :P So I have tried a whole ton of frozen, dried, and generally long preserved food... it's mostly been kinda like cup noodles - not the kind you see in Japan, the kind you see internationally... pretty basic and bad. But opposite to cup noodles, if it's a regular meal, it tends to be super expensive too...
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
Great. If there is one thing that I truly hate about Japan, which is a country I love lots of things about, is politics.
The LDP ties with ultra nationalist groups and the Unification Church, which people should understand these are the so called "Moonies"... it's a church only in name, because really, it's a massive radical cult with all sorts of horrible scandals in it's history. If you ever watched a documentary about extreme religious cults, this cult was probably mentioned at some point for their extreme ultra conservative views.
But more than being against Kishida, what I'm really against is how permanent LDP in power has become. There is no democracy without a multi-party system. And the way the LDP became this undefined all powerful monster with factions that entirely contradicts the ideology and policy of other factions inside the same party means it has become a corrupted system. Transience of power is necessary for democracy, and it hasn't been observed in several decades for Japan.
Kinda contradictory and ironic given the philosophies that permeates Japanese culture such as wabi-sabi, mono no aware, and mujou.
And so it's not a surprise that it has corruption schemes going around, ties with radical religious cults, and all this crap that is showing up.
It's also a corrupt system that caused entire generations of Japanese people to become completely apathetic to politics, which is a huge danger to democracy.
This also has to do with cultural standards for sure, but the lack of activism, and how Japanese culture seems stuck in time in several topics, that's a problem with this stuck up politics that your usual Japanese citizen will tell you that they are not interested in participating because it's controlled by older generations - they don't have a voice in it, because they are a minority.
If you ever heard problems about lack of representation for women in politics, lack of policies on minorities, lack of policies on mental health, lack of LGBT specific rights, extremely stringent immigration laws, politicians trying to turn military from defense back towards regular military once again despite the vast majority of the population being against that, plus other nationalistic crap, history revisionism, and all this bs... it's because a conservative faction of the LDP has been in power for decades now.
Japan deserves a government better aligned with the sentiment of it's people. People who want equality, representation, peace and inclusiveness. I'm glad to hear that Kishida's government and LDP are going away. It's long past time already.
3
-
@dstinnettmusic Sorry, didn't see your reply until today... didn't know so many replied. xD
I'll explain what you see as an incongruence to make things clearer for those who don't know how piracy works in other countries, as well as acknowledge some stuff.
See, I didn't mean to legitimize the piracy practice. I understand it is still a big source of loss for developers and console manufacturers alike, though how much is often overblown by them, and I understand it's also not cool to just take something you didn't compensate people for as if it was nothing.
I also understand that the entire system wouldn't work if it was moved by piracy alone. It works because there are developed countries where most people purchase original games, while poorer countries get by with piracy, which serves to popularize and spread gaming as a whole. It's a global phenomena because of that combination, as are other forms of entertainment.
But, the way piracy worked fo several years in countries like Brazil, and the way it probably still works to some level, is on an industry level of production.
You are indeed right that most people wouldn't be bothered with downloading, burning and testing game images and roms, as well as modding consoles when necessary - but that's not how it works.
Stores sold consoles pre-modded with a slight cost increase, and the informal market took care of selling pirated games, music, movies and software by themselves. And mind you, this informal market didn't do it by themselves too, they imported directly from China or mass distributors for say, 5 bucks a piece in bulk quantities, and then sold for 10... or something similar, I dunno actual numbers.
To the point that some people never knew they were commiting copyright infringement. Buying pirated games in a store of your local shopping mall, kiosks, street sellers, and whatnot is just the reality of it. Buying original stuff was simply harder and more expensive.
Back sometime ago even big game store chains would sometimes sell you the console, have lots of original games on display, but if you asked to look at their "game catalog", they'd pull a folder filled with titles that you could ask for a fixed price (say 10 bucks per DVD), and they'd give you a pirated copy of the game, simple as that.
Brazil had several rounds of piracy crackdown periods over the years, but it was most for show, because it was just plain impossible to stop all shops involved from doing it one way or another. It's a huge business, you couldn't stop it even if you threw the entire army plus police force at it.
You put a cop in front of every shop, the people inside the shop would just give you some contact information with someone who gets pirated games industrially so that you could still buy it, because store owners knew they couldn't sell you an expensive console system if you didn't have the option to get games cheaper than original market price.
So, in summary, people didn't have to bother with the entire ripping, burning and testing process by themselves. Pirated stuff, including games, music, movies and software is bought on bulk in countries like China (or just made internally by media pressing industries) and smuggled into the country to be sold as a complete ready to use package. In practice, no different an experience for the consumer in comparison to buying original stuff, only waaaay cheaper.
But of course, with the advent of digital stores, Steam sales, online DRM, Humble Bundle, online services and subscriptions... piracy has considerably diminished. Or rather, perhaps, it moved market from middle and upper class to lower class, because I still see them being sold everywhere, and if it's still being sold, there is a market for it.
I have personally stopped pirating games ever since Steam came out, and currently have a library of over 1000 Steam games. Lots of people I know also went that way. Because like you said, convenience.
But in the past, from NES times up to Playstation 2 and 3, this is just how the game market worked here. The actual convenient way to do it was to pirate.
It was not only incredibly expensive to buy everything original, you also had a pretty limited selection of original games to go for, because it was too expensive - most stores wouldn't stock on titles and wouldn't get recently released triple A titles from fear of not selling it at all.
You practically had to pirate stuff to be on top of recently released games, specially if you lived in smaller cities. Big capital cities usually had big multinational retail stores that could handle original games only, but that's a tiny percentage of the overall market. You can imagine hundreds of towns where the only place you could go to get a recently released triple A title was your local pirated games supplier.
And you know, I think piracy might be making a comeback, all due to economics once again, for Brazil in particular. What usually dictates this are economics. Like I said in my original post, brazilians have an importation tax on all products aside from books, that basically doubles the price of products. Back during PS1, PS2, PS3 times, we also had to contend with currency exchange rates that puts imported consoles and games at 2 to 3 times more. So, compounded with taxes, comparatively, for original games, brazilians would have to pay 4 to 6 times the price an american, japanese or european gamer would. Comparatively speaking that is, because you need you consider average wages and cost of living in all of this.
Now our currency value is crashing down, and our currency is currently valued at 5.3 per dollar. So brazilians are paying between 10 to 15 times more for imported electronics and whatnot, including games and consoles.
It's just not something most brazilians can afford doing realistically, spending almost a year's worth of minimum wage on gaming alone.
So alternatives starts showing up, legal or not. And Brazil is a country full of gamers. I bet there's a ton of unlocked Switches in Brazil, and a lot of gamers with hacked console systems too. I became mostly a pc gamer these days, so I'm out of the loop, and my Switch remains locked... but I'm mostly playing indie games. The decision to get a bigger Nintendo title is done carefully given how expensive it has become. At most, one title a year. I just don't want to unlock it for now, because I'm not that much of a gamer right now, and I do have a huge backlog on PC anyways. But if I was gaming on the Switch exclusively, and really reaaaaally wanted to play all the main Nintendo titles, I'd probably have unlocked my Switch by now, in all honesty.
3
-
The geneal problem with all religious cases, regardless of which it ultimately is, is if you put religion above the law of the land, you cease being a citizen of the state, and become an extremist with the potential of having to go against the state you currently live in, being labeled a terrorist, a cult, or just plain an enemy of the state.
The religious leaders of these communities must take strong action and tell followers they need to put what the state says first, specially regarding health and precautions, or what will result of this is religious persecution and discrimination which will be considered fair by the majority because it's actively threatening everyone's health.
If you actively decide to trust stupid baseless rumours, conspiracy theories and disinformation like the 5G crap, and cannot put official information coming from medics and authorities above that, this will ultimately fall on yourself - it has nothing to do with religion, it has to do with a lack of education, critical reasoning, and just overall bad behaviour.
I really don't care mich about what religion or lack thereof individuals have, that's their own choice. But if you live in a society you respect it's rules first, for that is what makes you part of it. People also should not expect help if they are gonna insist in keeping a position of denial. I knkw doctors made an oath and all that, but in times of crisis prioritization will always happen, and I don't doubt that a doctor would rather save a victim than a perpetrator of falsehoods and bad politics, because saving the second only makes things worse for himself and for the rest of society. Keep that in mind. There are no Gods on Earth, if you get sick and need help, you'll have to rely on your neighbors, so fucking act accordingly to deserve that.
3
-
This will slowly happen in every major tourism hotspot in Japan, you just need to have been there in recent years to understand. Unruly tourists might be the reason given, but it's more than that - it's about overcrowding.
In Gion particularly, even if all tourists were plenty respectful (which you'll always have exceptions to, and the more people the more exceptions), it has already gotten to a point that some times of the day in international vacation periods the narrow streets are so packed full with people that it's dangerous, even for regular people. I'm talking crowd crush levels of danger. I'm talking about crowds dangerously overflowing to the middle of busy streets. The district wasn't made to support such huge crowds, despite being an adult entertainment district.
And I suspect several other tourist venues will end up going the same way. Tourism is a major source of revenue for Japan and whatnot, but at some point a major crowd crush incident will end up happening in these tourist spots, which will force politicians, law and justice to take action. In fact, it's a miracle that this hasn't already happened.
For people going there to visit, my recommendation is - be respectful, follow whatever advisories are there, obey police in crowded spots, and just avoid going in high season, busy vacation time and the most sought after tourist spots. If you want to go visit the most famous spots, which is understandable, avoid weekends and holidays.
And do notice - I'm not saying this because of geishas, respect for the places, and stuff like that, though there's also that factor - I'm saying this for your own experience as a tourist. In most popular touristic places in Japan, if you go when the place is packed, all you'll see is a sea of people, and you'll spend hours in line for everything, not being able to see anything. Which is not what I think most people are going there for. People preparing to go there should know that if you wanna see the sights you've saw on tourism brochures, blogs, YouTube videos and whatnot, on popular spots, these days the only real way to see it like that is if you go on the off season. Skip sakura season - the beginning of spring, skip golden week, autumn might be a better choice, but it's only summer and winter that international tourism reduces a bit.
3
-
3
-
See, most people do understand what the problem is. It's just that there is absolutely no hope for the changes needed to ever happen.
And it's pretty similar to Japan and other nations that are facing this as a major issue that will cause major problems in the future.
We can split this into parts to make it easier to think about the problem. These are my personal opinions, you don't have to agree with me.
On the government level, there is a problem of lack of representation, tied to conservative thinking and maintaining the status quo. Which causes a complete disinterest in politics on the portion of the population where it matters most for this particular issue - young adults.
They are the status quo that created this situation in the first place.
So what you need is politicians in several levels that actually care about the issue over other topics. Not just the old dinosaurs that not only don't put this problem above the status quo worries, but also don't even know how to handle it as they are not going through it and won't be affected by it. Because while it might sound like a simple problem, solving it will only be achieved by a composite of deep changes that will require lots of time and money to do. So, to be perfectly clear - a political class composed of old male conservatives constantly trying to defend their status quo will never come up with real solutions for this. Never.
On societal level, one of the interviewees summarized it best - it all comes down to the income inequality problem. Most capitalist societies these days already have reached a level where 1% of the population holds more of income and riches than the entire rest of the population. And this has become increasingly worse over the years to the point the vast majority of people don't make enough for themselves alone, or as a couple, there is no way they can hope to also sustain kids along with it. The advent of recent technologies only made this worse, because there is a substantial increase in people who live to work and nothing else. You don't have time for anything outside of work, so you don't have time to even think about family and kids. It's not even a matter of planning anymore - people are starting to not even think about it as they already have too much in their plates everyday to worry about.
Which also enters the cultural level. Education is important, work is important, and lots of other factors in life are also important, but once you prioritize stuff at the cost of excluding others, this is what you get. The average person living in society can only take so much pressure. For people looking from the outside, stuff like incredible work ethics to attend costumers as best as possible, double or triple checking things to never disappoint your costumer, spending long extra hours of work to attend demand, and different other things like excellence in education, priding yourself to be part of a secure and technological nation, etc etc etc - all of those things should be sources of pride and targets to achieve. But when it is all about that, culture will deprioritize other points.
With that in mind, I think raising kids and bringing up a healthy family has always been considered a fact of life of sorts. Particularly for the older generations who dominates so much of the political class. It's not something that needs to be encouraged or helped, but something that naturally happens. And this is highly problematic. This is not an issue that can be looked eye to eye to older generations, because they don't understand the perspectives people have today.
The fact is that human progress changes cultures, societies, ideologies, principles, expectations, desires, outlooks on life, and thinking in general. South Korea isn't the country it was a century or so ago. It needs new thinking, new solutions, and new people in leadership, who understands that solutions for the problem will need to be compatible to how things are today.
In general, the desire to form a family and have kids needs to be attended to. More people who wants this needs to have their pre-conditions fulfilled. And it needs to be prioritized properly, before it's too late.
And I'll just add something else to this - trying to turn back the clock won't work, as some radical people seems to think it will. It'll only worsen the problem. I always hear arguments on why poor nations are way better at increasing population, we should take some examples from there, or regain stuff from the past that made nations grow explosively in the past.
That won't work. We're not there anymore. People had tons of kids because they didn't have birth control, because they considered kids as workforce for family business, because they didn't understand health properly, because there was an expectation for high child mortality rates, because of poor family planning and ignorance, because it was a standard way of living, among several other factors. What we need to do is not to return to such conditions, but rather come up with ways of raising birth rates without all the suffering. Like the video itself shows, there are plenty of people who wants to have kids. It's not a problem to have people who don't. It's a problem when the people who wants to have kids see no way of that happening in their life because of external conditions.
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
This is a great interview and a great work in reporting what is happening there, which is why I'll have to be picky and tell you guys you need to send it back to editing and fix the levels on it... Rafaeli's levels are too low, while Ben's are too high and compressed.
Back to the theme though, it's impressive to see things are happening that way, but it's not all that surprising, right?
China has become the industrial power for the demands of developed nations, skipping regulations and skipping everything else looking at demand alone.
What you have are industries that are working hard in producing stuff to attend demands, regional economies and even the entire country economy dependent on exports to keep their revenues up, with those industries never working in accordance to regulations and stipulations given by their main markets, sometimes with the aid of the foreign companies behind the products they are producing for.
The reason why you get everything from fake badly done stuff to be sold cheap, all the way up to extremely expensive stuff done in high grade labs that no other country has the capability of producing, and then everything in between, is because we have decades of offloading the production of everything into China and other Asian nations, often times done haphazardly, turning a blind eye on workers rights, human rights, and the consequences this is having for China and producing nations, and using that to create a false image of actual developed for rich nations.
It's like what some people have already said before - we haven't left the industrial revolution period and it's worst practices back in history, so much that we simply offshored it to poorer nations, and started pretending that they are not there.
In the case of precursor ingredients for drugs, particularly one that was legal not that long ago and that the US created for itself using Chinese factories to attend demand, I can see how the Chinese government wouldn't give two sh*ts about the US fentanyl epidemic now as there is no incentive and no reason for them to stop production, only a loss of jobs and source of revenue for the regions that specialized in production.
Particularly now that Biden decided to continue the trade war strategy that Trump started, I just can't see how the CCP would share worries on this particular issue. It'd be hard enough if both countries were in good terms and China wasn't a dictatorship, which it is.
The US will have no power to demand another nation shutting down factories and firing a whole ton of workers just because the materials they are producing and exporting there, legally, are being used for the production of illegal drugs in another nation. The only way to solving a problem like that is via diplomatic channels, getting into a deal with China to make industrial scale production of those precursor ingredients illegal there.
Problem of course is, how much the US government is willing to offer for that, and how much of an effect this will really have... since in case like those, what tends to happen is just another nation picking up the slack and filling the demand there.
The obvious side to look at is the demand side... but of course, the fact that Vice has an entire series congratulating drugs for winning the war on drugs, that's how bad things already are.
3
-
3
-
When you think things can't get any worse, Trump signals a religious state.
How far he really is from saying that his actions are ordained from God anyways?
You know the best way to pass arbitrary laws and impose one sided rules upon any society, not feeling responsible for any negative consequences that comes from it? Make it about religion. Everything is justifiable in that sphere. It is the entire thing moving terrorist groups after all.
Yes, give fuel to fanatism and religious close mindedness. We'll see how that ends. There are several extremely good reasons why modern democracies run on secular states. The further away you go from it, the closer we are to getting back to medieval times, or acting like terrorist factions.
The worst part of it all is that religious people cannot understand that secularism is actually better for everyone, including themselves. It means the government doesn't get to tell you what you should believe in, what you should practice, what you should criticise, nor discriminate against you if you don't believe in exactly the "official" governmental religion.
This is a complete democratic failure. Once you insert any religion as a belief system that's behind governmental decisions, you are leaving entire parts of the population out of the equation, and it's not a democracy anymore.
It's just amazing how one guy is managing to set an entire country back centuries without anyone being able to do something about it. Land of the free my ass.
3
-
There is no avoiding the low birth rates tied to modernization, urbanization, and the country getting richer in general, but there are major things that countries like Japan and South Korea can do - it just depends on how really desperate they are, because these are profound changes.
It's also something they don't currently do that I personally think is the key reason why the policies in these nations are so ineffective. They are not attacking the issue itself. Of course, giving money helps, but it's not the core issue in the matter.
First and foremost - put more women in power. It should be obvious to anyone that having politics and leadership in business positions filled with men that either don't care or don't understand how to deal with stuff like pregnancy and raising kids and can just brush off all the problems with parenthood after they themselves left their spouses to take care of the kids while they were or are absent fathers is not going to solve this issue.
You have the wrong people in positions of power to make the choices. It's self evident when all these governments seems to do is throw some spare change into the issue and think that's gonna solve it. Parenthood is not some slot machine you put some coins in and it works.
Then we can talk about changing workplace culture, laws and regulations to give and enforce less work hours. It's not just about people being too stressed to have kids and putting careers above family. It's also not only about yadda yadda the younger generations don't want to have kids. I think lots of people needs to look deeper into this, and perhaps they don't want to because they are afraid of what they might find. Older or younger generations, people are just people. If you ever said "younger generations don't want to have kids", let me suggest you to further think - why? The answer might surprise you. More often than not, it's not that they don't want to form a family and have kids - it's just that they cannot find time and place to do it.
It's about having time to even consider, discuss, and think about it. When you have an entire culture that educates you to put work above family and everything else, that working long hours is equivalent to high moral standards, that being the last to leave work is somehow inherently superior or worthy of praise, when you have vertically structured businesses where your boss is God above everything else, productivity is your religion, and you cannot have a say in any matter - that's not gonna work for individual choices of having kids.
People fundamentally needs space and time not only to have kids, but to form relationships outside work with proper time for it, which will then lead to healthy relationships, which then leads to having kids, nurturing a proper family structure, and setting and example to the next generation. It's not only going home after leaving work and making babies. You need a separate time, social circle and structure for the family. You need to be able to separate things, and to do that you need time out of work. It's kinda like a double life. If work doesn't provide you with it, then you cannot expect for it to happen. Work should not be all about money, promotions, status and whatnot. It should be about enabling you to have family and time to dedicate to it.
This is why you can't have an overworked society without negative birth rates. People have limited time, space in their heads, and amount of choices in their lives. If work takes all of it, it's obvious there will be no room left for family. Worse yet, the few families that have kids ends up dysfunctional, because there is no time for parenting, there is no time for family, there is no time to anything - it all gets delegated to third parties. Which then passes an impression to kids that having kids is not worth it. It's a vicious circle, and we're right about the moment in time when the second generation or third generation of this vicious cycle is coming about. Younger generations don't want to have kids anymore because this cycle started with their parents or grandparents.
Look, I know this is somewhat crass and the analogy really doesn't fit here, but just to step out of this discussion a bit. Think about pets, for instance. I personally don't want to have a pet if all I can do for it is leave it abandoned almost all day locked into some house or apartment, at most taking it to walk a few blocks at night to poop and exercise a bit. With that in mind, why would people rationally chose to have kids if all they can do for them is something analogous to that?
What you have today is whole generations of kids born "by accident" that fortunately some parents get over and don't regret, but a whole bunch of parents spend the rest of their lives regretting it, which is the sort of sentiment that inevitably passes on, which leads to younger generations being hesitant or straight out not wanting to have kids themselves, because they don't want to raise and treat kids the way they experienced it.
Parenting is hard work and it's a complete change in lifestyle, in culture, in habits, in everything. It's one of those major life decisions, when it can be a decision, that everyone will naturally have some hesitation towards. If governments wants to change this scenario, it's not just giving alms and throwing money at the problem - it's about cultural changes. You need to identify portions of the culture that gets in the way in a non-prejudicial manner, and make profound changes that will turn it around.
In modern affluent societies that don't have incentives for families to have throngs of kids anymore to put them to work at a farm or something like that, don't have lack of education or healthcare that leads to scenarios of women having kids because they don't use contraceptives, and don't have long term examples of parents and grandparents having multiple kids as the standard way of doing things, you gotta find some other way to incentivize it. We can't go back to old times, or rather we don't wish to go back to old times because we don't voluntarily want to go back to ignorance and hard labor with child labor in the mix... well, most of us don't. So what there needs to be is profound cultural, regulatory, and educational changes, all of which women who wants to have kids are in a better position to propose and do, so they need to be in positions of leadership to make those propositions and lead by example.
I can't see how conservative men led governments and leadership will do it. Not in South Korea nor Japan. There is a fundamental ignorance and conflict in objectives there. Symbology isn't everything, but it's part of it. Having actual mothers in those positions won't solve everything, but it's a start. Which means these countries haven't even started with solutions just yet. What they are currently doing is only making things worse, and time is limited.
3
-
I really don't mean to offend anyone's faith and religion, it's part of our freedom of choice and I respect that.
But I also think that changes in environment, societies and what is happening in current times will eventually force all religions to either adapt, or their people to keep suffering for it. I mean, this already happened to varying degrees with several religions, but it's gonna accellerate because changes are also accellerating.
For those who think Covid will be over soon... this strain of it might, but this isn't a one off thing. This really will become a new normal. We will fight off Covid-19, but we don't know when the next will hit and how severely... if we refuse to acknowledge the danger and better prepare for next time, it'll only be a repeat. And we need to acknowledge this for the sake of the lives lost so far... it's our collective responsibility.
Centuries or even millenium old religious practices eventually clashes with current reality, environment, societal standards, knowledge base and whatnot. It's kinda obvious, we don't tend to follow historical texts step by step - we learn from it and adapt to current reality. Sometimes religions can be fairly inflexible about this, but I'm not sure we can continue affording this luxury. And it's the kind of changes that happens regardless of personal opinions... we're not still there everywhere in the world, but it's fast approaching.
Back when we had less people in the world, vast tracts of untamed land, and little comprehension of the consequences of our actions, it was fine for religions to stick to certain practices. Not just fine, sometimes those practices meant community, union, a way to avoid conflicts, common ground.
But nowadays, with knowledge about contamination, cemetaries that are getting more and more packed overtime, occupying space that comes at a premium for the living, and the dangers of disease spreading... religious leaders need to be aware that it's becoming less and less feasible to sustain burial practices. This is repeated over and over again around scientific circles, but I know it often doesn't reach religious people and leaders, mainly because of this perception of inflexibility.
Obviously this is becoming more visible in a dire situation like the pandemic, but the alarms about burial practices becoming more and more unsustainable over the years have been sounding for a while now, at least in some countries.
Outside belief and faith, I can understand why these ceremonies and rituals surrounding the death of someone comes to be - it has a very practical side to it, which is helping the grieving process, celebrating one's life, gathering family and friends, supporting the bereaved, and a bunch more of untangibles. I really have a respect for that. I'd never belittle a moment like that, the rituals, the process.
And I can also see how this all made sense in the past, much like several other practices described in religious sacred texts.
But perhaps it's a good idea to prepare. We don't have to completely let go of rituals and these processes, just adapt them to fit better practices. Cremation, environmentally friendly burrial processes, or just detaching the rituals from the manner a body is processed afterwards.
Forgive me for putting it so bluntly, but the celebration of one's life shouldn't be attached to how you deal with the corpse. Perhaps this was justified when people just remained ignorant on what happened to a corpse after it was burried, but this is a luxury we increasingly can't afford anymore. It's gonna decompose and potentially contaminate things down there. It's crude and even tabboo for some to think about it, but you either do it by choice or it'll come a time when you'll be forced to chose without preparation.
And it doesn't sound very rational to think someone would put the way their corpse is treated above the well being of others. Well, this certainly does happen and has happened throughout our history, but it's time to change that.
I'm obviously not a religious person myself. My mom and most of my family is, spread out in several different Christian faiths, to different degrees of actual participation I guess. I've come to respect that because I see the effect it has in their lives. It's about community, about how you process certain events in life, about guidance, about striving towards a common goal.
But me and my mom commited to cremation... from her own initiative, not mine. There are certain things I always let her do the decision and guide, because it doesn't matter as much to me.
But the choice for cremation came as what will likely be the better way of dealing with the practical steps after death when it happens... even though some Christian faiths do not feel very comfortable with the idea of cremation, some of which are practiced by some members of the family.
Personally, and I think my dad thought this too, whatever is done to my corpse after I'm dead, I hope for it to be the less burdensome or more practical, but I know it probably won't be chosen by me. My dad had a normal christian burial because of the family, not because of his own choices. It was what most of his family accepted as a proper send off, and so that was the way it went. But he was non religious like me, and he expressed several times that he didn't care much.... food for plants, he used to say. Better make my body useful for something than just rotting in some place I dunno.
This doesn't mean we will care less about it, that we won't have a hard time with grief, that family and friends won't gather or put their hearts and thoughts into it, etc. I can say for myself that my parents will always live through me, and I will always have them in my memory, guiding my actions, and being part of my life. And I want to take care of them as best as possible while they are alive, and will always keep them in memory when they are gone. And they don't need to be burried at a specific place for that.
Visiting one's grave at specific times and whatnot is a good ritual and gesture, part of the healing process, we usually need to reserve time and point a specific place to reinforce intention and focus around something... but at least for me, it sounds like a specific place and time can be replaced. We can honor, remember and grief people without a grave. And I guess I personally think a grave isn't even the best place to do it... a favorite place, a place with good memories, a place of particular significance... it all sounds way more appropriate than a grave that has no memories of the person burried there, I dunno, again personal opinion.
Kind of a shock changing things like that, but you know. We still try to visit graves of my grandparents, my father, relatives and whatnot whenever we can, but they are mostly far from where we live. I've no relatives in my hometown, my parents went cross state and then interstate in search of better opportunities, as most of the rest of the family also did overtime - we're all spread out. But my father was burried in the city he was born, because the grave of his parents is also there, and back then, most of his side of the family was still also living there. It mostly isn't nowadays, but back then it was.
Anyways, this comment went off for too long, and got too personal... xD
Just leaving some thoughts.
3
-
The idea of going back to a point in time and seeing what you were doing on a PC is interesting in itself, so I understand what Nathan is talking about there. Like, it'd also be interesting to do this for real life too... xD
Thing is, Recall isn't even remotely close to being the way to do it. In fact, it's proving itself to be the absolute worst way to do it. Like I dunno, try learning how to fly by jumping naked off a plane or something.
Because while both of those ideas are interesting things - it's more like it's only interesting if only you could do it yourself, and a complete nightmare if there is even a very far off slight remote possibility of others doing it against you.
Abstracting it a bit, it's like using a computer for photographic memory. Problem is, if your photographic memory has any chances of just leaking out, getting hacked, or the content being misused by a 3rd party, then it becomes an absolute nightmare.
The "erase my browser history" joke, which is already used for a reason, pales in comparison on how bad the situation is if everything you are doing on a PC is being recorded. We use them for far too much these days.
So, on that matter, I also agree with both Nathan and Henry's assessment. Microsoft is not treating this seriously enough or at all, and I don't think it ever will, because the way it's being done has no route towards being respectful of any privacy or individual security at all. It's just crazy to think that some people are already testing this out. I'm sure some bosses and managers would love to have this level of absolute control and panopticon powers over employees though, and this might be the reason why Microsoft is pursuing this so hard, which I just shudder to think about. This is a large step over virtual slavery. We had slavery, modern slavery, access to Recall from employees would be the next step in slavery, stalking, scams, impersonation, blackmailing, ransomware, and a bunch of other crimes.
This is the sort of stuff that I'd still have a hard time recommending even if it was done offline, on an air gapped computer, running secure and open source OS and software, with high level encryption, and completely outside the reach of anyone else other than the user himself/herself. I'd still have a hard time to recommend this because even with the absolute best and most paranoid strategies to secure all that data, there is no perfect solution to keep it 100% secure. And given the risks it presents to anyone who uses it, it's just too much for anyone to assume. This has the risk of changing behavior and changing the way people do stuff with self censoring and restriction of freedom that is even worse than censorship on a dictatorship.
The way Microsoft is doing it is the opposite of paranoid security. So it's a straight and plain nope.
The number of ways this can be exploited to put you into an extremely vulnerable and dangerous position erases any potential good this can have. And once again, it's being sold as a convenience, no surprises there.
I'm moving away from Windows anyways, so I don't care all that much what Microsoft will ultimately do with this, but it's the fact that a company can dress up something they absolutely know is extremely dangerous for people, in some marketing bullsh*t that focus only on potential benefits, and fool people with it - that's what is really worrying about all of this. This is exponentially worse than most things Microsoft has done in the past, with telemetry, with dark patterns, with forcible upgrades, with app store for data collection and microtransaction bs, and any other anti-consumer crap they've done in the past. BSOD jokes and whatnot pale in comparison to what they are trying to pass as benign here, and they cannot be this ignorant to say they don't know or don't think there are dangers to using something like Recall.
Now, for me the forced upgrade to Win10 plus the telemetry crap have been more than enough to decide to switch to something else and eliminate everything related to Microsoft from my life. But Recall? Recall is definite proof that the company has gone completely downhill, as they hit the bottom of the pit with this. That is a level of maliciousness, incompetence, stupidity, ignorance, and/or whatever it may be that makes me not only want to move away from it, now I really want this company gone forever for everyone, no jokes. If they are stupid enough to even suggest something like this, they are an evil to the world that has almost no comparison.
They've been going down this path of copying and making anti-consumer moves worse and worse for a while now, but man... I gotta give it to them to boldly make the next big step in becoming the absolute worst of the Big Tech, period. If this gets adopted en masse and go awry, even the mass data collection to create a parallel economy of private data selling might not be as bad. That's how I see Recall.
The only thing I'm interested now is seeing how many people will fall victim to this. Depending on how many Windows users go this route, it'll signal that we need to start it all over, because there is no fixing things with computers and Internet plus human behavior anymore. We've been already on a route of the industry only developing things to make people more miserable and more self destructing than ever before, if Recall becomes a real big thing it only signals that we as a collective cannot stray away from this path so blind we've become to it.
3
-
The explainer part of RFID is very good, and part of the worries are justified, but some arguments fall apart... because physics!
As explained, an RFID tag biggest part is the antenna... and it needs to be a very specific size because of the mentioned frequency resonation/response effect.
Again, as explained, the RFID transmitter portion sends a signal that both powers and detects a response from the tag. That's how the entire system works.
The problem with the idea that you could make a clandestine RFID system that can be detected extremely long distances is twofold:
1. If you want to send signal long distance using lower frequencies, you need larger and larger antennas. For this, you can think about radio antennas, TV antennas, or something like the difference between 4G and 5G antennas. Higher frequencies also have a harder time going through dense objects - this is why millimiter range 5G has to be short distance line of sight;
2. If instead you wanna send it further away by upping the amplitude of the signal, that is power, than it also becomes a problem of either coil size, active device with battery to fit, or a combination of both. A passive device can't generate enough power, particularly if it's small, to transmit back a signal long distance.
It's in the explainer itself: the passive RFID tag needs to be powered by the scanning signal and transmit back a response. It's powered by the signal because the antenna acts both as a transmit/receive antenna, and as a coil to induct power.
Now, you have to think about wireless power tech. Qi Chargers. The entire reason why we still don't have long range high output wireless power systems is because of physics.... in order to transmit power wirelessly using coils, enough to charge a smartphone which is usually around tens of Watts, you need relatively big coils that are milimeters from each other. Fast wireless charging that are the latest in evolution are using multiple coils to reach fast charging standards.
Worse, the more power involved in a wireless power system, the more loss through heat you end up with. This is why fast wireless charger bases usually have a fan or some form of heat dissipation.
That is all to say that RFID tags are only possible because the passive tags require a teeny tiny ammount of power just enough to operate for miliseconds, send back a very weak signal, juuuust enough for it to reach the reader. It's a system that was carefully designed to hit the physical limits.
If you need a tag to send back data long distance, it'll either need more power with either a big coil or by being active with a battery, or it needs to have a big antenna, or a combination of both. Making it then, way harder to conceal.
But, the concern on just regular sized RFIDs is justified. You can have an array of detectors/listeners spread in a wide area that could collect data that way.
Only it's also worth noting that it'll need to be tied to some mass surveillance database somehow, because you really can't hold a lot of data in a chip as small as an RFID chip.
Which then leads to... it not being very feasible because we already have several other methods of collecting data and surreptitiously tagging people anyways. For instance, tracking people inside a store for commercial purposes? It's been done several times already using Bluetooth and Wi-fi from smartphones - including non consensually. You don't really need RFID dust to track people... most people already have beacon devices with them at all times. Instead of spreading RFID dust around, a honeypot for Wi-fi and/or Bluetooth should be enough for most situations.
Now, if you need to tag an individual through some method that isn't reliant on a smartphone and other electronic devices... well, perhaps it'd be interesting to track RFID tags... but it's kind of a convoluted way of doing it, and there should be plenty other cheaper and easier alternatives. Special types of paints and chemicals, active trackers, biosignatures, etc.
I was just reading about our external microbiome the other day... did you know we all basically have a microbiome floating around us at all times, one which is as unique to us as our gut flora? Yep. It's how dogs can track people by "scent"... it's not just smell as in how we conceptualize it, it's actually an entire microbiome floating around us that is rather unique to each individual. And yes, overtime it could be used as unique identifier.
So, there you go. Hope I didn't leave even more people in despair... xD
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
This could've gone a bit deeper on the historical part, because it's kinda interesting.
Shinobi, the japanese word for ninja, were originally either servants, mercenaries, or indentured families working in secret for shoguns or rich powerful people in japanese history as spies, assassins, and doing other kinds of dirty jobs because of bushido - the code of honor the reigned in the era.
Originally, they were nothing to be really celebrated about. They were really secretive and really hidden from view because they acted in ways that not only broke laws, but also the estabilished code of honor. A code of honor that, as you'll know, major violations meant ritual suicide - sepukku. Both samurais and shoguns were theoretically and intrinsically tied to this code of honor, and they'd often be "required" to commit sepukku to avoid disgrace.
So ninjas were basically a way to skirt the rules. xD Most of the jobs were pretty unglamorous, taken by people that didn't have a lot of training, forming spying and information networks. Beggars would often compose the ranks.
Assassinations and assassination attemps would happen often during the warring states era, but they were often without much direct contact too... poisoning food, water supply, stuff like that.
There were families of shinobi with people heavily trained in stealth, assassination, general thievery and usage of function specific tools and weapons, but those were kind of the exception. Reserved for only the most powerful.
There's also not a whole lot of documentation and history about them as you can imagine it was part of the job (not leaving any records of activities), and as they were kinda seem as the scum of the scum, very dishonorable - a cheating device of sorts.
Of course, once one shogun or lord had a network of shinobi working around laws and code of honor, everyone else also needed it. Reason why it became so widespread and intricate.
But it's of course interesting how the concept and culture was appropriated, heavily distorted, and eventually made it's way back to Japan in this weird new ocidentalized form. :P There are some attractions in Japan that picks the westernized Ninja version and sells it back for tourists.
3
-
3
-
3
-
ROFL, can empathize.... Brazilian here. xD
I'm gonna guess that what most Americans and some other developed nations imagine when they think about Brazil, is probably something along that Simpsons episode that caused some controversy here.... well, plus our general image in tourism rounds plus stereotypes.
Put simply, much like Kazakhstan, Brazil is far bigger than most people imagine.
Thing is, this is valid for pretty much any foreign nation - the way the image of foreign nations is built and shown is often a stereotyped, often negative, as sensationalized as possible. This has been and still is a problem of general media, news and whatnot.
We get monkeys roaming the streets and a mix of 24/7 soccer and carnival all year round, plus images of Christ the redeemer in the middle of slums and whatnot.... Kazakhstan gets Borat, which is arguably even worse. :P
And in our case, yes, there is definitely some truth in the Simpsons episode... just waaay overblown for the sake of comedy. You have stuff that is definitely true, but not for the entirety of the country (Brazil is extremely diverse, we have immigrants coming from all over the world and respective cultures influencing different regions of the country), stuff that comes from a bit of truth but is actually completely false (monkeys roaming the streets), and then superficial stuff that simply doesn't represent the country and it's people at all.
But it's like, even developed nations get that type of treatment.... Japan with used panties vending machines and... naked sushi for whatever reason, tentacle rape and a few others like that (most Japanese people only came to know about those things via foreigners), and so on.
Kinda sad that it apparently needs to be like that, but oh well... like some said, from some angle, at least it's better to have some distorted image of our countries that is known throughout the world, than people knowing nothing at all.
I will readily admit not knowing a whole lot about middle east nations, Asian nations apart from Japan, and African nations... heck, I don't even know much about Latin American nations, which Brazil is part of. xD But over the years I just came to assume not only comedy but also general International media coverage is just extremely unfair and unflattering. It rarely goes over clickbait material...
3
-
So far in my life I've been, as a tourist, in at least 6 or 7 countries whose language was not mine, and they were a mix between languages that I knew little or basically nothing.... specially in Europe.
ROFL, I have to say I also got some angry french because I didn't speak the language too. Long time ago though, close to 20 years ago now (yes, I'm old).
Japan is by far the place where I needed to know the language the least. In fact, other than english language countries, because I obviously know the language a bit, Japan was basically the only other country where I felt comfortable going around without being in a 24/7 tour.
You know, I'm adventurous enough by myself not to bother too much with these things, but thing is, I always travel abroad or overseas with family... no exceptions so far. So I don't get worried for myself, I get worried about others. It's kinda stressful to be honest, planning everything, sticking to it, being as prepared as possible to all possible scenarios... but worth it when you are with family members, particularly when most of them are at retirement age.
Went there some 10 years ago when I knew absolutely nothing of japanese, and then last year knowing a little bit more. Well, like said, I had family members and some of them know japanese relatively well, but I didn't have any problems going around by myself both times. Both trips I had at least a weekend at Akiba and other places I went by myself.
You know, since I'm japanese descendant and basically look like one, sometimes I'd get the initial kneejerk reaction (why this japanese dude can't talk japanese?), but then when I explained I'm from Brazil, japanese people switch to gaijin mode pretty quickly. xD
Heck, I probably feel more comfortable going around Japan rather than going around say Spain or Italy, even though my native language (portuguese) is relatively close to both.
Japan is just a country and has a culture/society that is well prepared to deal with foreigners somehow. The plastic food on display, people who are unbelievably willing to walk with you to your destination, staff in all sorts of services, like the subway system, that will guide you step by step on all sorts of things without scamming your ass... xD
Even so, for anyone going, I always recommend learning as much as possible. Not only the language, but also the culture, how society works, what you should expect, stuff like that.
Not because you need to worry a lot about those, but because you'll simply enjoy the trip more that way. I had some relatives who went there for a week long trip, they ended up not enjoying much simply because they didn't know much about the culture itself, so nothing made much sense. Can't avoid feeling sad for that... Brazil is basically in the exact opposite side of the globe, it's a super expensive and tiring trip, you really don't wanna waste this much to have a subpar experience. :P
Anyways, I'm hoping to learn more japanese for the next trip. I have a dream of living there one day, when the situation allows me to.
3
-
3
-
It's what is needed to be done.
Putin cannot claim NATO is at war with him because like said, this is UK sending tanks, not NATO. Also, sure, modern tanks and weapons requires training, but this is valid for both sides, and let's not forget Russia is putting a bunch of reservists with zero training on the frontlines.
With Belarus getting increasingly pressured to join the war, and the offensive that is likely coming soon, Ukraine needs to be able to ramp up efforts, at the very least to strengthen it's defenses.
Further, there is a large understanding that at least the western European nations need to do as much as they can without treading official lines to stop Putin now. A win over Ukraine will only feed into his belligerent warmongering ego to go even further into other vulnerable nations. He has already given plenty of indications that he has no intention of stopping at Ukraine if he wins there, so I imagine the strategy for other European nations is to stop or at least delay him as much as possible expecting his regime to end at some point.
3
-
3
-
It was a bit painful to watch so much ranting about big phones that seems blind to the most obvious reason why someone would want a bigger phone - a bigger screen, obviously. Because you know, over half of the global population does not have 20/20 vision. And a huge portion of smartphone owners is not your peppy happy active 20-30 year old, of course... different priorities for different age groups.
That said, yes, I also think there should be more options for smaller phones, that I agree with. In fact, personal opinion, there should be more options for just about every single design decision on smartphones, not only screen size. The way all phones ends up converging to the same, often crap trend based decisions, is just lost opportunity.
Android just gives away it's biggest strength by having dozens of smartphone companies making the exact same phone that leaves out so many niche markets I don't understand what is the point of having a more open platform for competition.
About being active though, can't say I am myself much currently, but when I had a more active lifestyle, pretty simple solution - I have a small secondary phone. A tiny one that apparently Henry would love... xD It has a 3.3" display, similar to that old Palm phone. It's super outdated and likely incredibly insecure, but there's nothing actually in it, it's just for emergency calls, and to play some music. Previous to it I just carried a dumbphone around.
Even though my phone isn't that big, never had a phone with a screen over 6" myself, I still think they are too large to run with or carry around for any activities, plus with enhanced chances of getting mugged or dropping the phone, you get a cheap backup instead...
3
-
Yep, I learned that lesson the hard way too... xD
Fortunately, it wasn't with expensive japanese knifes, just a relatively cheap high carbon knife I got just to see the difference in sharpness.
To be honest, they are kinda scary. It just cuts so easy that you can't avoid think what if your finger was in the way... :P
But great tips and great video Greg, thanks for sharing!
By the way, semi related, during your research did you come by kiwami japan's channel? If you haven't, you should take a look... just for the fun of it.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg3qsVzHeUt5_cPpcRtoaJQ/videos
He makes knives out of everything, and because of a pretty masterful sharpening technique, they all come out cutting like heck. xD
3
-
They are not "listening", as in native OSs like Android or iOS are not surreptiously turning on the microphones of your phones to record audio... because there are tons of independent security and privacy experts checking if this isn't being done all the time, and further, it's a very ineffective way of collecting data on people. It's not only a risk for the image of the company, though they always seen to escape unfazed when something does happen, it's just too costly and too ineffective when people are voluntarily giving away relevant and already filtered information all the time.
Audio recordings generates big files that would come at high costs for mass storage. For now at least, the math doesn't add up. Analysing random recording from people also doesn't pay off. It's too expensive and automated ways of doing it is not quite there just yet... but this is changing, and one day may become extremely profitable. Just be aware of that.
They are definitely listening in several other manners though, in ways you don't even realize. Every type of online purchase, credit cards registering every purchase you do and selling the data, ISPs tracking every website you visit and selling that info also, Google recording every search you do, going through every photo you backup, social networks monitoring every post you make, apps including ones made by those very companies leveraging any usage you do on them to collect and interpret information on you, this comment that I'm making, this is all being stored and either interpreted and recorded right now, or just set aside for later analysis.... that's entirely leaving out malware and spyware, we're talking only about legal stuff here.
If we open the illegal and exploitive can of worms, then all bets are off. Everything with a microphone could be listening on you. Specially Internet connected devices, but not limited to.
With all those different sources of information combined, plus research on averages and on characteristics of your demographic, you can make extremely accurate pictures about people. No one is as unpredictable as they think they are, and if you really is, who cares? Advertising networks only cares about the average, about selling more, about putting the right ads in front of the majority of people.
Oh, btw, if you are using a smart assistant, yes, they are listening in. Because then, there's a real logical economic motivation for it. It's to improve their voice recognition tech that gives them a leg up against the competition. And you are voluntarily letting your device microphone be open at all times, so there is nothing that can be done by security and privacy experts. You are letting it listen in to you because you want to. There is no way for a device to respond to your command prompt - Alexa, Hey Google, Siri, or whatever - without them listening in all the time. And none of the current major smart assistants work without being connected to some central server by the company that provides the service, so it's just out there, and you have to consider it out of your control - much like any other sort of thing you type or send through the Internet.
3
-
Nuclear power influencer... now I've heard it all.
The problem of nuclear reactors isn't a meltdown... meltdowns are usually the horrible consequence of a series of preventable human errors that dared to ignore several safety protocols for whatever reason - ignorance, corruption, lapses in judgement, arrogance, broken bureaucracies, etc.
It has been this way in all meltdown cases, period.
So, while it does happen, it's still kinda rare. Look up how many active nuclear power plants we've had working 24/7, add it up, then compare to how many meltdowns we've had.
It's the scary sensationalist monster under the bed problem I guess... it's like the idea that planes falls from the sky for no reason.
The real problem of nuclear plants, big or small, is nuclear waste. And small nuclear reactors also generate it. Oh, Molten Salt Thorium reactors also do, because when it comes with hype new trend for nuclear power generation, that one always come up. Newer technologies generate less nuclear waste at safer levels and with less or no danger of meltdowns, but understand, they still generate nuclear waste.
The only way we know of handling those for now is selecting a place with very densely packed soil all the way hundreds of meters down, digging a hole, an burrying it all there. Because it needs a resting place for hundreds, thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of years.
A few european countries already achieved this, but in the US this relatively simple, primitive conundrum has been going on for decades without solution because politics. The US, richest country in the world, 4th with largest land mass, with plenty of places with the right conditions to do it, and tons of nuclear waste being sometimes irregularly stored inside nuclear plants themselves instead of being given the proper destination it needs.
And this has be to solved before you step to tiny nuclear reactors or whatever comes next. Because ultimately, in order to replace all that coal, petrol and gas power generation, you need lots and lots more nuclear plants, an they'll all generate nuclear waste.
Do understand people - at the rate things are going, if you don't solve the nuclear waste burrial problem soon, it'll become yet another catastrophic crisis for future generations to solve.
So, in a way, this comes even before climate change. Or at least concurrently. Together with dismantling aging nuclear weapons and installations.
Once that's done, then yes, modern nuclear power plants all the way. It's a great, if not the only alternative for clean energy for lots of places. But not if we keep ignoring the less glamorous less clickbait stuff.
We really learn nothing from the past, do we? You know what these news of tiny nuclear reactors and the thorium reactors sound like? They sound exatly like the propaganda made for coal and petrol power generation of the 60s and 70s.
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
Yeah, this is one of those episodes you clearly see that the US is not a lawful country anymore, and it's slowly being taken over by a radical and racist dictatorship. Which should be infuriating to everyone who defends a democratic system.
That ad attack against Manji should be object of a justice investigation for libel, and the Congress hearing for slander. Both are imputing crime against Manji without proof and without reason. Or worse yet, with fabricated lies and propaganda. It is malicious and intentional.
This is not a joke. It should be subject of repulse in shows like John's, but more importantly, it should automatically trigger a justice investigation for the crimes committed there. And that this isn't happening publicly, is a huge part of the whole problem.
And yes, I know it's for political reasons, but it doesn't matter - it's the fact that Congress and politicians are being allowed to commit crimes against innocent people that turns the US into a criminal nation. This shouldn't be allowed in a regular democracy. You just cannot accept overt racism like that inside politics. Once this becomes normalized, you undo decades of work to stop this, and it's not a democracy anymore, because it'll become a tactic to eliminate once and for all any sort of representation in any part of justice and politics, effectively making it a system that bans non-white, non-catholic and other minorities from positions of representation. That's not a democracy, that's modern feudalism, an autocracy.
And the worst part of it is that currently, the justice system itself has become so contaminated with the same political or ideological or religious extremism that allows for such things to happen, that I personally wouldn't trust it to do what is right anymore. Misleading freedom of speech arguments and immunity will come to the forefront of this, which just translates to giving extra judicial power to criminals in political positions who shouldn't have it, and so we end up in the same problem.
The problem with Democrats and this bullsh*t bipartisan argument is also there, also pointed out by John. I've been saying this about Biden and several Democrat politicians from the beginning, and it's why despite vouching for Biden in the next election I also maintain that he's pretty much the worst possible type of politician to represent Democrats, and to lead the nation in the current moment. Bipartisanship cannot happen in the current political scenario.
The problem you have today with Republicans is that it's not a political party anymore - it's an anti-democracy terrorist group. Willingly or not, Republicans have become a group of people who are trying to overthrow democracy in the US, and all aspects of it. It's not only in politics, it's justice, it's culture, it's ideology, it's on destruction of information, attacks against science, character and reputation destruction of common people, dismantling of systems and institutions responsible for maintaining democracy in the US, and so so much more.
You cannot consider a group filled with people trying to transform the US political system into a dictatorship, or a theocracy, or complete anarchy, as a party that is part of democracy. Democracies cannot include, give power, give voice and vouch for people who are actively trying to destroy it - because that's treason. Democracies cannot include people who are constantly trying to undo it, because that's a basic issue.
That's against core fundaments of the system. Much like you can't put players in a football field armed with weapons and trying to break every single rule in the game for personal gain, you cannot have a so called "party" in politics that is constantly trying to break every single rule and law while not doing their jobs, but still getting paid for it, with taxpayer money no less. What you have in the US currently is people getting paid to actively destroy it's political and judicial system. And it's not going to go away with bipartisanship or backroom deals.
The asshole telling people to throw protesters away from bridge, that's a crime in itself, it's called solicitation to commit a crime of violence. It is often done by Republican politicians and Fox News itself, and it's never punished. That law is there exactly to prevent people from doing such things, but there is never enough punishment for it. This law should regulate hate speech, racism, sexism, homophobia and lots of other things we've been seeing in US politics these days, but people who are doing it never gets punished because of a warped US justice system that is favoring criminals in such cases, because of a confusion in what freedom of speech is and should be about. It's there to protect victims, not assailants.
So, thanks to the LastWeekTonight team for bringing this to light, and for John being incensed about it. But more needs to be done by those with representative power to do it. It's disheartening to see a nation with so much money and power going this way. It's a pretty damning sign for our species in general.
3
-
3
-
3
-
These are complex topics with very deep ramifications which I always cringe at international media coverage for oversimplifying and giving small reports on it without explaining all the rest, which paints the whole thing in black and white tones and ends up with a bunch of foreigners using those as confirmation bias for either white knight campaigns or straight out racist remarks, when not empowering radical groups to continue exploiting these topics for their own profit and power.
There are quite a few things to point out in this case that are not showing up in news.
First, that Japan has indeed already paid a whole bunch of reparations directly to South Korean government to distribute to victims according to their own claims, which ended up not happening - the proper distribution of money to victims I mean.
If you ever heard someone saying that "Japan never apologized" for it's actions during the occupation years, or for it's actions in WWII, this is just plain bullsh*t meant to incense a feeling of racism and distrust amongst the international community. It's well documented how much the government of Japan has apologized and negotiated reparations and other measures over the years, beginning from the end of WWII. Here's a non-comprehensive list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_reparations#World_War_II_Japan
Other entries worth looking at if you want to get deeper into the topic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Japanese_sentiment_in_China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Basic_Relations_Between_Japan_and_the_Republic_of_Korea#Settlements
Second, that nationalist parties often use the arguments about the horrible imperial Japanese army actions to promote jingoism and divide between the nations. There will always be, of course, political interests in these matters, and it ranges from legit claims and refusals in diplomatic matters, all the way to politicians actively using this horrific past for self promotion and to inflame a more radical portion of the population to go against the other country. This happens in both sides of the dispute.
Third, that some of the biggest South Korean chaebol companies that basically control South Korean economy these days not only gave the blind eye to several of these practices back in occupation days, some of them actively profited from it, when not directly collaborated. Some could even be said to only have achieved it's current status because of an active exploitation of the horrible situation that Korea had back then. The discussion about what chaebol was a collaborator, what wasn't, who profited from it, who used the awful scenario to form ties with Japanese government, etc etc is long and contentious.
This is also true for Chinese occupation, for those wondering. It all ends up in this messy fight of who is responsible for what, who needs to pay for the crimes they committed back then, and if complaints are coming from legit victims or just people interested in using the topic for self promotion and power. You cannot oversimplify it, and if you as a foreigner is thinking about these topics, if you don't know much about it, it's just better to shut up instead of quipping superficial crap, serving as eco chamber for radical views.
It is indeed unimaginable horror, war crime, reprovable in every single way you can think about, the horrors that the civilian population was exposed to back when the Japanese imperial army invaded those nations. That's not what I'm putting in question.
What I am putting in question is the degree on which this was solely the Japanese imperial army, or Japan as a nation, responsibility, who are the actual actors behind several of the atrocities committed, and if it is indeed fair to demonize one side only, while not thinking about the active participation of several local groups, businesses, and politicians/government.
War is an ugly thing like that. And we'll unfortunately continue seeing it's consequences as wars continue happening at the cost of innocent people.
This is not the last time we'll hear about reparations and accusations between these nations, both because the scars go deep, but also because there will always be people willing to exploit the subject for their own advantage. It's just an easy target for FUD campaigns.
Just be aware, if you care about it, that things are very often not as simple as punctual news reports will put it. International press, on it's part, has a very long history of covering this subject in a very shallow, very biased manner. All and all, no matter how strongly you feel about this subject as a foreigner, no matter how empathetic you feel about this, it's not something to be taken lightly or to comment without at least a bit of knowledge on it. You weren't there, and it seems most people who bring up the topic knows almost nothing about it.
I'll just hope this round of negotiations last longer for peace between the nations as they presently are, not on what they were in the past. And that victims of the period see some form of justice for themselves. That's all.
3
-
Saving random peoples' lives are always a great victory... problem is, such powers are being used more for bad crap rather than good. I'd call the stuff on the video the rare exceptions.
Doxxing, swatting, stalking, harassing and ruining peoples' lives in general is the rule, particularly in our currently tribalistic era. Probably why I had only heard about webdriver torso on the video.
Meanwhile bad examples of Internet collective action it has become an almost daily occurance...
And the attention spam of Internet groups is also pretty fickle. It's highly focused and powerful at one point, and then it suddenly vanishes.
Problems to solve? How about hunger, disease and droughts in several parts of the world? Digging deep down into subjects that are currently dividing politics in several countries?
Putting down dictators, conspiracy theorists, hate groups, warmongers, criminals in general...
This is the whole problem with how the power of the collective on the Internet goes... it's chaotic, it's random, and most of the times it tends to cater to very primitive psychological triggers like fear, lynching mob mentality, some sense of superiority or moral high ground, nationalism, religious discrimination, sexism, prejudice, racism and others.
The biggest problem with this setup is that it can always be leveraged for evil, like it has already been happening. It's not a coincidence that stuff like election manipulation, extreme commercialization, capitalism driven to it's extremes, populism, extremism, addiction, xenophobia, racism, sexism, charlatanism, snake oil sellers and all that sort of stuff is going on the rise. Because lots of those gets empowered by this chaotic Internet collectivism.
Be skeptical, and stay vigilant.
3
-
Whether she is sincere or not, it is a fact that the priviledged strata of societies living under dictatorships basically live in a very thick bubble completely ignoring or being totally blind to what happens to the rest of society. Particularly in societies where culture is living like a century or so ago, with a very rustic closed off non political mentality.
It is a story repeated over and over again in countries that lived through dictatorships. They either ignore what happens throughout the country, living in very limited spaces and having social relationships only among priviledged people, or their access to information is so heavily blocked that they just don't know. It's a bubble inside a bubble.
Most dictatorships goes on like that. This priviledged strata is how they sustain themselves, they can live their entire lives praising the regime and living under their protection, doesn't matter what happens to the rest of the population as long as they are ok.
For instance, she questions why South Korea with all it's access to the world and information knows so little about North Korea. Of course they don't know much, North Korea blocks and filters all information about the country so that no one outside it can have a good accessment of what's really happening there. If she ever saw any foreigner inside North Korea, which is unlikely, she knows that even journalists are required to have state sponsored followers and press handlers all the time so that they only see what they want to show.
North Korean only news sources are government controlled, no one from inside is allowed to voice any dissenting opinion at the risk of getting arrested or killed.
By the way, this is also why you thought you'd get better treatment in China. It's because your country paints a picture of partner countries, like China, in a light that is not so true. And you finally got your treatment by going into a country that despite sharing a history and name, it is now a fully democratic capitalist country allied to the US. You got your chance of getting better by going to a country with an ideology that goes against everything your own country preaches.
Discrimination is bad and I am fully against it, but it's not like there are no reasons to it. Your country couldn't save your life because it is just that far behind in medicine and many other things, your biggest ally also couldn't help you with your condition, you had to go to South Korea to make a living and get treatment. You are allowed to protest what you see as an unfair policy only because South Korea is a democracy. The reverse would not happen. If you were still in North Korea you'd be dead, your family wouldn't be able to protest, if the health issue is hereditary they'd end up going the same route, and there would be no options for them too.
If this lady is being sincere, I'm afraid her mentality and of others in her condition is just as a kid's. She cannot think broadly and expand her horizons because she never needed to do it while inside her hermit country. Entitlement is the same everywhere.
She and her pack of friends should be allowed to go back, but at the position of a commoner. That way, she may learn a thing or two. Only problem is, she would most likely disappear and never tell the story of how she found out that trying to protest there and trying to go back to South Korea wasn't an option.
But I can see how some people would go that way. I bet she never tried to talk to defectors, because she discriminates against them just as heavily as south koreans discriminates against her - do what I say, don't do what I do. I bet her priviledged position in North Korea still dictates what she thinks she has a right to. I bet she doesn't acknowledge most things getting outside North Korea has done for her. And I bet if she ever goes back into North Korea keeping the same priviledges she had there, she'll only talk ill of countries outside, and keep living her life as if nothing happened, because she refuses to leave her bubble.
The thing is, some people in North Korea are so ignorant on how far behind their country is, that they simply cannot recognize or understand the differences anymore. Like, she probably will never understand that her interview got out on a YouTube channel on the Internet for all the world to watch. What is YouTube? What is a free Internet? Can individual citizens even watch videos on computers at their homes? Is she able to recognize the technological advances and the differences in law and politics outside her country? Or she's just desperate to go back somewhere where she can understand things and live comfortably in ignorance?
3
-
Faith is a potent and dangerous tool... I've seen it employed for good, but much more for bad. People need to think about faith as much if not more than they think about money, trust and empathy, and unfortunately lots of people are careless with most of those, if not all.
The core tenets of most religions are actually pretty good, the central philosophies and ideologies taught and written as basis for it. Problem is, when people let middlemen distort and mandate specific interpretations of it, you end up with scams, fraud, grifts and whatnot for personal financial and political gains instead.
I have nothing against people who are religious or who choses to put their faith in something, doesn't matter what it is. But religious people should understand that the way they manage their faith is no different from the way people manage other personal resources, such as money, trust and empathy. It's still part of your personal responsibility to invest any one of those in good things. Be careful where you are putting those into, what are the motivations of those asking for it, and how this is affecting people around you.
Understand that when you start putting any of those in things irresponsibly, for selfish reasons, at the detriment of everyone else around you and potentially yourself, you are no less of a con artist than those exploiting it. Particularly when you start justifying bad actions coming from it solely on ignorance, on others, on something else other than yourself. The actions you do via your faith, church, or whatever is not just on them - it's on you too.
It is a form of narcissistic behavior and extreme selfishness in itself to ignore everyone around you saying this is wrong, and putting your faith, money, trust and everything else into one thing just because it conforms to your personal beliefs, because it feels more comfortable to do so, or you think without proof that it's the right thing to do, that you feel redeemed somehow for it, etc.
In this case the guy is defrauding people and running away... which unfortunately, these days, is not even the worst I heard. It's the most basic of cons.
From giving up your own children to be abused by priests, fake or real, to driving racist and prejudice based actions, violence, against innocent people, the range can be far worse than just losing all your money.
So, be careful on who you put your faith in, and how you handle it. It can be a powerful tool employed for good, as well as a dangerous one that can destroy your life and the life of people around you.
3
-
Yeaaaahhh... the only problem for Nokia is that, for the same price, you can get a phone with double the specs from China. No really, I found a phone with Android 8.1, 2Gb of Ram, 16Gb of storage, fingerprint scanner, dual rear cameras (albeit crappy 5Mpx ones) with a more up to date design, that costs 60 bucks on Aliexpress. It probably also has a better screen... I've seen chinese phones in this price range, they aren't as bad as people would think.
Nokia One's advantage is that it uses Android Go... but I don't think people in poor countries looking for a budget phone cares much about that.
So people who don't wanna spend a lot of money in the US? Sure, it's a recognizable brand and all. But for really poor countries needing the cheapest possible devices that are still working? It's either used phones, or the cheapest chinese stuff.
It's the same problem Motorola will have with it's new line of phones using mid to low end SoCs... even if they are cheaper by comparison to other recognizable brand, they just cannot beat price for specs chinese brands. They are the new kings of cheap phones.
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
Funny as heck, as someone that is not an UK citizen who discussed with UK citizens about all the sh*t that was sure to come up if Brexit passed. I wonder if the people who I discussed this with are still living in the fantasy they were back before Brexit passed. I enumerated most of the current issues Brexit has now in my arguments.
See people, there's absolutely nothing overly complex in this discussion that needs to break down this far. It's just a matter of logic. Your country is part of a major trade block that unified itself to compete with major powers.
If you chose to leave, the only possible way this is going to be advantageous in any front would be if your nation is in an absolute distant leadership position in relation to the trade block. Everything else that the trade block, or any of the countries that compose that block, plays an important role in a global scenario - you are going to be directly competing with it once you leave. This is pure logic. It's as shallow and simple an analysis as it can be.
It's simply because that's how economic blocks work. If you are not part of it, you are by definition part of the competition. So the only way leaving an economic block can be advantageous is if you can compete with it - and win. Then you can negotiate better terms and better deals with other nations, keeping all the profit to yourself, not needing to follow the economic block regulations, terms and internal accords.
Then you can analyze what sorts of EU rules and impositions those regulations, terms and internal accords put on their member states. I have heard a ton of complains of lack of sovereignty and whatnot from UK citizens, mostly from people living in a fantasy world where they thought they'd be able to violate all sorts of EU regulations, deals and whatnot if they left the block. This is not how any of this works. The absolute vast majority of regulations and rules are there not because somehow the EU wants to overstep on the sovereignty of member nations - they are there to facilitate trade, which it effectively does.
It just so happens that contrary to what most people think, EU regulations and rules are pretty much level with just normal international trade deals and regulations. Part because the EU already dictates the global standards, part because it's not some sort of dictatorship body where everything is decided unilaterally by Union politics - it's a democratic system. All of those rules and regulations were voted by member states. So if you are going to do business as an independent nation with any of those states, they will likely demand the same level of regulations and deals. You gain absolutely nothing by leaving the trade block, and worse yet, now that you are not part of the block, nations willing to do business with you may require an even bigger level of regulations and scrutiny. Because they owe you nothing, you are not part of the union anymore, you don't get the clout and guarantees of being part of it.
But let's put it down to brass tacks what really happened during Brexit here, shall we. You let racism, nationalism, jingoism, FUD and empty promises from politicians who showed absolutely no proof of what they were talking about interfere in a decision that should've been done in a level headed manner and thinking about economical consequences. And this is perhaps the absolute most important lesson anyone discussing Brexit should take home.
The promises around reducing immigration, be it legal or not, never came to be, because the problem with immigration never had anything to do with the UK being part of the EU. Immigration is a compound complex issue that governments and politicians do not address outside propagandistic FUD campaigns because they are not interested in solving the issue - they are only interested in getting votes and power. It's a sensationalized topic because it has become an instrument to justify electing some of the worst types of representatives seen in the history of democracy.
And until citizens of countries where governments use these sorts of tactics appealing to emotions, FUD, racist sentiment and nationalistic rhetoric don't realize that they are being quite literally scammed for votes, nothing is going to actually change.
It has been proven again and again and again that passing new laws, spending millions to billions of dollars in border infrastructure, border control agencies, and doing all this anti-immigrant theater, is not solving the problem and will not solve the problem. It is akin to the war on drugs. Governments will never be able to legislate it out, because they don't have the power to do so.
And it should be obvious to anyone looking at these situations that it's only becoming worse and worse over the years, because instead of people in position to do something looking at the issues themselves that are causing these, they are instead burying their heads in the sand, and trying to shield themselves from reality with sand castles.
And this tactic has become so insidious that still, to this day, you still have an incredible amount of people that are either ignorant or completely misinformed on this topic, to the point of it becoming some sort of religious mantra or creed. Gather your torches and pitchforks, we'll hunt the witches.
It shouldn't take this long or be this hard to understand that the only way to keep the immigration crisis at bay is global coordination and diplomacy to enable all of these people to simply continue living in their home countries.
It's an incredibly small number, compared to the whole, of people who voluntarily wants to abandon their place of birth to live in some other nation they don't know the language, are not familiar with the culture, and will have to start their lives from scratch. Yes, I understand this is extremely complex to work with, but so far I haven't seen a single politician in position of representation even considering to look at the problem from this angle. And it seems like it'll take the same time or longer to start having discussions from this angle as it did for the war on drugs.
So what the immigration crisis really is, is a crisis of countries not having conditions for throngs of it's citizens to continue living with the absolute minimum humanitarian conditions. And so they uproot everything and try to escape somewhere they can. They don't do it because they want, it's because it's the only way for survival. You think you wouldn't do that in a similar position, but that's only because you don't know what their position really is.
"But that's not my problem" people will say - only it is. It's a problem of our species as a whole. It's a problem of the entire planet, the entire population of this planet. And it's being further exacerbated by several things we refuse to address, such as climate change, dictatorships, hate speech, wars, violence, regional conflicts sparked with global trade in mind, plus multiple other direct or secondary effects of the systems we have in place.
Now, of course no politicians will discuss this openly, not because they don't know about this - it's exactly because western political systems, particularly the so called democracies that are far from the ideal concept, incur in vices and internal cultures that works against the best interests of the population. Western democracies are not a rule by the people, it's a rule by representatives who can get the votes, where the most dirty tactics in the books to gather votes, power and money have all been normalized.
Which is why things like Brexit happens. All a politician needs to do to put up decisions that would most obviously result in disaster for the nation is to scam people. There are no real consequences or punishment for ruining the livelihoods of large portions of the nation, so whatever - better to work on the next propaganda piece that will elect me once again.
Overpromise, make people believe that the thing will solve all their personal issues, radicalize opinions using all common strawmen, use all the convenient scape goats for the nations' main issues, and it will get "done". And since people are stupid, that is an easy thing to do. People are primed to believe in strong men discourse, in easy answers and easy routes, in magical thinking solutions, in propaganda that says it'll solve all the major issues with a few simple steps, and so it's that sort of representative that western democracies ends up electing.
3
-
The way that city was built is all you need to know how this will go down in the future.
If the government there is smart enough, they'll make a rellocation plan, offer it to people who live there, and make them sign a contract that basically states that if they don't leave, they will forego of their FEMA support and any other type of insurances, period.
Given enough time, the ocean will engulf the entire area, and most likely some people will still be there to get dragged by the waves. The timing is unpredictable, so you are basically playing dice with a whole ton of money right there.
If the government is dumb, they'll keep procrastinating and when the time comes taxpayers will be paying for their folly. Because it's an entire city worth of people to pay for emergency services and housing that we had plenty of time to alleviate.
You know this because it takes hard headed stubborn people that are either totally ignorant or just refuse to see what's right in front of them to build so many houses and buildings in a thin strip of sand by the sea. A glimpse of the place is enough to tell that they shouldn't be there.
Sure, it looks like paradise... which is another reason for it to be a place to visit, not to build ugly permanent residence as if you could claim paradise for yourself. It will be taken back by force whether you like it or not, soon.
But hey, it matches the mentality of several political leaders these days it seems... as long as I can have what I want right now, who cares about the future?
3
-
I've been writing this on a bunch of blogs and videos, just share here too...
The Acropalypse thing is less a vulnerability per se, and more like a bad employment of file formats... part of the reason why it's so recurrent. Well, of course you can still say it's a vulnerability, because the editing apps should either have defaulted to other formats, or at least informed users about the differences.
For those not familiar with the whole image file format thing, basically it's like this - .psd and .png image file formats and perhaps a few more don't only save the image, they save all the editing steps you made while preserving the original image you had. This is great if you wanna come back, undo some editing steps, and redo some stuff later on. It's supposed to be a feature.
That's why it can be "uncropped" or "uncensored".... it's because no matter what you do during edit, the original image is still preserved, if it's saved in one of those formats.
This is also the reason why whoever had lessons on Photoshop and other image editing suites, when you get to your final image, you are usually instructed to export the file in some other format like .jpg .tiff .bmp or whatever. It's because those formats don't preserve the original image, layers and whatnot.
So, the real problem here is that the editing apps at fault are not exporting the images to a final flattened one layer image, but rather saving as .png and .psd that keeps all the information in there. So the original can be retrieved.
I've heard of cases like these in the past, but I didn't know smartphone editing apps were spitting out .png or .psd files... man, this will cause massive headaches for people who used this a lot.
It's good for people to understand and know this because it's bound to happen again, if not for Google, Apple and whatnot apps, some other editing software will eventually fall into the same trap. It's just because of the usage difference... photographers, graphic designers and whatnot might want to use .psd and .png files because they preserve the editing process, preserve transparency and have a generally better image quality. It's like you are saving your raw videos for later processing, shared work and whatnot. Or more like you are saving the project files and raw components all in one file.
But people who only wants to crop, censor something, and send it cannot have it that way - as it leads to this, the Acropalypse. xD
3
-
14:56 - that one doesn't make much sense, in context of Meta itself... because of WhatsApp.
I think you guys said you don't use it and are not too familiar with it, so just to point out.
WhatsApp was among the first major messaging platforms that implemented default end 2 end encryption for messages. It was done without any major announcements, using Signal protocol, and overtime it also came for other functions like group chats. A lot of WhatsApp users to this day don't know that this happened 7 years ago, probably because the transition was seamless. The app just updated itself in a regular schedule and everyone was already on it.
But as people will know, this did not stop Meta from harvesting metadata, giving it out to authorities when requested, and using for targeted advertisement schemes. Because them saying they are implementing default end 2 end encryption is for message content only and not anything over that, so people using Facebook Messenger should not expect for encryption to be applied for anything else - your metadata will continue being exposed, and I highly doubt Meta will ever vouch for anything more than that.
What I think is happening is that Meta is losing so much ground in the messaging space due to their constant stream of being a privacy eroding company that, after they perfected ways of exploiting metadata alone to harvest information from users, they finally decided that it's better to show some measure towards more privacy by implementing default end 2 end encryption on messages, which WhatsApp had since 2016, because they can now use the rest alone for their targeted advertisement scheme... ie. metadata.
I don't see any other way to justify the timing of it. Facebook Messenger had optional end 2 end encryption for ages now, also based on Signal protocol, also implemented in 2016, and they got WhatsApp also ages ago. From the timing of implementation, it seems pretty clear to me that the experience of implementing optional end 2 end encryption came from WhatsApp's acquisition, but Facebook decided to make it optional exactly because they wanted to continue reading messaging content on their main messaging system.
Back then, Facebook was starting to demand WhatsApp to somehow harvest more data and test advertisement schemes inside WhatsApp to make the platform profitable, reason why both CEOs and WhatsApp founders called it quits. The platform then made a whole ton of different localized experiments to make WhatsApp profitable, most of which never got full implementation. It was only after former WhatsApp CEOs left that Facebook got intensely embroiled into all these privacy scandals that really drove their name deep into the mud... beginning with Cambridge Analytica.
So, there's no reason for them not to have implemented default end 2 end encryption at around the same time WhatsApp did it, or at the same time they implemented the optional version of it. The decision to make Messenger's encryption optional was deliberate, they did it to continue harvesting personal and private messaging content from people.
It's just that now that Meta's name is down in the drain and the company is looking at losses after losses, they finally decided they want to do something that looks good for it's users, which is obviously too little too late. It's a company that will never be viewed as a privacy respecting business.
3
-
I find it super interesting how the tune around this has shifted...
When the entire hype (and government funding I might add) started around 5G, it was all about the millimeter wave technology, how it was gonna transform connectivity in remote locations, how the entire thing was gonna drastically shift, how you could download and stream ultra high quality content at blazing speeds, etc etc.
Back then I started commenting in blogs and videos several times asking how the heck low altitude towers with a reach of less than a block and signals that could not penetrate a concrete wall would ever be able to replace 4G as is.
No answers. I never heard a single peep even from highly technical people saying how the heck this would happen in short time.
Suddenly out of nowhere, in the past couple of weeks the entire narrative around 5G, after getting beat down to a pulp finally on it's empty promises, shifted towards 600MHz networks, with AT&T now releasing this coverage map and all that. Which despite a whole ton of tech channels and blogs hammering on the propaganda, is NOT the 5G that was promised right there from start, but more like a 4.1G network that improves on regular 4G a bit, provided that the towers near you were upgraded.
And then, once again I need to remind americans that the problem with 4G there was never about the underlying technology, but how ISPs have artificially crippled your connectivity with barriers like datacaps and throttling, which is the reason why you never get "good speed" 4G. It's a mix of artificially limiting connectivity, refusing to upgrade and scale equipment properly as the number of users increased, and relying on the exact kinda hype that is being used to sell 5G to keep people coming without promised results.
I dunno why people should think that only because 4G now has become 4.1G (aka 600Mhz 5G) that the experience would be transformative in any way if the real bottleneck is on how carriers artificially limit the service.
But hey, if you guys wanna keep dancing around the same tune year after year, that's not really my problem. I just find it extremely curious how these things are happening. I see oligopolies making very good use of public ignorance to oversell stuff and then adjust their tune on the fly without any public outcry afterwards.
Search around how much taxpayer money the FCC already spent on 5G related projects. See if the proposed objectives around that funding are being sought out and achieved in any way. Think about why the narrative around the technology is changing now. You americans are smarter than this.
3
-
Interesting... and also a bit nostalgic I guess? The good times when all people had to worry about was a mix of rushing and copy pasting of traditional media to get the scoop, how information flowed, news agency replication and all that... which would eventually get to light and then appear back in the press as a scandal of lies and whatnot.
Nowadays people are getting news straight from unreliable sources, the content vary between straight up scam all the way up to cult-like manipulation, traditional press became even worse because they are often fishing for info on these exact same sources when they didn't already become a vehicle for political propaganda, there are no follow up on things that they got wrong, it's all in the favor of clicks and views, everything has become far more sensationalized, most are in such a state of disrepair bordering on bankruptcy that it's made by smaller and smaller staffs, pressured from all sides, and forced to put out content that is evermore taken from news agencies instead of produced locally.
So, it was a pretty interesting exercise for the time to point out failures of traditional media... but also, we kinda ended up taking a route where this seems very tame in comparison to what is happening nowadays.
A badly researched, badly produced, piece of news that spread out like wildfire through the entire media landscape only for it to be proven wrong with lots of the press admitting no mistake afterwards? Yeesh, it's almost a weekly to daily occurrence...
3
-
The church my mom goes to also supports LGBT groups, participates in and promote LGBT events, and do the same for other minority groups, and they also are always in direct talks with other religions inside and outside Christianity, also accept marriage for priests, recognize marriage for divorced couples and same sex marriage, plus have women in clergy. There is also no celibacy in her church.
That's because according to their understanding, love and empathy are the most important concepts of their religion. An effort to get in contact with and try to understand that which is different to ourselves is a core part of what the creed is for.
According to them, that's what it truly means to follow the steps of Jesus, and follow the Bible. It's self sacrifice for peace and understanding.
I am not religious myself, but I thank my mom's church and my mom for seeking that kind of truth for themselves everyday. It's a church of guidance, community and support, it's not for hatred and intolerance. They don't discriminate against people who are not religious, from different beliefs, with different ideas and ideologies, or whatever - everyone is equal.
That's where I go to everytime I want to donate stuff, contribute in some way, to charity work, despite not being part of the church myself. And everyday I realize how lucky I am for my situation, particularly when I hear about cases of families getting destroyed because of religious fanaticism.
They are far from perfect as I'll describe next, and like every church there is a history of wrongdoings, but I don't know of any other church these days that are following a route like this, not where I live anyways. The vast majority you hear about are either after money, power or both, including sects and former priests that came from this church. And they often use all sorts of psychological tactics to make people more and more fanatic about it, whereas my mom's Church goes with - you are free to do whatever you want, and that's including leaving if you can't agree with how things are done, fund your own sect, etc.
Denominations don't matter all that much since it's a very local and very small church, but it is part of the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil, for those curious. Not to be confused with the Anglican Church of Brazil, similar names, very different ideas. There are lots of splits in the church caused by the acceptance of minorities and changes in clergy, but it likely remains one of the more modern and open traditional Catholic denominations perhaps. It's weird how I almost never hear about this Church outside our own circle... but it's likely because of exactly that - it's not a church interested in getting attention for itself, it's a church interested in serving the people.
And perhaps because of that, it's a small church with a very small attendance, it's a church that is constantly at financial trouble, and it's a church that no one reaches out to promote the message, it's a church with very little support. I have seen again and again people coming and going, a good part of them because homophobia, because they didn't want to commune with "poor people", because they felt it was too much a burden to be this accepting of others, because some wealthier folks didn't feel represented there, because some of them were bothered by the church's social work and participation, because they joined other churches that were more charismatic, more "in line" with their ideas, etc.
Our priest, despite not getting much for his service, has repeatedly and often used his own money and time to help people in need, people who are often not Anglican, not Christian, not willing to join the church.
This has never bothered me or my mom though, it's worth not because of power, fame or fortune, it's worth because it promotes what we feel is right for our community and ourselves. And for the faithful, it promotes God's will.
I'm very glad to see a church in Ohio that has a similar mentality, and extremely saddened to see how they end up paying for the ignorance of others.
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
Fully agreed! As someone who has been living with an induction cooktop for almost a decade now, I'll just share some stuff I've been putting out in all channels I follow that engaged in this discussion.
So, having made this decision almost a decade ago, you'll understand it wasn't done because of the current panic... I don't even live in the US, so political decisions to potentially ban it also have nothing to do with it. The reasons at the time were more about practicality and security, I'll get back to this.
For anyone skittish about induction or electric alternatives, particularly because of the high prices and work to adapt to those when replacing a full gas range, I'd also recommend a starting point with a lower price - one "burner" portable induction cooktops for camping.
They are relatively cheap, they'll give you an idea how the thing works, and it's kinda useful to have it around for other stuff.
Now, disadvantages - for induction I highly recommend getting a pot an pan set specifically made for it - no magnet test, no buying blindly and then seeing if it works, get a set specifically made for induction. I say that because sometimes even if the material works with induction, it might not work optimally because the bottom of the pots and pans need to make proper contact with the induction coil for it to work as intended. I bought a pan that passed the magnet test in the past but did not work properly with the induction cooktop.
And those are expensive, I know. A point of disadvantage there.
Another point that Alec points out to - as you don't have an open flame to work with, there are lots of things that a gas cooktop can do that induction just won't. Woks always comes to mind as the thing you just can't use in the traditional sense.... but you know, you can always get a deep frying pan and try to adapt.
There's a huge price difference, which is kinda unfortunate given it's mostly artificial. I dunno how induction cooktops are priced in the US and other nations, but where I live they are basically a luxury despite having a fairly simple construction. The camping cooktops more than prove it, it's not an expensive thing to produce, it's just that it got stuck into a category of luxury for whatever reason.
Oh, you also have to see about the electric installation, another thing that often comes up, and is just kinda unfortunate... old kitchens not having enough plugs to them, it's something that I also had to solve by myself here, as the number of electrical appliances I use in the kitchen grew.
I think those as mostly it, perhaps there are some more stuff that I dunno since I'm not a cook.
Advantages - it's faster, cleaner, more maintenance free, occupies less space, more security regarding gas usage, more fine grain controls. For me personally it was a no brainer... gas where I live is not as cheap as it is in the US, it's a tropical nation so you don't have many places with central gas, so when you think about gas ranges down here you also think about buying gas canisters and all the process that comes with that. Gas canister explosions and leaks in apartments also happens with kind of an alarming frequency here, and it was one of the major points that made me switch things - security. This coupled with the fact that we don't have stuff like code for gas leak detectors, so many places simply don't have them.
By sheer coincidence, my current apartment is a rare case we have central gas (because it has a heated pool and central hot water system that needs it), but I still decided not to go for anything using gas inside the apartment. And it already kinda paid off because gas prices skyrocketed in the past few years. But that's only for my specific case.
Adapting to it is does have it's drawbacks and obstacles, particularly if you cook a lot, but not being a cook myself, and seeing as my mom who cooks way more than me adapted to induction in just a few months or less, I think it's plenty doable. She's over 75, has no inclination to use tech stuff, and spent a good part of her earlier years cooking on a wood burning concrete stove in a farm setting. It's like, she still can't figure out the washer dryer much after living with it for almost half a decade - she can use it as long as no settings are changed by mistake. But the cooktop is fine.
As for the oven for those coming from a full gas range... well, that gets a bit more difficult. Depending on exactly what you use it most for, how much food you need to prepare, it'll either be an electric oven, or an air fryer I think. Because my mom was used to a full gas range, we got an electric oven for her too, but after I found out and started using an air fryer, it was kind of a regret. An air fryer would've been perfectly fine for her case, it's just that I didn't have used one before. We're in the process of changing it. You should look into both and see what fits your case better.
Final point to address I guess... the panic, potential ban, barrage of articles coming from it. I don't think people should be forced to get electric or induction cooktops, particularly because they are expensive, and some people like cooking stuff with an active flame.
I also think the health implications and the stuff that is being talked about it a bit overblown out of proportions. As I said, my mom and I imagine lots of other moms and grandparents have lived with wood burning stoves and gas ranges their entirely lives without implications regarding respiratory diseases and whatnot. You might want to create better airflow in your kitchen and whatnot, but it's not as much of a death sentence as some publications are making it out to be. Just that if you can, the switch is worth a try, since if has benefits for health and environment.
Yeah, I think this is pretty much it. Glad to see Alec making a video on this topic!
3
-
Not only for Japan, but for all countries, what should really be happening is governments using taxpayer money and even borrowing money when needed to help both citizens and businesses to prop themselves up, recover, adapt and transform as needed... this would be the most effective way of dealing with this situation, by far.
Problem is, most governments won't do that, be it because they don't have the means, be it because of greed, or just plain ignorance.
The thing people don't understand is that this is a major paradigm shift. And this dychotomy between health and economy doesn't really exist: they are both important, and you cannot have one without the other.
What happens when you try reopening business without considering the pandemic is that the effects of the pandemic stretches indefinitely. Because there is no vaccine, no cure, and you can't really predict the effects on individuals and whatnot, these ideas of business closure, social distancing and self quarantine are basically all last ditch resorts. They are employed because nothing else is working, not because someone is taking pleasure out of it.
So if that is not done, the immediate consequence is a spike in cases. There's no alternate scenario.
Another huge problem is that the idea of opening up for a little bit so that business can recover only to shut it down again later is misguided at best, malicious at worse. Ask any business owner, they will tell you that the costs involved in reopening a restaurant, hotel and whatnot are far bigger than regular operating costs.
So it might look like a good proposition for the very short term, but in reality, several cycles of opening business up and closing them down actually accelerates then bankrupcy and definite close down of businesses in general. It's too many repeated drastic changes at once, you can't keep an operating cash flow with this much uncertainty.
It sometimes keep businesses from adapting to this new reality because of a false hope with no guarantees that perhaps this time, the pandemic won't flare up again causing a subsequent shutdown.
This is why what governments should really be considering are talks to banks, policies, and emergency measures to keep businesses going by helping them financially, helping on debt negotiation, subsidizing wages, financing adaptations for pandemic timss, using commercial buildings such as hotels for patient relief and whatnot.
Basically, helping people and businesses to adapt to the new normal. Not making plans to ignore temporarily what is happening to give people a false sense of security.
Like I said, I know not many governments have the courage and clout to do just that. But it is the best that could be done. The rest is just complicating things further.
And this has to be very well understood from now on. Because this will likely not be the last worldwide pandemic we'll see in our lifetimes. We need to be better prepared for the next one.
3
-
Actually, it goes more like this:
If you have a super dusty cartridge that got so dirty that it's caking the contacts, blowing air there is a half assed but functional solution. Just as much as blowing the nes itself, since the contacts inside work in a similar fashion.
But spit and warm moist air will also promote oxidation there, so you shouldn't do it anyways.
If you need to do a thorought cleaning of contacts, isopropil alcohol with a cotton swab, or something that won't leave any residues there (because some cotton swabs will), is better in general.
Most of the times though inserting and removing it will be enough.
This is also valid for anything that has bare contacts btw... desktop pc cards, ram memory sticks, usb connectors and a bunch of others. Some of those are not copper, which is more prone to oxidation, but still valid.
3
-
@glebkoshelev I don't completely disagree with you on this, perhaps because you used a perspective of the extremes, but just to talk about some points in your arguments.
I don't think we need to protect to the point of our non-existence, but perhaps we have already exploited natural reserves more than we should and it's better we stop now, and start studying it properly so that we can make our situation better.
To be clear, my arguments are all anthropocentric. This is all for our benefit, not because I think we should disappear and let nature recover. I'm not really worried about the planet itself, it has gone through worst things than mankind.
The problem is that this allowance we have for making mistakes, developing and becoming better with time is running out. The amount of exploitation natural reserves can take before things start going south is finite. Not for the planet, but for the sustainability of our own species.
Permaculture is a good example of us doing it right, or at the very least trying to do it intelligently, but unfortunately it's both rare, and hard to implement at large scales. You have small farms that do it, but the industrial farming operations that have most of the land is just not using it.
What we have mostly done so far is exploitive, monoculture, and at most crop rotation. None of which are conducive to sustainable rich environments. Some of it can be sustainable as in keeping growing the same stuff without ruining the soil, but it's not comparable to a full fledged rich environment like a rainforest.
So preservation is needed not because I think we can't get better, but because we need preservation in order to get there.
We need what is left so that we can study it, understand it, and then do it ourselves at some point.
We haven't explored or understood enough of it to let it go, and if we lose it we won't be able to do it anymore.
Until we haven't fully understood and started making on our own, rich and diverse forest environments, we cannot afford to lose the blueprints of it.
I also think it's a very bad idea to become too full of ourselves. The so called miracles of modern science and engineering might look grandiose for us in our own perspective, but it's nothing in comparison to millions of years of natural evolution.
The reason why we are in the current situation, which I mean man made climate change, is because we multiple times thought that we understood nature and how to deal with it. We were wrong. We need to step back a bit, understand where we are wrong, and try to correct things.
I can't explain everything in a single comment, but I highly suggest watching a documentary called "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace". One of the episodes explains how the term "ecosystem" came to be, how we thought it worked, and how wrong we were.
It's also why I am categorically against stuff like geoengineering. We don't know enough to start messing with things like that. If we can't appreciate and see the value of millions of years of natural evolution, which led to us being here in the first place, we might just not make it.
Just remember. Yes, we are part of all this. But we did not get here on our own. From the planet's perspective, we're but tiny babies. We've been here just a fraction of time other extinct species were. If we mean to be here longer than dinosaurs, for instance, we will need all the help to do it, and a whole lot of it will come from the nature that surrounds us, as it has always been. We can't afford to keep destroying it. A whole bunch of the tech we developed over the years, these advanced marvelous technologies that looks very distant from natural sources, were mostly inspired by natural processes.
So I think that it's better if we start seeing ourselves as a mutualistic or at least commensalistic species rather than a parasitic one in relation to our planet.
3
-
Problem with these things is that it's not a single factor, it's something deeply embedded in culture, and cannot be oversimplified or pinpointed to a single thing.
As people who heard enough on both sides will know, the US isn't the only country that allows citizens to own and carry guns (Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Uruguay, etc). Of course, it's arguably the one with easier access to guns, and it's undisputably the one with bigger number of guns in circulation (more than 1 gun per capita). This is a major factor, no doubt.
NRA did a great job commoditizing guns as if it was a kitchen utensil or something.
Are guns the only reason why these things are happening though? It isn't. This has more to do with cultural characteristics like high strung individualism, libertarian ideals, agressive competitive environment fostered at young ages, media focus on extreme events, cultural celebritization, all sorts of philosophical innequality, educational flaws, an extreme lack of social integration, lack of sense of collectivism, lack in fostering feelings of belonging, social isolationism, broken family structures, public and collective ignorance on mental health issues, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Mind you, the US is not the only country that is facing problems like those. While it has, by comparison, more notorious and high profile cases, almost all countries in the world also had their own mass shooting cases.
Also, quite unfortunately, modern democracies, specially ones that are extremely capitalistic in nature, are extremely ill prepared to make the cultural changes that are necessary to combat stuff like that.
The tribalistic, polarized politic environment that the US and several other modern democracies in the world are currently facing is just yet another prognosis of what I'm talking about. The current system is failing under it's own weight.
3
-
3
-
3
-
Just so people know, you don't need cameras that requires a subscription payment or to send your videos to the company's servers for stuff like nightvision, motion detection, and a few other stuff.
Wanna go cheap and local, as long as you are willing to configure and set up everything? Get something like the Amcrest cameras, and tie them up with a NAS like a Synology NAS... or perhaps a homeserver or something. Advanced routers will probably also have some support for them, I think the Synology routers have.
There's also open source software for home security systems like ZoneMinder and others.
I think I've seen home security projects using Raspberry Pi for the job.
Those won't be as easy to setup as a commercial solution, but they are generally cheaper, more configurable, and you can keep them private and local. There are probably also other packaged solutions that don't send stuff to the cloud or forces you to pay subscription for some features or to work at all.
This video has a good collection, but it's far from being complete... well, perhaps it's complete enough for "smart" security cameras.
3
-
The reason why Facebook can keep lying about privacy straight faced is because of everybody's short term memory on the subject.
Encrypting messenger? Dude, Messenger was supposed to be encrypted way back when WhatsApp encrypted their messages, 3 whole years ago. I dunno how people can forget stuff like these while being so worried about current shifts in the platform.
The company has already publicly promissed this crap over and over and over again.. it's all purposedly vague because they know they can't deliver it.
Facebook and Google plus few other messaging services did this encryption in a half assed way (opt-in) back then because ultimately what Facebook really wanted was to keep having access to most of messages so that they could implement stuff like ads, and keep collecting private user data. This is just the same old marketing strategy, going against regulation, and yet again just following trends that companies like Apple set up.
This is also why both founders of WhatsApp took off the platform - because Facebook kept insisting on collecting data on WhatsApp and eroding privacy for the service.
WhatsApp implemented obligatory service wide encryption 3 years ago. All messages are already encrypted, they just don't encrypt metadata which is still valuable and collectable information. Currently, the only chat app that fully encrypts everything is Signal.
One of the WhatsApp founders took off and started the Signal Foundation, which is focused on privacy efforts, that's how much you know Zuck is lying.
If a company really has intentions of making platform more private, they are gonna list the exact steps on how they are going to accomplish it - not just bullshit crap like "encrypting messenger" which is something that is already a reality.
But this is exactly why there is no real shift towards privacy. Because people still don't get it. It's just buzzwords to fool people. It's like a politician coming out on campaign saying something like - from today on, slavery is illegal and we'll make a law that forbids violence against minorities!
Like, dude, it's already illegal, it's already there. The problem is not making new laws. The problem is enforcing it.
3
-
ROFL yeah... so much delicious unhealthy food choices in Japan too. xD
Even then, if one day I were to move there, my prediction is that I'd initially gain a lot of weight, but then probably lose some after I got used to daily life....
The thing is, there are tons and tons of very unhealthy options to stuff your face in Japan, particularly if you are only going for kombini and shotengai food. But there are also lots of snacks, meals, and just food in general that is not as bad as western fast food.
And if you really want to eat healthy, it's just as convenient... I was pretty impressed by the collection of pre-made salad bowls that you usually see in kombinis there. Famima close to my hotel had as many different choices of salad bowls as it had of onigiri. xD
As for fast food, it's like sure, ramen and... katsudon aren't exactly super healthy choices, plus your usual half price supermarket bento, but it's still far better than hamburgers, pizza and others - which also do exist in Japan of course, but are less frequently eaten.
I'm eating a pretty nice bowl of ramen right now... thin noodles, couple of pork slices, half a boiled egg, some moyashi, some harusame... great stuff!
Problem is, it cost me over an entire 12 slice pizza. And I only really have this option because I live in a relatively big city, took me a while to find a place that served ramen... not very common in tropical nations I guess.
These are made as convenient and cheap to eat as fast food in Japan... this is one the main gripes I have in my country. One could argue that availability wise, we have far more healthy food in my country produced locally... lots of veggies, lots of fruits, etc.
Thing is, if you are ordering food or buying it in a convenience store like place or supermarket, it's not only hard to find ready to eat stuff, whenever you do find it it's usually too damn expensive.
So you end up with the bad combination of people who are poor, lazy, too busy, and/or already sedentary in some way having easier access to unhealthy junk crap rather than healthy food, even though we are big producers of healthy food.
Give you an example, if I want some salad to fill up, I either have to buy all ingredients separately, chop it all up, prepare, season, clean it all up later, etc.... and then waste a whole ton of it because I'm single and the market is only selling stuff whole (like a whole cabbage, carrots by the bundle, etc), or I pay for a pre mixed salad bowl that is usually too much for me to eat, and it's more expensive than any other fast food option. You end up going for pizza because nothing is cheaper and more convenient than it.
Really though, what I think is just healthier about daily life in Japan, when compared to say US and some other western nations, is just that people walk more. Dietary habits might be part of the issue, but car centric culture is likely much more of a contributor to the obesity health crisis than most people are willing to admit....
3
-
Cults are the reason why I will sometimes say that normal, well understood, well defined, open and transparent religions are necessary - despite all the damage they do.
It's because what it ultimately boils down to is community and guidance. Plus something external to oneself to deposit guilt - a scapegoat, expiatory offering.
Humans want a connection to others that think alike, and wants to have a clear picture on what to do with their lives. We also want something to relieve our perceived faults into, a justification for our imperfections, a way not to cope directly with our own problems. Understand and have a place in the world (part of guidance).
Some people are so desperate for those that they will do literally anything to have it, including blindly believe in others who promises they can give it to them, part or all of it.
See that this isn't only what is behind religions and cults, this is often what is behind politics, relationships, fandoms and other stuff.
And with a drive like that, the only way to really steer people away from dangerous, damaging, exploitive, crazy, radicalized or insane cults is by them adopting a less insane, more regulated religion, and sticking to it.
Faith is a very big raw power than can be employed by others, and then used for good, bad or to remain neutral. Unfortunately, a lot of times it's used for exploitation and violence.
It's also simply the case that all religions started as cults. A select few grew big, became institutionalized, overtime self regulated to the point of becoming self sustainable. There is nothing more to it, it's as simple as that.
What you end up with overtime is a handful of very big very powerful cults that tried adapted, reformed and rewrote themselves according to the advancements in culture, science, technology and whatnot so they remain in touch with their followers, in varying degrees of psychological techniques to keep people in.
It needs to have some diversity between them, with varying degrees of radicalism, of rituals, of guidance, of confirmation biases, of "truths", of origin stories and whatnot because different people with different mentalities with conform with one or the other.
This is why cults that became communes and are getting into second and third generations are less radical than it's origins, and when you have founder or messiah figures they are either dead, ascended as some will say, or just don't show up in public much anymore - it's necessary for self sustenance of the faith. Radical cults that remain too radical will have a premature ending, and leaders that think too much of themselves or concentrate too much power runs at the risk of falling into contradictions, of their faults coming up, of people getting smarter and seeing how it's all make believe, and stuff like that. So, disappearing into myth is a way to hide they were just other equally dumb, equally mortal, equally misguided humans. Fiction can always trample all that, and reality is the enemy of fiction. Long lived cult leaders need to, at some point, become myths.
I'm not a religious person myself, but fortunately, I have seen the good effects a religion can have in some people. I mean fortunately because it could just as well be a testimonial for the bad effects, which I also have seen around. First hand I mean. And I have come to understand over the years that some people are primed to, or just cannot avoid their faith. It's not exactly like a drug or disease, it'd be more adequate to define it as part of what they are. They cannot live or function properly without it. Becoming agnostic or atheist is just not an option, they have to believe in something intangible, and so it's better for that something to be more regulated and controlled rather than at the hands of someone who is doing it for personal selfish gains, or doing it out of some random uncontrolled belief him/herself.
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
Feels this only goes to show when it's said that the US doesn't have a gun problem, it has a cultural problem. Focusing on gun ownership only will never fix it, though you can argue if it is or isn't a step forward.
Of course, fixing culture is a way harder problem, way more complex, which is why people keep stumbling in the dark with scattershot strategies to see if something sticks.
In general, there are some takeaways I can make from US culture that lead to the present situation. They go around: entitlement, an out of control reinforcement of competitive stances, idolatry of guns as power enablers, a systemic degradation of empathy, failure of educational institutions and parents to teach kids what's important in life, fearmongering and warmongering, tribalism and polarization, a continuous and persistent lack from a societal standpoint to detect and prevent mental issues in people or in relationships, plus some other related things. Of course, this isn't exclusive to the US, nor can I even say it constitutes a big part of it or affects everyone in a similar way. But it's becoming obvious that it's endemic to some parts of US.
You see, from a logical standpoint, if someone goes to the police to report worries or actual threats to someone's life, the response should never be to get a gun to protect yourself. Protecting and serving is what the police should be doing in the first place, it's the role they get paid for, and why it's there in the first place. So, if they are not doing their jobs, you should start from there.
In a similar manner, societies should always be able to attend in some way or another people who feels they are in dangerous conditions like those. This is going more towards a culture and ideology way, but families, friends, communities and institutions should be prepared, in an official way or not, to pull people out of those kinds of environments when necessary.
Part of the response anything should have for a dangerous environment is just to get out of there as quickly as possible, and we need to provide ways of facilitating that.
And people should know and rely on such strategies if they ever become victims. I'm not talking only about hotlines, shelters and more official stuff like that - I'm talking about encompassing everything from education to cultural practices.
And we're not talking about a poor country that you can expect people to be living like the wild west or something, everyone for themselves, survival of the strongest, the ones who have access to guns, the ones willing to be most aggressive and whatnot. So why do cases like these happen? It's also linked to wage gap, inequality not only in terms of gender, but also how authorities see and handle each class of society, plus a bunch of other stuff.
Again, this is a hugely complex topic that won't be easy to solve or have easy answers to go for... but if people keep focusing on tiny parts of it and fighting over only that, nothing will be solved, and it might make things even worse.
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
Seems like a funny interesting concept, and I am old enough. xD
Thought I can't really relate a whole lot.
The thing is, most of the old tech MKHB is showing there wasn't as ubiquitous where I live as they probably were in the US... most of them I've never seen in person.
The OG cellphone is a big example... I'm back from a time cellphones didn't exist, and I have never ever seen that huge chunk of cellphone in person, ever. A Motorola StarTAC or a Nokia brick would be more in tune for me.
JVC Camcorder was a little bit more common, but I have also never seen one. Camcorders became more common and ubiquitous for consumers here when the early models of Sony MiniDV camcorders came out.
Never seen anyone with that specific Polaroid model... the cheap chunky plastic one was the model lots of people had here, I still have it laying around somewhere.
OG Sony Walkman also wasn't a thing here... Walkman became mainstream when the plastic black models came out, or the yellow Sports models. I had a plastic kinda curvy kinda crappy model, and I almost convinced a cousin that got a tiny one from Japan to give it to me... xD I also had a crappy Aiwa for a time I think.
Finally, the OG Mac... well, early days Macs never became a thing here. No one had a Mac back then, most people never even heard about it. An IBM PC-XT or even a Tandy would be more relatable. xD
Sega Genesis or Master System, that I can relate. I personally owned neither (Nintendo guy here), but I played them a lot with friends and relatives who had them.
3
-
I dunno about other nations, but what people call far-right in my nation, I don't call politics at all - I call it an anti-democratic movement. A clear as day coup movement. It's largely not worried about politics at all, about the effects that legislation or projects have on people, it's not participating in anything that could be seen as a structured representative ruling - it's only worried about it's own gains.
The way it's connected to right wing politics and ultra conservative values is just happenstance. It has nothing to do with ideology, ethics, morals, religious zealousness and other stuff like that directly - because they are very quick to turn around if those don't serve their core purposes, which is taking power and money at every and any cost.
It doesn't even have directly to do with most other stuff like neo liberalism, preservation of the status quo, anti-immigrant sentiment, capitalist maximalization, religious interference in government, and other major things attached to the far-right - at least not on the political level.
Those are things they exploit, but not things most of them believe in. They are tools, not values. Stepping stones for money and power, not something to be taken as example to follow, or better for society.
They don't play and don't wanna play by any rules, the activity is mostly about pushing boundaries of what is reasonable or not, lawful or not, and slowly normalizing some of the most abhorrent and idiotic behaviors I've seen in my entire life inside politics. I should add that this is true regardless if the rules were made by right or left wing parties in the past. It's done this way because it weakens democratic rule, it weakens politics, it weakens opposition, and it weakens the power the electorate and people have at all - which is beneficial to their attempt to take over.
And the way they exploit core values of right wing parties is not to advance some sort of politics or ideology, but rather to spread FUD and a moral panic to take over. This is all done to facilitate exploitation to take over power and money. And it's quite transparent. Anyone who looks into the strategies in a broader context will see how the whole things work.
Anyone can observe how not political the far right party in my country is by observing what has been proposed and passed over the years they were in power, and in places they still are in power. It's all sabotaging democracy, rule of law, and progress. Even concepts like neo liberalism are only used when it's about selling state assets, getting a bunch of money from capitalists to sell it cheap for investment exploitation, and denying any responsibility when things go awry. It's a modus operandi that is apolitical, because it only cares about itself. They pretend to care about the loudest and most ignorant crowd because they are easy to exploit and indoctrinate. But that's pretty much the only reason to cater to this crowd.
There is nothing of substance there to advance right wing ideology, to do the stuff they propose particularly when it can affect right wing politicians and people negatively, and it's all just a mess of contrarianism when they are not in power - because the objetive isn't to pass a set of things that the right wing wants, it's just sabotaging of anything that might be working coming from a supposed left wing government, or even a right wing government if needs to be. This is basically why the far right fights with itself all the time - there is no unified strategy other than the power grab. And when everyone in a group is trying to get at the top with no rules and no system in place, what you get is infighting.
Because again, the objective is to take over power so they can put their hands on public coffers, exploit all sorts of corruption deals to enrich themselves with, and rarely ever pass something that pleases the most radical portion of their indoctrinated crowd just to keep radicalism going on, feeding cult of personality stuff, feeding radical terrorist ideals, feeding hatred, and reinforcing their usage of scapegoats to blame on everything that is going wrong in the country.
They are obviously never wrong, because responsibility doesn't exist in their dictionaries. It's a word only used when it is to put blame on others for the problems they created on their own. There is no empathy, apology, ponderation, sitting down to discuss issues, or anything remotely close to those.
So, what they focus on and are particularly good at is fire hosing the electorate with lies, fake news, disinformation, conspiracy theories, hatred, doubt, hopelessness, cult of personality crap, scams, grifts, and stuff like that. It's their specialty, and perhaps only specialty. Capturing the worst emotions in the electorate from the most vulnerable portion of it to force them to trust and believe that they are the only solutions for the problems the country has, when in fact they are the origin of all of it.
I've never seen a single moment in politics where so called far right politicians here in my country sat down to discuss something in a serious manner. Everytime these politicians sat down with the government or even just other politicians to talk about something, it was a sh*tshow of ignorance, shouting contest, a clown show, people clearly not having even a surface level understanding of the subject they were talking about, popular belief crap, conspiracy theories, an ample display of the Dunning-Kruger effect, at the same time that these people keeps making videos of themselves at the worst moments and with the most distorted cuts to put up in social media for self promotion and promotion of radicalism and hatred.
The tactic is so flagrant, so transparent, repeated to death, and done every single day that it's hard to understand how serious politicians and justices haven't seem it and prohibited it so far.
Reason why I don't even like equating the far right movement in my nation to fascism, Nazism, among other comparisons. It's because even those had some political structuring to them. No matter how wrong they were, no matter the ills it caused upon the world and the nations that had to endure their rule, they had political goals with their ideologies.
What we call right wing in my nation today has no political goals, has no ideology, has no structure, has no central core of beliefs and strategy - it's all a lose and ever changing set of things that can be used to exploit an ignorant electorate. It can change at any time if it helps their tactic of FUD, because the objective is solely money and power to themselves, not for the country, not for the electorate.
And so, I cannot call these people who became the supposed far-right in my nation as politicians or a political party. It's not. They are criminals. Their place is outside politics and inside a jail cell. They are scammers who are attempting to topple democracy to take over power. Even the values right wing people have are nothing but a tool to them. This has been proven to exhaustion again and again by their own actions and their own status. There is no political advance of the right in my country after 4 years of a far right president in power and many congressmen, senators, governors, mayors and whatnot that are supposedly from that branch of politics - there's only a trail of corruption, lies, personal enrichment, environmental destruction, feminicide, violence, prejudice based crimes, division, extremism and nothing else to show.
That's not politics. That's anti-politics. That's the path to destruction for a democracy. That's an attempt to turn rule in a nation towards a totalitarian dictatorship, or a theocracy. Take all the power away from the people, and back into a ruthless elite minority, that mandates what people should do or not, have the rights to or not, how they should behave, and what they deserve.
If people don't realize that this is what the "far right" movement really is in their own nations, democracy will be constantly at risk.
Now, I have no problems discussing all sorts of topics with right wing or left wing politicians. I don't consider myself a partisan to any of those sides, I actually disagree with a lot of stuff on both sides. But it's the fact that I can calmly sit down and discuss those things with anyone of any party that defines them being a political party inside a democracy to me. If the supposed party cannot sit down to discuss those subjects, it's not a political party, not inside a democratic system.
3
-
I feel a lot for those people, perhaps more than I have the right to... I'm not japanese, don't have family there though quite possibly some of my ancestors where from the region. I do have family in other parts of the country though.
But it's good to put some balance to the story so that it doesn't get overly dramaticized, which I think is as disrespectful, if not more disrespectful than ignoring what happened.
First let's talk about the area affected. Even though international press, this documentary, and multiple other places call it "Fukushima disaster", it is far more accurate to call it Fukushima Daiichi disaster.
Why? Because like half-shown on the highly stylized map, the affected area occupies a 20km radius in the 3rd largest prefecture in Japan, which is Fukushima, that has over 13000 square km of area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Prefecture
Some people might not know this, but the capital of Fukushima prefecture, which is also called Fukushima, wasn't affected much as it's inland in the north of the prefecture some almost 80km away from the plant.
This of course doesn't make it less serious or less grave for the people affected, but the affected area is probably smaller than most people imagine. The plant is located in between two towns, which were condemned and access blocked off - Futaba, which had a population of around 7000 before the disaster, and Ookuma, which had a populatio of around 12000 before the disaster.
The evacuation was chaotic, and people were spread out... but if you consider how many people were still saved, how prepared japanese society is overall facing such situations, and the magnitude of the disaster itself... I'm not sure it'd have been done better in any other country in the world. Also good to note that most people in the video deathcount are not from the power plant disaster, but from the tsunami event after the earthquake. No one died there immediately after the plant meltdown, but there are deaths related after it, and it's expected lots of people involving cleanup teams, plant workers and whatnot will have health problems related to radiation at some point.
I've also heard that cleanup efforts, remediation, compensation of affected people among other stuff are... exemplary and unique in the world, given the magnitude of the disaster. Again, this is not to diminish it or to make it sound less serious, but in another country, this could've been exponentially worse.
Second, about nuclear power plants in Japan and the disaster itself. As explained in the video, this was a man made disaster due to corruption, mismanagement, eggregious misreporting of inspections, and then of course, the nature part with the magnitude of the earthquake and tsunami that came before it. Perfect storm scenario.
If I remember correctly, when details emerged about this catastrophe, there were calls from inspectors and investigators years before that urgent repair and urgent maintenance was needed, which would've prevented the worst.
Obviously, if I was japanese I'd be angry and worried too. Not only Japan is located on very unstable grounds, several of other nuclear plants in Japan are also not exactly in the safest of places given this precedent, climate is changing for the worst, there will be probably further instabilities there, and ideally a country like Japan should not run on nuclear plants at all - at least fission based ones that can go critical in that way.
Daiichi is also one of those old plants with designs from the 60s-70s running on pressurized hot water vapor, the worst type to go critical.
But the thing is, Japan doesn't run on nuclear by choice. They don't have land or conditions for most alternatives, they already import a whole ton of power at very high costs (which is why the nuclear plants went back online), and Japan has actually been researching a whole ton of other power generation technologies for a long time to see if it's not feasible to replace with something else. So far, nothing came out that could generate power close to nuclear outputs, not by far unfortunately. They have researched and tried stuff like wave motion generators, geothermal, plus a bunch of other stuff... it's a really difficult situation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan
Hydroelectric power? Japan has them. But due to it's landscape and configuration, this is limited to small plants that cannot generate much power... so it's like almost 1200 plants to cover less than 7% of demand, at high costs. They actually stopped building these plants because it just didn't make economic sense. Wind is hard because there are no good places with constant wind to build (though there is some promise for offshore wind farms), solar is a growing trend but still at less than 4%, geothermal and wave power could contribute but they are not expected to generate a whole lot. Nuclear once generated 30% of Japan's entire consumption, and there were projects before the disaster to ramp that up to 40%. The rest of that equation comes from imported oil and gas which is not only unstable, but also very expensive.
So you see, it's just not as simple as let's shut down all plants and replace them all for alternatives. Japan is a country that is in recession, despite it's position among developed countries, for over a decade now. The government and population probably cannot afford to live in an import power economy. It has some of the fastest aging populations and one of the biggest public debt. The position is very fragile. If you shut down all nuclear plants, compensate that with imported power, and start building low wield alternative now to replace them... that money will have to come from somewhere, and that will be from a working class that is already overworked and paying for an aging population and a stagnant economy.
So the grimm, cold and sad math of this is that shutting those plants down could potentially have a negative impact worse than risking another disaster.
It's actually kind of a miracle that Japan sustained all the recent drastic changes as well as it did... a culture that is incredibly resilient to catastrophes probably plays a big part on that. I personally visited Japan back in 2008, and again this year in 2018. If I didn't know about the disaster, I would never have guessed that something this big happened in between my visits. It's kinda like how the country is in recession for so long, and how the country is in unstable grounds - you go there, it just doesn't show.
But anyways, I wrote too much already... I hope these people affected will end up with the best outcomes possible, and may they find a way to lead better lives not constantly shadowed by what happened.
3
-
3
-
It'd be very hard for people to remember her speech, since most people are never informed or never end up knowing how the agreements and accords that we have today have started at Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in the early 90s. People barely talk about the Kyoto Protocol these days, it's all about Paris Agreement and onwards it seems. Because of course, there is an active attempt to erase and reset these efforts, so that we forget that the promises and deals made are not being followed for almost 30 years now, the speeches are not remembered, and representatives of all these nations are free to somehow continue lying, as if the fight against Climate Change, which used to be called Global Warming, and has been going on for around a century now never happened.
It's also just part of the general International Press bias that only covers the global south when it is to tell news about bad things happening. So, tough luck seeing reports on what started in a developing poor nation back then, which I will remind everyone that the US government under Bush refused to sign.
I'm sick and tired of seeing the US constantly trying to hijack narratives and say something along the lines of them being on the forefront of things, or supporting this sort of activism from start.
It couldn't be more distant from the truth. Even before Earth Summit came to be, US was an active denier in all of this. And even today, it cannot be said that there is a real active push and effort there - it's all coming down to economics. And even then, there are so many obstacles to change that it's kinda ridiculous. Renewables have become cheap to the point of it being only logical to invest into it with an economical mindset, particularly for countries with several national grid issues, but still there seems to be a grumpy ever present obstacle behind the scenes, even when it makes economical sense.
So yeah... I think we're at the point where tons of people who used to care about this are just tired of it. With Climate Change catastrophes happening multiple times a year in all parts of the world, and those in power still not caring enough to make the logical changes, instead acting to turn attention into ideological and political wars, actual wars for territory, insane amounts of money put into an effective genocide, and a nuclear war threat ever present going up again into half a century old record levels.
And we're still not only not reversing things - we're still accelerating towards it.
I was still a kid when Rio Summit happened, just a few years younger than Mrs Suzuki there, but I do remember how much we talked about this in schools back then. So I don't personally believe in the narrative of intergenerational incompatibility or ideals, old people know full well about this too - what happened is that it's becoming increasingly rare to find people who will fight for this. And it'll become worse as Climate Change advances, until too many people are dead because of it.
It's a problem with scale. You know when governments will start acting with true attention and focus on it? It's when their countries are left half destroyed for a prolonged period of time, in a debt crisis so deep they cannot avoid looking at it all day, everyday. That's when.
Which coincidence or not, might be happening right now in Brazil. Brazil had a flood event so severe it put huge portions of one of it's richest states underwater. The severity of the event was aggravated by a denialist far right administration that refused to believe in Climate Change, took out all funds from regulatory agencies and disaster prevention efforts due to Agribusiness lobby, and trashed every single public effort they could to address environmental worries - and this happened with support and lobbying from the richest companies and people in the nation.
This time, no right wing closeted racist politician can claim this happened because people build their homes in high risk areas, and brush it off as if this has nothing to do with government - this time it affected an entire state. Even people who wouldn't normally care about this, cannot turn an eye. And when the time to hunt for answers come, no amount of fake news production and conspiracy theories will erase the role that a far wing anti democratic government had on this.
If the tables will really be turned, I'm not sure. People are so entrenched in ideological and political wars these days that they'll vouch for their favorite politician even if it kills them and their family - the pandemic was and continues being a wake up call for this. It's just completely defeatist how people continues vouching for, if not downright idolizing politicians behind hundreds of thousands of deaths because of their rejection of science and vaccines. We're becoming a species not worth saving, not worth lasting for another century.
But we'll be living with this disaster on the news for a very long time, and it'll give less and less opportunity for denialists to pop up, or convince people with their stupid conspiracy theories. So we'll see.
I think lots of countries in the world should be paying attention to what will happen in Brazil in the immediate future. The scariest thing about Climate Change is exactly what happened in the South. A sudden climate related event that destroys a huge portion of a country. No country in the world is safe from this happening now. It's how people reacts to this that might determine whether our species has a future on this planet or not.
3
-
There is no other purpose for big events like worldwide sports events in developing nations other than corruption schemes and stealing money from public coffers in exchange for some short lived circus. All developing nations that had the "gift" and "privilege" of hosting world sports events such as the World Cup, Olympics and whatnot ended up worse for it, period. In democracies, all encompassing corruption scandals came right after, the amount of money spent on it always went several times overbudget, and sometimes the government falls over only to be replaced by yet another collection of corrupt politicians and staff. It always seems to be a mini-revolution for the worse.
In non functional democracies the scandals don't come to light, but the effects are still felt throughout the population. It's just bread and circus. A huge amount of positivity for the event, influx of tourist focused only around the games, news reports with overflowing "people are nice" messages, and then an empty vacuum afterwards exposing some of the worst things the country has. Corruption, visible poverty, "nice" infrastructure built for the event left to rot because the country has no use for it, all plans for the betterment of the country itself discarded or in a total state of disrepair, people who got temporary jobs and opened businesses around the event going back into poverty, a class of politicians who suddenly started buying land, property, accounts in fiscal paradises when not directly rubbing off their newfound riches at the faces of people... and the cycle repeats over and over again.
3
-
Since Reflect Orbital was mentioned, and commenters already pointed out EEVBlog's video on the subject, I'll make the shortest possible explanation I can do for their idea being completely unfeasible.
It's pretty simple... for illumination, this could've been a good idea all in all. As in producing enough light to be similar to moonlight. Hard, but doable. We actually don't need that much light to see at night, as your blinking alarm clock will tell you. xD Or that weak LED from your charger you can't even see during the day, almost blinds you at night.
For solar power though, moonlight is almost the same as nothing. Even at perfect atmospheric conditions, with a reflector the size of the moon, the most efficient theoretical solar panels would only be able to produce very little power, not enough to ever justify spending as much as it would putting those space mirrors in orbit.
You might think this is a matter of efficiency, but it's actually a matter of the difference we cannot see with our own eyes, because of how flexible our vision is. If you measure with sensors though, then you get the difference. For instance, broad daylight in perfect conditions is something like 120 thousand lux. Moonlight in perfect conditions is bellow 1 lux. That's the harsh reality of it.
To make things worse for Reflect Orbital, their plans are about a constellation of small satellites.
The thing about putting any sort of reflector in orbit is that there is no secret or complex math about it - you can only reflect as much as the size of the mirror, again, given perfect ideal theoretical conditions that don't really exist in practice. You'll always have losses along the way - reflectance of the material, atmospheric conditions, light scattering, etc.
So say you have a 100 sq meter big reflector in orbit there. Being very generous, I think their proposed mirrors are way smaller than that.
You will only be able to reflect max 100 sq meter worth of whatever sunlight the mirror catches, minus atmospheric scattering, minus losses because of weather, material, warping, and so on. It doesn't matter if you focus the light to a single point, or open it up to cover 5 sq km worth of area, the amount of light reflected will still be at most 100 sq meters of direct sunlight. You cannot reflect more than what the mirror captures.
Get the issue there? It means that in order for you to produce significant power during the night, you'd need a mirror or several mirrors that are close to the size of a solar farm. Even at small scale, we're talking acres here, not just a few hundred meters.
Let's say you are ok with capturing very little power, so you don't really need impossibly huge mirrors or huge arrays of them - would that even be worth the price of launching all those satellites in orbit?
That's not even to mention all the worries about disrupting eco systems and whatnot.
You know what I think would be a still very hard but more feasible solution? A global interconnected power grid.
The Sun is always shining somewhere on Earth, and it's shinning mostly directly.
I guess mirrors could come into the fray when we're talking about the Pacific side of the planet, but that's something for the far future. Perhaps by then, we'll have already gotten to feasible nuclear fusion...
3
-
3
-
3
-
In general, I'm divided.
The technology is fascinating and has the potential to bring much needed intelligence for all sorts of applications. When I think about stuff like people with disabilities, all sorts of scientific researches, down to practical stuff like helping people identify problems with equipment, perhaps even health advisories and such, it sounds justifiable enough.
More or less like the car automation conundrum... it has the potential to save lots of lives because of the limits of human behaviour. If you are gonna rely on "educated guesses" for all sorts of important stuff, perhaps it's better left to an AI to bring up better answers.
The problem is how those things are currently being employed and what sorts of problems it'll generate in the future. The tech is being employed for all sorts of really superficial and mind numbing stuff without any regard for privacy, future consequences, prices that are being paid, and people are buying right into it. A whole ton of companies making use of those Cloud AI powered data processing are not disclosing properly what data they collect, what they do with it, how secure that information is in their hands, plus a bunch of other things that will play important roles in costumers lives.
It's how data is becoming the new currency for big businesses, how liability is not being taken in consideration, how entire data troves of private information are getting leaked, hacked and lost in recent years, and how little businesses employing AI are talking how their systems work.
Here's the thing: a button I can press in case of emergency that will contact close friends and family plus emergency services and whatnot? Sure, I can see something like this being very helpful. A button to press to order pizza, provided that I give my address, phone number, credit card information and whatnot for the company providing it without any information on how they are handling that? Why?
There's a fine line to walk there, and I'm afraid people haven't been thinking much about this. It's all about the balance between privacy and convenience/automation. Much like the automated car future, if it's not done properly and with regard to an individual life, it could end very badly. What happens if an automated car malfuntions and kill an entire family? What happens if the system isn't secure or isolated enough, enabling hackers to hold people hostage turning the car into a remote weapon? What happens when services using such AI systems gets hacked, and the information stolen for criminals to abuse, dox, hack? Will a company take responsibility when the information they are storing on your kids somehow ends in the hands of a pedophile and enables him/her to use that to commit crimes? Will companies deny responsibility when they use data collected from you to tap into vices and make you go bankrupt by exploiting it?
The problem with all the power being in the hands of a few companies also leads to that, because if businesses become dependant on the tech, they are less likely to be taken out of power, and less likely to respond to liability or act responsibility towards users. I mean, we already see this today. Cable companies, mobile telecoms, ISPs with monopolistic practices, huge faceless retailers that sells everything but have a very long list of horrible costumer service. Up until now, it's about services provided in general, which people can at least survive without. As things become more and more personal, ingrained and tied to daily routines and daily activities, the more problematic that relationship becomes.
And societal reaction is not looking good as things are progressing. I'm quite frankly tired and dismayed after reading about too many cases of doxxing, internet persecution, outrage culture, disproportionate reactions against individuals and whatnot that came from access to private data that should not be available. I'm horrified about the constant overstepping of police and justice forces when it comes to personal electronic devices that have been happening to seek for an easy prison sentence. I can see how easily entire portions of our society can become over reliant on the technology while overlooking all it's trappings and downsides.
It's a bit like Minority Report, 1984, Gattaca and Demolition Man all coming together. And I have a suspicion that automation, Cloud AI, robots and some other related technologies might become the atomic power of our generation. Very powerful tool that has the potential to do great things when used for the good, but it can have an even greater potential to do bad if we are not careful enough.
2
-
Hey Matt, nice try on the aluminium block... would've been great if it worked! Something to adopt to make less of a mess while trying to separate the LCD panel from the touchscreen unit... too bad it didn't pan out, but at least it worked to make less of a mess while removing glass shards, which are indeed the worst part. :P
I used doubled sided tape with mixed results. xD
Late last year I had the same situation in my hands... a Sony Xperia Z3 with a shattered glass+touchscreen, but with the LCD panel still working behind it.
Unfortunately, eBay purchases takes way waaaay longer to get here (Brazil - somewhere between 1 to 6 months), so I ended up buying a glass+touchscreen+LCD assembly altogether... I saw the fishing line strategy on trying to separate both, decided not to risk it. xD
But I didn't have to buy the chassis with them. It's not too hard to replace the assembly while still using the original chassis, if you can find them to buy separatedly.
Tools were pretty much the same... didn't have a hair dryer handy, so I ended up getting one of those plaster hot air guns which are basically a more powerful hair dryer anyways. It's cheaper than getting a hot air station, but way less precise. It works to open up smartphones though.
Other tools people might consider to help: scalpels, dentist's probes and cards... particularly plastic playing cards. Though to work with electronic parts and specially the battery, I highly recommend avoiding metal stuff - scalpels and dentist's probes are to remove glass shards only.
What did you use to glue the phone shut? I used Gorilla Glue... the expansion helped set things in place tightly.
Up 'till then I had never broken a smartphone before... my Xperia Z3 shattered, then I bought a OnePlus 3, and after one week of use I broke it too. :P Had to do the same thing for it, only the screen assembly was some 3x the price because the phone had just been recently released. Oh well...
Good to note: if your smartphone had any IP certification (water/dust resistance) before the repair, you lost it after. It's better than throwing an entire smartphone into the garbage, but just to note. :P
2
-
Killing a piece of the puzzle does not guarantee that it won't be completed with a replacement, and there are good possibilities that the end result could end up being way waaay worse than the original.
That's the problem. Hitler didn't come out of nowhere. And you can't guarantee there wouldn't be a replacement for him in an alternate timeline, nor that the world would end up better in any shape or form.
Given human nature and tensions between contries back then, who knows? Someone could go back in time and kill baby Hitler, only to come back to a scortched nuclear winter world afterwards.
Germany never raised to power in what would've been Hitler's time, but instead allied with more countries (including possibly the US), the ideology spread out anyways, and eventually WWII happened between two bigger blocks of countries with even more advanced technology than what we had.
Of course, that's only one scenario alone... but not outside the realm of possibilities. Which is exactly why it's so dangerous to mess with the past, if it was possible to do so.
I mean, we had plenty of close calls with extinction and catastrophic scenarios... perhaps our timeline is among the smallest percentage that we made it somehow. xD
2
-
It won't be the end of coffee, nor coffee will go extinct, and this is also valid for several other food scares. And this sort of sensationalism ends up weakening the argument for heavy investment against climate change, because when the narrative shifts to "coffee didn't end after all", it feeds the moronic climate change denialist crowd.
This is merely a prediction and opinion, but I can imagine what will happen further down the line regarding coffee. If things keep getting worse for those farms, and the coffee leaf rust problem doesn't get solved by cheap fungicides and whatnot, we'll end up in a shortage of coffee, prices will spike, it'll become a valuable commodity, and then coffee will start being produced in other parts of the world with climate that fits coffee better.
The real problem though, which people should be sympathetic with and should be worried about, is that climate change will displace all these workers, people, entire economies, which could end up in more wars, more poverty, famine and misery overall. This is really what is in stake. Because it's easy enough for rich coffee farmers to move around and shift production, but workers usually are the ones to get the short end of the stick. If you can only think about yourself, this could mean that at least for a period of time, coffee will get more expensive...
Different than problems like colony colapse disorder with bees and coral bleaching, production of certain types of food and beverage bases are relatively well understood. The reason why coffee is grown in places like Veracruz in Mexico is because it makes economical sense. The climate is right, labor is cheap, and trade has been working well for centuries.
Mind you, Mexico is still 7th in the list of countries that makes the most coffee to export. US occupies somewhere around the 40th place. Of course, the coffee leaf rust problem isn't affecting only Mexico, but coffee production worldwide is huge. By comparison, Brazil that occupies the 1st place produces over 10x more coffee than Mexico. Talking about coffee in general of all grades, but still.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
This video is good for the basics, but it misses some points, and it's falling to the new common sense approach that is not completely true.
1. If a hacker is targetting you specifically, pass phrases is not a good way to go. It's easy enough for hackers these days to use dictionary type brute force attacks, and the less alphanumeric characters you use the easier it gets for them. Words only reduces entropy, and entropy is key. If you are using only lowercase letters and words, it's way easier to figure it out even if the password is extra long.
Do use pass phrases if you will, but put numbers or special characters in between words, use unusual names in the mix, insert dates or other numbers you always have in memory. That should make it harder to find out even with brute force attacks;
2. If you can, do not use 2-step authentication with SMS. Use 2-factor authentication apps instead like Google Authenticator, Authy and others. The problem here is also targeted attacks. Hackers can get hold of your phone number with simple social engineering attacks. This would be a very specific targeted attack that would probably take place when you can't immediately detect that it happened nor act upon, but it already happened before. It's not something hackers will use for a general attack, but it's something someone specifically targetting you could do;
3. It's incredibly hard for hackers to get to password authentication systems like Lastpass, Dashlane and 1Password, but it can happen and it has already happened. For the most part, they get encrypted data which is basically useless (because these systems are designed in a way that only the owner of the master password can decrypt things - another reason why it's important to have a complex master password). Still, if you decide not to trust online services, there are offline password managers you can use. You won't get the sync functionalities, but it can be made more secure (like putting your password manager inside an encrypted offline device). Look for Keepass if you wanna go that route.
Those are a step further in security, so if you are not comfortable with any of those, just follow what's on the video. Whatever you do though, at least don't re-use passwords, make them longer and more complex, and turn either 2-step or 2-factor on. That is, if you don't want to deal with the headaches that comes with having your accounts stolen.
2
-
2
-
2
-
I have no clue where Microsoft keeps getting those ideas, they must have some division for the "gifted" or something.
Not only it makes no sense to get the Surface Laptop when compared to laptops from other brands (you can get either a stylish ultrabook with similar specs or a basic to medium gaming laptop for less than 1000 bucks nowadays), it makes no sense to get one when compared to their own products of the same line. Get a Surface Pro or Book if you are so inclined...
It's a 1000-2100 bucks overpriced tablet jerry rigged to a laptop formfactor (as evidenced on how it was put together, all soldered on board, and with the same port limitation as tablets - a single USB 3.0 port and a mini display port. What a f*cking joke), that comes with a fancy stylus despite having no good way of using it (the tablet is not convertible, it doesn't even lay flat on a table), that will force you to upgrade right out of the box (because they keep insisting on the RT - now aptly named Windows 10 S as in shitty idea that never catches up) with subpar specs - base model comes with 4Gb of RAM WTF, it's a netbook! My smartphone has more ram than that and it cost less than half the price. I bet it works better as a productivity machine than f*cking Windows 10S too.
And the tech press was guzzling on this piece of garbage as if it was the second coming of Christ. Go figure that shit out.
I'm a full Windows user here though I've been considering an at least partial shift to Linux with all the anti-consumer crap Microsoft has been introducing in Windows 10. But this laptop... man... I like other products from the Surface line, but this one was downright moronic. And Microsoft missed the opportunity yet again to bury that horrible Windows Store. It always has been shit on Windows Phones, it was shit on Surface RT, and no one uses it on Windows 8,8.1,10... yet they keep wasting time, money and costumer patience on this shit.
You know since when Microsoft is saying that more developers will come, that the Windows Store is more secure, that it'll be great once it gets more apps, that it's the way of the future, blah blah? Since fucking Windows Mobile 7. 7 freaking years ago. It's bullshit, and any sane business would have let go of the idea already.
Google won't put any of their apps there (no Chrome, no Gmail, no YouTube, no Google Maps), Facebook has an extremely outdated version of the app that has been in "beta" ever since it first appeared half a decade ago (on Windows Phones). The vast majority of developers for big services either outright refuse to waste time on an app for Windows Store, or they do it and then completely abandon development. A whole ton of apps on the Windows Store are buggy, outdated, lacking features, several versions behind Android and iOS versions, and/or simply useless. This has been the narrative since the beginning. You don't have to trust me on this, try using the Windows Store on your Windows 10 laptops just for a single day. The reason why most people don't know about this is because they never even tried using it.
I had a Nokia Lumia 1020 and a Dell Venue 11 Pro Windows 8 tablet (which is now running Ubuntu).
And the funniest part: you are forced to use Edge and Bing. They are the standard, you can't change them. ROFL. Even if Google decided to put Chrome on the store (which they won't), they'd be forced to use Edge engine for that because nothing else is allowed.
So yeah... personally, for 1000 bucks? I think I'd go with a Dell Inspiron 15 7000 gaming laptop. It has double the ram (upgradable), double the internal storage (also of course upgradable), and an nVidia GTX 1050 TI to boot, with all the ports you might need. But almost any brand has a better option for less than 1000 bucks. Lenovo, Acer, Asus, HP, Samsung, Razer, MSI. It's the same for ultraportable, ultra light weight ultrabooks. I'm partial for Samsung Laptop 9, but there are also Asus ZenBook series, Razer Spectre, Lenovo Yoga and some in the Dell XPS line.
2
-
Earliest memories I have of a computer at home was in the late 80s... this is in Brazil, so tech came late at high prices here.
I'm still not sure exactly what computer it was, but it was a blue-gray keyboard style computer that you needed a tapedeck to run programs and it connected straight to a TV. Everything that came to Brazil back then got rebranded to local names like "Itautec".
If I'm not mistaken it ran some form of BASIC too, and I remember at least one game - Zaxxon 3D... so it was most likely a TRS-80/CoCo.
After this, it was already a PC-XT with that green phosphorous screen. My first contact with a programming language was DBase III Plus with Clipper as compiler. I think the first serious thing I did with it was a sort of costumer control database for a home based console game rental thing... my dad helped me with it. This was probably back in 93-94, so I was around 14 yrs old. xD
We also had this ancient 600 baud rate modem that was almost the size of a computer nowadays, heavier all metal, that I don't remember ever being used. Perhaps it came from my dad's work, I just found it one day in home storage. When I started dabbling with BBSs and IPX connections to play Doom we already had a US Robotics 5600 board - that's 5600 baud rate, not the more popular and last of the line 56Kbps.
This of course only happened because my dad got into computers very early in the age of computers here in Brazil... he worked with valve computers, punch cards, mainframes with tape storage and the likes. When he died back in 1999 he was still working with a small team porting stuff from old IBM mainframes to more modern platforms, at Itaipu hydroelectric power plant/river dam. He lead the division of computers for HR on one of the main contractors building the dam back in the 80s, Unicom.
Great memories of the time. I still remember very clearly the Sundays my dad had to do something in the offices, he took me there... huge floor space filled with offices with dumb terminals with desks built to house them. They were all connected to the refrigerated "server room" filled with mainframes. I was a kid back then, so I was both fascinated and kinda bored. xD Didn't understand the value of it all.
2
-
2
-
Good explainer, thanks Chris!
It can look kinda daunting at first, but you'll thank yourself if the worst happens.... :P
The 3 2 1 method is the very basics of backup strategy, anything bellow it is subject to catastrophic data loss.
Let me just say that I wasn't following the rule properly, even though I had all my data on a NAS (RAID 1), most of my important stuff on my Desktop, and a copy of that distributed in different cloud storage services.
What happened was that an OS update for the NAS drive caused a massive failure on both drives that were on RAID 1. It wasn't a complete disaster because like I said, most of my important data was backuped everywhere... but a part of it was on the NAS alone.
Spent a good part of a couple of months finding a way to restore those drives. Luckly, I managed to do it, not before a whole lot of stress and panic, plus spending money on NAS data recovery software, but I was lucky this time.
2
-
I'm not sure if I really like how the Mavic Pro ramps up those blue colors, but between it's blue haze kinda looks and the Karma's tendency to pull more towards yellow, red and earth tones, I think I still prefer Mavic Pro's take.
1:00 - there's more color separation and resolution when you look at scenery that is more or less uniform, despite the blue haze - see how many different types of trees and bushes you can identify in both images;
2:42 - you can see more detail on that wooden fence and the peeble ground here with the DJI, as well as bushes and grass on the back.
You can see that neither are exactly the same as the shots taken with other cameras (static ones - was it a GH4?), but it just looks to me that the DJI gets closer.
I guess I'd prefer using the dehaze tool for the Mavic Pro images rather than trying to bring up Karma colors overall... but I guess in both cases things could get better by switching profiles?
Fisheye really depends on usage... it's great to take wide panoramic shots, but for movement I'd rather go without the distortion. Not sure how well the in-camera correction on the Hero and Session 5 works, so I guess it kinda depends. But you know... fisheye lenses always tends to lose resolution in borders, so I'd stride on the safe side.
One important thing you didn't mention Zack and Jared, is what camera you guys are using on the Karma. Hero 5?
Outside images though, I guess I'd just go for the Mavic Pro... it's smaller, DJI has more experience on hardware and software, and the drone just looks more solid and well built for me personally. Losing the grip thing and the ability to replace the camera with future GoPro versions, and it's not that I think the Karma is bad in itself, but you know.
2
-
Congrats on the 100K Christopher!
Interesting, I had never heard of M discs and I do have a BD-R drive I bought a couple or more years ago... though I don't use it anymore. It's not M disc compatible, but I kinda wonder if you even need a special recorder for that... perhaps, if there is some power modulation needed.
From my personal experience, newer types of raw optical media are pretty resilient... if you store them properly that is.
None of them, probably not even that M disc, will survive scratches or major physical damages.
Both CDs and DVDs in the past were kinda fragile... little heat and humidity could ruin then, and it was fairly easy for the layer bonding to come apart. I have plenty of original music CDs that were stored inside a cabinet, away from the sun, which all became corrupted - both data and physically too. The reflective layer just sort of rotted away, oxidated or came apart, leaving transparent channels. Pretty much unrecoverable.
Could even be that the data layer was intact, but you'd still need some industrial level gear to take layers apart, apply a new reflective layer, and bond them all together again, so it's no use.
Newer DVDs and Blu-ray discs are much harder to simply rot away. Better technologies for bonding layers properly, insulating discs and isolating important layers like the data and reflective layer came around. That is, as long as you are buying them from reputable brands... quite a lot of QA is needed to guarantee things.
You can prolong the life of these discs quite a lot, specially if you can control room conditions... ISO 9660 puts humidity between 30 to 50%, and temperature between 18 to 23 C.
But replacing the organic dye for an inorganic one is pretty smart. Data layer being organic was probably the most fragile component there.
The three things I know of that can cause the most damage are: high humidity, temperature and UV rays. Temperature can be extremely bad if you have too much variation through the surface (say, the sun hitting just one side of the disc).
And UV rays can not only damage data and reflective layer, but could also act on the protective layers themselves... as they are all plastic, UV can change composition and make it more opaque, which would make the data unreadable even if it was undamaged - which is why you should never leave CDs, DVDs or Blu-ray discs exposed to the sun from extended periods of time.
Anyways, sorry for the long comment, hope some find the information useful. o/
2
-
2
-
That's some jank ass build if I ever seen one... seriously people, you don't need to do something this trashy. Get an old desktop case on a junkyard if necessary, leave the case open if you want better ventilation at no cost, or better yet just invest in more fans or a water cooling system.
It's even better, instead of buying even more crap that will end up in the trash once you realize it isn't worth it, use at least the base materials like the case from stuff that is going to become eWaste anyways. And you won't need a drill for it too.
If you are doing it as a hobby, don't trash your place just because you want a rig that looks straight out of a dirty chinese cryptocurrency mining farm. It's not only ugly as hell, in a normal household building something this shitty can end up in hardware damage pretty easily and plenty fast. You really don't wanna invest over a thousand bucks in hardware only to get it completely broken by the end of the first day because someone bumped it the wrong way, or your dog decided to take a piss on that ugly thing.
And btw, for the most part it isn't worth it. The power you will be consuming 24/7, potential for hardware failure, the heat these things generate, the fact that you won't be using that computer for anything else, and that you are competing with people with tens or thousands of those rigs locked into warehouses often times stealing power from the grid to do it... plus the uncertainty in investment, the fact that two major Ethereum banks were recently hacked, and the potential for a total cryptocurrency crash... it's just not worth going for it. I dunno what's the ROI for Ethereum right now, but you'll probably have to run that thing for sometime to get value out of it, and you'll be paying a whole lot out of pocket before getting some return. If money is the objective, there are probably better things to invest on. Like buying and selling stuff on eBay, I dunno.
2
-
2
-
Fully agreed on the idea that basically anything public isn't free. If it's public it's paid by taxes, so it's technically and correctly funded by citizens. The only way a school or university can be free is if it's fully funded by charity. Then yes, you are not paying for it. Saying something public is free should be classified as false advertising, period.
As for college education... well, I'd be careful about generalizations on both sides - both that everyone needs it, and that it's totally worthless.
And I should be on Louis' side since I have two bachelor's degrees and am currently unemployed. :P
BUT, even though I'm not an US citizen, I know from experience that there are terrible teachers and terrible institutions, and I totally find the current student debt industry in the US appalling, it needs to be said that there's still value in higher education even if a whole lot of students ends up not making good use of it one way or the other (by choice, or by circunstances).
People going through higher education and ultimately failing to pursue a successful career in the area is something that can be attributed to a very diverse list of reasons. Sometimes it really is because higher education was worthless. But then there are people who go through universities, pay a ton for it, and still don't take it seriously. Of course if you spend all your time partying, chances are you are not taking much more than immediate gratification for it. It's also not only go to classes, pay attention and do your homework. The level of involvement needs to go beyond that or it's simply not working.
There are people who go into areas of knowledge without proper research of what the job really entails, and end up trapped there taking too long to realize that the job wasn't for them. There are students who don't pay attention to building a professional web of contacts during their terms ending up orphan after the course is over. A very big part of higher education is outside classrooms. And even though the ridiculous high prices of US universities should, it's never guaranteed that you'll get a job out of the gate. This needs to be something you are activelly seeking while still studying.
I also agree that depending on what career you choose, having a diploma for it might mean less. And save for a select few careers, a campus is like a bubble - you'll possibly throw away a whole bunch of stuff that was taught there once you get into the workforce, and it's strongly disconnected with reality. Which is why something I always tell students looking for tips, that they need to get multiple internships and take advantage of business incubation projects as fast as possible - if they intend to open business after graduation that is.
But there is no single solution. At least for the courses I personally attended, I personaly am not using a whole bunch of stuff that I learned there, but it's not exactly worthless. Well, perhaps some stuff is completely worthless for me, but it wasn't worthless to someone else in my class. Some courses just need to cover a lot of ground for the diversity of professionals that will come out of it. Say, I had a course about operational systems and artificial intelligence during CompSci. Personally , I never used it. But other classmates are now employed in related areas.
But understand, I still consider cases like Louis' exceptional. The harsh reality is that the marketplace works against people without higher education looking to open business or get jobs. And I agree that often times that's a distorted reality, and that it's sometimes unfair, but here are some numbers I dug up quickly (sorry if there's something out of place):
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/02/11/the-rising-cost-of-not-going-to-college/
https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm/
I can agree that some of that is definitely created by this market generalization around higher education and qualification (which is a false equivalence for several lines of work), but some of it might not be. The discrepancy is too big to be caused by only that. And while it's definitely true that lots of people without higher education can, do and did succeed in their careers much like Louis, thinking things will go that way for you is the same as thinking that higher education guarantees you a high paying job or a successful business. It's neither one nor the other. There are several factors that are often disconsidered... how you make use of what's available to you, opportunity and timing, dedication and decisiveness, how the economy is doing, what jobs are available, etc etc.
So be skeptical. I have this position because Brazil has fallen into the trap of glamourizing little to no education sometime ago, and we are paying heavy prices now because of that. We went through 2 and a half populist presidency terms that preached how higher education was worthless, how we should elect a president and several politicians without it because they'd be closer to the brazilian people's condition/reality and would know their needs, and that the fact that the president never ended primary school didn't disqualify him for the job because he worked his way up the ladder.
The current deep recession the country is dealing with has mostly to do with corruption, but also a lot to do with mismanagement and terrible decisions that came from the lack of qualification of a wave of politicians that got elected because of that reversal of values.
It's billions if not trillions of public money wasted on half assed projects and asinine decisions that you wouldn't believe. Not that having higher education would guarantee otherwise, but if ignorance wasn't glamourized, perhaps we wouldn't be in this bottomless pit situation we are currently in.
So, if you decide not to enter some absurd student debt to go through several years of higher education that you don't even know will add something of value to you, I fully support the idea. But never give up education. You don't absolutely need a formal institution to get it, but if you are not going for it, get education some other way.
2
-
Wait... what's your favorite Pokemon???? xD
So, I'm not from the US, so perhaps share some different perspectives.
Banking here you practically HAVE to install an app. You really almost don't have an option here on this matter because everything is done via app these days. It's like, when you get an account the bank already assumes you are installing the app, so some confirmation and authentication stuff happens through it.
You could access via browser, but most banks will require you to install extra security software that goes deep into the system, they almost behave like malware getting deep into registry and stuff, so you are forced to accept this in order to use online banking.
Of course, you could install nothing and deal with everything by going to an ATM and doing stuff there, but because of how many ATM hacking crap that is going around, that's also a risky thing to do (plus danger of being mugged and whatnot).
There are some banks that even, from what I could get, creates an entire compartmentalized virtual environment inside your PC so you access stuff like it's similar to an advanced ATM of sorts. Not totally sure how it works, I only saw someone trying to use it, not my bank.
At the very least, it's not exactly trivial to steal a smartphone and use the Bank app... most of them have several layers of security for you to get in, and you also have a recently created government system to report a stolen smartphone that automatically reports it to police, banks, carriers all at once.
But banks here all use a jumbled mess of security schemes that looks like a patchwork of different stuff put together... as usual, every single one of them try to implement their own stuff instead of using readily available proven stuff. It's always been like this. You cannot, for instance, use a hardware key for bank apps afaik. Or passkeys. The passwords themselves are formatted to always conflict with password vault standards, which is super annoying. Apps and pages will not accept auto-complete, some banks still have a list of requirements, like - no sequence of numbers that forms a year, at least one upper case and one lower case character, at least one special characters except for these, max 16 characters, you cannot repeat a number, and crap like that. It's a whole ton of stuff that only weakens the schema, plus makes it harder for you to create a random password everytime.
And then, they mostly have their own ToTp, they use different types of biometrics, some banks have multiple types of passwords to access different stuff, credit cards some have contactless, some have chip and pin, most of them still have magstrip there for whatever reason, some bank pages still uses javascript keyboards... it's a jumble of stuff that ends up just making it harder to use instead of making it more secure. In fact, I'd argue that for most people it makes everything less secure, because it forces everyone who doesn't understand this patchwork of stuff to rely on someone else to do the banking stuff for them. It's the origin of a whole ton of fraud cases.
At least they stopped using cards with password list, and security questions. Because they did use those back sometime ago. Every new security concept that comes up they find a way of shoving it in there somehow.
And I kinda get the desperation... bank fraud has always been rampant in my country, so we've always been a sort of guinea pig for banks to test the latest security stuff. But man, it gets annoying and cumbersome fast.
I shouldn't complain too much though, there have been a few notorious cases that being the guinea pig worked out for us. For instance, credit cards adopted chip and pin almost a decade before the US here, mostly because magstrip fraud was going rampant.
When the pandemic hit, we were also halfway through all credit cards having contactless chip in them, so it was just a matter of accelerating things a bit more. And more recently, I think still during the pandemic I noticed most banks started offering virtual credit card service for online shopping, because of course, organized crime was moving from ATM hacks to credit card stealing, so something needed to be done.
Oh well.
2
-
I can't really judge because quite frankly, the school system in my country is shit because it goes on the opposite direction - too lax, too open ended, too weak.
Even though we also do have huge test days, each university has it's own, so what people do here is pick and choose some that makes sense for them to enter, and do a test that can last an afternoon on a day all the way to a few weekends.... for each university intended. It's also meritocratic, but it happens twice a year, and you need to enroll directly at universities you aim for. Some will have like 20 vacancies for hundreds of thousands of people aiming for a position, some have several vacancies and not enough students trying to get in. :P
We have both public and private universities, both ranging from horrible to great. Public tends to be better and thus harder to pass. Schools are almost the opposite... public schools tend to have a ton of problems, private schools tends to be more stable learning environments.... because money and because we had several governments that basically ignored education as a cornerstone of the country.
From experience though, here's what I'll have to say. Military harsh incredibly competitive education tends to foster certain type of people... they are good at some stuff, but horrible in others.
What you are leaving behind when you don't give space for leisure time, communal living and just space to let people do whatever they want is creativity, social skills, and out of the box thinking.
Like... you are making great... robots. :P Ok, great by the book workers.
Those that survive this onslaught and can keep living on without feeling crippled, they'll be great at their jobs, make no mistake. But they'll have a harder time evolving in it, and excelling in it. And the potential for dissatisfaction, cross area thinking, being a multi taskers lowers down.
Because these things demand somethings that harsh societies like that often ignore - learning from mistakes, using skills from other areas to help in yours, seeking help from other types of professionals.
Knowing how to deal with failure, with being a failure, but still striving to get better and thinking of different ways to overcome an obstacle - that's where you usually get genious. Also, people who had the freedom to study in different areas, that also creates new things.
It comes at a high societal cost... for everyone that excels, that gets above the crowd, that uses their creativity to overcome all obstacles, you end up with a throng of permanent failures. Perhaps this will sound a bit controversial, but I think it's the way it generally is.
Which is probably very inconvenient for a country with an idealistic political system - communism, socialism - particularly one with too many people. You don't want free thinkers because those are the ones that starts revolutions, that takes liberties to the point of failure, that gets counter cultural, etc.
But a system that gives room for all kinds of people tends to result in more people who revolutionize entire industries - for bad sometimes yes, but also for good.
It's interesting though, that if you go too much the opposite direction, you end up with similar results.
Poor education leads to people who can't learn anything by themselves. They lack critical reasoning, essencial skills and not knowing what to do, how to do, how to begin. So they'll often follow authority figures, be they qualified or not, to all sorts of dead end lives. There's no empowerment, no focus, no knowledge on how to function in modern societies. So, what you get are not robots, but drooling slow zombies.
In any case, who knows what the better solution is? Education is hard, man... I just think that in general, it's something to be valued and cherished. Countries with poor education are just living in the past, with all the problems the past had. And really, the worst problem of this is that poor education is really incompatible with modern technologies. It was somewhat ok to live without education while information passed through several rounds of verification, gatekeepers, curation and whatnot to be feed to the population.
Nowadays that it's all open and free flowing, without verification, with lots of fake stuff and conspiracy theories flying around, lack of education, lack of critical reasoning clashes with this new information paradigm extremely hard... it can lead to all sorts of very dangerous problems.
2
-
2
-
2
-
Hey Alec, side discussion here but - did you change monitors to a bigger or brighter or both one recently? Or to a setup where you are sitting closer to the monitor?
If you did, this might be the source of eye strain. Just so you don't get too worried about it... this happens, and it takes sometime for your eyes to adjust.
Happened to me years ago when I went from a 17" CRT professional monitor to a 32" HDTV Ready LCD. xD For a couple of weeks, I had these very deep very worrying dark circles around the eyes, they felt dry, and I even had some pain... like they were gonna fall out or something. But they went naturally back to normal without me changing anything.
I currently don't need color calibration and accuracy for editing or anything like that, so I just turned on night light permanently (Windows PC) and am using warm led bulbs in the house... not a good strategy for people who needs accurate colors and all, but works for me. Smartphone and tablet too. I'm so used to it that when I see screens without it they look blue. xD
Oh, also, night mode everything. Saves power and is less glaring.
As for the test, yep, it's a led calibrated to go from blue all the way up to UV. The card has UV sensitive paint. The lamp goes blue because it's covered with something that absorbs and react to UV light. Most likely scenario too, since anti UV coating on all sorts of glasses is just the cheapest thing you can do in terms of treatment, and kinda obligatory. Interesting marketing bs though. I think there are actual legit glasses that block blue light and still look clear, not sure how it's done... but they are hella expensive.
On an annedoctal note.... even though I'm almost all day long in front of a screen, if I'm being honest, I really don't feel any difference regarding sleepyness, sleep cycles, circadian rhythm and whatnot. If there is any difference there, it's almost imperceptible to me in comparison to other stuff like physical exercise (huge effect), the last time I ate (medium effect) and caffeine (little effect). Of course, that's only valid for me, at this point in time. Different people will have different responses.
2
-
2
-
It seems like a problem in itself, nothing to do with who exploited it first for their own benefits, if it even is the case that republicans really exploited it first. I mean, it should be obvious that for such a thing, a neutral third party should be defining district lines based on rigid standards which have nothing to do with politics.
I'm not an US citizen. The first time I heard about this completely alien term (for me), Gerrymandering, was during Obama's second term while I was still going through my journalism course.
Don't remember it 100%, but it was an assignment on politics and international coverage... basically, class divided in groups trying to explain some of the weirdness in political systems of other countries. It was the first time I came across a clear explanation of representative democracy and how elections work in the US. I mean, I heard about it before, but it didn't fully register until the group assigned with US started trying to explain the whole deal.
My country has a direct democracy. There are no district divisions, what counts are individual votes. Which I do understand has it's share of problems, particularly around public opinion being swayed one way or another by the parties with most money to invest on propaganda and whatnot. But in US' case, with stuff like gerrymandering it seems representative democracy is hitting the other side of the problem it was designed to eliminate - the status quo having enough power to manipulate the system in order to remain in power, while not really breaking any rules.
I think that originally, please correct me if I'm wrong, representative democracies where built in such a way to give elected local representatives more power to chose the people he or she will be working with.... so that governance does not get completely tied up.
Also, so that the country gets divided in districts rather than states, to make representation more fair for local communities rather than one massive body like a state. Here, we elect state governors, senators, and city prefects, city and state lines define everything - there is no internal fragmentation inside states.
In any case, this seems a problem that has to be solved, but it's not gonna happen if it's defined as a problem of this or that party. As far as I understand, democratic candidates also made use of gerrymandering to elect some of it's politicians. So it has to be understood that the maneuver is anti-democratic, and the definition of districts needs to be made by non-partisan people or groups, in a pre-estabilished way that is not focused on politics.
I think that's easier than trying to eliminate the entire concept.
2
-
Very much agreed with the login bs... but schemes like these are only going to get more eggregious as time passes unfortunately, given the current state of privacy erosion. Oh well.
It's a great card with passive cooling for fullHD editing and whatnot, but for gamers specially, you'd probably wanna go with 1050 or 1050ti for the value proposition. FullHD gaming unhinged.
If you are going 4k editing, post production (sfx), gaming or stuff like high frame rate, VR and whatnot, then it becomes more of a problem...
Or perhaps an used last gen top of the line, whichever is cheaper.
Personally, I have no plans to replace my fullHD monitors and TV, so I'm aiming for a 1050ti or 1060 when prices comes down. Black Friday certainly didn't do it, but I'm not in a hurry... next year after the holidays will probably be it. My poor abused GT640 is just not doing it anymore. :P
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
Yeah... the way I think about the subject is like this:
Lab grown meat is incredible tech worth developing... but not for burgers or steak, but perhaps more for medical purposes.
For eating, even though it is plenty complex and an insanely hard pursuit... the stuff that seems to be worth looking into is reproducing stuff like taste, texture, flavor and whatnot, without the animal killing part. Or perhaps still with animal killing, but in a more sustainable cycle.
I've a feeling that even if lots of people won't admit, with time if you have the right flavor, texture and taste, it doesn't really matter all that much where it's coming from. Insects, fungi, plants, algae... whatever, right? What you essentially need is a tasty and varied source of protein.
It actually already doesn't matter much... most meat eating people already don't see where the red stuff they are cooking or frying comes from anyways. xD It'd probably be way harder to convince people if every single family was hunting and butchering their own pork, cows and chicken, but that's just not the case anymore.
It's still gonna be some autonomous driving hard level of convincing, but when humanity is staring at the precipice of extinction, and you don't really have options anymore, you'll gonna do with what you'll gonna do. :P
We've already made a few shifts for different reasons and people just had to deal with it. A few fruits that basically went extinct, sugar substitutes, a few preservatives and added substances that we came to realize was unhealthy, a few processes that also weren't very healthy eliminated altogetther. Not to mention all the crap people have been doing to their diets in the name of bunk lose weight fast promises and all that. xD
We arguably don't need to completely eliminate meat products from our diets anyways, just reduce it significantly. And for that, we don't even have to drastically change anything... back just a few decades ago red meat wasn't as available as it is today in huge parts of the world. We already have a huge backlog of recipes and whatnot to go for.
2
-
2
-
I guess the general argument is that playing fast is awesome, but by itself it gets tiring and boring fast for most people. It's like, it depends on context. If just speed was all that mattered, music would be pretty boring itself. xD
For most of the players I admire in the virtuoso space, the technical ability they have to play fast also shows that they can play plenty melodically and "with soul" or some other fuzzy term, so I never really got this "boring" argument.
Then again, I'm a failed guitar player myself, so the perspective is different. It's less raw impression, and more inspirational I guess? I can understand how most people are not looking for musical proficiency in the songs they listen to.
That's the whole thing about music. It's perfectly fine for people to only be looking for completely different things, like a song to dance and vibe to, or an artist that they connect better with. What I personally find exciting and fun in music might not be what others are looking for.
And to be honest, I also personally have different tastes. It's not like I only listen to shredders and virtuoso stuff too. I have more than a few technically goofy songs in my playlist. xD
2
-
I was going to make a long comment on this, but congrats FT, I think you covered almost everything in a way more civilized tone than my comment would have.
Just yeah... told ya so. Been saying this was exactly what was going to happen since this whole thing started.
I'll just perhaps add something from the other side, not an UK or EU citizen here. I'd like to thank Boris, Brexiteers and everyone who fell into the fantasy, for going ahead with it. This is bad for the UK, but could be good for several other nations. Because now, with all the break in deals and renegotiations going around, there are more opportunities for nations other than the UK and EU to snatch those businesses, from both sides. I hope my country or economic block can get some of that, we really need it. UK will survive fine being outside the EU, as a whole I mean, but like the piece already said - it's small businesses, workers, and the poorest part of the population that will suffer the most with all this.
Who will benefit from Brexit? The top 1% of course. Those who wanted less regulations to exploit workers more, those who wanted less regulations to cause more damage to the environment, those who wanted UK workers to be as exploitable as foreign workers, those who wanted less regulations in stock and financial markets so that they can implement more risky, more profitable stuff that citizens will end up paying for, monopolies trying to lock down the UK market from inside, businesses that don't want international competition... those are who will benefit from it all, at the cost of everything and everyone else. Here's another tip - if you look deep into some major Brexiteer figures, you will see their ties with these sorts of people. If you supported Brexit, you are basically a scam victim, just so you know. Better luck next time! 😉
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
Tragic, but I think the images already show what happened. This was a failure to fold and arm the parachute properly. Hope his family is consoled by the fact that he was doing what he liked.
You'll see in his last images that there was a lot of slack in his pilot chute. It wasn't supposed to be like that. That pilot chute is what pulls the main parachute open. But afaik, it should be attached in two different points... one is the harness, just so you don't lose it, and the other should be the opening mechanism for the main chute, which seemingly wasn't attached.
If you look closely, following the pilot chute line, there is something dangling there right in the middle.
That's the pin that would pull the main pack open, and release the chute. It was already disengaged, which means something else was holding the pack closed, I'm not sure what. Could be that they pre-packed the whole thing but didn't arm the pilot chute in place because it can pull open by accident sometimes, so they closed it with something harder to pull, and forgot to arm the pilot chute before the jump.
I also find weird how they didn't notice, but you know, heat of the moment and worries about cameras rolling... at that point there's a lot of adrenalin running and people make mistakes.
But perhaps I'm wrong, it's been almost 15 years last I folded a parachute, and it wasn't for BASE jumpers but a student model. I think the overall mechanism is the same though, you just don't carry a reserve chute because you wouldn't have time to deploy it anyways.
A current skydiver might make a better assessment.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
The saddest part of it all is that if all the money spent on all this bullshit went into just about anything concrete, out of a huge laundry list of things, it still wouldn't have made a dent in the problem, but at least it would have done something rather than nothing.
Build a single nuclear plant somewhere dependent on coal and fossil fuel sources, heck, pay for people working in fossil fuel related plants to transition to something else, put into an investment fund for newer types of clean energy research, invest into monitoring and boots on the ground enforcement of areas at actual risk in developing nations - or even give a paycheck to struggling families in the region that ends up working in illegal logging and mining because they have no other choice... I mean, f*ck, if you don't want the money to exit your business, invest internally in ways of offering your products in a less carbon emitting way, if at all possible.
It's like, did you think we wouldn't see this bs coming a million miles away? Services and businesses becoming "carbon neutral" overnight with no apparent changes to what you do? Of course it wouldn't happen.
You can bet your ass that if a company that was up until very recently denying the damages their operations are doing around climate change and environment, suddenly has a change of heart and overnight becomes a "carbon neutral" with almost no changes in it's structure, offerings, and no shock to their financial balance, it is likely bullshit. The same way that every single one of us will have to do several sacrifices in order to achieve some balance, this is even truer for corporations who have been profiting from carbon emitting operations and doing nothing up to now.
There are some stuff I just can't believe hasn't already happened yet... for instance, something as simple as standardizing all sorts of plastic containers in the food and beverage industry to make recycling and upcycling more feasible. It has been obviously needed for decades now, it's proven to work in some countries, industries have all the capabilities of doing it, and yet we are still not there... because of what? Because Coca-cola can't fathom changing the look of their products for fear of losing costumers? Because some fancy bottled water companies can only sell their fancy water for entitled costumers if it looks different from a regular water bottle?
And again... this still wouldn't make a dent on the several issues related to the industry. The pollution, the carbon emissions, the tons upon tons of plastic garbage this single side of industry produces which is now ending up in our bloodstreams in the form of micro plastics. It's like, this is not even the bare minimum that these industries should be doing, not only with climate change in mind but just consumer safety. It's a negative 1000 in a scale of things that should be done with achieving carbon neutrality at a positive million or so.
This is why I don't believe we'll be here for much longer. There are so many of these clear obvious routes we should've been taking the moment we knew about the problem, but here we are, still using financial resources to support scams and crap that either does nothing or worsens the problem because late stage capitalism and going after what is convenient and profitable even in the face of an existencial crisis...
I guess it shows humanity does not have a capability to be self sustaining after all, condemned not to outlast past apex predators. Think about it. Several species of mammals and animals in general will have lived for a longer stretch of time in this planet rather than us... and several more would if only we didn't show up and screwed things up for them. So much for "intelligent species"...
My current thinking is that we'll screw things up so badly that if our species even survive, we'll just be thrown back into our very beginnings and perhaps be given a chance to start over. We're not condemning the planet, we're condemning ourselves to a future of constant struggle because we couldn't moderate our current excesses. In a way, this is already the reality, but we've condemned ourselves to a future where the median getting worse and worse as time passes.
2
-
It gets 1000x worse than that... xD
Truly, I think the only things that got really better in comparison to microUSB are - physical connector robustness, and the fact that if the manufacturer followed the spec correctly, you are less likely to burn your device to a crisp. It can still happen, which would signal the manufacturer did not follow the spec correctly. :P Which is something that really happened early on when a whole ton of cable manufacturers didn't follow spec and released a bunch of generic USB-C cables on Amazon that were frying people's device to the point a Google engineer had to interfere and create lists of cables that followed spec properly, until things started being corrected a few years along the line. Louis knows all of that, I'm just writing a general comment here.
But back to spec, setting aside the horrible naming conventions and confusing nomenclature of the whole thing, which is a huge rant apart that I don't even have the energy to go after anymore.... the thing is that for every single new feature and new thing that USB-C, USB 3 and a above introduced to the thing... the USB-IF made everything optional.
Which was the major issue with USB 2 anyways, now amplified because there is so much more you can do with USB-C.
So, here we go. Your USB-C device and cables can allow for power to go through anywhere between USB 2.0 levels all the way up to charging full laptops per spec. Remember that USB-C is the connector standard alone, it doesn't preclude you from using USB 2.0 devices with it, which is another sh*t thing that is happening... a few of even Google's own phones have USB-C connectors to pass USB 2.0 power and data levels, so you can imagine the hellish landscape that this is for generic non branded devices, or that of smaller companies with products that aren't even computer related much. When you have huge companies like Google or Nintendo using the standard out of spec or in a way to purposely fool their costumers, how can you not expect smaller companies to abuse the opaqueness of it?
It could or could not support - video connectivity and/or pass through, data, x number of USB 2.0 or 3.0 extra devices (x being variable), a number of other peripherals and accessories such as ethernet connection and audio devices, HDMI connectivity of different versions and different resolutions+fps, and then we're getting into whole entire universe of things that power+data speed affects which I won't even get much into to prevent an aneurysm. HDMI, external monitors, external docks, drives, graphics... because you can have any combination of power going through and data speed, unless you buy something that has been tested and tried to work perfectly with the thing you are trying to connect it with, you are mostly SoL.
This tied to a practice of manufacturers, stores and the entire production chain not putting out detailed information on what the specifics are in how the standard was implemented, leads to the ridiculous need for reviewers to keep buying and testing every possible combination of devices, cables and peripherals to see what really works or not for the specific functions that someone might need.
Which is exactly the sort of thing standards were created to avoid.
Back when USB-C was being announced and introduced to the world, I didn't even care about the connector being reversible or being able to handle more power, couldn't give two sh*ts about that... the main promise and main thing I cared about is on making the standard a fixed standard. Requiring manufacturers to include all sorts of functionalities inside the device so that consumers are better informed about what you can do with it, and eliminate the huge mess and confusion that we already had with microUSB and USB 2.0 with stuff like OtG, MHL, and support for all sorts of other stuff. And the ads and marketing material for USB-C promised just that. And then USB-IF backtracked on all of that, taking further steps to make the whole thing even more confusing with bad nomenclature and optional adoption of everything the standard has in it.
It's because of this sort of sh*t that I think we need to start over, or just stick with proprietary stuff and avoid the hassle... and this includes other standards like Bluetooth. If supposedly universal standards will always keep opening up and accommodating for cr*p practices to be included opaquely to their definitions, at the cost of product clarity and being an anti-consumer thing obviously, for the sake of that sweet licensing money, what's the point anyways? It's a standard in name only.
2
-
Yeah see, that's the real problem with social media, and how it is now spread everywhere without any accountability and any responsibility on what it empowers people to do.
It's the same problem of weapons and stuff like heavy machinery and dangerous substances, down to more mundane things like alcohol and cars for instance. All of those can be very dangerous if spread uncontrollably on societies.
They can be used to harm others gravely, and social media has the extra problem of partial anonymity plus this degree of separation that makes people feel no empathy towards others. It's part of a problem in communications too, because people treat messaging and spreading information around differently in comparison to talking and discussing things live, face to face. I don't think most societies are prepared to understand the implications of things they do online, the harm they may be causing, how they come off on the other side, and how responsible they are for what they do.
And Vice puts this very well in place. See, yes, this is a matter of religion and culture in Pakistan, particularly in small villages with very conservative values, but it is also a problem with a nascent, ill equipped, and badly trained response force that does not understand their role there just yet, it seems.
It is better than having nothing for sure, but sounds like an agency hastily done as response to a problem that has people in leadership and workers that don't actually understand what they are there for, how to respond to calls, and what to do in specific cases. This type of response making personal judgement calls is one that often shows up when there is no policy or procedure in place, no training, no understanding of the role they are supposed to have as workers of this agency.
As pointed out, they are also flooded with cases and doesn't seem to have a framework to deal with cases in a timely manner.
And that's a recipe for injustice, particularly for minorities or underprivileged people.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
Good doc overall, but I'll have to comment on some sticking points there.
16:30 - this is either bs or a total misunderstanding on how herd immunity works. Also, the pandemic isn't over, and countries should act according to their own internal statistics, the response to pandemic should never be seen as something that can be uniformly applied in different countries as the disease affects different countries in different ways.
So, "the rest of the world is moving on" is bs. Parts of the world are only now loosening up measures, parts of it still keep a careful approach, and some countries are experience spikes right now... in fact, almost half the world is, particularly African nations. It's oversimplistic and inaccurate to say the rest of the world is moving on, and kinda dangerous to a point.
Herd immunity can be achieved in two ways - one by people catching the disease, surviving it, and being protected from it by developing antibodies, or with widespread effective vaccination campaigns. For the first one, since the first year of the pandemic, it has been well understood that natural heard immunity is not reliable for Covid-19 due to it's rate of mutation and the numbers of people contracting Covid-19 again not too long after recovering from a past bout - the reinfection rate.
Nowadays it's pretty clear to anyone who had multiple bouts of reinfection - getting the virus once is not much of a guarantee you won't get it again a couple of months later. I've been hearing multiple cases of people who got Covid 5, 6 times in the past couple of years.
So "China can't do so, they had no natural immunity" doesn't count because no country ever had reliable natural immunity. Natural immunity doesn't count for much in this pandemic, which is well shown in statistics. Or else the countries with more infected people would have naturally lowering of infection and death rates over these past couple of years, which just didn't happen.
Vaccinations are the way herd immunity can happen for Covid, which does show up in statistics and does work - and if that is the case being talked about... well, if we are to trust China numbers, which I'm not saying we should... but still, it's likely that Chinese vaccination numbers are well above those of the US - because that's the case for most developed and developing nations anyways.
Do I think China should be so radical about quarantine measures and testing? Can't say... not a Chinese citizen, don't know the situation there. It'd likely go that way because it's an autocracy that is trying to set an example for the world, it's government is set on becoming an example on how to fight a pandemic, and so the population will suffer to follow the mandate of the leadership. I totally agree with the assessment on politics there.
Everything is political when it comes to that. But then, this is yet another reason to believe the vaccination rates are high there, estimated to be around the 80 to 90% mark, is just that - you either take it or you are going against the government, you are lowering your social score, etc. Personal opinion though, I think with high rates of vaccination and basic protections in mind, governments can balance things out considering the economy at large, and the damages overbearing measures to protect against the disease can have. I'm right in between both extremes - we don't need too keep insane measures in place if the disease isn't spiking, but I also think declaring the pandemic is over and we don't need to use masks or limit crowded venues is not the right way to go too. I don't think many people understands this, but the pandemic is still spreading, mutating, and killing people worldwide, at faster rates than the common flu, still. We should be alleviating things now that vaccinations are available so that businesses, services and economies can recover, but we should have continued encouraging basic protection measures - because the risk is still there. A lot of people will die needlessly because of this total 180 that some governments are doing. The pandemic isn't over, people should still be wearing masks and taking more care in crowded spaces, but we don't need to close businesses up, stop events and concerts from happening, and not going out to enjoy ourselves anymore - because of the protections vaccinations give. But also, people with certain health problems and above a certain age should continue taking extra care of themselves, because the disease is still circulating, and will likely continue circulating in some variant or another for years - like the flu.
I can't talk for your average Chinese citizen, but one thing I can say - it's a good thing for the world that at least one nation is willing to take the pandemic this seriously. Reason being that, because a huge portion of western nations decided to just cease measures taken against the pandemic, we instead of getting into a new normal situation, just went back to old normal and decided to pretend these past years never happened, pretend that people are not still dying from it, pretend that we don't care anymore. And in the eventuality that another pandemic hits us, one that is even more deadly and even more virulent than this one, the country that went all the way into preventive measures this time will be the one poised to handle things better this next time - much like how South Korea and Japan handled this initially. Some countries had the upper hand, at least for a time, because the population was already used to taking preventive measures the rest of the world didn't. We would then really be following their example for survival. Think about that.
22:00 - While I do overall agree with the general conclusion, I don't think lots of those statistics can be read that simply or directly. The answer is - if China self imploded, it'd take the rest of world with it. Survivors would think fondly of a time the world was more interconnected and because of that we had more access to everything and more prosperity overall.
Economic global dependencies cannot be read simply by looking at the rates of imports and exports that a country has with another nation. A clear example of it is what is happening between Russia, Ukraine and the EU right now. I'm also gonna be oversimplifying things, but just to make it clearer... for instance, the fact that a country imports a natural resource from China doesn't affect only it - it affects the entire chain that subsequently also affects countries that do business with itself.
This is why things like a cut off/blockage/limitation of wheat production for export in Ukraine, or a reduction in production and exports of fertilizers in Russia, ends up affecting almost the entire world - because the country that needs these goods depends on them for processing and then their own exports and so on. For Ukraine and Russia it's already been this severe and they majorly export raw natural resources and primary sector products. China on the other hand exports products on all levels of processing... it's the largest country by far in exports of the primary sector, but it also exports products from secondary, tertiary and depending on how you interpret things, quaternary sector too. From Lithium mining all the way up to high end technological and industrial equipment, they export it all, and they dominate several of those sectors. It is a country with a fifth of the world's population after all.
On the other hand, independent on how successful the strategies will be (most will fail), the measures taken by several countries to become a bit less dependent on a globally interconnected economy also has it's own benefits. Humanity has grown exponentially over the years because of this globalization of the economy. But the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, an other catastrophes, ranging from very localized to widespread has shown us that the more interconnected we are, the more failure points that can bring the entire global economy down we created. I don't think strengthening independence and self reliance to be bad things per se, if it's not motivated by feelings of prejudice and unhinged nationalism that is, because it's a backup all countries should have. But there is so much naivete going around that I fear measures currently being taken will not only be ineffective, they'll also create more problems than solve them. It should also be noted that we are going through a global crisis right now that depends on high collaboration between nations to alleviate consequences and eventually solve - Climate Change. So there sure are questions about nations becoming less interdependent right now, at a time we likely need the reliance on high level diplomacy and cooperation to address an existencial threat. Is it worth becoming this divided and more independent from each other if this also makes it harder in the future for different nations to talk to each other when Climate Change effects are so severe we cannot survive without cooperation? Time will tell.
2
-
2
-
AI has almost f*ck all to do with the problem on Internet, social media and whatnot. AI is at most a new tool the real problem behind all of this will be using for future elections. It is exploitive, clickbait, and frankly stupid to classify things that way, and you guys know it.
It's the lack of regulation and control in the spread of lies and falsehoods that is the problem that is currently affecting democracies all around the world online, allied with a lack of willingness to classify a portion of the so called politicians and political parties for what they really are - organized crime using tactics from scammers, grifters, terrorist radical groups and religious extremist cults to get to power.
So, really, inside the Internet it's a lack of willingness to regulate it better, tied with unscrupulous criminals that use this fact to treat the Internet as their lawless playground, that is the point. This is directly tied to how much of people's daily lives have shifted towards the Internet, that is intrinsically tied to the last point.
I don't personally think there is a change in apathy towards authoritarianism, I think there is concerted effort by bad actors to disguise authoritarians for what they really are by manipulating information and creating bubbles around a fanatical base of followers so that they don't get information from outside the bubble.
As regimes takes over full control of information in their own nations and inside their own enclosed information bubbles, it's not that people become apathetic to authoritarianism, it's that through information manipulation and propaganda machine, the people cannot see the reality around them, they get a filtered version that does not let them see the authoritarian action happening.
It is true though that huge portions of ignorant populations confuse anti-establishment sentiment with authoritarianism, or are simply too ignorant to understand these concepts and the consequences of them.
But this is a problem that has always been there through our history. A portion of the population of all democracies will always be in favor of authoritarian regimes if it serves their purposes or matches their ideology or religion. What democracies have to worry about is not of their existence, but their influence in politics. Democracy is a system that was built to keep these people in check, but it's currently failing to do so, because it has not updated itself to face the fact that everything is migrating to an environment where law and regulations is having a hard time to keep up with. That's the key distortion and issue of modern democracies, and until it's addressed, we'll continue having problems.
2
-
What matters here is this - it's an old man with memory issues, or a man with no memory issues willing to destroy democracy in the US.
I'll be honest here - I never thought Biden was the best that the Democrats could come up with, I could come up with an entire list of people who I think is better than Biden including his vice president, and I wish he wasn't the candidate for the party last time, and this time too. I have a whole ton of problems with his politics, several of his political positions, and several things he has done and not done during his term.
And I also kinda hate how tons of people need to keep trumpeting about his non-accomplishments during his term because, and this is a personal opinion, I don't see many of those as good things.
It does not attend my progressive position, I don't think it attends democracy well, and I think others would've done better.
But let's be very clear about this here - no matter how flawed I consider Biden's politics to be, there is still a miles long chasm between him and Trump. Trump, doesn't matter how old or not, how lucid or not, how better or not his mental state, health and condition is in comparison to Biden, that guy I wouldn't vote for even if he was at the top of his game. I would vote for a dog before voting for him. I'd rather see the US without a president at all rather than having him there. I truly believe US democracy would be better served without a president than with him there. Everything about Trump points out to being the worst possible candidate for presidency in a democracy. If people want a dictatorship or a completely disfuncional system, that's a whole other matter. But for a democracy, I cannot think of a worst type of attitude and candidate. And so it's better to operate without guidance in comparison to having a guide that is pointing straight into the abyss.
So, this question is clear to me. I don't care if it's old bad memory Biden, if democrats replace him before the election, or some other alternative - what US democracy needs is Trump and MAGA out of politics. Whatever it takes.
Because what people fail to understand, is that what Trump and MAGA truly are, is not politics, should not be considered opposition or politics, should not have room to grow inside a democracy - because it is anti-democratic.
This isn't about ideology, isn't about right wing or left wing, isn't about conservatism versus progressivism, about religious views or whatever. This is about democracy versus non democracy. Trump and MAGA are not political positions, they are a scam to take power and money from the people and system, at the cost of a democratic system.
What they do is not politics, it's crime, scam, grifting. It's treason and an abolition of a democratic state.
And until justice, politics and people do not understand this very clear and simple fact, you will continue being victims. There's no way around this. You either realize you are getting scammed, or you continue being a victim of it.
See that I don't have this same level of issue with regular republicans, right wing, conservatives and hardcore status quo defenders. Those are my political opponents, but it is their right to defend their positions inside a democracy. Trump and MAGA are just not that. They operate outside the scope of democracy. There is no argumentation or discussion to be had between a democratic party and these people. They don't want discussion, they want violence, war, and imposition of will by force. That's not democratic, that's authoritarianism. Totalitarianism even. Rule by theocratic mandate.
And the real problem US is having now is that politics, justice, democratic institutions and whatnot are failing to understand this. That justice system overzealousness, sluggishness to act, and lack of swiftness is acting against the best interests of the country. It is completely ridiculous to think the US will end up with a criminal president who pardons himself in order to take over democracy and promote his dictatorship in place. It is completely ridiculous to think he was already a president once, and that people still failed to understand the problem with that, and act in some way to stop this madness from happening.
2
-
Makes sense to me. I think this isn't about making people who love Tokyo to leave there.. it's about giving an extra incentive for those who want to leave Tokyo instead. After all, 10000 bucks wouldn't cover a whole lot. Moving can get pretty expensive.
But I also heard of other japanese governmental programs that are renting homes extremely cheap in remote areas for families. Particularly in towns that the population has declined to dangerous levels, making it hard to justify keeping up basic service.
For those who don't know, Tokyo metropolitan area has the biggest population in the world.
But Tokyo itself does not have the most, nor it's the most dense... still, it's pretty high up there, mostly losing in some statistics to cities in China and India.
If someday I realize my dream of living there... I wouldn't want to live in Tokyo. I'd want to live somewhere between 1 to 2 hours by train... Chiba, Saitama, somewhere along those lines. xD
That's ideally. But if not, I guess I also wouldn't mind too much living in other places as long as it was relatively close to a big city and I had fast Internet speeds. xD The rest, Internet shopping would do. :P
I'd highly advise tourists to visit more of the inaka, don't just go to Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka. Japan's countryside is so beautiful...
2
-
That sh*t right there is why I understand the calls to defund the police in the US.
It'd be an unthinkable proposition, if it wasn't for the fact that because of structural failures in how police is working in the US these days, the concept of what police is became completely distorted. Numerous examples on how things should not be done, no immediate corrective measures taken in completely flagrant cases, it starts feeling like it's better for the "service" itself not to be there at all.
No one wants to be left without an actual police force, but this is the truth for lots of citizens already. They not only neither serve nor protect, but they also abuse their power to harass and play their twisted power fantasies against innocent citizens.
The allowances being given to any public power over private data and mass surveillance turns any institution effectively into judge, jury and executioners. It leaves citizens defenseless and a constant victim of 24/7 unwarranted judgement by people who likely have no rights and most of the times no higher moral ground to do so. It becomes a perfect job for wannabe legal abusers, people trying to find a way to practice violence and harass others with state sanction.
It'd be bad enough if it was done in some perfect ideal way, because effectively a lack of privacy leads to a lack of freedom, but it's exponentially worse when it's done in arbitrary, illegal and inconstitutional ways like that.
2
-
I think the other issue we have with stuff like an anti-vaxxer movement is just on how ill prepared current society is for mass communication.
You see, I think a small percentage of the world's population will always have some treats in themselves - like paranoia, extreme skepticism towards estabilished science, extreme gullibility towards any sort of denialist campaign, naturally wanting to go against trends, etc etc.
Problem is, mass global communication contributed to amplify the reach of those people, just as it contributed to amplify the reach of others, and that sort of mentality gets stronger and fully realized once you can form a group around it.
So you have flat earthers, anti vaxxers, climate change deniers, the chemtrail people, etc etc etc deeply entrenched into their own communities taking up these ideas as personal crusades because it becomes part of their identity or something.
In the past, without deeply entrenched online communities like those, you'd still have people with tendency towards that sort of mentality, but because they are far and few between, they had more opportunity to learn and change the mentality by themselves because they didn't form communities around it. There just wasn't enough people around to muster support around something like that. The Internet, it's reach, and it's freedom has arranged a safe meeting space, funding capabilities, and recruitment agency role without the usual filter of social norms and unwritten rules of societies.
It has also amplified how much information we actually get, so we are constantly barraged by information that often times is perhaps not to our best interests. Most of we never learned how to filter it, we're figuring out by ourselves, and I think there are lots of problems stemming from not knowing what to do with all that.
Anyways, great job with the video... I think we'll have to keep putting these things up in the hopes of the content reaching people who needs it the most somehow.
2
-
Heh, such a stupid move... and I used to think Democrats were going to put someone smarter than Trump on these matters.
Biden is still better than putting Trump back, but not by much given most of his policies coincide so well with Trump. Worse yet, it seems to be the ones that matter the most.
US has plenty of money to absorb the damages this trade war continues doing, but it's the American public that will pay for this. And that will become a very pressing issue overtime.
To be clear, the only reason why EVs are getting this sort of crazy tariffs is because for the most part - they don't matter. EVs failed to catch on, it remains a niche market, there will be no "we don't have enough to attend demand", so Biden can use this sort of measure to appease dumb local manufacturers, international brands, jingoists, and whatnot.
See, I don't care much about the next failures of "bringing jerbs back" and the absurd amounts of money US government is yet again sinking in industrial complexes and initiatives that will never go as well as idealists thinks it will. I guess the Trump era trade war crap wasn't enough of a lesson for people to learn, what with the failed Foxconn panel assembly plant and others, but sure, I guess the US can keep dreaming about becoming independent from exports and whatnot.
It'll be a costly lesson on how the US currently stands on global trades, it's own insatiable consumerism that's hard to be attended with different strategies other than what it already has, how diversifying sources with different nations will have it's own set of troubles sure to come soon enough, how US industries have become incapable and are completely outdated to compete in a global and even local scenario, and so on. Really, in technological terms, the US might as well start making pottery or oak barrels to compete with Chinese mass production.
The key issue I see there is that because all of this China anti-sentiment that I see pretty much everywhere in US society, including in democratic and progressive circles, needs addressing. Biden is worried about getting re-elected, but the strategy is a reflection of jingoism after all.
There is very little public understanding on how much the US market is highly dependent on Chinese exports, logistics, and general ability to mass produce enough products to attend demand in the US. Apple itself will be learning this soon enough with their industry diversification strategy. You'll see what I mean. It is not easy to find countries in conditions similar to China to work with worldwide. And if you spread around things too much into different nations, with different cultures, different politics, different starting points and whatnot - it's just that much harder to deal with.
There seems equally to be a very bad misunderstanding on how much Chinese money has already taken over parts of US businesses inside the US itself.
This is probably the main reason why China isn't strongly reacting to these trade war provocations just yet, as it didn't do much during the Trump era too. Trump and Biden might think they are doing much there, but ultimately it'll amount to nothing.
The other reason apparently is that China is just smarter than current US. It can't afford to lose it's main market as this would throw the country back years if development and progress. Difference is, China would likely still survive, with it's own internal market and International markets other than the US. The US itself is the one I'm not sure would survive. China would be losing a huge chunk of it's exports market, which is bad, so it'd have to lower production and try exporting more to other nations. The US would be losing it's source for a whole ton of stuff outright. That quite a different issue.
As much as people justify from whatever angle - spying, security, jerbs, blahblahblah poor quality Chinese products, and all these things that have cropped up over the years, none of this matters when you start looking at numbers, at the macro scale scenario.
Current China, like it or not, from a good and bad perspective, is a country with an authoritarian regime that was shaped, has developed, and raised from a poor nation, financed by developed nations businesses, exactly to be the perfect center for production to developed nations. Optimistic view, these countries helped each other one with money the other with production power. Pessimistic view, China rebuilt itself to be the dirty exploited backyard factory of developed nations.
I know lots of people will get angry with what I'm saying, it is a personal opinion and view, but that's the way I've come to see it after reading a lot on the subject. I'm oversimplifying here and it's a way more complex topic that deserves a deeper analysis, but we have to start from somewhere.
You see lots of Americans and international viewers criticizing China for a whole bunch of stuff, from human rights violations, poor environmental practices, stealing intellectual property, making cheap copies of stuff, and all this crap that has been done over the years, keeps doing it without realizing that all of this has been done in the name of exports to developed nations, at the behest of "beloved" western corporations. The line between what is the CCP's fault, and what was inherited from the demands of western corporations, is very very blurred.
Accepting shallow and biased explanations that a bunch of things happens because China has a communist totalitarian dictatorship is just as hare brained as accepting Apple's explanations for suicides in Foxconn factories. Oh, we keep an eye on it. It's not as bad as it looks. We care for our workers. Yadda yadda.
2
-
I mean, really, where do people think this sort of late stage capitalism government subsidation strategy designed to choke international competition comes from? From communist ideals? Of course not. It comes from the place that seems to be complaining about it now, after having taught and exported it for decades.
In fact, this is what China did at US corporations orders against other nations for several decades now. China dominates in mass production of several products because American corporations leading factories there knew exactly what to do to kill competition coming from other nations.
But now that China learned how to do all of those things and are using the tactics to help themselves rather than obey master's commands, it suddenly is a problem.
Likewise, technology transfer and development, China having it's own brands and businesses most of which were raised from industrial complexes that were manufacturing everything for export, and some of them becoming more competent than it's US based counterparts - where do people think this comes from? And why, despite not presenting any proof, these companies keeps getting labeled as a security risk or spying risk, when there are so many other ways for the Chinese government or anyone else for that matter to get access to similar data without having to involve the private sector for it?
It's all a smearing campaign because the US is worried that, after years of using China and other nations as their factory backyards that used to operate in appalling industrial revolution conditions to attend the insatiable demands of US markets, now that they've taken all that to transform itself into an independent exporting nation, they fear that China doesn't need US interference anymore.
But you reap what you sow.
I'm not really saying that China is innocent in all of this, but people have to keep in mind the whole historical context here. And I think the problem with international relations and public opinion on these matters is exactly how ignorante average people are on this relationship. People should be a bit more aware how weird the situation is when politics keeps labeling another nation as an enemy or rogue state, at the exact same time you look around your home and 90% or more of stuff you have in there was made in China, or made in other Asian nations that are subsidiaries of a Chinese corporation. This weird incongruency points out to a very deep gap in understanding the reality of the situation. It should cause some extreme cognitive dissonance, but it has been so extremely normalized up to this point that no one is stopping to think about it.
There are some very simple exercises to think about where this trade war is leading to. Pick everything in your home that was made in China or made in other Asian nations by a Chinese company (pro-tip - if it comes anywhere from Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, and other developing or poor Asian nations, it's likely a Chinese company subsidiary), you pick those, box it, and try living your everyday life without using it. And I should say I'm probably cheating in your favor here because I'm not adding stuff that was made with China made industrial machines, I'm not including stuff that has components made in China, I'm not forcing it to be hard local with everything done only in western or allied nations. See if you can survive. Another pro-tip - this probably includes all electronics.
So, what would smart international politics look like in this sort of scenario, you may ask? Just plain diplomacy. Countries like the US, and several other developed western nations, have this complete discrepancy between trade volume and actual diplomatic relations. They are completely interdependent these days, but they don't talk much on a high politic level. And this is bad.
Closing doors and playing trade wars might look like it's attending voters best interests, but it's only attending prejudicial views based on historical ignorance. Leaders in these countries should've been in close talks for a way longer period of time up to today. Turning back to a strategy of isolationism is just purely regressive, if not basically suicidal. It's slow motion nuclear war.
But you know, humans gonna human. I'm not sure if there is an ideal solution for all of this, because even strategies with a wider outlook might backfire because of stupid people.
2
-
The only thing weird about Marie Kondo afaik is... the sudden explosive fame.
Because other than that, what she does is basically japanese spring cleaning with lots of discipline, method and persistence to it.
She organized and put up a method to several concepts that are not exactly new, and not exactly unheard of. Minimalism, buddhist/shinto/japanese cultural philosophy, stuff like "mono no aware", "wabi-sabi", as well as the general idea of objectiveness, simplicity and organization for a purpose.
It's interesting how you kinda see this peppered through other types of japanese enterprises... like moving business with a methodical, organized and straightforward method of packing up and transporting furniture, or a demolition company that tears an entire building from the bottom up in a very organized fashion, or how traditions like thanking electronics, home appliances and other inanimate objects for their service still persist in modern Japan (this, btw, comes from Shinto, specifically the animist aspect of it).
But I guess the weird part is how many people liked, got convinced of it, and how many people Kondo convinced that this is a good way of doing things. Not that everyone has to like it or do it like that, but it's always been kinda there, and she became a vehicle or spreading the philosophy.
I'm not sure about turning this into a cult, because radicalism should go against the entire idea from start, but for the most part it isn't a bad thing.
2
-
It'll come in the year 3000, after tens of thousands of prototypes, and by then we'll be flying in car-plane electric hybrids that costs 1/10th of the price which we won't be purchasing ourselves, but rather getting service through some sort of subscription plan.
Joe didn't mention the biggest and most complicated part that I don't think Dyson can ever solve by themselves: software. The highly protective and proprietary nature of the company might work well for purely hardware stuff with just a bit of firmware/software like hair driers, vacuum cleaners and whatnot... and they've managed to do something decent afaik for their robot cleaner, but not without charging a price that the competition beats with better performance to boot. Their robovac is great, don't get me wrong, but it was a dud because it's more expensive than the most expensive models of the competition, and it performs worse than those in several key points.
Well, it's not that different from Dyson's other products. Too expensive to justify for most people, even though I acknowledge that it's justified because of R&D.
An EV car is on a whole other scale though. The car part, despite being hugely complex and an extremely difficult problem to solve by itself, can still potentially be a very small problem in comparison to software. This works against Dyson's philosophy of doing everything by themselves and keeping everything proprietary.
Unless Dyson is willing to shell waaaay more money, and I'm talking an order of magnitude more money, and outright purchasing entire companies, they will not be able to compete with what other current EV manufacturers are using right now, let alone by the time these cars starts coming out. Or perhaps they are not thinking of going the autonomous or semi-autonomous route? Which if that's the case, then the project is pretty much DoA. It'll be luxury EV for rich people who wanna drive cars by themselves.
The other big snag I always see on Dyson stuff is that they invest too much on hardware perfection peppered with small but significant key innovations... which is a perfect target for copying and scalling back down a notch to produce an acceptable product at a fraction of the cost. It has happened with almost all Dyson products so far. So it ends up being more likely that anything Dyson does that reinvents the wheel on EV cars, will get taken apart and the better parts copied or reproduced half way and incorporated by other brands.
Software is one major reason why I put Google above almost everyone else... not in terms of pure EV, but on the set that mixes EV with autonomous car tech. Google/Waymo instead of reinventing the car, - which is a highly difficult process and hard to beat traditional car manufacturers despite Tesla's success - partnered with names like Chrysler, Lexus, Toyota and Jaguar to instead focus on software alone, managing to cover a good range of vehicles by just retrofitting them. After the initial troubles of creating these retrofitting steps, they can just let these partner companies figure out how to make better and better EVs, while they keep working on the software part.
They've been in this game the longest, and their software is most likely years ahead of anyone else. And since it's a partnership with potential for expansion (right now Waymo is looking at trucks too), the interests are more for it to move forward rather than competition wanting to take it down. It's more like a partnership to move foward together than one trying to replace or outpace the other.
And it's not that I like this a lot too... I'd rather have at least half a dozen companies actively competing on the software side. Competition would work better to foster stuff like privacy protections, general security, and take us off the reliance on a single company to do autonomous driving the right way. But as things are going now, I'm not seeing anyone even close to Waymo level. Google started working on this 5 to 10 years ahead of the competition, they've been quietly testing things for much longer than anyone else, and now they also kinda quietly launched the first very limited and very small real life service. It might not look like much because it doesn't make a splash in news like others do, but the plan for me just feels WAYMO solid than others... cough
It's not only about the track record and quiet nature, it's about the partnerships, the long term plans, the roadmap per se, the careful and even at times counterintuitive marketing strategy.
It ends up feeling more realistic to say one day you'll wake up and learn that Waymo is offering autonomous car driving in your neighborhood to try right now, rather than any other company doing the same.
Two cents.
2
-
I'll write this one last time because I'm tired of this bullshit and tired of explaining this to people.
The superficial, ignorant, and quite frankly poorly analyzed dychotomy between economy and health is shallowminded, myopic, and an excuse by politicians to cave in to public pressure at best, and at worst a way to scapegoat and skirt responsibility towards the citizens for harsh but important decisions that politicians have the responsibility, power and were elected to do.
The real alternatives in the game are: you make the shutdown, less people get infected, less people die, and perhaps more importantly, you have a shorter period of emergency, overburdened hospitals, overburdened medics and nurses, etc.
Or, if you don't make a shutdown and chose to manage things as you go, using factors like numbers of available ICU beds, unreliable statistics, tests or whatever to relax measures and open up businesses at every opportunity you can, what you really get is a wave of having to open up and shutdown every 14 days or so, which ends up causing even more businesses to shut down, and even more people to go unemployed, because opening and shutting down everything again and again has extra costs which businesses are not prepared to handle. But more importantly, it makes the pandemic stay indefinitely. There is no respite because you don't let the number of infected cases go down, so it only keeps spreading and spreading.
And then, for businesses, it causes instability, which is worse than just taking the bad news upfront. It becomes the new reality instead of a temporary situation, which makes less people risk going out, spending, return to regular business. It is the domestic violence victim that keeps denying to take the ultimate decision because she cannot believe the problem is as serious as it obviously is, until it kills her.
People cannot live on false hope, it's better for businesses that cannot adapt and survive long term to close sooner than later, and give room for the businesses that can adapt to this new reality, as harsh as it may sound, it is better for the economy in general.
But of course, politicians are either too ignorant or too worried with votes to realize that.
You don't need to trust me, just look at the rest of the world. Countries that closed sooner and adopted harsher shutdown measures are mostly out of it, or at the very least enjoyed a full month or so of reopening. Countries that are wishy washy about measures have only prolonged the crisis. I am very sorry for business owners, employees, and people who are suffering with lockdown measures, but there is no option there. People who keep believing in this bullshit that it's necessary to open up the economy and relax lockdown measures sooner to "save the economy" will regret this later on, and it will cost your country multiple thousands extra preventable deaths too. Mark my words.
2
-
Awesome stuff Chris! xD
I still don't really know what was the first PC I've ever used... I know it had BASIC in it, it was just a hefty oversized keyboard that ran software through a connected K7 tapedeck, used a regular CRT TV as monitor.
It was kinda similar to a Commodore 64, but the shape was a bit different, it had a grey-ish blue color to it, re-branded to the brazilian market. Perhaps it was a TRS-80 Color Computer. Don't quite remember it having any colors though. xD
I only remember the Zaxxon 3D game, and how my dad used to have several tapes worth of stuff (he worked with computers from the dawn of it, starting with valves, passing through punch cards, and so on).
But this was back in mid 80s, I was still a kid (remembering that back then Brazil used to get tech several years late in comparison to the US or UK), and I was just too young to actually do something with it other than trying to play a few games.
I only started dabbling with programming way late when we got a PC XT with some phosphorous green monitor. My father taught me DBase III Plus and Clipper, and I think one of the first serious things I made in it was a costumer database and receipt printer for a home based game rental thing I made with friends. xD
The SNES had recently been released, so this is probably back in 91-93 or something. Good ol' days.
2
-
I gotta be honest... at those sizes, I'd rather move away from Tokyo and face the commute. xD
But I'm not opposed to small apartment living... quite the opposite, I'm opposed to huge houses.
Just that my comfort zone seems to be at least 4 to 7x that area space. xD
And that's considering I grew up in a pretty big house with pretty big lawn space...
I still couldn't handle living in such a cramped space because I wouldn't be able to keep some of my hobbies that do occupy some space, so I'd need a separate storage or office area, which I dunno if it'd make much sense renting two difference places rather than just renting a single bigger place.
Then again, if I was working full time and didn't have the time for most of my hobbies anyways, I guess this factor wouldn't matter much. Just a place to crash, that are is good enough.
Speaking of which, I have a semi-related question. I know people with very low budget and some extreme situations will end up practically living in manga cafes, extremely tiny apartments that can be even tighter than what Greg has shown, and some other... hmm... interesting adapted stuff.
Is it common though for those tiny executive hotels to rent rooms for monthly living and stuff like that? Or this isn't allowed? I know there are share houses in Japan which are pretty common for foreigners living there. But there seems to be always be a separation between residential living space and spaces dedicated for tourism.
I'm saying this because it's kinda common practice here where I live for small local hotels to alternatively rent room in a monthly regimen. Big hotel chains won't do it, but small local hotels often do.
2
-
Further explanation and a few potential corrections, this is a good explainer in general.
If nothing has changed on the end to end encryption algorithm that WhatsApp uses, the example given by Dagogo shouldn't happen... the stuff WhatsApp collects, as explained in the current privacy policy, is metadata - meaning all the stuff that can be extracted from your usage OUTSIDE of chat content.
This is what was explained in the video - time you message people, contact list, the mobile device you are using, IP, avatar image, and stuff like that.
Now, it could be that WhatsApp is also collecting links and whatnot from messages... I'm not sure how the API works to fetch images and whatnot, so perhaps only plaintext is really protected, but the privacy policy didn't explicit this part, there's reason to worry.
Brian Acton, one of WhatsApp co-founder, is the one who left WhatsApp first by the end of 2017, denounced Facebook's increasing pressure to interfere with WhatsApp operations.
He didn't join Signal, he left WhatsApp in 2017 and co-founded the Signal Foundation, a new venture that is there to fund Signal's operations. It's a non-profit explicitly formed to fund Signal Messenger LLC, which is the company that controls the Signal Messenger app and replaced the formely known Open Whisper Systems.
Jam Koum, the other WhatsApp co-founder, dropped out of the company later on in 2018. I couldn't find anything about what he's doing now, but the trajectory isn't as brilliant. He announced he was cutting ties with WhatsApp and Facebook with similar reasons as Brian, but he actually had and kept Facebook shares. Seems he was also a Trump supporter at least for a period of time, I dunno if he still is.
Now, yes, Facebook is gonna milk this cow as much as possible, and the online economy of some countries have become so entangled with WhatsApp that people are likely not gonna shift massively.
I'm brazilian, so I can only talk about my own country... but do understand, this isn't just about a choice. Here in Brazil, the absolute vast majority of businesses have WhatsApp numbers to get in contact with. You'll see it printed out in fliers, advertisement campaigns, signs, billboards, business cards and whatnot. Internal business communication is often done via WhatsApp, documents are sent through it, some businesses operate solely on it. You have automatic business bots taking requests, all sorts of stuff.
The only thing WhatsApp still didn't implement but I heard there were several attempts and tests already is putting the entire online store inside the app.
Given all that, you can see how it's gonna be hard to move away from the platform. And to make things worse, Facebook and Facebook Messenger are also still highly popular here, with Facebook Marketplace getting increasing traction despite all the privacy advocates warnings and all the scandals that Facebook is facing in the US and other countries.
Our legislation was supposed to be mirroring GDPR to a point, but for whatever reason the new privacy policy is being imposed to us too... so I dunno if Facebook found a way around, or our legislative bodies still didn't wake up to it.
Also, Dagogo is right that this has been happening for a while now, we just don't know the extent of it and exactly for how long each and every part of it is going.
As for what triggered the annoucement, it's very likely that recent requirements from Apple in upcoming iOS updates is what forced Facebook and WhatsApp to disclose exactly what sort of data they are collecting.
Evidenced by Facebook protesting months ago against exactly Apple demanding developers to submit what user data the apps collect.
So, not only Facebook and WhatsApp knew full well what they were doing, they wanted to keep it hidden from users, and they protested against Apple when the company said this had to be transparent. F*cking dodgy corporation, I hope it gets dismantled with the monopoly trials.
Ok, given all that, if you are able to jump ship, what are the options?
The easiest one to go to is Signal, as pointed out.
It's a more barebones looking app, but it actually has most features WhatsApp offers.
Plus the company has proven time and time again that it really is commited to user privacy... there haven't been problems on that front, and they are very security and privacy oriented.
Telegram is also another option, but Telegram had a few privacy and security related problems in the past, including one in the very recent past, and the solution just isn't as robust as Signal is.
There are also several other solutions, and it often depends on what exactly you are looking for. I suggest starting from this chart here:
https://www.securemessagingapps.com/
It's a pretty great summary of things to consider regarding security and privacy, and points out the apps that ticks most boxes.
And just in case you are also looking for alternatives to social networks like Facebook and Twitter, search for Fediverse.... unless you are a Trump supporter and/or conspiracy theorist. If so, do you own f*cking research bitch. The Federated Universe will probably isolate you and won't take your shit.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
Brazilian here!
So, just to comment on some stuff about this.
I'm fairly sure that whatever model of governance, sources of information, and general political strategy Trump is following... Bolsonaro pretty much directly imported for his government. There are all these small signs of evidence here and there that Bolsonaro's politics were coordinated outside the country... it's not just that Bolsonaro was a Trump fan, there are too many similarities and weird cultural mistranslations to be just trying to copy things. I think this needs to be investigated further by international bodies for the sake of democracies all around the world.
The fact that we are a newer democracy might be exactly what put us in a better position to fight against Bolsonaro's attempt to reinstate military dictatorship down here... in general, because we got back our democracy more recently, it seems institutions, laws, and general population sentiment rejected the idea more strongly - even though we had a good number of fanatics and crazy people calling for a military take over.
"For Brazil, China is the main trade partner, to the US, China is a major antagonist".
Erm... sorry, but China is the 3rd biggest trade partner to the US too. :P It's not a major antagonist to us though.
Brazil being a developing nation with less global trade partners is more dependent on Chinese imports and exports, that is true. But you know... we'd welcome more trade relations with all other nations to reduce this dependency. :D
There is another major historical difference between Brazil and the US that is often not brought about in international media that I'll just leave here. We both had a bad stint regarding environmentalism and fight against Climate Change with our past far right governments, but it's always good to mention that Brazil has been on the forefront of fight against Climate Change for longer, whereas the US only joined climate talks more recently in history.
For those who don't know or just weren't born yet, the series of talks that culminated in the Paris Agreement started decades ago in the Earth Summit back in early 90s in Rio de Janeiro. International press seems highly focused on Paris Agreement and to a point other historical events like Kyoto Protocol, but I find it super weird how it's often not mentioned that this entire movement started with the Earth Summit that had multiple talks happening in Rio de Janeiro in the early 90s.
There has been lots of talks about the Amazon forest burning down due to Brazilian government negligence, which is fair and a reason for worry, but I just find it weird how little has been talked that not only Brazil has been participating in Climate talks for way longer than most developed nations, we are also way ahead of several other nations in some things like renewable power generation. Just look at this chart:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-electricity-fossil-nuclear-renewables?country=OWID_WRL~CHN~IND~USA~GBR~FRA~AUS~SWE~ZAF~JPN~BRA
It's not that I think it's ok we let the Amazon burn, that we can't do more, or that Bolsonaro's term wasn't catastrophic for Climate Change and our environment... but you know, sometimes it's infuriating to hear International press saying the US is on the forefront of Climate Change talks when I quite remember the Bush administration refusing to participate in talks, Obama participating but not actually doing much about it, and then Trump getting out of the accord altogether.
It's also infuriating how during Bolsonaro's administration there was this high focus on Bolsonaro's term and the fires in the Amazon that painted Brazil as some evil country that was making Climate Change worse, overlooking the fact that we've historically been in Climate Change talks from the beginning, and that we're a country with one of the highest percentages of renewable power globally.
Anyways, all of this aside, I hope Lula and Biden can have a good conversation that will turn out in better agreements and better relationships for good things to come. Other than economic and trade reasons, both countries need to put their heads together to strengthen democracy and reduce wealth disparity in both nations.
2
-
On the simulation hypothesis, I think I'm more on Henry's side - that is, I don't think it's real - but on both sides when saying - it doesn't really matter. No control on it, it's outside our reach anyways, so you live life the same way.
But to further expand on the thought experiment itself, there's also determinism.
This is yet another philosophical view on things that, in a way, is related to the simulation theory, but goes even further into basics. It's not reliant on we living in a simulation but rather reduces existence itself into a series of pre-determined events, in the sense that there is no free will, because no one has control of anything.
Ultimately, much like simulation theory, it doesn't really matter how hard you think about it, how much energy you put into it, there still isn't much you can do about, really.
It's just... interesting to think about. And it also created one favorite series of mine - DEVS. xD Much like simulation theory created The Matrix, which is also one of my favorites.
2
-
Great exposition Kyle...
I think it's really hard for people not familiar with Japanese culture to really understand the size of the loss there, because modern western societies don't value community as much as Japanese society anymore. Japanese urban centers are also going that way.
But it's even worse than it might seen. Particularly for those small towns close to the plant.
Small towns in Japan, lots of them have an entire identity to themselves, they have particular traditions, particular cultures, community practices, celebrations, etc - and there is a strong bond formed between people living there that goes a bit beyond just - everyone "knows" everyone else...
And so, when you have a disaster like this happening, it's like the whole died, even in cases no one individual actually died.
I hope Japanese politics listen to reason and do the right thing there, though I don't have any trust in Japanese politics these days anymore.
2
-
While this is immediately good for the employees involved and Uber can go you know what, everyone probably sees the ultimate problem in all of this. Uber paying minimum wage and sick pay makes it... more like a taxi service.
And if there's legal precedent for something like Uber, you basically have legal precedent for the entirety of the Gig Economy. It depends really if this will go the way Uber is saying it will... limited to a few early adopters - or if the interpretation applies widely to all Uber drivers, which would be catastrophic.
Honestly, I never liked the whole thing... sorry fans, personal opinion. As much as people criticized "old services" like taxi cabs, hotels, regularly employed delivery and whatnot, often with reason - but not because of the economic model but rather old vices and problems -, from the beginning this whole gig economy thing sounded to me like just another way to avoid workers' rights, welfare and whatnot to cheapen wages, cheapen service prices, enter in an unfair competition position, and like... f*ck the estabilishment bro talk or something.
Problem is, there's no magic, the stuff the gig economy is leaving behind to finance itself is important stuff that has been conquered over years of workers efforts, unionization and legal battles. It's worker's rights, stuff like minimum wage, healthcare, sick leave, etc etc. It's all this stuff that regulates the market, eliminating all of this by saying "we're not employing or providing any service directly, we're just the messengers, don't shoot us". Of course this would eventually go wrong. The whole thing was built for failure. The profit mode is exploitation and getting around workers' rights.
But now that entire countries let these gig economy corporations get the size they did, you cannot undo the whole thing without hurting a whole ton of people. Lots and lots of people who would be unemployed otherwise relying on gig economy stuff to make a few bucks... less than a living but at least something.
And let me tell you, if it doesn't stop with this ruling, without a profit mode for these companies, what they'll do next is just start firing people left and right until and if they can keep in operation... they might just close the thing altogether. If they don't do the Facebook in Australia dance and just shut down entire cities and countries altogether.
Because you need to follow the logic/money on this. Uber undercuts Taxi service by a large margin because they can pay little to drivers and take a cut. In comparison to a cab service, they've eliminated the biggest costs of operation for themselves - no minimum wage, no worker related rights other than their development team.... it's almost like business laundering. A Taxi service that only pays for the PR and operational side of itself... every driver for themselves, you only get scraps and deal with that.
If the company needs to start paying minimum wage and sick pay, the money needs to come from somewhere, and it'll be from costumers. Uber will need to up the prices of rides to a point that taking a cab might become the same price or even cheaper. Should be cheaper considering how much Uber spends on advertisement, development and whatnot.
I dunno how things are in UK, but here where I live, for the most part Taxi services woke up, started offering their services on apps, and are trying to match ridesharing prices. I know there are a few that are actually cheaper than Uber.
Arguably, Uber has already done enough damage to regular Taxi services to avoid being overtaken overnight... but you know, it's not gonna go well for them if they have to ramp up prices to cover employee costs.
But hey, another modern story of "modern" services trying to overtake pre-estabilished ones by taking shortcuts that would obviously create problems in the future. Gig Economy, social networks acting like news networks, mass private data selling as the new currency, "free" services where you pay with your data, and so on... all of those things will eventually catch up with us, and then the damage will be unavoidable.
2
-
I don't think people will understand that the exact same sources of information that ended up with one of the shootings, the Walmart case, are the exact same Mr. No Hate president there sir uses every single day everyday to telegraph his tweets and his crap.
You can bet that the fingerprints of the terrorist from Walmart case will be all over the exact same websites and news sources that Trump considers credible sources of information because it's aligned with his ideas and that of his supporters.
They are also the same sources of information that are currently blaming it on gaming and "on the Internet", using it as excuse for further privacy erosion and a surveillance state, instead of looking at their past articles and videos where they are constantly bunching up immigrants, latin americans, and just non-white people in general with prejudice to say they are invaders, criminals, and the source of all white america problems.
This isn't about "mental illness". This is about people actually believing in your fearmongering strategy. Deranged people who sees immigrants as invaders to get rid of at all costs. Some think about spending billions of taxpayer money on an useless border wall, some will take guns and shoot everyone they see as "invaders".
Hate certainly is a problem in America. It always was, and will be for a very long time. But it's administrations like yours that gave a voice to it, Mr. Trump. You did it. You empowered white nationalist extremists, and your speeches now fall to deaf ears when you have blood on your hands.
I dunno how any republicans who are not fanatics will continue to support this guy after the results of his strategies resulted in stuff like this. Everyone knew it was comming, it was just a matter of time. But yeah, I also understand people have very short term and selective memories. Next week, people will have all but forgotten about this. And then we can move on to the next shooting, by another white male domestic terrorist, who basically see themselves as martyrs for the nationalist cause.
2
-
VICE, I know the angle about Memes on article 13 is easier to understand and more popular, but I don't think you guys managed to explain it better.
In US terms, article 13 is about extinguishing protections like the US has as safe harbor protections. The language of the entire proposal is intentionally vague and bad overall.
The problem wouldn't be the extinction of memes, music snipets, or game streaming channels. The problem would be the extinction of any platforms that hosts those, aside potentially from huge corporations like YouTube, Google, Facebook and others, because they are the only ones who could afford lawyers and investment in extremely expensive and extremely complex algorithms for copyrighted content identification systems.
This not only cements monopolies in place by making it impossible for competition to arise, because no new companies could afford to pay for all the costs involved, it also cements practices of abuse of copyright system to shut down criticism, which already happens on YouTube.
In fact, it only further cements the power of huge corporations because these content ID systems are proprietary to the companies.
This is about abusive censorship, handing abuse powers to huge labels and copyright owners and cementing current monopolies.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
Brazil is in an extremely bad shape to fight against this, and we'll see a repeat over and over again in the next years... it's all very unfortunate.
See, people shouldn't believe in easy answers for what is happening here. It's easy to fall into narratives that this is the government's fault, the president's fault, etc etc. But the problem is far more complicated than just that.
First of all, people should know, Brazil is a huge country. Firefighters, military, NGOs and whatnot trying to study and fight against fires in these often isolated regions are often underfunded, but perhaps more importantly, just insuficient to cover such large areas.
Like explained in the video, up until recently we also didn't have access to tech and real time information to locate and go directly into it... imagine trying to send not enough people to fight against huge fires in places you have hard access to and can't even pinpoint where to begin with.
Historically, also, these regions are poor... like explained by the end of the video, several of these regions are currently controlled by big agricultural businesses and whatnot, but the practices remain as those of centuries ago, as those of small farmers.
People have been always using fire in these regions to clear up land, maintain areas, and keep things up - it's cheap, easy and doesn't require much. It's not like a whole lot changed once we elected a new president... practices remain overall the same.
So, what has changed in 2020? Put simply, climate change is finally having big and apparent effects. Something that is happening all over the world I guess.
What we had in Brazil was a historical heat and drought combo like never before. We almost didn't have winter, and the rainy season never came.
You didn't hear about it much via international news channels because the narrative was to attack brazilian government for being pro agro-business and trying to dismantle regulations and environmental policies, which is true to a point, but the real problem is far more complex than only that.
I don't live close to Pantanal, but in my state that is a bit more to the South of Brazil, we had drought and heat that absolutely transformed the landscape like never before. Talking historical stuff that never happened for whatever length of time the records go back to.
The city I currently live in had an unprecedented period of several months with water shortages where the entire capital city had water off and on, 2 days off, 3 days on, then 2 days off, 1 day on.... it just kept getting worse.
This kinda thing happed before, just a few years back off and on, but not for the entire city. It was usually limited to some neighborhoods at a time, for a few weeks, but never the entire city for months and no end in sight. Reservoirs still didn't fully recover after months of rain.
Now, can better more active regulation and action against big farmers and agro businesses help? Sure it can. But understand - it's change, and people will be resistant to it.
Just fining people won't have enough of an effect to change much. Farmers from small to big are just too used to burning up stuff as part of farming life.
Worst part of it, is that probably these climate change related extremes will only get worse from now on... so we need lots more tech, money, investment, people involved and effort towards stopping these megafires from happening, from starting.
And it doesn't help that our current president has a very bad international relations positioning... he's beligerent and aggressive, mirroring Trump's tactics and politics down to his information sources, strategies and posturing. And we have two more years with him in power at least.
So, the fact is, we need external help. Brazil being the second country worst affected by Covid and currently going through the second and worst peak so far, there won't be much of the economy surviving all this enough to ramp up preservation efforts unfortunately. Not even if we had a president that was really worried about all of that, which we don't.
The countries who have been financially helping us and that pulled out after clashing with our current government, you need to keep going even if it's around the government and helping NGOs, universities, and people involved directly instead of through governmental channels.
That's the way it is right now.
As a brazilian citizen who is worried with the situation, I don't really see it going to a better direction unfortunately. We could elect a more pro environment president, but that's two years from now. The climate is still all wonky - we skipped winter, had extreme rains in a period that shouldn't be raining, heat and drought waves in period that should be raining... it's all warped up. And of course, it becomes a vicious cycle... with these forest burning up, it only gets drier and more hot down the tropics.
Brazil is also no stranger to desertification phenomena... monoculture and overexploitation of huge tracts of land in northern states turned entire patches of a formerly huge rainforest into semi-arid desert. Things are only gonna get worse from now on.
2
-
2
-
2
-
It wouldn't be too harsh of a punishment, if she wasn't just a scapegoat for a whole ton of corrupt people who profited from the whole scheme. The vast majority of it who will likely not be punished, if they are not poised to profit from this punishment.
See, it's just that the logic does not add up when it comes to sums like those.
When you get to corruption schemes that goes over the tens or hundreds of millions, the most likely scenario is that you are doing it not only for your own sake, but actually to sustain a criminal organization that is hungry for money and power. It's even more evident when we're talking about GPD percentage. Billions.
The case is even more likely when you have authoritarian politics involved, some declared effort to show the nation "isn't as corrupt as it looks", and you basically only have a few people there taking a huge fall for all the rest. It's a sum of money that's a liability when it comes to a person, family, or even family and group of friends and whatnot.
Let me put this in a different perspective so that people understand why justice isn't made this way - the core reason why she is getting such a harsh penalty isn't because of her crimes, it's because Vietnam was trying to look less corrupt to international investors. A country that has been historically corrupt. Which is has it's own very justifiable reasons to be, but I'm not trying to pass judgement here or lay blame - it's just an unfortunate fact.
Which means the case isn't really justice, it's a business deal. We are picking a scapegoat and sacrificing it so you feel more at ease in putting your money/faith onto us.
For this particular case, which is a rare thing for me to say, I have to agree with investors on the strategy backfiring. Harsh punishment for her does not prove the country is less corrupt, it just proves it's authoritarian. It's like, we have a justice and government system that is willing to do human sacrifices to appease the international money spirits.
Justice in this case would be arrests in the hundreds of thousands even if they got lighter sentences. And it wouldn't be happening all at once. And more relevant to the case, it would involve a ton of politicians. Because the case needed to pierce through a whole ton of regulations to happen.
Her supposed crimes started over a decade ago, and involved so many big private and public businesses and people that if justice really went after everyone that got involved it'd basically reset the country's economy.
This ends up going at the core issue of trying to fix crime/corruption with harsher sentences or an indefinite amount of more laws and more punishment - there are tons of cases where this simply does not work. Because fundamentally, what is broken isn't laws, justice system, penal system, even application of those or component parts like those - it's culture and society itself. You need to start from the ground up.
If culture and society is wrong, be it because of education, because of how people think in general, because of social disparity, or any number of different things, a single person getting a death penalty, or even something worse like being tortured to death, only means the stakes got just imperceptibly higher. Those who are at the bottom living like zombies tortured by a system that oppresses or ignores them will always be willing to take the risk, simply because the alternative is worse than the worst possible outcome. Live a life of oppression, torture, famine, poverty, and whatnot, or risk it all for an incredibly low chance of a death sentence after years of enjoying a high life? Which would you pick?
You wanna know the best indication for low crime and corruption numbers really is? Societies that people feel as an integral and visible component part of. Where people feel taken care of, that have a debt with society, that they feel they must do their part to achieve their own personal goals, as part of the whole, not in opposition to it. People with an insatiable drive towards personal gains, money, power at all costs, they do exist, sure. But most people are just trying to live a happy fulfilling life. The vast majority of crime and corruption happens not because of insatiable greed - it's because too many people can't even get to basic human rights these days. Worse yet - we fill prisons with people who committed crimes because of that, and let the people who committed crimes because of greed not only roam free, but actually get more fame, fortune and power.
This has somehow become the basis of western cultures and societies over the years. And that's why we're not going to be around for much longer.
2
-
2
-
Great explainer Chris, gives a more in depth look on how these services work... I think I'll just add a bit more on the disadvantages side.
While it's true that centralized services at the hands of huge corporations will be able to maintain software more updated and more secure in a vulnerability patch sense, it's also true that huge corporation data centers makes one big target for tons of hackers to go after.
Amazon AWS is one big example. Even though most leaks and data breaches were not AWS' fault, but rather poor usage by costumers, truth is tons of huge database leaks have happened from AWS already. I think the numbers are pretty comparable to individual localized servers data leaks. Fault for the most part was still on the user side, but still.
It is such a frequent occurance that you already have hacking groups dedicated to finding unprotected, public facing, insecure databases stored in AWS specifically, because they are bound to find stuff of value there. If you are curious, do a search for "AWS dataleak".
So... it's a double edged sword. Centralization always is.
To be clear though, there are several cases of data breaches that would not have happened if the companies involved used cloud computing and storage instead. The thing is, while cloud storage can reduce problems around outdated databases that have vulnerabilities because they weren't patched or updated, they cannot solve the biggest problem that affects all databases - bad user handling. If you put an unprotected plaintext public facing list of login and passwords of your costumers, doesn't matter if it's in your company's own server or on AWS, it's still vulnerable.
The second problem is what Chris talked about. Centralization is delegation. You are delegating responsibility for corporations to take care of your data, your processing, your software, your transactions, your ability to use computers. While this eases up and streamlines things on your side, it also takes power and knowledge away from you and behind closed gates. You are effectively putting things one step away from you, with a corporation as middleman.
The problem that happens here is that you basically lose control, and in most cases you also lose transparency. In case of failure, for instance, not only you can't activelly do anything, I'd argue that in most cases it will be in the best interest of those companies to activelly hide what's happening behind the scenes from you and everyone else. Transparency practices are becoming better, but they are still far from good, and it's also for a justified reason. These companies will never be fully transparent because if they were, they'd make themselves an even bigger target for hacking. There's also copyright and intellectual property considerations.
Now, on the outside of your control part. Cloud computing not just yet because we didn't have any major end consumer facing cloud computing trend just yet... except for cloud storage. Perhaps some people are not even aware of this, but we already had a major cloud storage crash. Lots of services opened, lots of them offered more and more space for cheap or free, lots of them had to close doors because the business became unsustainable. People who relied on those services had to rush multiple times getting all their stuff out, often having to deal with horrible toolsets and barely functional apps to do so, wasting days if not months because the service was closing doors or changing to something else.
Flickr is probably the worst example we hate to this day of what could potentially happen. Yahoo was a swiss cheese of problems, it got hacked left and right, it hid breaches from public as long as it could, the entire company failed hard, got sold to yet another corporation, which is failing yet again with everything it bought. Flickr completely changed it's tiers and business models, shutting down most of the free tier service. Tumblr also got destroyed in the process of changing hands and is now on sale yet again. Perhaps you weren't involved in all this, but if you are using cloud services, cloud computing and cloud storage, you are assuming the risk that one day you will.
Much like video and audio streaming services, which are also cloud computing, policies, pricing, rules, internal systems, compatibility, among a bunch of other things might change without your opinion and you'll have to either take it, or go through the entire burdensome and hard process of migrating that will often not be easy, you might have to spend a lot of money on it, you often won't know how to do, or it might even be outright impossible. It's a risk you'll have to be willing to take. If the service doesn't outright closes down or goes bankrupt, taking out your data with them in the process.
If your stuff is happening in some other country you don't know, by a huge corporation that is often unresponsive, and you have very little control over it... well, you do the math.
Obviously, for some things you just don't have the option. AI, scalable servers and quantum computers are good examples. You'd need to have or be in a pretty big company yourself if you wanted direct access to those. Which also ties to yet another problem of cloud computing - cutting off access even more for people who can't afford it.
Cloud computing is computing as a service. Fortunately, lots of it can be free as long as an enterprise side of it is able to cover the costs. But it's limited. Once you get into a certain threshold, you'll need to pay. So this effectively creates a tiered model for computing in general, if we migrate fully to cloud. The service is also proprietary and closed off, which means it's about trust. Your privacy, security and how your data is being handled is a blind bet. You don't have much control over it. Google, Amazon, Microsoft and whatnot all use code that is proprietary to them, they won't handle it to anyone, and arguably it's in their best interest to keep it away from public so it can't be exploited.
And again, perhaps the worst example we can have on handling data can be clearly had - Facebook. While it's hard to imagine any other company being as bad as Facebook regarding data privacy... it's still a possibility because of power dynamics. They are in control of your data, you don't have much power over it anymore.
So, while I do recognize the several benefits that cloud computing can bring, it's in our best interest to not allow it to fully take over. Specially for things you consider privacy and control to be essencial.
Personally, as an annedocte and example, I will never have an AI assistant, or most IoT things. The tradeoff does not make sense to me. Risks on my personal privacy are not worth the convenience tradeoff.
Most of my game library these days is digital, so in a way, I am relying on cloud for this. Because I don't really care all that much if they go poof, or if people know about what game I'm playing and whatnot.
The Google Stadia thing, or cloud gaming in general? That is one route I'm not willing to take. Not only because I don't think it'll work as well as Google is saying it will, but also because for me gaming is something that I wanna do when I don't have an Internet connection. And it's also something I don't wanna pay a subscription for.
Same applies for video and audio. YouTube and audio streaming services are hard to host yourself. I can use some free services here and there, but I'm not currently paying much for them. No Netflix, no HBO Go, no Disney for me for now. I only pay for Crunchyroll because I like supporting it... don't even use it that much. But as it's price is increasing, I've been considering getting out of the service.
Photos it's currently a mix. I have tons of stuff on Google Photos, I used to have tons of things on Flickr which I had to pull once the Yahoo scandal happened, but I have duplicates on a personal NAS. Privacy is not all that important because it's mostly family photos with nothing in particular to exploit, but backing them up is important - reason why I don't trust cloud storage to be the only backup point. If I have any photos I wanna keep private though, they don't leave my home - they go into my personal NAS alone, which is local.
Most people won't be able to do this, but the future for me personally will be a mix between a home server of sorts and some cloud services. Computing specially, of the home based kind, will stay home. There are things I have to do at home that I can't delegate or depend on cloud availability to do. I think there's lots more to explore on this subject, but I've already written too much...
Anyways, good subject to talk about Chris!
2
-
2
-
LOL the bike was locked with a Master Lock... basically the easiest lock to pick. LPL represent!
Fun experiment I guess, but doesn't really tell you much.
Dumpster diving is all fun and games when you have someone who knows how to do it with you, or you have an iron stomach, but the first bout with a stomach flu/food poisoning and all your money will be gone in a flash. Several days or weeks worth of this routine in medicine, and potentially even hospitalization.
All that stuff you get from bars and art gallery openings, plus free samples on markets and whatnot - that all disappears in short time. People will know who you are, they'll kick you out, you'll have to work harder and harder to find these places.
For washing the dishes, sure, "saved" 40 bucks. But if you count in the time you spent trying to find a place that accepted it, the fact that this is down to pure luck, and that perhaps you might not even find a restaurant willing to take your offer most days... that's way bellow minimum wage.
In the end, the time you spent on each and every one of those things, you'd likely get more out of it with minimum wage crappy job.
The one thing I more or less agree with is exercising. You can definitely do it while not paying one cent to a gym, using public parks and whatnot, or even at home. Problem is, you don't pay a gym just to exercise... this is kind of a misconception. You pay it for the encouragement, scheduling, incentive, guidance, monitoring, targeting and evaluation you get from all the professionals hired in the place, plus stuff like access to modern equipment, stuff that is there just so you don't get bored with the routine - music, TV and other people, easy restroom access, shower, etc.
Again, fun experience. But like the video already said, this isn't representative of the reality of having to live with no money to spend... specially because it's not even counting the most expensive stuff for day to day life there - rent, bills and supporting a family.
2
-
2
-
2
-
Ooooh, those are nice. I didn't know you used them Chris, thanks for sharing!
They are unfortunately and justifiably very expensive... thought of getting them at some point but ultimately gave up and am trying to look for an alternative. But man, they do ease up workflow quite a lot. Thing is, professional alternatives can get way more expensive than that... like a Tricaster, or some other professional switcher board with everything integrated. The usability of those goes more towards livecasting and whatnot, but I follow some non-live channels that makes use of them just for the streamlined workflow.
Good for people to know though, it's not that you absolutely need external recorders like those, it's just that they really help, specially in speeding up workflows.
I have a reversed professional history than that of Chris... I first graduated in computers, and then around 10 years later I also graduated in journalism. My dad also worked with computers, but at the same time he had a hobby level photo lab at home (converted restroom), both of which I guess influenced me. :P
But I don't have anywhere near the professional curriculum that Chris have, just lots of curiosity. xD
Anyways, great stuff!
2
-
2
-
2
-
ROFL, sure, gotta start somewhere I guess. But only those who truly understand how much is being done in China or by chinese companies will know the gargantuan task that is being proposed there.
Mining is barely a whiff on the top of the iceberg. Try competing in terms of logistics, processing, mass production of end products and a bunch of other stuff.
Let me tell the rest of the script for those curious right here. We either make peace and agree to disagree on ideological terms and keep business going, and then the US can keep going on long term plans of recouping decades of offshoring all these jobs, tech and production to China, or if this trade war keeps escalating we'll have a major global economic breakdown.
It doesn't matter how rich and powerful a country is, it won't be able to just easily replicate what China did in the past few decades overnight.
And also, let me just put this out - lax regulations, horrible labor practices, borderline slavery conditions for workers, massive industrial pollution - sure the chinese government had a hand in it. But most likely, the main culprit responsible for all of those are mostly western companies, private corporations. They offshored all the work, jobs and whatnot several decades ago so they could keep exploiting everything possible to mass produce cheap products for their own markets, and that's the ugly truth whether you like it or not. The horrible practices from the early years of industrial revolution never really ended, it just got offshored with the industries themselves.
They offshored the jobs and industries, yes, but also poor labor practices, exploitive industrial practices, pollution, even garbage up until very recently. China learned how to deal with it somehow over the years. You think western countries will be able to do the same? After all these decades of leisurely shifting not only the work and bad consequences, but also the blame?
Kinda laughable, really.
2
-
It sounds counter-sense doesn't it? But you gotta look it from another standpoint.
Open source code is harder to hack because it's constantly being audited and vetted by the general community. Anyone can look at the code, see if it has bugs and vulnerabilities, report it to the devs, which will then fix it.
Closed source code cannot be touched by anyone other than devs.
So, what happens most of the times is that vulnerabilities and bugs will remain unseen, and then if someone detects it, it's up to the goodwill and work of the devs to fix it properly. You can't verify if work was actually done, you need to rely on their word that things were fixed properly.
And so, that's the problem that arises there - trust. If the community can't see it for themselves, and cannot do a proper security and privacy audit, you have to put trust in the devs that it'll be done properly, which more often than not doesn't happen, either for a lack of technical ability, or lack of interest from the company itself, because capitalism.
So, even if it does seem initially that open source software is more vulnerable to hacks, attacks and whatnot due to it's visibility, security by obfuscation has been proven not to work in software and app scenarios. It's better for code to be exposed so anyone can look at it and detect bugs and vulnerabilities soon so they can be patched visibly and with proper expert help, rather than leaving it all in the hands of the dev team of a given company.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
This question is so daft given what just happened it just seems intentionally idiotic and purposefully blind.
You are discussing the sex of the angels there. "Deterrent policies" do NOTHING. It's a dog and pony show for dumb electors.
People are fleeing their countries, leaving everything they have behind to try starting a new life elsewhere or at least save their own while fleeing, and making clearly and obviously borderline suicidal attempts to get to other countries. You don't change the mind of people willing to get into a rotting boat by the droves to cross a dangerous channel, several of these people who don't even know how to swim, with some crackdown policy that most of them will never even hear about.
You really think that on paper crackdowns have ANY effect on people who are desperate enough to keep risking their lives knowing full well how many people end up dead during these attempts?
The thought that deterrent policies would do anything just further emphasizes how ignorant some people are about this problem, and how people keep refusing to at least try to understand the conditions immigrants are in, so extreme they abandon everything they have to make a desperate attempt to move to some strange land they know they'll be subject to hatred, to prejudice, to a language and culture they don't understand, and quite possibility end up in jail, working for scraps in the worst jobs, and probably living in some camp in inhuman conditions.
Is the illegal migrant crackdown working? Of course it isn't. It does nothing. It's not even talking in the same channel.
The faster people in power realize that they are deluding themselves with these policies, the faster a real solution will come. Or at least some real remediation.
Illegal immigrants didn't just wake up one day and decided to take a leisure stroll into another nation. They are fighting for their lives.
The effectiveness of crackdown policies are the same as putting a sign on an oasis in the middle of a desert stating it's forbidden to drink water there. And then thinking that people who are dying of thirst will respect that somehow.
It's already illegal. Making it more or less illegal does not matter. Policies are clearly ineffective. If you want change in the situation, you either change the strategy, open diplomatic channels, negotiate directly with countries that are the sources, and take action on things that matter to better attend these people, or go the authoritarian route and become a nation of genocide against immigrants that some people clearly wants to happen, and deal with the international consequences later on. Otherwise, it'll just remain the same.
2
-
ROFL, that's rich.
Look, I think in many things China is justified in complaining about targeting or panic reactions, but this is absolutely not one of them.
The CCP is being extremely hypocritical there in multiple levels, the fact that they are bold faced complaining like that is just pure crap. It makes me not take any other statements seriously anymore... not that I ever took many of them seriously, but there are some instances that they might not be completely wrong. In this one, they absolutely are wrong.
First of all, there's the great firewall of China... if the US is stretching national security by blocking a Chinese app in government related smartphones, then China has stretched the concept so thin it's transparent already. The CCP not only blocks a ton of American and Western tech companies and tech related services in China, they also heavily censor any that are allowed in with the most frivolous reasonings. Such as the famous Pooh and Tigger comparison. You wanna talk about a government being afraid China, let's talk about this one, and Tiananmen Square, the MeToo movement, human rights, let's talk about the Uighur concentration camps, let's talk about civil rights, civil society, freedom of speech, universal values, the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Foward, let's talk about Hong Kong independence, let's talk about social inequality and crony capitalism, let's talk about judicial independent, or let's talk about any of the movies or websites blocked by the CCP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_banned_in_China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China
What? Too afraid for that? Who exactly is stretching the concept of national security thin again?
Second of all, there's already more than enough evidence, including an admission of guilt by the people working at the company, that they are collecting data and sending it back to China. This isn't a case where there is a suspected problem or a potential for spying - this is a case where it has been and is still actively happening, and the company has shown no competency to stop it.
I'm sorry for the people who like TikTok, but as it stands, it should definitely be banned.
There is definitely ill intent there. ByteDance first lied through it's teeth that it didn't collect data, then people found out it actually did, they changed the narrative to say nothing sensitive was being collected or stored, but it was proven that they did it, they said it wasn't going back to China, then a secret recording in a executive meeting had people there plain admitting that they were collecting data and sending it back to China.
There are no excuses for that sort of behavior.
And quite frankly, if it was a western company operating in China that repeatedly lied about things like that and caught red handed spying on Chinese citizens and government workers to send data back to western based servers, not only the service and app would be immediately banned and censored there, the people would likely be arrested too, if not worse.
So yeah, f*ck you CCP. You have no say in this matter, and no moral high ground to stand on.
2
-
2
-
I've been saying since Trump was elected that he'll leave a permanent trail of destruction after his term, from broken diplomatic relationships, to environmental destruction, fanaticism and radicalism among americans, damaged democratic institutions, entire governmental organizations from regulatory bodies to intelligence agencies worse by default for putting people in place with no real knowledge of the trade as long as they were Trump puppets and were super critical of the Obama era... but this one I really didn't think would happen.
Betraying some of the few allies of the US on the middle east, handing all the power to Putin and other proto-dictators, and opening up what is likely to become a new chapter in terrorism and general antagonism against the US.
I don't envy the sort of crap americans will have to deal with in the future. Specially if Trump ends up being re-elected. Even if he doesn't though, the damage is already done. I'd estimate that the damages that were done during this administration will be felt for decades, if not more, no matter how much other presidents do to correct it.
No ammount of backtracking a democrat president can do will be enough. Not even if it was a complete anti-Trump, behaving the same way that he is, rejecting everything about his predecessor.
And I really don't like the prospect of other countries taking the super power position. US might look very bad right now, but it's still a culture and people with democratic leanings. The next countries in line, like China and Russia, are not good alternatives.
2
-
It's probably the best review website for smartphone cameras available on the Internet right now, but people are misusing a whoooole lot.
Thanks for the explainer Marques, you are right on the money.
You basically cannot have a single score that is completely representative of camera quality because not only there's a whole ton of variables and a whole ton of photography needs, you also end up with some pretty subjective stuff mixed in between.
For instance, some people might find a color profile that is completely uncalibrated over a perfect calibration. Ever wonder why people use filters so much? There's a miriad of factors that work just like that. Even a broke down score sheet with several different judging factors is leaving out a whole lot of stuff that matters.
And even outside all that, people should know that you can get some pretty awesome smartphone cameras in smartphone that will give you a pretty bad experience in everything else. This isn't happening so much these days since features have plateaued quite a bit, but I do remember hybrid smartphones of the past that tried to make plenty good cameras, but ended up with a smartphone that was really annoying to use and carry around.
Finally, let me add just one bit about YouTube reviews in general... people should know that what you see on YouTube regarding videos and photos from cameras might not be good enough for reviews. Simply put, YouTube compression has a major influence over it. Not saying it shouldn't be done, not saying they aren't helpful, but much like review websites caveats, it's something to know about so you don't completely rely on one source or another exclusively and end up with a bad device as result.
2
-
Yeesh... I get what Microsoft is going for. It's not really about a Windows PC on the cloud, it's about the support, security, backup, maintenance and whatnot for a ton of people all at once. The temptation there is for people with new businesses or businesses needing modernization to simplify the entire process.
But even still, those prices for that crap performance might be too much even for most businesses.
The other problem I'm seeing right from start is how you could get a cloud gaming PC for less, if I remember correctly.
Not sure if currently available services would be able to handle a ton of new users all at once, but still. Also not sure how many of the services are still around, the entire business model always sounded infeasible to me. Particularly for gaming, which needs constant upgrading to run the latest and greatest.
What was the name? Shadow something?
But I imagine there must be other cloud PC services that are less targeted to gaming and more to regular usage... hard to imagine they'd charge ridiculous prices like those.
Anyways, thanks for the look into it Cris!
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
Yup, not only I did break the screen on two different phones, I have used wallet style cases from the first smartphone I had onwards. :P
After... I think over 4 years of using my first Android smartphone, a Sony Xperia Z3, I broke it in such a stupid way that instead of buying another smartphone I just switched back to a cheap dumbphone.
And I used to think it'd never happen with me... previous to that I had a couple of those Nokia camera phones and never dropped them even once.. the Nokia 808 and 1020.
If I remember correctly, it was on top of a side table and when I went to grab it is just slipped, the wallet case opened right up, and the thing hit the ground perfectly flat on it's face. Screen shattered, no recourse. I had already dropped it a few times, even a perfect hit in one of the corners, but it never broke... until that.
After a month living with a dumbphone, which wasn't too bad to be honest but I needed something with a chat app, I relented and got myself a OnePlus 3.
That one was far worse. I had it for a week before dropping it and cracking the screen. The wallet style case for it arrived two days after I broke the screen. I was just walking downtown, and probably because I wasn't used to having a naked smartphone in my pocket, I just casually pulled it to check the time and it slipped from my fingers right onto asphalt.
And that was when I learned how to replace phone screens. xD
I replaced the screen of both the OnePlus 3, learned how to do it with it, and after a while also replaced the screen of the Xperia Z3, which I used as a backup phone for a while after cracking it again later on, similar mistake of the first time. But it already wasn't working great anymore, so...
Much more painful was breaking the screen of my relatively new tablet, particularly because it isn't worth replacing the screen due to how expensive those are, but that's another story... suffice to say I kinda hate those magnetic covers to this day.
Oh, and also, the adhesive Samsung uses to glue down the screen of their Galaxy tablet line is not enough to withstand the climate of tropical nations... well, at least for the S5e line. I've seen two of those tablets having the screen just come apart spontaneously because the glue holding it just lost grip after some months of usage. It's kinda weird seeing the screen just come apart so easily after having to pry those open for repair which seems almost impossible without damaging them when you want to... :P
2
-
I've a few opinions on this that some people might not want to hear, but here goes.
First, to note, the reason why China imports so much chip from TSMC has more to do with their production for exports rather than internal consumption. That's to say, that big number you see there that overcomes even fuel for power imports, is because China produces everything for the world. The vast majority of production goes towards export. In fact, even the fuel imports has to do with China being the industry of the world... a whole ton of it goes towards industries that makes insane tons of things for export.
So, in an invasion, blockade or war scenario, of course China itself would be screwed up if chip imports stop, but more to the point, the entire world gets screwed, specially the countries that consumes the most, which is the US itself.
And if you live in the US you should know this, because this is in part what happened when the pandemic hit China factories hard. You know how a cascade of different brands started delaying or cancelling sales of their products because they couldn't get chips or enough production? That's because Chinese industries were closed down due to the pandemic.
But of course it's also important to say that even if that blockade happened, it would only have a real effect if this became a prolonged war. Reason is simple, ever since the trade war with China started, electronics manufacturers and other players in the chip business have been stockpiling chips for the scenario. It is also the case that electronics sales have been going down recently after the pandemic, because demand is dropping, economic factors, etc.
Another point, and this is a personal opinion, Biden's plan to bring chip production back to the US is only slightly more realistic than Trump's plan to bring jerbs back from China, with his notable Foxconn panel assembly plant in Wisconsin... sorry.
This is basically because neither Trump nor Biden actually understands the complexity of what they are proposing, what it actually demands, and how dominant TSMC really is not only in production, but in knowledge base, specialized workforce, infrastructure, logistics, and a bunch of other stuff. You can't throw money at the problem and hope it goes away, not even if it's billions.
Adding that to the late stage capitalism economy of the US, makes it almost impossible for chip production to happen anytime soon in the US. It's not only about building a plant, and the government subsidizing the difference with money. This could work for very basic manufacturing, but like so many other industries that China and Taiwan dominates, this is not basic manufacturing anymore.
Americans, and quite frankly most of the rest of the world, needs to pull their heads out of their asses and really understand the level of dependency here. TSMC, along with many of Chinese and Taiwanese industries, don't only take designs and "instructions" from their US and EU based bosses and do the thing anymore, no matter what your racist and nationalist uncle said.
A whole ton of tech development, of applied knowledge, of dependencies on other processes, of industrial machinery, of research and development, actually happens there nowadays. This is why bringing jerbs back don't work, not for extremely complex products like high end chip production, but didn't work even for an extremely basic monitor panel assembly that Trump proposed. That Foxconn plant that Trump touted as bringing jerbs back was super basic... it was just an assembly plant that many other countries have, usually developing or poor nations. It imports everything and assembly the parts locally. My country has a bunch of them. Not even that worked out. Because of course, with US wages, welfare and regulations, even if the government constantly subsidizes part of the losses, it still doesn't make much economical sense for the US to have something like that.
Thing is, this isn't your basic blue collar job that, if you are old enough, you saw on that Gung Ho movie from the 80s feat. Michael Keaton. Funny enough, it was about Japanese car manufacturing in the US, and simply put, it failed hard but good vibes and whatnot, wasn't closed despite the car dismantling in front of the boss... you know, it kinda had a point there, but these days failures like those just aren't an option.
People working in these plants need to know how to operate computers and modern machinery specific for the job. They need contact with a whole ton of key players in several different industries to work efficiently. They need higher education specific for their jobs to do the work. They need very specific work culture. And all of this needs to be inserted in the right environment to work. As I always recommend, look for a documentary on Shenzhen... or perhaps there's already something out there about Hsinchu Science Park, where TSMC is located. You quickly realize that part of the reason why these advanced tech industries work have all to do with their geographical location. You can't just build a plant in the middle of nowhere and expect it to work the same, they don't work in total isolation, those are not self contained systems.
But anyways, back to the main topic, I think the complexity of this global interdependence here is such that, any president or leader that is smart enough, should understand that peace and cooperation, the diplomatic route, will always be better. Because damages of an invasion, war, with blockades happening, have a very real potential of making such long lasting damages to the economies of countries involved, that it would surpass even lifelong totalitarian dictatorships... and it would put the entire society against them at the same time.
China, even being controlled by the CCP as it is, still couldn't avoid protests that happened during the extremely strict pandemic lockdowns. A war with Taiwan could be even worse. Xi Jinping won't be thinking only about trade war, sanctions, war consequences and whatnot, he'd also be thinking about local revolt, internal conflicts and then having to somehow, if he even emerges victorious, both keep control in Taiwan, and keep it's economy functioning somehow to recover losses.
So, in the end, the threat in all of this is so huge that my guess is that for leaders like Xi Jinping, you just rather play the long game. It's just more feasible to wait for a change in China's favor to happen than to act drastically. For instance, a Taiwan leadership that is more favorable to reunification. A change in US presidency that is less hawkish on the issue. Other wars to suck up so much attention that Taiwan drops off the priority list.
It's kinda almost there already, isn't it?
2
-
Man, I quite remember all the mix ups, sensationalist, hyperbolic crap, total misunderstanding and weird outlandish conclusions even big tech and science portals and channels were making when Google announced the whole Quantum Supremacy thing... to the point I have to absolutely agree with IBM on that one.
I mean, seriously... I heard everything from supposed tech specialists and scientists saying quantum computers would be soon replacing traditional computers, which could only come from someone who has no idea of what they are talking, to idiots saying encryption as an area would be rendered entirely obsolete in a matter of months.
I mean, I totally get that this is an extremely interesting future era of computing we are getting in, but it's really discouraging to see how badly informed people are on this, including people who have been producing technical or scientific reports for a long time now.... you'd think they'd know better. It was sorta infuriating...
Keep up the good side of it Cris! Thanks for the very informative videos!
2
-
Knowing a bit about the subject from past experimentation, I'll have to add some caveats there:
1. for USB-C phones, not all USB-C phones support HDMI out... in fact, the majority of them don't. Samsung phones are an exception, really. Fortunately, it's also the most popular Android phone brand I guess. From S7 onwards, including some mid rangers like S10e and S10 Lite, almost all of them support the full suite of protocols and features available for a given port - USB-C to HDMI out and DeX. Huawei also has a desktop mode as well as HDMI out, but because of the current trade war status, I'm guessing not many people will have one. As for other brands and models, you will have to find out by yourself, usually looking for forums and groups that test this stuff because the manufacturer often does not provide the info.
2. For microUSB phones, the same logic applies. Some phones to support MHL, but not all of them, and likewise, the majority of phones simply do not have support for it. You see, the thing is, it's a feature that has a cost implied, and not many people make use of it, so a whole ton of manufacturers simply to not include it. Same reasoning apply - you need to look in forums and groups to see if your phone has support for it. The only phone I personally know and have tested that supports MHL are Sony Xperia phones. Most cheap, low end, or lesser known brands are unlikely to support MHL, keep this in mind.
3. I've recently saw that there is a way to clone the smartphone display into a Linux or Windows running device with almost zero lag... I think it was on ETA's channel, using USB debug mode instead of MHL or USB-C to HDMI out. Depending on what you need, perhaps that's an alternative route.
4. Another route that might be easier, including compatibility wise, is using a similar setup, but a Chromecast or a Miracast compatible dongle (like ScreenBeam Mini 2) for wireless mirroring. From my personal experience, it's generally easier to find out if a smartphone you have is compatible with something like Chromecast or Miracast in comparison to finding out if it works with USB-C to HDMI out or MHL and match a dongle that fits.
So yeah... while the project is cool, the initial barrier of entry is steeper than it may sound at first.
And then, given all the extra work, extra checks, dongles and whatnot you need to get... if I was going for something like this, I'd probably just get a portable USB-C screen, portable Bluetooth keyboard, and external battery, and mush them up together. xD No DIY value there, but you know.
Alternatively, if you just want to have access to your phone with a larger screen and keyboard, I think it's probably better to just get a laptop and use remote access software... TeamViewer for instance. I think even Windows has some native stuff to do this, but I didn't test that quite yet.
2
-
2
-
2
-
Here's my optimistic view on this. We'll do nothing or barely enough. If the predictions aren't totally wrong and the planet keeps on average warming, oceans gets too acidified, weather events increasingly extreme, and people starts dying by the truckloads... what we'll mostly do is let people die out. We might accelerate things with wars, or things might accelerate with disease, global catastrophes, and whatnot... but fundamentally we'll just not do enough to matter much. At most we might get some years of not facing the worst effects, if they come progressively and not just turn on a dime, which might happen (like ocean warming completely changing or shutting down currents and whatnot).
By the time there is enough consensus to take the most drastic measures, the worldwide population will probably be already halved, resources scarce, no money, economic and political systems shifted, and a bunch of other stuff that will only make moonshot project like those more unlikely to happen. We'll get to a point we'll only be able to do little, and little won't be enough, so we'll have to rely on something outside our reach.
So in effect, we will be thrown back some centuries of progress. Perhaps the downfall of civilization will be enough to reduce emissions, together with mass migration towards places were it's still possible to live, perhaps going underground, perhaps a combination of several haphazard responses to every change that happens as a consequence of climate change. A patchwork of attempts and limited successes.
I don't believe in stuff like global awareness prompting immediate changes to reverse centuries of accumulated damage nor moonshot projects that would require complete cooperation and coordination between multiple nations because this is just not what humanity is. This requires a level of obedience, likemindedness, and prompt agreement of something like the Borg. Or at least a worldwide dictatorship.
So, I'm not really sure if we wanna be a collective that is capable of reversing climate change like that, even. Because it might require giving up stuff we don't wanna give up anymore... you know, like democracy and freedom.
Dictatorships and domination might not be good for individual liberties and rights, but it can sometimes work wonders to accomplish seemingly impossible tasks - you need only to look at our past history and several of the wonders of the world.
So, the idea is, be careful of what you wish for. I don't even think the idea of space shades is sane enough as a futuristic moonshot project, tbh. Much like worldwide industrialization back to industrial revolution times, I don't think we know enough of potential side effects of something of that scale. The baseline idea is far too simplistic, even if it was viable. There are so many technological leaps and jumps in logic that I'm inclined to think we're more likely to have the worldwide population reduced by a whole lot and then deal with effects locally for those who survive, and then hopefully start to evolve and spread once again after that new paradigm gets settled.
When you get to levels of insanity like boundless clean energy to produce insane ammounts of materials to create an impossibly big infrastructure to only perhaps mitigate some of the ill effects of a global problem, my mind goes to stuff like world peace and eliminate hunger. Or to also impossibly far fetched alternates.
For instance, I think it could be potentially easier, or at least as feasible, for humanity to upload their minds into machines that could take climate change better in the future rather than thinking about ways to force the world to accomodate our current fragile meat bags.
In a way, it's a better more permanent solution that could also lead us to the stars and whatnot.
How far from one another is the question though. They are so far outside our realm that I can't see the difference today. And i think much of the feeling of closeness that we get from certain paths of evolution are just too speculative.
Yes, we are closer to making a moonbase, at least closer than we were in the near past, but predictions are still hugely speculative. Same for AI, large scale automation, etc etc. We might just be at that point when we think we know a lot, but we actually know jack shit. Kinda like macroscale nuclear fusion energy or flying cars, among with predictions for the future from 60s magazines.
I have a tendency to think things will be both much more mundane, and previously unimaginable both for bad and good. Something like climate change will happen anyways, and we'll have a patchwork of ways of dealing with it. Some effects will happen as predicted, some will be kind of a surprise.... and we'll deal with them as we go.
Then again, like I said in the beginning of my comment, this is the optimistic view. The realistic one is that we just go the way of the Dodo, having lived for a shorter period of time on this planet in comparison to our predecessors. Humanity is far too young in the history of this planet, and perhaps that's how it's supposed to be after all... enjoy while it lasts.
2
-
I'm just gonna say it's way simpler than what the doc is saying there - EVERYONE doing this for cosmetic reasons have either body dismorphic disorder, a blatant disregard for their own lives, or are just extremely ill informed.
I can understand people who goes through such operations because they have mobility problems, severe shortage in one of the limbs, stuff like that. Problems that ultimately can only really be solved with a surgery.
Cosmetics? Nope, just nope. And it's the same for most cosmetic surgeries and procedures, yes, I just said that, no, I don't mind if you get angry at me. Go ahead. I've never seen someone solve a problem with cosmetic surgery. It's all there still. They end up either understanding it afterwards, or keep doing surgeries until they become disformed messes. And you know it happens, hideous looking people thinking their multiple cosmetic surgeries is doing something.
Let me be very clear about this. Surgeries of that scale and that requires that level of recovery, it's not about you or your money. This require months to years of recovery, everyone around you will be affected, and it's gonna be bad. That's best case scenario. Worst case, you get to live in hell for the rest of your life, and drag everyone around you together with you. You will lose people who were interested about you, and win friends who are interested in your money and your procedures.
All this because you wanna be a bit taller? Or rather, because you think you need to get a bit taller in order to get girls, or get a job, or become richer?
Let me tell the problem, you can get angry at me if you must - it's all in your head. Your height is fine, you need to stop thinking about that, and realize that the problem isn't there, because it has never been a problem for anyone for those types of things. Short people don't have problems getting girls, getting a job or getting rich. Short people with extremely low self esteem, wrong ideas about how other people might see them, massive ammounts of insecurity, and that shifts the blame oversimplifying things... those people can have problems getting girls, money or job positions. And guess what? It's not about the height.
You may need therapy for it, and there's nothing wrong with that. Even better, expand your views, it's currently too limited, you are not in a good environment, you probably need new friends, perhaps a new neighborhood, new environment, new school, new university, new whatever is having a negative influence in your perspective.
Because if you look elsewhere, you'll quickly realize how unimportant being tall is. It's pretty obvious if you broaden your perspective enough. Short men got into basically anything they wanted throughout history. Short men in their respective period of time, to be clear.
That is, unless you are an athlete, but a surgery like that will stop you from being one anyways.
Alternative suggestion? Take the money you were gonna spend with that and give it to someone else. Buy something nice for someone else sincerelly.... preferrably without second intentions. Invest it in your education. Pay for a good therapist. Give random people nice presents. Take a long trip, have contact with other cultures. Do anything else.
Or you can cut your legs, get a bit taller, suffer and make tons of people around you suffer with you, and then realize that nothing but perhaps your own attitude changed, that it made no sense to go through all that, and that better things could be done with the money you spent on superficial vanity. Contribute to the very notion you hated in the first place, perpetuate the idea that others need to do something like that to be happy, be part of the supposed trend that you feel oppressed by.
The saddest thing of all this is when people don't realize even that. They keep believing these surgeries really changed their lives, becoming slaves to that sort of thought.
What sort of world are you creating for yourself if you keep believing that shit? A world where you need to do surgeries like that to get on with your life? To attain something you think is happiness? It's just sad.
2
-
Nice that MKBHD is talking about this... I have noticed this exact point several years ago.
To pinpoint to a purchase, 3 years ago when I got my current phone, which was 2yrs old back then. But it's more like 5 years ago anyways because that's how long it took me to decide what to get. :P
None of the budget to mid-range new releases are worth their prices coming from big western brands I mean. This started happening when the price of flagships got artificially ramped up, or around the time when OnePlus phones started becoming expensive.
Good to note also, Motorola - despite it's name - is basically in the same category of the other more unrecognizable brands that MKBHD showed there - you are paying a premium for nothing.
Always good to remind people that Motorola has been a Chinese owned brand for almost 9 years now - Motorola Mobility got purchased by Lenovo, a Chinese company, back in 2014.
Anyways, back to the point, suppose you don't want to buy a used phone - it's still better to buy a new phone that was released a couple of years ago, if you can find that. These new budget and mid range phones, and some flagships too, are using all sorts of anti-consumer tactics including confusing SoC names, a lack of features that doesn't appear on spec sheets, corner cutting measures and whatnot to reach the prices they get to.
Also, the thing is that smartphones have plateau'd for a while now... it's just the fact that it has reached a point of maturity that what most people use a smartphone for, you don't really need more and more horsepower. If you are not playing the latest games on your phone... a flagship from 5+ years ago will serve you plenty well.
Has anyone noticed how the old assumption that a flagship phone will have all the latest specs have died in recent years? I distinctively remember this starting with Google Pixel phones. This compounded with ramp in prices just made me stop even considering a flagship phone purchase.
Camera and speakers also peaked I think, and since most brands are not using USB-C for much, having it is enough. Screen I'd personally be fine with 720p... my 52" TV is 1080p, don't need more than that. And the latest thing about it, the refresh rate, is yet another thing I don't care about. I can live with smartphone functions at 30Hz plenty well, doesn't even need to hit 60. Though lag like in this Motorola is a step too far.
Updates are important, and I also would like to have a phone that has Android as close to vanilla as possible, but gotta be honest, even this has diminishing returns at some point. Sure, having an updated device with years of guaranteed update gives you extra security, but it's not perfect security, and it's not as essential as some might say. After all, it's just a tiny fraction of the Android market that is living with a smartphone that has the latest updates anyways. It's not like everyone with a phone that is not updated anymore is having this extremely awful experience by comparison or something. Sometimes you get the latest update and it breaks something there for your troubles. I've been waiting a little while to do updates because of that these days.
And then there are the people who will always go for a Pixel Phone because it's a Google Phone and the closest thing you can get to vanilla Android yadda yadda.
I used to agree with stuff like that... back in Google Nexus and Android One times. Nowadays, not only most skins are pretty close to vanilla, but also getting rid of bloatware just became easier. Plus, I also have come to the conclusion these days that there isn't a whole ton of advantages on a security and privacy standpoint to stick to Google only... as Google really doesn't care about offering much more than the rest in those areas.
If my priority was only that, I'd likely be looking at a deGoogled phone with one of the privacy centric OSs.
On another point, in terms of extra features, it seems the Pixel is the most barebones of options. You get no desktop mode, fast charging is the more basic current one, not much variety in terms of video connectivity, and man, it seems new Pixel phones are always on the news for having all sorts of crippling bugs and defects.
I know lots of people like 'em Pixel phones, but to me personally, for the stuff I care about, it's been a complete disappointment. Both Nexus and Android One were far better projects for me personally.
Anyways, just rambling now... in general, my advice has been just not getting Motorola phones anymore. I dunno why MKBHD liked some of previous offerings, but to me the brand died when it sold out.
There is something to say on this matter about Oppo owned OnePlus too, specially after the brand reverted to using the parent Android version, but save it for another time.
2
-
This might be an oversimplistic view, but in a sense, I think it's sometimes useful to put things simply.
For me, inequality, the wage gap, and even stratification in classes are not the biggest issue in all of this. Well, they can be from a social and humanitarian standpoint, as in a problem of going against equality, but I think it can even be acceptable when well functioning and well regulated.
The real problem for me is that we have a scenario where some people could live a million lives without making any more money and still live comfortably through it, while there are people who don't have enough to eat today. People who are dying because they lack the very basic for survival.
Focus on the last part, because for me it's not a problem if societies have ultra rich people... it's a problem that countries have people who don't have most of their very basic human rights attended. And this includes the richest most powerful country in the world.
I'd be plenty fine with economic disparity in general... if the baseline was that all people have their basic human rights fulfilled.
Until we don't have systems that achieves this, we just need to keep looking, keep changing things, and keep trying.
Perhaps, when we get there, we also decide that we need to have a more leveled society in terms of riches, to what point I dunno, but we at least have to get to that point.
Personally, I think late-stage capitalism is a sign of failure. And I mean failure of the entire species. If we cannot change this, we're basically doomed to extinction.
Some western countries took the concept of capitalism too far and it's showing signs of ruin for at least a full decade or more now. Socialism and communism failed to be implemented as they were theorized because they simply don't work in practical scenarios - those are too idealistic. All major experiments on this ended up in dictatorships, which ends up being even worse for the majority.
It seems to me, and I'm not a specialist on this so you'll have to excuse me if this sound dumb, that capitalism with strong regulation and a strong government that compensates for the worst vices of a capitalist system is the route better fit for current societies. A system that some call social capitalism. It's a compromise between the fast growth that a capitalism system promotes, with systems in place that provides support for the worst affected by that very system.
But there is a very long route to really getting there.
And global crisis such as Climate Change and wars are like tests to check how well we're doing - which is to say, pretty badly. There's very obvious evidence that the small percentage of rich and powerful are leveraging their position to keep the status quo or improve their privilege even more, doesn't matter if the cost is untold human suffering and lives.
It's an unsustainable situation that sooner or later will topple over.
2
-
Small towns in Japan are like the ideal people thinking about their retirements on a small rural town looks like - an almost utopic setting. xD Through a great deal of selfless work and community strength.
What we really get here where I live is deep isolation, abandonment and a death trap all combined in one. :P
People particularly from generations older than mine all have this dream of retirement that is either in rural towns, or a beach house. But I think from my generation forwards, this dream kinda ended in my country. My mom and dad used to think this way, they mostly gave up entirely after seeing the experiences of other family members and friends.
Crime and violence reached even the remotest of places, the sense of community driven neighborhoods died off, and so I have multiple cases in my extended family of uncles, aunts, and whatnot that had this dream of living their retirement years either on beach houses or rural property that almost all gave up on it.
That is, for the few who have amassed enough wealth to be able to afford a second home.
A few of them tried moving and "living the dream", but most of them just came back to a more urban setting for multiple reasons. Several of them also sold their properties because they either needed the money, or it was simply not worth maintaining.
My mom comes from a small town that is pretty much the same in terms of population. Back when she was young, it was a 5000+ small town where most of the people worked in farms. My grandfather was the local bar/bakery owner with a multi-story home in the middle of the town center there, where most of the commerce used to be.
Today, the city shrank to 2000+, the town center moved to the other side, and the region became completely abandoned. People who live there mostly commutes by car to neighboring cities... it's over an hour away and the road is pretty dangerous. The town itself isn't as safe as it was in the past too. The church which used to be the social center of the town almost has no one there anymore. And the population that is there is mostly from outside, poor, and completely at odds with those who grew up there.
Small farms don't give enough money to survive anymore, so it was all sold off to big agribusiness firms, including my great grandfather small plot of land.
The town sometimes has a big influx and then outflux of people because of projects like a solar farm that was built there.
But it's also because there is no government incentive programs, no one working to take care of elderly people who are still there, no services like the truck delivery or taxi/bus business - so the inevitable happens. Most people who would like to keep living there until their old age are forced to move in with younger family members for care. It becomes basically impossible to live in the town if you can't drive or if you have worsening health issues that comes with old age.
We don't have as much of a problem with negative birth rates and aging population as much as Japan, South Korea and others - but the migration towards urban centers might be even worse.
It's because there is absolutely zero effort on government and social side to maintain small towns, particularly rural ones.
Anyways, thanks Greg for another amazing video!
I'd have no problems moving to a town like Kofu... as any place in Japan would be several times better than living in any city in my country in terms of safety, cleanliness, conveniences and whatnot.
But then again, I'm not young, don't have wife and kids, and have nothing to offer to raise up a place and community like that. xD
I hope those towns are able to keep going for a long time though. There'll need to be profound changes in culture and society, and particularly government policies and whatnot for that to happen, but I hope those will come too.
I can see that a lot is being done, and I don't mean to discount or belittle all of that, particularly because I know from my own country things can be much much worse. But the size of the issue seems to require much more profound changes. Japan, despite being in a recession for several decades now, I think has the money and cultural backgrounds to revert this trend. I hope it can leverage that to change the situation...
2
-
Lol, I have a quartz countertop. Provided my kitchen is tiny as heck in my tiny apartment, and I spent a bit too much on the kitchen (I mean, too much for my living standards and for the size of the apartment), but still.
Granite would probably have been cheaper, but I just needed the quartz sink+countertop set. Zero regrets. Doesn't chip, easy to clean, and looks great. It also doesn't look like the quartz countertops shown in video... it's opaque, not shiny, a dark grey sort of thing.
Footnote: I'm brazilian. xD
Keep buying granite guys, my country's economy depends on it apparently... I didn't even know. :P
2
-
2
-
This just speaks to not only school lunch, but also universal health care, and a right to basic meal for every citizen, period. Particularly for countries that can actually afford it. Attending the very basic necessities and human rights of the population should be the number one priority of any government.
It's as basic as understanding that it's a basic human right, and something that everyone needs, independent of social status, age, or whatever. You need to eat to survive, period. There is no other problem that should form as much as an universal consensus in any representative body on Earth.
Problem is, you need to always listen to the neo liberal survivorship bias privileged garbage that constantly comes out of the mouths of people who never had to feel hunger one day in their lives.
You know what it is, you likely listened to this multiple times in your life, and you are tired of listening to it: "Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man To Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime".
At some point in your life you will have heard this by some anti-assistencialist neo liberal asshole who thinks you don't need to give people free food, or free healthcare, or universal basic income. "Not with my taxpayer money" yadda yadda.
Let's break this down a little bit ok. First of all, this quote probably did not come from where you think it came. It's not in the Bible, it's not from some famous writer, and it's likely a mistranslation from a foreign idea. The original probably meant to do both - not one or the other. Give a man a fish, feed him for a day, and then teach him how to fish. It's not putting two things in opposition to one another - it's saying you should do both to help others.
And in that sense, it makes much more logic. You know why? Because no one learns anything on an empty stomach. Hungry people don't have time, patience, or ability to "learn how to fish" - they are worried about feeding themselves first. When you are in a state of constant hunger and food insecurity, you have time for nothing else. Which is pretty adequate when the subject is school lunch.
If kids don't have a right to eat in schools, you are not only risking for them to go hungry, you are risking for them to not learn anything, making the entire role of a public school useless.
Any neo-liberal privileged asshole can try this for themselves. Try spending just a month with an extremely strict budget for your meals. Just be honest to yourself and skip meals, forbid yourself from spending any money on it, try coming up with ways to feed yourself with what little money you can beg, donations, etc.
Anyone who has done this exercise will know - your energy dries up, and your mind goes foggy. You get all sorts of weird random health issues that hinders your life everyday. You get constantly stressed because you don't know if you'll have anything to eat next. It's hard to even think regularly, let alone learn anything new. Your mood goes down to the pits.
And that's excluding all external factors, such as the social stigma, shame, social status conflicts, etc etc.
Hunger is the foundation of social immobility. Without solving that problem first, everything else that is put towards trying to level the playing field between the rich and poor is effectively useless. And I'm so freaking tired of privileged assholes and rich morons saying how you should not even try to help people who are going hungry, because "this makes them lazy" or some bs like that.
2
-
To a minor or similar degree, this has happened to all of entertainment basically.
Title of the video isn't quite accurate though... death of decade defining genre perhaps, or the idea of a musical era, but I think music genres are alive an well to this day. They just multiplied and criss-crossed a whole ton more with new given freedoms. Consequence of not necessarily needing to have one genre dominate one era.
So, you really do have far more sub genres and niches out there, and they have nowadays more chances of competing and staying around, but the most popular genres are also still around - and it seems like there are less chances of them being completely replaced by something else, since there is no genre defining era anymore.
This has upsides and downsides, but likely a new normal. I don't see newer generations going back to the old model.
And if I'm being honest... even though we may be nostalgic, and miss the days everyone was listening to the same thing, this new normal sounds more healthy to me. More chances for people to know more things, more freedom for musicians, a better overall distribution in attention and money spent, less centralized control.
What we lose is perhaps some social "glue". I kinda felt this in the past about games and movies, for instance. There were far better chances of finding people who played the same games you played, and watched the same movies you watched when the selection was plain smaller. Perhaps not as dramatic as it is for music, but still, it's just harder nowadays.
The real worry I have on this is that while it's for entertainment, that's ok. Never enjoyed centralized control of that. Now, it becomes a whole different story when it's about news, interpretation of facts, real world stories, and such.
2
-
2
-
2
-
THIS is exactly why I will never use Google Messages. They will never stop using their services as fodder for this kinda bullshit. Well, not that this is a surprise, they do the same thing with Chrome. It just seems that everytime they decide to do any major changes to their platforms, it's always to take a dump on users.
And also, this answers why Google decided not to go with e2ee in the core definition of RCS, leaving it as an optional feature.
The first time I read the general RCS standard definition this bugged me, and I never took the protocol seriously because of that. Because of this refusal to integrate e2ee back when both Signal and WhatsApp already had them on by default. Which even Facebook Messenger took over too after a while.
And before someone comes at me saying it's better than SMS, yes, I know it is. And yes, I understand I can turn off AI entirely. But that's not the point. And it still doesn't work for my purposes anyways.
The only reason why I still use SMS is because several services in my country unfortunately still also use SMS, and I hope they skip RCS altogether and just use something else instead. Some are jumping towards WhatsApp which is definitely not ideal, the metadata is harvested by Facebook, but at least the messages are e2ee by default. As much as I hate the fact that I have to use a messaging system that is owned by Facebook, at least it has e2ee by default.
I'm also not with Henry on this one. I don't think it's off brand for Apple to process requests in the cloud, they did and still do this for Siri. Apple did take SOME of Siri's processing offline and to be made locally, but it's not all of it. Well, at least as far as I know. Is Siri 100% offline nowadays?
And I think Apple is looking at AI with this perspective in mind - as an extension to virtual assistant abilities. Isn't it? So, if all of Siri request processing was once done in the cloud, and then it passed on to be partially done locally, seems to me it makes sense for them to initially introduce AI functions to be cloud based, and then later on process as much as possible locally.
Still, the distinction there might be that Apple might not treat user data as loosely as Google does. Afaik this still stands relatively true, right?
2
-
I remember that stabbing event that happened on.... was it Akiba years ago? One that started with a truck or something? Kinda shocking. But the thing people have to realize is that unfortunately, there are no perfectly safe countries, and random stabbings and domestic terrorism events will always happen. There's no real 100% guaranteed solution, but it's possible to diminish chances of those happening via culture and mental health prevention and care.
It's also good to note that it's not like this type of violent event, for the most part isn't really increasing or spiking... well, it may be in some countries, but a big part of it is just how fast and biased news run around these days. This is a worldwide phenomena, but coverage of dramatic events nowadays tends to be much faster, much more focused, and much more repetitive even when it's not statistically very significant. Of course people will get scared, even if the chances of it actually happening to them is smaller than winning the lottery or being attacked by a shark or something.
By comparison, I now for a fact that I have far more chances of getting shot, stabbed, being in a fatal car accident, and many other dire situations in my country rather than in Japan.... statistically speaking. Random acts of terrorism are not very common here, but they have certainly happened several times in the past. It's just that there are so so many other cases of crimes, murder, violence and whatnot in the news all the time that paradoxically, people end up spending less time thinking about it. Violence gets more normalized the more violent societies are.
2
-
2
-
2
-
Between this and Alex Jones' case, we can have at least a bit of faith restored in justice system, even though we also have to realize how extraordinary the circumstances needed to be for white man with power to ever see actions that are used all too often to harass people in minority communities...
The total unawareness in the statements is also both hilarious and sad. Questions about the raid done in "secret" (do people even understand the difference between a raid and a tea time cordial visit?), Trump talking about how they got in his safe (obviously, that's part of what raids are for), how Trump once again might have shot himself in the foot by tweeting too much about it, about conspiracy theorists talking how the FBI would be planting evidence (putting out all the awareness of how minority communities feel in relation to the police for multiple decades)...
And then you have to contend with the fact that Trump will potentially... or actually? be investigated for violating the Espionage Act, which prosecutions during the Trump era ramped up considerably. All the government whistleblowers will be laughing in unison if Trump ends up arrested for it.
So it's also something that is coming back to bite his ass?
All of those things that white men in power think they can use, usually for a display of power or showmanship in politics, because they think these types of laws, actions and whatnot will never ever affect people like themselves...
It's all sorts of wrong, bad, unfair, persecution and whatnot when done to them, but when it's movements like BLM and whatnot complaining about abuse not a single time, but multiple unending subsequent times over their entire lives, oh it's just whining, lies, and "being snowflakes" or some sh*t.
I mean, it's not a proper reckoning just yet, give the difference in circumstances and application (I see your skin color and come up busting doors in full gear because we think you have drugs in there, versus we gave warning in advance, knocked at the door, asked politely for everyone to leave the premises and then conducted search, leaving receipts for every item taken away as per warrant), but at least it shows very clearly in practice how wide the gap is.
2
-
Fortunately, Bolsonaro significantly lowered his "elections are rigged" rhetoric... probably because most sane people dismissed that long ago, and there has never been an election with so much scrutiny in Brazil's history.
Let me put some more info on the whole thing for those curious about it because most people won't be able to even imagine how big the entire operation is. Brazil has a direct democracy, meaning voting is not optional - it is an obligatory civil duty.
You can pretty easily justify not voting, fines for not doing it are pretty bland, and major penalties like not having access to public services and stuff like bank loans only starts happening after you didn't vote, didn't justify not voting, and didn't pay the paltry fine for not doing either after some 3 elections... so in practice it is kinda optional, but for the past several elections the number of electors showing up to vote in Brazil has firmly remained around the 80% figure. Lots of people who are exempt from voting, like teens between 16-18yrs of age, plus those above 70yrs old, will register to vote anyways.
There are so many steps involving security of the election that it's hard to even list. Electronic voting machines and software are audited multiple times over the entire election period, by multiple people, organizations, international watchdogs, parties and whatnot every step of the way - before, during and after the election. They also have all sorts of randomized distribution schemes that are only made and revealed at election day to avoid any attempt of interference. The logistics of taking those back an forth are crazy... it's partially done by voluntaries, but also involves police, some are taken by helicopters and planes, all the way up to boats in the middle of the Amazon. It's a huge operation involving multiple organizations so it remains diversified and plural enough that you can't have people messing with them without notice.
For this election in particular, because of the fake news the president was trying to spread, because of how he tried to cast doubt into our elections - something that never happened up until he got into power and started mirroring Trump, an entire other layer of scrutiny was put up on the election by Brazilian justice system to prove once and for all how hard it'd be to interfere directly with voting machines and the election process in general. More international watchdogs have been invited to audit the whole process, more independent organizations, security experts, universities and whatnot were invited to learn more about every detail, more access was given to the entire thing. That thing that Bolsonaro did to call diplomats and whatnot to again, spread FUD about the election process, was a response this increase of scrutiny - and he convinced basically no one with his stupid conspiracy theories, apart from his radical followers who are as blind as Trump followers.
So... I'm writing this comment after the first round of the election. As predicted, we're going for a second round with him against Lula. He didn't say a peep about the election process, although he has yet again found room to criticize the press, pre-election survey and statistics, and some other crap - because he doesn't understand any of it. Nevermind that the press statistics were far more accurate that whatever crap his camp came up with, it doesn't matter - just because statistics weren't accurate on the neutral or left side, this means it's corrupt, while his side of statistics that predicted a win for him in the first round were completely wrong, he doesn't even mention it.
Is there still a possibility of violence, a coup attempt, and a core number of radical individuals trying to mirror Jan 6th? Yes there is. I'd say it's unlikely, but the possibility is there, because there are followers of the president that are as radicalized as Trump supporters. Then again, transfer of power procedures, Brazilian institutions, position of our legislative system and several other things are not only highly aware of this situation, but also adamantly against it. Not to mention that while Bolsonaro and his radical followers might make little of our past military dictatorship, the Brazilian population at large knows full well how incredibly damaging that period was for us. It is still relatively fresh not only in the minds of people, but also in our culture, in our judiciary, in our military, and in politics itself.
Politics in Brazil might be structurally corrupt, reason why his governance wasn't any better or worse than past ones in terms of corruption, but there are many many politicians who were actually victims of the military dictatorship in the past, and they know full well we cannot head back to a situation like that.
But of course, memory and history are weak in a country with bad education, and there are lots in newer generations that never saw the horrors of those times first hand (or just part of an elite that only benefited from those times), so they can belittle it.
Anyways, wish us luck. Realistically speaking, both candidates are bad for the country. Neither will bring anything new regarding corruption, the proposals are shallow and more of the same, and candidates that have new ideas and real propositions to fight corruption off ended up with single digit voting percentages. Brazilians voted once again for a maintenance of the status quo.
But between both, I sure hope Lula gets elected as predicted. The major issue I see with Bolsonaro is that he adopted the cult of personality position and build up an entire strategy mirroring the US alt-right. It's so obvious that it's completely ridiculous. The same rhetoric, the same tribalistic strategies, the same ideas of talking only with his crowd and ignoring press that is not radically for him, the same attempt of shaping his discourse different when he's speaking to his base versus when speaking officially to Brazilian people... this entire method of doing politics needs to be banned from democracies.
The thing I see as something even worse in Bolsonaro and his party that I also see in Republicans in the US is this constant attack against the secular status of the nation. Brazil is majority Christian, though very split between different churches and sects, but it still is a fairly diverse country. After Bolsonaro came to power that has been an encroaching number of candidates and people in power who unabashedly demonstrate their will to impose church values and radical religious impositions on the country in the form of laws and whatnot, completely ignoring other religions and science itself.
We had a whole number of candidates this time preaching against abortion, saying they were there to defend the "Brazilian family" - a very ill disguised allusion to being against LBGT rights, plus a bunch of idiots equating education about LGBT concepts to pedophilia and perversion in primary schools.
It is quite frankly striking and baffling the sheer amount of narratives and beliefs that those in Bolsonaro's party indiscriminately adopted directly from the US alt-right. It almost contains no adaptations to Brazil's reality, some stuff doesn't even make much sense in Brazil, but it was coopted for whatever reason.
The difference is that in reality, Brazil is not split between two parties. We have everything running through far-right to far-left. And although there has been some amount of polarization with lots of states choosing local representatives between candidates that are aligned with Bolsonaro, or aligned with Lula that is declaredly on the left but not far-left, most of those local representatives do not subscribe to the most extreme discourses.
All in all, I feel there is very little disposition for a coup, or violence in politics, which is why I remain hopeful that things won't get there here. And I'll conclude things with one major thing that John didn't mention - it'd also be very callous and disingenuous for a violent coup attempt to happen coming from Bolsonaro and his supporters if he isn't elected given that Bolsonaro himself was victim of an assassination attempt during the election campaign that elected him. He'd be mirroring something that he criticized and was victim of himself. Of course, it doesn't escape me that if we had open access to weapons back when he still wasn't president, perhaps he would've been shot and killed right there, and he still promotes open access to weapons nonetheless... so there's that.
2
-
This is already old news down here, low fresh water reserves and rivers started happening a couple of years ago or more with frequency... it has been happening sporadically for decades... now, we're already to the point of getting, for the first time in brazilian history, something similar to US' great depression era dust bowl...
You know that dust storm from Mad Max, or what some Australians see regularly down under? It's showing up in central and southern states in Brazil... only here, we had never seen anything like it before. People simply don't know how to react, how dangerous exposition is, what to do when they see the dust front coming.
Back to colonization times and early years of Brazilian independence, we had large swaths of nothwestern states go from fertile land to poor desertified land because of monoculture and land exploitation. This is how we lost the second largest rainforest we had down here - the Atlantic rainforest. Desertification, monoculture, land exploitation, urbanization and other factors destroyed almost all of the Atlantic rainforest.
The Amazon rainforest on Brazilian side likely has few chances of recovering. Let's be honest about it here - current administration posturing and position is extremely damaging not only because of it's incompetence, but also because from the beginning it has always positioned itself in favor of huge land owners, agribusiness, and cattle ranchers. Making regulations more lax, and being staunchly against green ecological initiatives. They care little about environmentalism, science or... sanity overall.
But even if we got a radical green party president and politicians next, the raw truth of the Amazon in Brazil is that it's very very difficult to control even with the best efforts and intentions. We simply don't have the money and resources to manage it, and arguably no other country would have for complete control...
It's an insanely large territory of very closed off unaccessible raw thick rainforest with tons of criminals ready to exploit it in several different ways hidden by it's characteristics. It's also located in the poorest, most sparsely populated region of Brazil. So, the region not only lacks funding, it also lacks infrastructure, political will, people on the grounds, supportive tech, and a whole bunch of other stuff for monitoring, managing and maintenance.
Think monitoring the entire US-Mexico border, only it's not some 3000+ km, it's a million and a half plus kilometers squared area.
And the problem with fires are also far from new.... from small farms to big ones, the practice of using fires to clear up land is as old as the country itself. What really changed in recent years is that rain and general humidity has gone absent in seasons there was plenty of it in the past, which used to control fires to a point. The combination of climate change effects plus bad old practices and currently bad politics gives little hope for Brazilian natural reserves.
We're also plagued by corruption, mismanagement to ridiculous levels... nature preservation persisted and is still lush to a point to this day only thanks to it being so robust by itself here. But this is changing, and it's likely reaching a tipping point sooner than later, like said in the video. It's unlikely Brazil will change enough to preserve it, even if the next election turns things around.
You see, Brazil not only has the largest freshwater reserve with the Amazon, but also one among the biggest underground water reserves south of the country known as the Guarani Aquifer... and yet, large cities in southern states are already learning to live with strict water rationing measures. It's just insane. Cities that are historically famous for being too hot and humid, mosquito infested saunas for most of the year, having to live with water rationing for months to no end...
2
-
2
-
This has always been, through the entirety of human history, the whole danger with religion and faith.
As a non-religious person, I don't see the concept of faith and religion as a necessarily bad thing.
It's more like a tool. It can be used for good things, as well as bad things.
It just so happens to be way more showy and damaging when it's employed for bad things, like nuclear science.
The problem with it is that it's often used as a way to guide people. It sets up a structure of rules, beliefs, ideals and purpose that we as humans often cannot set up, discover, build up and manage by ourselves.
The largest percentage of us can't. And certain situations only amplifies that. Lack of education, poverty, moments of crisis, grief, and all sorts of other things.
The core defense of the church as an institution and of religious people to defend their beliefs ammount to basically that. Purpose. Something to guide them. Belief.
So, religious as a guidance system can be good... but it's only as good as those who are leading the pack.
And therein lies the biggest problem with religion. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
What you really end up with is large groups of people that delegates their sense of responsibility, their critical reasoning, their moral compasses, their decision power, their sense of ethics and everything else that is important in their lives to varying degrees, at the hands of a central power, sometimes a single person, so they can get on with their lives without all this extra weight. You can immediately see how enticing this whole deal is, and so the reason why it's neverending.
By human nature, how our mind is setup to be from basic instincts, the vast majority of huge, ambitious, over reaching religious groups will have a degree of corruption.
Why? Because we as a species don't tend to be convinced and gather around leaders solely because their plans vaguely seems to be "good", selfless, or for a higher purpose.
And people with real altruistic purposes tends to shy away from the spotlight, which directly contradicts modern western societies which tends to only give attention to celebrities, rich people and loud brash populist leaders. It's all about visibility and being as close as possible to the late-capitalism notion of success. Christians using socialism as a cuss word against it's perceived enemies without realizing how much the Bible and it's cast of heroes and good characters preached so much closer to socialist ideals, which is all sorts of weird.
Among all religions we currently have around the world, Christian religions are probably the ones that preaches ideals closest to socialism ideals than anything else.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not a socialist or communist myself... it just doesn't work well with human behaviour. Those systems are primed, because of it's idealistic blindness, towards totalitarism, dictatorship and tyrannism. Because it hits straight on with the conflict between society being equal towards everyone, it's incompatibility with individual freedoms, and then it's necessity of centralizing power in order to regulate such a system. If power is centralized, society can't be equal, and when it proves not to be equal, it either crumbles or the central power removes individual freedoms in order to promote equality. It's an idealistic system that does not works because it easly enters in contradiction with itself with centralized power spiraling out of control.
Anyways, back to religion. All this combined, it's no surprise that religious leaders will give support for presidents like Trump. It's not about how the person behaves, what he or she preaches, what lessons that your religious leader taught, or the message anymore. It's about power. It's about having the largest, richest, most powerful group.
It's not the church of God, it's about the dictatorship of your group or sect.
And this is nothing new. It happened during the middle ages, it's always happening all around us, and it'll keep going indefinitely as long as there are people out there who can't think for themselves. Which US citizens might think is not a big problem in the richest most developed and powerful country in the world, but it just so happens that the power of a country does not automagically means it's necessarily enlightened or educated enough in a self conscious, scientific, critical reasoning manner - as was the case of most of the biggest empires in our history.
If anything, on the macro scale, religion can also be a powerful tool, because it unites people under a set of rules, conditions, beliefs and purposes voluntarily. But again, it delegates power to single or small group of people.
In the past, religion was used as a very powerful tool to fight against our very basic nature of conflict. It gathered people together under a single system, it had part in forming the most basic community and country management systems such as law and morals, it united people against invading forces, it set the stage for more enduring times of peace, and it helped setting up human rights and other base principles for better living to everyone, imperfect as it was.
But the Acquilles heel of religion is also starting to show. The ways it can be co-opted for the detraction of others, the brainwashing potential of it, the fanaticism it can attract, how much it can corrupt.
And finally, how it's inflexibility towards changing times can go directly against what is happening all around us.
Most religions are unfortunately extremely incompatible with most of the fights we're going against today, or facing in the very near future. I actually think we need something like a religious belief system to go against something as encompassing and massive as climate change, as the rise of populism, tribalism, misinformation, and several other problems. But current religions aren't fit for it. Because they were created in a different era for different purposes. And despite efforts for modernization, the way they were set up puts precedent first. Modernization wasn't part of it. Because of blind faith and the way people set up their expectations and their invisible command into an ethereal being of sorts, it became too open for interpretation which leads to confirmation bias and other biases that works against unification against modern problems.
And so, the very thing that played a huge part in uniting us, in the end might also be what sets us apart, and ultimately finishes us.
Makes me wonder if by some chance we didn't have Christianism as the central religion of several countries, but instead something like Buddhism, Asceticism and others. Probably a different set of progress, with a different set of problems.
2
-
2
-
Easy answers with no substance because it is not anchored with reality. That's the modus operandi of the far right, or the fascist right. Everywhere you go where far right politics took over the story is exactly the same.
They use propaganda, cheap empty promises, and confirmation bias for the ignorant, racist, homophobic and whatnot to ride the wave, to vote for them, exactly like scammers do, and then when push comes to shove their politics is thousands times worse than any politician on the left, moderate, or progressist. I bet if Meloni was not elected, whoever got in her place would've done a better job.
Because far right strategies relies on this cheap, ignorant, superficial, gossip level mentality of the ignorant masses. It goes with emotions, and not rationality. And unfortunately, for politics it works. For some stupid reason, voters think a representative job means being as ignorant as themselves, and so you fill up public jobs with ignorant people who don't know how to really solve issues that a country has.
Entitled privileged voters can't even stop to think if proposals even have any connection to reality these days, often because they don't know reality themselves. They don't want to think about problems themselves, they just want someone to promise it'll magically go away somehow. US with Trump, UK with Boris and Brexit, Brazil with Bolsonaro, plus a bunch of other cases, it's all the same thing, the same strategy, the same ignorant prejudice and radicalism that only made things worse. Worst of all, it seems most people are not learning anything from any of those cases, because they still did not identify the core issue in their decisions.
It's just groups of people living isolated inside their own bubbles where their own opinion tramples that of anyone else, and trample over reality itself. And so you elect whoever mirrors your own ignorance about the country and world you live in.
As long as people don't see the migrant crisis with it's own deserved complexity, with solutions that will take time and will take hard diplomatic strategies well thought through and well implemented, it will only get worse. It does not stop at the borders of your nation, and seeing these people as animals or enemies only makes the problem worse for yourself.
I've said this before, gonna say it again, and will keep saying until people realize it - the migrant crisis, be it in EU nations, or US and other nations, does not have a "barrier" problem. It has a humanitarian one. It can only stop if we give migrant people the conditions to live their lives in peace in their own nations. As long as people continues seeing migrants as criminals, opportunists, animals, or whatever in similar fashion, the problem cannot be solved. And it makes no sense too - a huge portion of the population has had a history inside their own families of antecessors migrating for the very same reasons the migrants nowadays are also doing it. And yet, we have huge portions of the population that somehow never learned anything from history, and from their own family history.
And because we as a species have failed to solve such basic humanitarian problems like access to water, hunger, inequality, ending totalitarian regimes, and now also climate change, you can bet that the migrant crisis is only at it's very tame beginnings. We are in a trajectory where this migrant problem is guaranteed to become several fold worse overtime. You can't stop a tsunami with a few bags of sand, and that's what politicians, particularly from the far right, are promising to do.
So I'm glad to see Italians are realizing that, but they should've done so before electing Meloni. Then again, I'm tired of warning people not to elect far right politicians. It's a vote for dangerous and dumb ignorance. It's a retrocession that we cannot afford. I'm not saying this to Italians alone, it's all nations that are currently enraptured by this far right wave.
2
-
I think lots of people are misreading the news, because most countries don't have this system... this is about visa-on-arrival, not visa in general.
Visa-on-arrival is a bad idea anyways. It's a system that allows for visa application upon arrival on the country. This is a fodder for abuse and corruption, and it's also not great for tourists unless there is already ill intention there. Visa-on-arrival is great for people running away and trying to hide where they are going.
Imagine you only get to know if your Visa will be accepted or not after getting to your destination, and imagine all the abuses that could happen so that it's accepted.
Regular Visa application is just better. You only book your trip after you know your application was approved. There is more time for authorities to evaluate everything, and there can be better monitoring for misbehavior and crimes committed by foreigners entering the country.
Perhaps there are a few exceptions where this could be useful, particularly for people escaping persecution, but then the argument turns into - a Visa-on-arrival system should not be used, but rather applying for asylum.
The only advantage of Visa-on-arrival is that it makes easier for people to travel to a given destination, and these days it's arguably better to implement an all electronic Visa system if the intention is to facilitate entry for tourists. For countries that are already having to deal with problems with tourists, like tourists who are overstaying, or committing crimes, Visa-on-arrival suspension is a no brainer.
Indonesia should end the program period, not only for Russia and Ukraine.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
Water wars will happen regardless... in a way, they are already happening.
The problem with desalination plants is that they are very expensive, you need lots of power to desalinate water, and you need to do something with the brackish water that results from it.
It is an extreme net negative that can only be sustained by putting a whole lot of money into. And it's also not a perfect solution.
With that alone, you can see how hard it is to meet requirements for some of the countries that are most at risk of running out of clean drinkable water. Israel is an exception in the region. It can provide the sort of infrastructure needed to support something like this. Several middle eastern countries cannot.
So, desalinators as a source of clean drinkable water are yet another big divider. The poor majority will get further into dire straits, while the rich few can keep a stable life.
The gap left behind will ultimately be cause for huge revolts and eventually wars, we're diving directly into that sort of situation.
If people really wanna guarantee better conditions for everyone in the entire region, and level things out, the only real way to diminish the worst consequences is to do a better job into conserving, preserving, restoring and/or bringing back natural resources. We have to do the best job possible of turning back the clock on the damages we've done.
You can promptly see how the math doesn't work out if you think about it a bit deeper. Desalination plants needs tons of power to do their job, they need constant and regular maintenance that requires a lot of artificial materials, they need lots and lots of resources and infrastructure to be built in the first place, they are taking salt and pollutants out of sea water and that part that gets separated, which is sometimes called brackish water, can actually be toxic and a dangerous pollutant if not very properly dealt with. So we're basically having to spend tons of resources, money and people into building something that is kinda similar to nuclear plants to get something we used to get almost free.
2
-
Thanks for putting out a video on this... I've been trying to explain why this case is so serious and so wrong, but it's hard without quick, concise and clear explanation.
The chinese doctor not only used a technique that had no testing and no accessments for problems that could come down the line, he forged documents, lied to parents - making they think there was no other alternative when there was - basically using them as guinea pigs, and knowingly went ahead with a procedure that could kill or have severe side effects down the line for those twins, and their entire family line from then on. Because if something goes wrong with their health later in life, it could become a hereditary genetic disease.
He basically played God with human lives.
To make things worse, way before this doctor did this, there was already an understanding in the scientific community that CRISPR/CAS-9, while still being a potentially powerful tool in the future, isn't the miraculous thing the initial hype painted it as. The way it works as described by the video doesn't always work when artificially introduced, and it could have severe consequences.
People have been testing the method for all sorts of thing (not in humans), and it hasn't been going as well as predicted. Which, you know, only makes what the doctor did worse, and more irresponsible.
Part of the entire problem with doing something like this is people thinking it's worth sacrificing lives and fooling people to try new things out. It's not MY kid, so whatever right?
You know, like the Nazis did. Experimenting with human lives as if they had no value.
Problem is, if we let things go that way, one day it'll be. We cannot let unproven and untested stuff be used in human reproduction willy nilly like that, as it poses an existential threat for the entire species. This is why the scientific community has standards for that sort of thing.
2
-
2
-
2
-
Yeesh, look at all these first world men and women children throwing shameful tantrums... wear a friggin mask.
Doctors, dentists and whatnot have always done it for you all day everyday, and now they are having to use full body suits, masks, shield guards and a bunch of other things, all day, everyday, and they don't bat an eye about it.
If you wanna be part of a society, any civilized society, this is the absolute minimum. A concept which extends for several other civil obligations that people constantly whine about.
But I should know that in societies where we can't even make people understand that there are good reasons for parking space to be reserved for people with disabilities and whatnot, that assholes would be everywhere for such an important topic.
People have got to learn this and understand this better because pandemics aren't going away anytime soon. And should people keep refusing to cooperate willingly, there might come a time when we will have to start reevoking citizenship for those who refuse to learn.
Yes, people are entitled to certain freedoms, but it has never been and never will be total freedom. That's anarchy, not democracy. If you want anarchy, move away to some remote island and go live by yourself, preferrably alone, forever.
2
-
I really admire some aspects of japanese culture, but then there are stuff like this that just makes me sick in the stomach. I don't care if it's an old system, if there is an overabundance of people wanting to work in the area, or other reasons why this happens - it needs to be outlawed, period.
The anime industry is huge, global, and incredibly profitable. It's not unlike Hollywood, where the vast majority of production come from one place, so there is a lot of money and power centered in few japanese cities, companies and places. That anyone working in said business doesn't get enough in a month to feed himself or herself, it's a clear abuse of power and criminal lack of oversight and governmental and working regulations. This looks worse to me than police and government turning a blind eye to yakuza and crime syndicates.
If one cannot make enough to survive, it's exploitive and should be categorized as bordeline slave labor. And even if people wanted to work with those conditions, the role of a government is to protect it's citizens with labor laws so that scenarios like those do not happen, scenarios of human rights violations that shouod not happen in modern affluent countries.
But quite frankly, between the animators case, the ultra nationalist ties, the lack of interest in politics from japanese youth, and how poorly handled the corvid-19 crisis has been in Japan, it seems obvious that what japanese politics really need is a renewal and change in direction, or the country is risking going down together with times and the old traditional not keeping up with times politics and way of doing things.
I'm not saying this just because I don't like how things are being done, I'm saying this because it's innevitable. The categories of people who are being so blatantly ignored, exploited and at times even reviled are exacty the people who will soon be handling the economy and being asked to pay for the pensions and retirement of those in power right now. It's a severely precarious position. I know culturally japanese are not ones to revolt and protest fast culturally, but this sort of exploitation has it's limits. At some point it'll explode, and if nothing is done, it's gonna be ugly and violent.
2
-
2
-
I believe I share a similar reasoning of several others in the security sector, even if it was just a vague premonition.
Long time ago, perhaps even before Facebook was a thing, there was this feeling or notion even on discussion forums and emerging news sources that, should the Internet become a de-facto standard of information, news and communication, if people didn't update their critical reasoning to match the Internet, one day a disaster would happen.
Over the years, with the growth of social networks, and the explosion of people using the Internet, specially with statistics saying how many people were using it as a primary source for news, it got increasingly evident that something extremely bad was about to happen.
Now we're in the midst of it. And I'm really not sure if we'll survive it.
It's not about Facebook, Google or whatever... it's about a technology coming too fast with people not being ready to properly use it. Much like nuclear energy, with new emerging paradigms that get global too fast, the potential for few people making bad use of it to cause major catastrophes will always be there. Because societies evolve in a slower pace.
We had multiple instances of this through humanity's history, we're still paying the price of misuse of new paradigms from each major shift, and the accumulation of all those or a particular bad turn in a single one could be the end of our species.
You see, climate change stems from the birth of industrial revolution. The arms race and the constant threat of an apocalyptic nuclear winter comes from the birth of the atomic era. The Internet will potentially leave a trail of mistrust, polarization, radicalization and a potential undoing of globalization as leadeships delves deeper into nationalism and populism.
We'll have to see if humanity is prepared to survive the level of connectivity that the Internet brought. It might have been too powerful a tool for us to handle.
While we lasted the atomic age, the first cold war, and are now worrying about the threat of runaway AI and the singularity... perhaps we've already reached the key component for our species mass extinction event.
The problem I see going forward is that societies are not prepared to reach a level of critical reasoning required by a tool like the Internet, and I'm not seeing how we could get there. Perhaps this is pessimism tied to miopic bias, but I have a hard time imagining a quick turnaround on news source information, analysis and consumption for the majority of population given the secular systems we currently have in place - education, traditional estabilishments, values, economical systems, social standards, value system and other variables.
The Internet, it seems to me, and this is a personal opinion, requires societies to be on a completely different level to what we have today, to become a tool for good.
It'd be the case of some future species, or visiting aliens not being able to understand how such an apparently advanced civilization just evaporated in the course of a few centuries because something happened. They might not be able to guess that it was because they created a highly advanced tool of communication that they just couldn't handle.
2
-
2
-
You wanna replace the entire police force in the city until you get cops that understand the situation, are properly trained, respect a set of limitations and obligations that the community puts forward, and know how to handle people properly, that's what should happen, and that's what you should force representatives to do. It's gonna be a trail of tears, but this process needs to happen one way or another.
But Minneapolis, you really really reaaaaaally don't want for vigilantism and militias to take over. You'll have started with an injustice that called for change, and willingness to do so, but you'll end with no man's land.
I'm not sure if "defund" is the right term because I honestly don't know how well funded the police was, but if the idea is total reform, no doubts about that.
It's not only George Floyd's case, it's the response afterwards, other cases, and the historical lack of change, plus systemic problems in the system that are bing revealed with each and every case.
Just remember - there is nothing bad enough that cannot get worse.
I'm not an US citizen, but I've been watching what happens to a city that gets overriden by militias and vigilantism - by which I mean the people who take over when there is no clear definition of what role the police should take, when the police doesn't have enough funds or personel to act, or when the place becomes so violent that the police refuses to enter.
There are tons and tons of brazilians living like that in one of the most famous brazilian cities, and it's just crazy, like waking up everyday in the middle of a war zone. Constant everyday threats from criminals, police incursions, an militia. If you wanna do business, you are likely going to pay something for all of them. You never know when you or family members and friends are gonna end up getting hit by a "stray" bullet. Any emergencies, you can't call the police, you either pay for militias or criminals to help instead.
It's not that I don't understand that this is already the reality for lots of african americans and brazilians, but more like that I've never seen an alternative force to police that doesn't go bad fast and in a hurry, making things even worse. Because for the most part, what forms with the absence of state sponsored police, is an enforcement group with no boundaries and no oversight. It's a recipe for disaster. And it happens a lot all around the world, with horrible results, far far worse than you can imagine. Nuts for it to be happening in the richest country in the world, but I suppose all things considered, yes, it probably can get as bad as it is in some "shithole" countries.
2
-
2
-
Telegram was smart enough to paint itself as the secure alternative to Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp with a modern design that is more looks than utilitarian like Signal... this is why it got so much space. It's got what Signal lacks - a design team that knows how to make the app look like a modern social network, particularly back sometime ago. Signal got a bit better over the years, but it's still not quite there. And now they are shooting themselves on the foot by getting away from SMS... oh well, separate discussion.
Back when Whatsapp's founders were driven away and lots of people were migrating, I went on a campaign telling my contacts that we should switch platforms. The most common response I got was "Why not Telegram?".
So, I started looking into it... in fact, I think it was one of the things that led me to you guys. xD
Back then Telegram was already shady enough for me to stay with Signal and recommend against it. Weird backstory, operations located in Dubai or something, using encryption algorithms that weren't properly vetted, but more importantly, it was too cumbersome and out of the way to turn on their optional peer-to-peer encryption system. It seemed to me to be purposely hard to reach, so that most people wouldn't.
The way I saw, it was even worse than both WhatsApp and even Facebook Messenger due to how hidden the option was. Whatsapp has encryption on by default, and in Facebook Messenger it is optional, but it's relatively easy to turn on, plus both use Signal protocol... so, Telegram just seemed worse than what I was already trying to get away from.
But people just don't care... it's just a tiny minority who was really migrating due to security and privacy concerns, most of the rest were only looking for something new, different, but still modern and hip.
Like you guys, I've been saying this for years and years now, but it doesn't matter, because for most people it's not about security and privacy, it's the theater.
2
-
2
-
The argument "if it only saves one life" is even worse because, sure, you saved one life from dying by Covid on an extremely optimistic point of view, but lockdowns the way the CCP is implementing is making people sick, if not outright killing for other reasons... such as the fire. But even more, on letting people waste by being essentially locked into solitary confinement. Perhaps even worse than solitary confinement as some are being left to fend off for themselves without any help. Even disconsidering the horrible effects on economy, on people's social lives and livelihoods, it's already a net negative.
Setting aside totalitarianism, let's pretend for a moment here that this was a democratic country enforcing rules according to science. It'd be wrong already. Strict lockdowns to the point of total isolation should never be employed past a few days at most, even if everyone had the conditions to maintain themselves (which they don't)... because those also have deleterious effects on health, both mental and physical. If the CCP wants to keep being overly precautious about the pandemic, and I personally cannot disagree with that, but it had to be a managed strategy, not radicalism. Either that or state presence had to be much more forwards providing people support all the time, pretty much impossible in a country with almost a fifth of the world's population.
Keep the advisory to use masks and take extra care with hygiene, advance vaccination campaigns, but don't just pass chains on doors and tell people they cannot leave their homes for any reason.
Which it seems is exactly the way they are going now given recent announcements and rare admissions of fault... but it didn't need to get to this point.
But of course, this is all happening exactly because it's a totalitarian regime. In a way, like Louis said, what happened is a good thing because it put in display how far the government is willing to go for some stupid attempt on political gains in the international scene. The CCP and Pooh went this far into the misguided if not outright blind and stupid zero Covid policy because they wanted to become some weird shinning example on how to combat a pandemic in the world stage. It also have showed plenty how no one at a position of power there understands the hardships citizens have been going through.
And for lots of Chinese citizens, this isn't only about Covid too. It's the combination of several moves by the CCP in recent years topped with Pooh staying on power. Particularly for younger Chinese, with an understanding of how things work in other countries, and what is happening these days, everything from Hong Kong, Taiwan, policies stamping down on gaming and gamers, moves that the CCP took against tech and gaming related private businesses, among several other actions shows a blatant disconnect between the government and themselves.
The hopeful part of this is that if the government there is smart enough, this will be the opportunity to tone down things and stop with all the totalitarian moves. Thing is, China might have a totalitarian communist government, but in actuality, it has throngs of citizens in the middle class that are very capitalist, have a very modern democratic mentality, and just tolerates the situation with the government because it hasn't pushed them over the line just yet. Still, the fact that China has so much of the world's population is both strength and weakness for it's government. Protests are a seed for changes that needed happening there. I bet the CCP right now is shitting their pants on this becoming a situation similar to Iran... different motivations, different situations, but prolonged protests and anti-government sentiment is exactly what they don't want.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
I just don't understand how can some of those people twist the idea that you are giving back something to people when you are in fact letting government remove rights, remove freedoms and dictate what women can and cannot do with their own bodies, treating them in such a discriminate way. Yet another step into theocracy.
The brainwashing must be deep for people who cannot feel cognitive dissonance from such a logical contradiction.
And again, the problem with all of these people is that they are preaching rules that don't have the effect they idealize in their heads in reality, because they purposefully remain ignorant and don't look at real life statistics, data, and refuse to listen to what the scientific community is saying.
It's trying to pass laws, applies rules, and see the world according to their uninformed, idealistic and ignorant assumptions rather than working with science and years of recorded history to understand the problem in what they are proposing.
The whole problem of trying to criminalize abortion is that you cannot stop abortion by criminalizing it. We have centuries of history to prove that. It's exactly because no woman in the real world would ever consider an abortion if it wasn't her last choice. No women will even enter an abortion procedure as if it was a choice about walking in the park or not. This ridiculous, demeaning and quite frankly sexist idea that women would go to an abortion clinic like they go to a tanning saloon is just plain idiotic.
And so, it doesn't matter what the law says, if you have someone desperate for an abortion, they will always go with whatever choice that is available. Legal, illegal, safe clinic, back alley, a scientific accredited procedure, or a coat hanger. We all know this, or we should all know this, and trying to turn an eye to this truth is just evil, it seems to me like a trace of sociopathy.
Making abortion legal isn't about more abortions, it's about making the procedure safe, it's about regulating and supervising the procedure properly, it's about saving lives of women who need this very basic access to healthcare that is being taken away from them by politics and extremism.
A well regulated abortion clinic and practice actually protects women, and in several cases ends up protecting babies too, despite what radicals will say. It creates a web of support that prevents women from being coerced into it by abusive spouses, abusive parents, abusive boyfriends and whatnot. This is an entire whole point that is being lost there.
Illegal clinics won't care about that and won't have proper procedures to prevent those. So not only you are removing choice from women, you are also empowering abusive relationships to end up in abortion cases because you are removing the legality of it which forces the practice to go underground.
The real problem with the pro-life people is misinformation, idealism, and trying to fight an invisible enemy they don't comprehend on purpose.
2
-
The answer to every massive geoengineering project is: we don't know enough to risk such an endeavor. We don't have enough data, enough prediction models, technology, enough foresight, enough vision to know what's really going to happen.
No matter how much is imagined, thought out, written in thesis and papers, until we have something (like a massive unimaginable AI) that can entirely simulate Earth with all it's components working in a very accurate way as prediction model, geoengineering is gambling with high stakes. We can't even accurately predict the weather just yet, that's how far away we are from something like this.
This video in particular went more towards the engineering side of things, of course. But how about completely eliminating entire ecosystems for a whole bunch of species, drastically altering an environment in which tons of species directly and indirectly evolved through millions of years to survive, etc etc. This isn't something to be superficially looked upon.
It's just too much of a gamble. A route that should be attempted in a last case scenario, if so.
The problem with climate change is just that: a drastic change in environment that our evolution or capability of adapting might not keep pace with. I said this before somewhere else, but in a way, climate change IS geoengineering. It's accelerated change caused by our interference.
With a naive outlook, climate change is just geoengineering to make our planet slightly warmer. But it has tons of unpredictable and unforeseen consequences. So fighting against it is pretty much fighting to revert climate to a previous known and stable state that we know we can live in.
I'm of the opinion that if we can't even fight climate change back properly, geoengineering is the last thing we should attempt. Because there are huge chances of it going awry, requiring more work to revert than even climate change itself. Put simply, geoengineering carries as much, if not more (since the proposed projects tends to be far more drastic) potential to kill us all as climate change.
Remember that, for a while, we thought that industries, oil, coal, and whole ton of pollutants were going to save us all and be part of a fundamental change in human evolution. And for a while, it was. But it has also brought us to this point in time. We thought nuclear fission was going to be the ultimate power source and salvation. We'll solve the nuclear refuse problem someday.
We thought lead was a miracle material. Let's use it to line up pipes, surely this won't have consequeces in the future. That putting asbestos everywhere was going to be a great thing. Etc etc. History is marred by things we did which we thought was going to be great, which ended up working against us after a while.
Of course, the planet keeps going. The only risk is that we don't. Until we have a failsafe which allows us to revert back safely, which in a way is the fight against climate change, perhaps we shouldn't be thinking much about stuff like geoengineering... just sayin'.
2
-
2
-
2
-
The US has become and is going fast towards a country of insular bubbles, communities, and ideologies so much that it can't function as a society anymore. With not only the guns issue, but also stuff like the recent fall of Roe v Wade, rise of extremism and radicalization, mass shootings with racial and religious motivations, white supremacists marching on the streets, political division and tribalism, plus a ton of other recent happenings, social media dynamics, the entire wage gap problem that the country is facing - the future of the country is either civil war and collapse, or a division so deep and so intractable that it'll be functionally like it was a collection of extremely disparate states rather than "united".
Further, the entire media landscape in the US is already set up in a way to reinforce divisions rather than mediate it.
It's already happening. Minorities are getting away and finding comfort in sticking to their own neighborhoods and cities, local political minorities are getting displaced due to persecution and harassment, and entire neighborhoods and cities are being formed with the premisse of everyone living there having the same ideologies and political inclinations.
This all happening because people are too comfortable, conformed and apathetic inside their own bubbles, not caring enough or not having enough energy to care, not acting on it, not going over the thoughts and prayers level.
The pandemic only further exacerbated the problem, and in effect you have people so completely isolated in their own world that it gives rise to extreme cases like Uvalde.
I am totally for gun control and further, total reform... not only in laws, but in how they are culturally seen and treated, down to education level, down to portrayal of them in news, movies and whatnot.
Problem is, this won't be enough to solve the country's current issues. In fact, depending on how exactly this goes, it could make things even worse. It needs support from all sides and understanding that it needs to happen, or else what you end up having is a continuation of the problem only this time it'll be also feeding money and power into black markets and criminals.
Gun reform is remediation, it's a reaction to yet another tragedy. It needs to be done for lack of alternative, but the US needs way more than that for an actual return to sanity.
Which is why this is so important I guess. At some point US citizens will have to define their rock bottom state, particularly on the media landscape. A white kid filled his head with fake crap racist and white supremacist ideology so much that he decided to go into a school with minority kids and kill as many of them as he could. This isn't only a mental health issue as so many are trying to paint it as, none of the mass shootings really are. This is a societal level problem. The kid was brainwashed with garbage he considered "news" and "reliable" sources. It was an extreme unbalanced reaction, yes, but that sort of mentality has to be fed in some way over years to go that way, it doesn't just happens because of mental issues.
A huge category of US citizens is growing up with zero understanding on where they are coming from, zero understanding of their surroundings, zero understanding of their own country's history and past - or at the very least an understanding that is so extremely distorted that it might as well be a work of fiction, of the worst possible type. It's like some people are growing up under something that looks closer to North Korea, total propaganda news.
If a society that has reached that point cannot even pass laws that restricts tools for taking out lives, there is no hope for the bigger and more comprehensive reforms that country needs to unite once again.
So yes, the US needs bipartisan gun reform laws. But please, don't stop there.
2
-
2
-
For the benefit of a few corporations you cannot sell the privacy of the people...
Excuse me, we're talking about Huawei and chinese government here, or Facebook, Google, Microsoft plus NSA and FBI here? xD
As much as I do understand worries about private corporations in China, and that if these diplomatic aggressions are gonna continue with no hope for diplomacy and calm negotiations perhaps it's truly better to just isolate both economies, technological backgrounds and all that, it still doesn't eliminate the fact that this was done in extremely poor form, and that the US has no excuses for the stuff they've done.
The accusations thrown against Huawei, TikTok, and several other companies, particularly about spying, putting american or allied countries consumer security at risk, and all that are very serious allegations. Allegations that have been once thrown against the US itself, and proven right with a significant ammount of material evidence, but proven alright.
At this point of the whole thing, it is completely inexcusable for an administration to keep pressing on the FUD narrative without presenting proof. And let me tell you, it shouldn't be that hard to get this sort of evidence, if it widespread and serious enough it should've already been detected long ago by independent security community, and holding evidence up for investigation purposes after this long a time doesn't make any sense particularly if the country is trying to convince other countries to do the same.
Now, as for corporate, industrial and business spying, sure, that can be a legitimate reason for a ban and sanctions. But it's pretty bad form to try to confuse people with accusations of privacy invasion and mass surveillance. Because if we're being honest, industrial espionage in tech companies happens all the f*cking time, between corporations in the same country. Go look at the multitude of intellectual property violation lawsuits, as well as cases involving development of the most recent technological developments like autonomous cars, smartphones, laptops, tablets, etc etc... you are going to find throngs and throngs of that.
If we're even more honest about it, multiple western companies thrived on stealing tech from each other inside industrial settings in China. If anyone ever questioned themselves how a certain brand of smartphone or computer came out this quick with the exact same technology of the competition, whereas it'd be more logical for them to take several months to develop a similar solution, the reason is that - everyone copies everyone else there, and that has been the de facto modus operandi in industrial hubs such as Shenzhen for decades now.
But then, you gotta think about the consequences of all this. First of all, the fact that governmental interference and trade wars are trying to stop western intellectual property from being used by China is gonna put significant losses against companies like Huawei, it's gonna hamper in part their international market, and it's gonna force them to develop their own solutions - which will take lots of money and time, make no mistake.
But once they do it, and they are going to do it, this also means that a ton of leverage that western tech companies had inside China will be gone. See, this is one of the major reasons why lots of western tech companies wanted to enter China in the first place, even if they had to comply with chinese government laws, rules and censorship - they wanted leverage.
Leverage is essencial for diplomacy and for trying to demand better conditions there. You want a more democratic China that is more fair to it's citizens, less dictatorial, and more respectful of human rights, you need that leverage to negotiate. War with a country as large and as militarized as China only means losses. No on wins in that scenario, and potentially at drastic consequences we all lose everything forever.
So, essencially, this administration is burning all the powder we have on spurrious and useless claims. We're losing a ton of leverage there, for nothing. Huawei was a big player in all those areas... no, not a big player, the biggest player... because they can do a whole ton of stuff not only better than western counterparts, but also cheaper. By blocking them with all these barriers, we might set them back a few years, but when they come up once again, they'll be immune to it, and they'll be on the lead once again.
The political prowess of the US, influence, partnerships, and alliance among western countries might be great and all, but it depends on smart actions and you know, acting like a leader, not as a kid trying to take his ball home.
Further, if this fracture keeps going the way it is, China will just pick and chose to sell their tech to their allies, the country might start slowly sanctioning western tech companies (given that they still manufacture most products western countries consume, that'd be infinitely more destructive than blocking intellectual property from being used there), and strenghtening dominance over allied countries, which you gotta understand is a very significant part of the world.
Given how many countries are dependant either of China exports, China imports, or both (which is the majority), at some point countries will start having to choose which way to go. And as much influence the US has, I'm not sure if it's enough to pay for the economic dominance China has nowadays.
For instance, I know here in Brazil, China has fast become the main importer of goods. And it's only logical.
People don't think much about this apparently, but you know, China has like a quarter of the global population. It's insanely big. It's several times more people than any other country, a distant first place.
But anyways, I'm getting out of scope here, just so people understand the bigger picture better.
Does this mean I like, don't have suspicions or disagreements with chinese companies, chinese governments, and chinese law? Of course not. I still don't see any evidence regarding Huawei products, but the chinese government is taking more and more a stance of dictatorship, the Uighur camps are a huge violation of human rights, China has become an incredibly intrusive surveillance state, and the worldwide cyberwar is definitely a reality.
But you know, we gotta keep hope that there are peaceful solutions to all of this. The alternative simply isn't worth it.
2
-
2
-
2
-
Ok, I have to ask... did you guys go out of your way to get an expert with a surname Rothschild? xD
But yeah, this is just dangerous... this category of people with a combination of ignorance, potential mental health issues, a sociopathic type behavior, and then propensity to believe in the most absurd bs were always out there, but they needed the last component to add up everything and weaponize their ideas up to new levels - and that's what the Internet gave them.
It gets further reinforced by scammers and grifters who are only in to get the easy power and money provided by these people to give them support as confirmation bias, and guide them even further into these conspiracy spirals of despair.
What we have now is basically an unprecedented easing in extreme cult creation.
Internet freedom enabled information to go around faster with unprecedented access for the masses, but it has equally enable this for misinformation, conspiracy theories, and falsehoods... so Dunning-Kruger going in full gear with the Internet creating every minute a new "expert" who thinks he or she knows everything about a certain concept, not because he or she studied and experimented deeply with it, but because he or she watched a bunch of social network videos, read a bunch of sh*t in conspiracy circles, and now thinks he or she knows everything there is to know about a certain subject, far more than actual scientists and researchers in the area.
And the balance in numbers is just bad. We have far more dumb people who think they know everything, rather than people who know a lot and know that they can't know everything. This first group is not only far more numerous, they are also the loudest and more insistent, more aggressive, more defensive, and more persistent overall.
Which leads us to the current situation.
If you put this together with nationalism, racism, sexism, people tripping balls on power, and then the gun loonies.... you get people killing each other and getting hurt for no good reason. It's just a logical consequence of an accumulation of things that we let happen.
2
-
Folding phones are kind of an extreme version of phablets... and I imagine this is why the smartphone industry is putting money into it.
This will sound weird, but out of all the stupid fad crap we've been having in smartphones since the tech plateau'd, this is one that I'm actually kind on the fence about. Not for myself, but for chances of mainstream success in general. Probably will sound ridiculous for most people, but that's a personal hunch.
And just to put in context, I thought AR was stupid, using hand gestures and stuff like sonar was stupid, the whole bezel less thing, the whole notch, punch hole, and then under glass front facing camera to be a completely useless discussion, headphone jack yadda yadda, AI assistants, multiple cameras for 3D mapping, modular phones, and the list goes on and on and on. Under glass fingerprint scanner, wireless charging to a point... all of those and more I consider pretty useless fads. Advanced haptic engine feedback, 4K high refresh rate screens... oh lord, there are so many. Some of which I was wrong, but still.
On the other hand, I also always thought that some edge features that some phones have would become increasingly more important, and they never did. Desktop mode, wireless mirroring, USB-C accessories, good quality front facing speakers, high quality microphones, better physical controls... gaming is one thing that I thought would change and then revolutionize smartphones at some point. I still think it could, but this is largely a problem with major smartphone companies not knowing how to handle this. I mean, it could be argued that the Nintendo Switch is just basically a tablet with gamepads and Nintendo OS/software after all.
Back to the point though, think about how hated the phablet concept was when it first came out. They were overly expensive, everyone talked how ridiculous it was to use one for calls, how they were not "pocketable", how ridiculous they looked, etc. Which honestly, all mostly remain true. Remember back when Samsung Galaxy Note came out and bloggers, tech press and whatnot got puzzled on how successful the product line was.
So, what about it? What I theorize here is that screen size is a factor that is more important than most people realize. Not for you, for me, or for the average gadget enthusiast... for mainstream. For your mom, for kids, for your average joe. And of course, not for everyone, but for a significant part of the market. Perhaps even the majority of the mainstream market.
If prices on folding phones comes down, I think that there are good chances of lots of people foregoing the inherent disadvantages of folding phones - fragility, weight, crease, how clumsy they are to handle, etc - all for having a bigger screen on hands.
You know how Nathan said about a bracelet phone that combined two things in one? Smartwatch and phone? I think that was a Samsung future tech showcase, concept phone of sorts btw. Folding phones are kinda similar to that, but for people who are always carrying a phone plus a tablet.
More importantly though, it's just a question of usability, which will make it or break it for folding phones. Both the OS and apps absolutely needs to make the most use out of folding phones in order for the whole thing to really sell, or else the idea just won't work. Since both Apple and Google already failed several times on this aspect of the thing, with desktop mode, with gaming, and a few other things, that's the real obstacle folding phones have to overcome.
The way I think about it is this - how many people you already see all around you using their phones in a way that it'd be much better for their own experiences to have the option of a larger screen on hand? Like, people watching videos and even movies on smartphone screens, doing videoconference calls, spending tons of time gaming on them, reading comics, even books, plus a whole ton of other stuff you'd say - heck, get a tablet, laptop or something for that!
I mean, I agree with the sentiment, but at the same time, there are all these things people are already using a smartphone for in which a bigger screen would be obviously better. And since they are not willing to get another device, or even skip to use another device, you just give the bigger screen option.
Like, it's ridiculous, but I've seen tons of scenarios were people had a laptop, had a tablet, had a frigging desktop connected to a 32+inch screen, but they were still using the smartphone... because they just didn't want to jump to another device.
And to be fair, perhaps the folding phone format itself might not be it. Again, it depends on OS and app implementation, and perhaps there are better designs coming around the corner that will supplant folding phones before it has a chance of really going mass production.
Rollable phones, scroll like phones, who knows?
But I think the core idea of the folding phone is already here to stay. Having a smartphone that somehow can change into a form that gives you extra screen real estate.
Henry might hate it, and I kinda understand where he's coming from since I also went after small screen smartphones for quite a while before phablets started becoming popular... I even have a tiny backup phone to use depending on scenario here. But for things like these, you gotta think about mainstream uses, not our personal needs.
2
-
2
-
2
-
Very much agreed.
Semi related question, perhaps Louis knows about this.
I have noticed in past purchases that a type of cheap-o keyboard construction, even for brands like Logitech, tends to produce that sort of failure out of nothing thing.
The last one that I opened was a Logitech K400 plus if I'm not mistaken.
It just stopped working, or more accurately, several keys stopped having any contact, some would double press, and stuff like that.
It had a full body rubber membrane inside with an also full body plastic contact sheet. It's kinda similar to TV remote controls guts, which also tend to fail in a similar fashion.
Is this the problem there?
I have no idea how they work, after opening the Logitech K400, giving it a thorough clean up despite it not even being dirty (it was a relatively new and kinda rarely used keyboard), trying to check the contacts, components, and everything else, I still didn't manage to make it work properly again. It's just weird. Can't think of a reason for it to fail like that. Perhaps static is enough to invisibly damage those contacts?
It's two layers of thin transparent plastic sheets with what looks like some sort of graphite paint that makes a connection when you press those keys that in turn press the rubber membrane and those nubs into contact or something.
2
-
Also, be prepared for an attempted coup. Because that's what is going to happen. Everything that happened after Biden was elected around the Republican party, Trump, MAGA Congress and the most corrupt SCOTUS of US history, was about taking power. All the failures to prosecute and put Trump in jail which is the place he deserves to be, is about taking power. Even that sham immunity crap, was about taking power. Those are signals of a party so outside democratic rule they are willing to do whatever they can, legal or illegal, moral or immoral, ethical or unethical, to take power.
There is absolutely no way that they will not use all means, including the dirtiest ones, to derail and steal this election. And even when they lose, they will use all means to try to steal it anyways.
It is a well known fact that in the most extreme MAGA circles they are already preparing and inciting a civil war. That's the quiet part that was still not sounded out loud in Project 2025. They will turn it into a coup if needed.
The best way to stop this is by preparing - not with weapons to respond, not by taking their threats, but by being aware of what is coming, and knowing what to do if it comes to that. Getting in contact with administration and asking the questions, knowing what to do in case you see something wrong, preparing contacts with press, police, and other venues beforehand.
Gonna be a rough ride, but unfortunately, time has run out. It's not now or never only for climate action... it's now or never for what is left of democratic rule in the US. It's hanging by a thread, and this election will define if it breaks or not.
2
-
2
-
Janky, but I can imagine why.
The instructions and needing to enable USB debugging is usually a signal this isn't connecting like a standard USB OtG dongle, which is why it doesn't work like it. It's also the reason why it probably needs an app to work - if it's not using OtG, it's gonna need something separate to access the files. Usually for devices not using OtG standard that provides access to files on SD card, an external drive, or a pendrive, you need to create a separate file manager to do it. I had one of those multifunction Kingston devices that worked like this.
In essence, you are giving a higher level of access back and forth to the thing - not just OtG. Now, this could be that it's just another sh*tty company trying to harvest data and collect it for their profit (very likely), but it also could be because the app enables more things to be done which is why it needs a higher access level... so like, if the app has a separate external battery monitoring system, or some other functions... perhaps detecting if the battery is connected, cloud crap, etc - it makes sense that it'd need debugging level access for those separate stuff.
Looking at the app on Google Play Store, it might be a case of both - here's the data safety description:
"This app may share these data types with third parties
Location, App info and performance, and Device or other IDs
This app may collect these data types
Location, Personal info and 2 others
Data is encrypted in transit
Data can’t be deleted"
That's pretty horrible. For basic functions, it shouldn't need to have access, let alone share with 3rd parties, any of that. It could be for legit reasons, but you are putting a whole lot of trust in the company to handle that data properly - if you already don't like them Louis, just return the whole thing. :P
I wouldn't trust it anyways, but without the app you are likely not getting access to the files - the app is needed in this case.
But also, it seems the company has other products or is thinking of adding other functionalities like an air quality monitor plus the app seems to monitor the external battery status and internal... and for that, it'd need USB host access, since it's not using OtG.
They seem to have an interesting line of products, and I don't really have anything else to recommend as I don't have the need for something similar... fortunately, my phone still has a headphone jack and SD card support.
Sad thing is... not gonna be easy to find one that sticks to OtG standard and has a better design for external battery... these companies seem to be all moving towards shady data collection and selling practices, and pre-emptively forcing app installs and higher level of access either already with bad intentions (to collect your data), and/or because they have some intention to increase functionality of products over the years. Seems no one wants to sell easy, simple and standard accessories using existing standards because they can't exploit the concept to force consumers to pay some subscription for it afterwards, plus the fact that they all want to collect data to enter the mass data selling market.
I can't remember the last time I saw a new company getting into smartphone and smart devices space coming up without that angle in mind. Might be easier to look around to see if someone didn't come up with a mix of products with a 3D printable DIY design to combine into one thing. Also janky looking, but at least it delivers exactly what you want... xD
2
-
The father always has a say, and his rights and feelings preserved. No one is vouching for obligatory abortions here, it's about freedom for the mother on what to do with her own body.
For something that can be as risky, life changing, and burdensome (realistically speaking, this isn't about feelings involved) as pregnancy is, the least that should be required for a father to do is talk things through and help the mother as much as he can since it's a shared decision with shared responsibilities.
In a relationship, the couple can always talk what should and should not be done in case an unpredicted pregnancy comes up.
And yes, people will have regrets or harrowing stories of the past where men didn't have a say on it, but ultimately, it's the woman's body and her choice. Men have no rights to force women's pregnancy, and it's not like you only have one chance in life to have a baby, so there is no reason to take rights from people just because some men can't handle the truth about their past mistakes.
Talking about it and pre-planning things isn't an unreasonable request, it's as simple as educating kids better so that scenario doesn't come up.
2
-
2
-
Awesome!
Please keep updating the list once in a while Chris, this really helps.
I've been using kdenlive and DaVinci Resolve on Windows 10, but for my Ubuntu machine I'll probably put kdenlive plus something else there, maybe Shotcut.
Among all the stuff I tested (I also tried Blender, Lightworks and a few others), Kdenlive was the one I adapted to faster... there were some minor timeline glitches last time I used (it got all confused when I tried lining up several duplicate videos from the same source), but it still went fine.
Major advantage for me personally: it accepts a whole ton of codecs that daVinci Resolve doesn't. As I'll mostly take videos out of YouTube to make some joke, this really helps.... I hate transcoding stuff.
I'd recommend specially for those with a background on Premiere, Final Cut and Sony Vegas.
Problem with Blender and Lightworks is that both have a very alien interface, different from everything else I've tried.
daVinci Resolve is probably the free one closest to industry grade editors though. It has among the best color grading package, and you can always pay for the pro upgrade.
In any case, I'm quite glad that quality options are popping up to ding the dominance of Avid, Final Cut and Adobe finally. In this day and age of low budget videos and all, there shouldn't be a need to pay subscription or absurd full package prices for basic to mid-range editing.
2
-
Can't complain about my life, but I kinda wish I was 20 years younger... xD Though I'm not really sure if I'd qualify for a scholarship or exchange program one way or another, I did try applying to a Rotary based interchange program back several years ago after I graduated in CompSci, but the line was too long, and spots for it were limited, and the top candidates all had perfect English and Japanese language skills which I didn't (this was for post graduates), so it ended up not happening.
I'm kinda curious as to how it would've gone... back then I hadn't even visited Japan yet (been there twice as of now), and now I'm also a Journalism graduate, needless to say lots of things changed. xD
Still, awesome to see this coming from Dogen, knowing how much experience he has there... it's also impressive how more widespread this sort of information is becoming nowadays thanks to YouTube and Internet in general. Back when I did my test I think I saw some stuff on websites, heard a bit from people who experienced it and were coming back, saw some photos, but it still kinda felt like going blind. I'd be far more confident and convinced if I had a video like this one available plus all the other channels that talks openly about their own experiences.
Seems there will be great opportunities for cultural exchanges in Japan in the future... great video!
2
-
2
-
This video is a summary of things I've been saying about Japan for almost 10 yrs now... xD From now on, I'll just share the video, thanks Chris! xD
Also, sad to say, the part about international news coverage propagating myths (plus blogs, documentaries, posts, articles, etc) because they only put out sensationalistic stories without context still stands true to this day. And it's not about fun stuff too... sometimes it's ancient stuff that simply isn't true anymore, sometimes it's old crap no one in Japan even remembers anymore, sometimes biased or plain racist superficial onlook of foreigners, sometimes it's stuff that showed up in Japanese news - but it only makes sense in context of Japanese news, it doesn't serve for broad generalizations to compare to other countries or in a worldwide scenario.
I'll put up a bunch of examples that I've discussed over the years to add to this part of the video... some controversial stuff ahead, be warned, feel free to disagree.
- Suicide rates in Japan, suicide from overwork, suicide forest, the topic in general. Japan had a peak suicide rate back in the 90s, and it has been gradually getting better over the years in general... there are ups and downs, but it's nowhere as bad as it was back then. This is related to the lost decade and recession, but people should understand that this only makes sense in context with Japanese news and culture. If you are gonna stretch the topic to compare and talk about other countries, you should know that lots of developed nations had skyrocketing suicide rates over the same years Japan was getting better, and that not only Japan isn't particularly extraordinary on suicide rates these days anymore, a whole ton of western nations have it way worse. US, UK and EU where these pieces are usually produced at, have countries that are way above Japan in suicide rates and whatnot - and no, this isn't because of underreporting, which happens to some level in all countries.
Oh, but Japan even has a word for it... Karoshi, yadda yadda. Having a word for it only signifies that the culture is worried about the phenomena in their own culture - it doesn't mean things aren't as bad if not worse in other countries. Particularly countries with Catholic backgrounds, the reason why you don't hear more about these things is because the topic is still taboo to this day, or at least have a long history of being taboo so that even if there are people comfortable enough to discuss the topic these days, it just isn't a subject as open to discussion as countries that never stigmatized the subject.
- Used panties vending machines! Well, I'm sorry to disappoint foreigners expecting to buy schoolgirl used panties from some vending machine in Japan, but not only this was an extremely unusual, time limited and confined case in Japan, it's also illegal these days. Most Japanese people never even heard of it, or mostly heard about it because international coverage exploded on it, or tourists asking about it. That's not to say it's a total myth - it happened... some shady shops and shady neighborhoods in Tokyo had those, I think some local news came out talking about it, they were taken down and a law passed forbidding them on grounds of hygiene and safety. The whole thing dates back to the 90s up to early 2000s if I'm not mistaken, tied to neighborhoods that were heavy on adult entertainment and yakuza run adult stuff... it's mostly all gone nowadays. Of course, you might be able to find something if you dig deep enough... like drugs and firearms, there are likely some way to find whatever you need - as there is the potential for you getting arrested while doing so. xD
- The Rising Sun flag is Japan's Nazi flag! Yeesh, this needs a ton of explaining, but I'll try to summarize. I just want to preface this by saying I'm not trying to take away the rights that war crime victims and family of victims have to be offended or traumatized by the sight of the flag in any way, shape or form. I'm no revisionist, and the crimes committed by the Japanese Imperial Army are not to be erased from history.
But contrary to the Nazi party flag, tied to one ideology, and one period of time during Germany's history, the Japanese Rising Sun flag is intrinsically linked to over a millennia of Japanese history, it's been in use to represent the country, the country's armed forces, army factions, the nation, parts of it or a combination of those back since the 600s or so. In official capacity, it's usage started back somewhere between the 16th to 18th century, during the Edo period - it's one of the oldest iconographies still in official usage by a country to this day worldwide. And unlike what lots of people seem to think, it's still used to this day, in official capacity - it's the flag of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, and variations of it used by other branches of the Japan Self-Defense Force. This is why the confusion happens. I understand victims of war crimes that happened before and during WWII being offended by it's usage and being traumatized by it's sight because it's what they associate with the horrors done against themselves or ancestors, but this doesn't mean it's equal to the Nazi party flag. I think people should also know that because it's a flag and symbol still in active official use, this means Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force was still using the flag at least up until very recently (I mean at least up until the mid 2010s) in joint military exercises, official visits, events and also that American Military Bases in Japan also uses the iconography a lot on their own emblems, patches and insignias. Historical usage in art, posters, and whatnot is very extensive - because it's not only about a party, or in case a single emperor, at a single moment in time for Japan. It's iconography that has always been used to represent the country itself. Just so people understand there is much more nuance to this topic than most Internet warriors would let on. It is as nuanced or even more nuanced than usage of the Manji character for temples. People use it with a sentiment of patriotism or nationalism, they aren't calling back for a return of a specific ideology or party.
- The lonely people cafes that gives out a giant plushie for lonely people to sit with, Japan such a lonely country yadda yadda. This entire story that went around the world in International news coverage sprouted from a Moomin themed Cafe (which isn't even Japanese btw, Moomin is a Finnish franchise/children's book series/IP) that had an unique marketing idea to put giant plushies to have lunch with costumers, which are often families with kids. I guess this one depends on where you read the news from, but for me it ranged from a small curiosity piece, to entire videos and articles slamming Japan for being a country full of lonely people who needed plushies as companions when they went inside restaurants, cafes and bars by themselves or some other sh*t like that.
- Close to 100% conviction rates in Japanese court system. This is yet another topic that requires a full essay to dive into, but I lack the energy and qualifications to do so. Suffice to say, because this is an entire other culture and happens in an entire different level than it does in other countries, it does not translate to as many wrongful convictions as some might think or imply in their poorly researched docs. That is to say, yes, Japan has had some very blatant and bad cases of wrongful convictions over the years... but the rates are still several orders of magnitude lower than countries like the US, being on par with the countries with least numbers of wrongful convictions worldwide. But International press loves to take the 99% conviction rate number attached to Japanese justice system opaqueness to imply it's particularly vile in some way, while avoiding as badly as possible to look in a mirror and see how it actually compares to their own countries. It's another case that this is yes, something Japanese people worry about their own justice system, but you can't take it out of context and stretch the problem in a worldwide scenario. It's something some Japanese people and groups thinks that needs addressing, but it doesn't automatically makes it worse in comparison to other countries. If I'm not mistaken, last time I checked the statistics, there are more people wrongfully convicted in the US in a day, than Japan in over a year or more. Even considering the US has almost 3x the population, it's still an insane comparison.
There are more topics like these, but I'm taking a break... xD Feel free to discuss.
Just to note, stuff like this isn't only coming from sensationalist blogs, biased news, and clickbait pieces. I've seen some of these things being shallowly reproduced in pretty recent documentaries made by well respected producers and broadcasters. This is why I think Chris is absolutely right in what he's saying - it's YouTube channels from foreigners living there that are bridging this gap. And a few channels from English speaking Japanese folks too.
2
-
To be fair, a whole bunch of military service is just like that... for now anyways, the future looks way more somber.
But obviously, the problem here is that those troops could be helping in all sorts of fronts right now. It is insane the ammount of money, equipment, man hours and effort that is being wasted because of political theater.
With huge fires, floods and other parts of the US needing as much hands on as possible, you have a potential source of well trained, well prepared and well organized people there ordered to stay put and pass time as much as possible because of the entire fearmongering strategy of one political party.
And here's the thing: those troops will most likely not do much more than what they are doing right now when the caravan arrives, whatever the situation is when they come. This is the worst part of it all. Some ultra nationalists or extreme prejudice laden folks might think troops will just open fire into a crowd of mostly unarmed men, women and children, but they can't, and they won't. As much as some people might not like it, the US is not at war with Mexico or other central american countries. Trump might want for those troops to fire at will, but if they do, this will come with immeasurable costs for the entirety of US.
Make no mistake folks. No matter of what spectrum of politics you are in the US, this entire thing is a huge net negative. The costs of sending and keeping troops there already far surpasses just admitting all of those migrants in, paying for initial support and giving some basic living conditions until they get a job.
If things escalate because of military presence, leading to some massacre of migrants, then I guarantee some of the most adamant anti-imigration people will wish this entire thing never happened.
2
-
2
-
There is something in the video that goes completely counter sense to what I understand about global economy, which isn't much to be fair... so if anyone cares to explain.
5:20 something in, you say Japan exports cheap cars and fancy home theaters, while importing food and raw materials from the US that were used to build their stuff for export in the first place. But you put Japan's position as disadvantageous somehow.... which sounds kinda weird to me.
I have never heard an argument in recent years that food and raw materials were "more important" than cars and electronics in an import export scenario. It's always the opposite. Because raw materials you can get from multiple sources/countries, they are cheap and don't require very specialized workforce for production - but industrial, processed, tech stuff you can usually get only from the specific countries that have those sorts of industries, the know how, the technology required, etc.
I mean, of course the products by themselves are more essencial for everyday life, not luxuries. But in terms of import and export, highly processed specialized products are always more valuable and unique to specific countries.
So, if anything, the US had far more to lose there. Japan could still import raw materials and food from other countries... which they do nowadays. The US, particularly back in the 80s and 90s, could only get Japanese tech in Japan. Though I guess those companies were directly competing with US companies too.
I find it more likely that Japan agreed with the deal for all the other reasons, plus of course, Japan will always be dependent on US, EU and western countries in matters of defense and geopolitical alliances.
It has become particularly easy to convince Japan to agree with certain things when you have a totalitarian lunatic testing missiles over their heads, plus another totalitarian lunatic that think it's right to invade and attack the citizens of a neighboring sovereign nation, plus the other totalitarian regime that is fast taking over their industrial jobs, exterminating minorities, and ending privacy of their citizens in the most nanny state possible way.
You put that plus the fact that Japan is an island in one of the most geographically unstable regions in the world, you get glimpses on why Japanese culture developed the way it did. That plus, of course, the whole fact on how they chose poorly their alliances and acted poorly in past wars they were involved in, setting themselves in a pretty delicate position for an indefinite future.
They know full well what the consequences can be for a totalitarian, strong man, aggressive leadership can lead to... not only for their own countries, but also for neighboring ones.
All of this also plays into why Japan has always been kinda insular... but you know, different discussion.
2
-
Let me ask americans something on the subject...
Would you say there was an overabundance of malls and the excess has now closed doors getting to more manageable levels, or is it really that malls are completely dead and you can't find any around you?
The reality here where I live is completely different. Amazon never quite caught on.... in fact, Amazon took too long to open business here (which is ironic since I'm from Brazil), another giant took it's place (B2W with some half a dozen of the biggest online retail brands), and now that it finally opened up shop it's having a really hard time getting costumers.
Which is to say, online shopping is growing and does have it's place, but in my city shopping malls are still here. In fact, they are still growing. Since I moved to my city, 3 new shopping centers opened up, one of them being the biggest ever in my state.
It's quite amazing... some of them will get lots of traffic on weekends, all weekends, and particularly crowded near holidays. If it rains during the weekend then it becomes even worse... too many people. The biggest shopping center here had to buy a separate lot and build an external parking space to accommodate more cars, because it was always getting too full during weekends, despite having two entire 4 level blocks of parking space, plus already having a huge front space of parking space previous to buying the other lot.
Now, there are a few key factors to consider. Mail is expensive here. You can save quite a bit by shopping locally instead of online. Like I said, Amazon is quite small here... the selection of products isn't as big as it is in the US, there's no grocery shopping on Amazon here (some big grocery markets are starting to offer delivery service at a price though), and I think none of the online shops offer same day or overnight shipping.... they offer faster shipping if you pay a ton more for it. One way or another, you have to wait a few days for stuff to arrive, so if you want the thing right now, you'll have to go out to physical stores.
Parking at shopping malls tends to be pretty expensive, having a store on a shopping mall is very very expensive, the food at shopping malls are generally way more expensive than a restaurant on street level, and most shopping centers don't usually have much in the way of services. A few of them do, but the majority of it is just retail stores and food courts. Sometimes you get a gym, a repair shop area, banks, travel agencies, gaming centers, and a few others... but they are usually isolated in a relatively small space.
Now, for myself, if I had an Amazon like the US plus several other big retail stores working as well as they do there at prices that usually beats physical stores, I can see myself not needing shopping malls anymore. I live near one and I don't go there much already. It's generally cheaper to order food, and I do buy stuff online a lot. But I don't see the habit of going to shopping malls and using it as a social space dying anytime soon here.
So, while I can understand a steep sharp decline because of online shopping, a complete die off seems a bit... over the top. There are obviously way more factors at play than what I said, but still....
2
-
Thanks for the answer! Interesting perspective, it certainly does make sense from a general quality perspective and lack of unique and exclusive products made by the companies themselves or at least locally. It also kills diversity.
Did you notice though that it clashes with my own comment? While I can't really say that local commerce is growing much, the reality for my country is that shopping centers and malls are still flourishing somehow... despite them also carrying mostly chinese made products.
But in a way, this is probably only true for bigger cities and capitals. And perhaps tourist hubs. Thinking back about my comment, the city I'm currently living in which is a capital city, and my hometown which is a touristic city, both got 3 and 2 shopping malls in the past half decade. But I can't say this is a national level phenomena really...
I was born in the 80s, so from a more recent perspective I do remember lots of big retail stores that closed down, were sold off, or merged with newer chains.
The reality of production also changed, but I don't think it happened as drastically as it did in the US. We used to have way bigger local production of shoes, and perhaps a few other commodities... but it was mostly already imported goods, particularly stuff like electronics which my country never really had a big internal production.
Can't say I'm very fond of the entire new concept of fast fashion, cheap quality stuff, fast upgrade cycles, and most things turning to waste in such a quick turnaround... but I think it would be fair to say for countries like mine that it enabled tons more people to have access to several categories of products they couldn't afford in the past. And since we already didn't have a big local production, I think (though I might be wrong), that is also didn't affect retail stores and malls as much as it did up there.
Then again, the other thing I can think of is that online shopping here just isn't as convenient, as well structured, as reliable or as well understood as in the US.
First of all, the majority of my country still don't have reliable computers, internet connections, or even access to more fundamental stuff like a credit card that is needed for online shopping. We also don't have the secure systems in place for reliable transactions in place.
Scams and fraud related to payment transactions moved from PoS credit card transactions to online ones, big part of my country is computer/Internet illiterate, and the big eCommerce stores here have extremely bad security, design, costumer service and return practices.
This all contributes to people still mostly going for retail shopping instead of ordering stuff online, even if the precedence of goods are basically the same.
Anyways, thanks for sharing your perspective! :D
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
People will balk at me for this, but here's the better idea:
If the objective is to reduce traffic jams, traffic accidents, road rage, road deaths, and everything related to those:
1. Invest heavily in, and incentivize public transportation plus alternative forms of transportation such as biking, walking and low speed vehicles - electric bikes, scooters, etc. To the point public transportation will always be a better experience than driving;
2. Reduce speed limits to a crawl, forcibly. Factory settings, I mean;
3. Forget autonomous driving. Invest more on sensors, warning systems, assistive driving, and detecting what is going on inside the car, not outside.
Now that everyone is already cussing at me, let's think about this rationally. What is this conundrum really about? It's about transportation and going from one point to another without mangling and killing people, right? It's about mobility.
If you really think about it, the problem that has been there from the beginning of the car era is that we put regular, untrained and uncaring people behind the wheels of heavy machinery. That's it. We put people inside ton+ metal boxes running around at too fast speeds haplessly, and then we normalized lack of training, lack of care, lack of awareness, lack of empathy.
Forget the entire situation we have today and go back to where this starts. There were a series of decisions that basically turned cities and then the world as a huge industrial setting where people are allowed to operate heavy machinery for personal transportation without the required monitoring, required measures to know if it's being done responsibly, in a "let the chip falls where they may" attitude.
And so we also let those vehicles reach speeds incompatible with human lives and survivability, we let individuals pay more for unnecessarily huge and heavy vehicles so that in case of a crash they are the ones that survive and f*ck the rest, we let go of limits in what conditions those people are allowed to operate the vehicle, and we based economies on building those so we become dependent on it. We let cities be built with cars as the standard mode of transportation, we let work requirements and conditions to be owning a car, etc etc.
All the decisions to "control" people behind wheels are not based on the main problem, it's reactionary bargaining thinking about the consequences brought by letting the chips fall where they may. You put speed limits inside school grounds, around hospitals, in city limits and whatnot not thinking about the whole, just thinking of limiting accidents around those settings alone. That the stupid way of doing things. That's disguising the problem, putting lipstick on a pig. It does not address the issue upfront, it just patches up more visible kinks so that the thing that is wrong remains looking like the "right" solution.
But what is the basic problem in all of this? It's simple really - cars are fundamentally not only incompatible as a form of transportation for a mass of people, they are inadequate for community living, they are too dangerous to be put at the hands of too many people all at once, they are the wrong solution to achieve the means - taking people from one point to another - they are ineffective, inefficient, dangerous and just simply wrong. And no localized tech solution will ever be able to change it into something else.
Autonomous cars are not the solution, they are yet another step into the wrong philosophy. We don't need to make cars better, we need to rethink human transportation as a whole, because it's been wrong from the start. And to keep insisting on this, is to keep using make up on the pig.
To me, an optimized solution on this wouldn't outright eliminate cars - but they would be limited for exceptional cases.
Emergency services, people with mobility issues that are incompatible with all forms of public transportation, plus a few others would keep using cars... because cars are good for these singular cases.
For the rest, we need to think outside cars. And that's what most countries that have less car accidents, less car related deaths, less traffic jams, less problems in this realm has already done.
We don't need extra exclusive lanes for autonomous cars, we need for lanes for cars to be excluded and exclusive in themselves. Keep just the minimum for emergency services, and all the rest needs to be there for alternative forms of transportation that don't go too fast, are not too heavy, and are just more compatible with human lives.
Will this be inconvenient for quite a while for tons of people? Yes it will. Because corrective change requires that, specially for something that is this wrong, has been going on for this long, and has become multiple endless vicious cycles like this.
But if we don't start changing now, the problem will just stay there as is. Autonomous driving will change nothing, it will just give the problem a different make up.
2
-
This piece is all reasonably true, but just so people know - that Japan has one of the lowest crime rates in the world does not mean Japan is completely free from crime, it happens more often than some might realize by watching these internacional coverages, and you really notice it if you follow any Japanese news channels, or read Japanese news portals.
Though there is a real big difference there too - in how Japanese news covers crime. There is an unusual, at least by comparison to western cultures, care in keeping everything in secrecy, because there is a higher standard of care on privacy matters.
You have probably seen it occasionally. Japanese crime scenes are physically protected, access blocked off, to the point they usually erect tarps all around the scene if it's in the open, so that people can't even see anything inside, and details from it are very scarce, you'll only get the full details once it went through trial, and even then stuff like real crime shows and whatnot are kinda rare. It's a proper complete isolation.
On one hand, people will complain about this because it seems like hiding things under wraps, like a barrier for freedom of press, a lack of transparency, and an aspect of the very hard to understand Japanese justice system.
On the other hand, a whole lot of it is connected with key human rights principles that western cultures forget about when it comes to criminals, victims, and even thinking about the effects digging into these things and sensationalizing crime too much can do to society in general.
Whether this is the right or better approach, I'm not here to judge. But it is different, and their own.
2
-
2
-
Agreed. Well, I haven't been following this stuff much.
But to be clear, I have no problems with the tech itself. I don't believe it will become mainstream anytime soon, but if we're talking about some sort of indefinite future when we have gone through leaps and bounds of advances in several areas of tech enough to put a full VR/AR headset into regular glasses frames, or even contact lenses, without this causing a ton of problems with our senses, I can totally see how it'd make sense to either augment our regular eyesights with virtual objects or block the rest of the world entirely and create a totally virtual landscape to explore.
It's kinda what we already do for sound/music anyways. :P
There is just one distinction I always make for gaming in particular - the gaming we have today do not translate to VR/AR all that well. I don't think people get this often, but for instance, liking an FPS game where you are constantly running, shooting, turning around and doing all these fast motion stuff does not mean you'd automatically enjoy doing all that in VR or AR... because, and I think many people underestimate this, part of the fun is that you are doing all of this while actually being a couch potato. xD It's the opposite of cognitive dissonance.... you play the game exactly because you can do all the stuff there that you really can't irl.
But yes, the problem with Meta is Meta itself. The way this whole thing is being framed, what the real objectives are, what is truly at stake on letting a single company take over the entire concept, and the past entire history of Facebook itself.
So yep, VR and AR advancing towards a future everyone will want to use it, sure. Metaverse as it is, nope.
And this is coming from someone who didn't buy into the entire VR AR thing of recent years. It's too expensive, the experiences are too limited, I don't feel comfortable using any of the headsets I tried so far, nothing that I've tested or tried felt more than a novelty to me. Of course, this is my own experience, I'm not saying how others should feel about it. It's like, something I'd enjoy as a sport of sorts, as getting friends together and experimenting it, but not something I'd like to have at home, because it'd just end up gathering dust in some drawer. Space concerns considered, I wouldn't want it even if it was cheap, don't think so.
While I didn't immediately felt sick using VR for a few minutes at a time, I have a pretty big suspicion that using for hours would be tantamount to torture for me at this stage, if only for the fact that I already hate using headphones for too long. The one tech that allowed me to use headphones for extended periods of time was... bone conduction. I'm not sure I even know exactly why... obviously it has to do with listening to ambient sounds, but also because of comfort, because of sweaty and greasy ears, because of how hot you start feeling with those, stuff like that. I also don't like using hats, caps, and whatnot much...
But anyways, I found interesting the idea put up by anime like Dennou Coil... it's not exactly that, but more or less towards what I see AR being in mainstream usage in the future I guess. Minus the entire mysterious plot of the story, AR is in usage for everyday life stuff rather than being reserved for specific moments.
It's just that we are very very veeeeery far away from it still. More than people seem to realize. All these predictions of big tech, from autonomous cars to cloud everything to AI... they are far too overly optimistic. I think it's too many people living in rich high tech bubbles that they have become blind to the realities of the world they live in.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
Great tour and info! Beautiful Machiya too...
Complimentary information for the curious.
Old Japanese houses are generally poorly insulated because of construction methods and general philosophy on building homes.
Two major factors contributes to this - real estate in Japan has a far more complex set of rules and regulations, it tends not to value much overtime, and is far less of an object of the speculative market (by comparison to western nations I mean). In a manner that fixer uppers is not a huge thing in Japan yet. It's being done more and more, but not at the volumes you usually see in western countries.
So there is much less money put into renovations and bringing stuff up to modern code to resell. It can get so expensive that it's just not worth it. This is also a bit why there are cheap abandoned homes in the countryside - it gets so expensive to put those up to code, and then the resell value is so low, that it's often not worth the hassle. In major cities what you'll often see are places getting torn down to be rebuilt from scratch. Real estate get sold by the terrain value alone, which then makes more sense for new owners to just scrap everything and start from scratch rather than trying to fix everything on a major reform. Unless you are someone like Tokyo Llama I guess... xD
Second - earthquakes. People tend to think only about the major ones, but Japan has constant earthquakes of lower magnitude. It ends up not being a great idea to invest too much in insulation, central heating, and other types of more comprehensive integrated heating systems when a small earthquake can not only cause major damage to integrated solutions, but also cause further damage to the property, or have weakening effects on the main structure.
So there is a tendency to build cheap, light and with a degree of flexibility. You don't want to do overly complex and exact stuff just for it to be ruined by an earthquake and subsequently be super expensive to fix, or be super expensive to tear down and rebuilt later on.
Of course, if you look in the current market, you are bound to find newer homes and apartments that are better insulated, with something closer to central heating, more integrated solutions and whatnot - particularly in the colder regions of Japan. But this all comes with extra costs and extra risk. xD
2
-
Those people that got screwed by car manufacturers, the workers that got fired on coal plants, and all these people that are getting unceremoniously and cruelly booted out of their jobs - I highly advise all of you to look somewhere else other than politicians. Republicans or democrats, they will not solve your problem, I guarantee you. It is a waste of time. Democrats will have the clean energy agenda propped up one way or another, and republicans will always side with the business themselves rather than you, which means those business will offshore whatever they can for low tax paying, low wage countries. They will also always side with corporations when it comes to automation and replacing people with machinery and robots.
Even if you do find out some politician that is willing to force all sorts of measures to prop these industries up, this just isn't a feasible strategy anymore. It's illusory, a fantasy that is prone to crumble in no time. Subsidiaries of multinational corporations will rather close doors in several parts of the country and start operating outside rather than being forced to stay there - it is a cruel reality but it's exactly what is happening everywhere. Current day global economics is working against you.
In fact, I think there are far bigger chances of a comprehensive clean energy plan to bring back lasting jobs right now than trying to turn back the clock, or artificially try to force in any way possible for old industries to keep operating the way they always did.
And again, I'm not saying any of this is fair. People who worked a good portion of their lives in these industries deserved better. But I cannot see this going in any other direction, independent of what policy makers do. Which is why I'm advising to go in another direction. The upcoming jobs in these new industries will be pretty unstable for a while, and they won't be coming in as many numbers as older industries because this is the nature of the beast - newer technologies and automation will try to replace as many workers as possible. And unfortunately this will only get worse, probably until it reaches some breaking point, at which point it's quite possible we'll have a global economic collapse.
2
-
2
-
2
-
Truly beautiful, I'd love to spend some days or weeks in one... live, that'd be a bit harder. xD
I kinda get the feeling that by comparison, modern japanese houses and apartments might look a bit devoid of "soul", but the thing is that they are just... practical.
Let me tell ya that sure, government might help with some stuff, you can still install lots of ammenities, and the worst thing people say about these homes either aren't true or could be remediated somehow... but it still seems there is a whole lot of dedication to maintain, conserve and keep a place like that up to standards.
And while prices might be cheaper than people think, they aren't super cheap per se (well, probably because they are in Kyoto too), but particularly it seems you'll be spending a whole lot of time and money on it if the objective is preservation or at least keeping the machiya style more or less intact.
You also have very little flexibility if you don't wanna completely mischaracterize and ruin the entire thing. Forget plastic organizers, bunch of modern looking stuff, most mass fabricated things if you wanna keep the look. You might disguise some stuff to fit the historical looks, but that means it'll always be more expensive.
For instance, the garden upkeep is no joke, everything that gets broken or damaged needs specialized service, you gotta get used to how the spaces are set up and distributed, and it feels more like you'll adapt to the style of living there rather than adapting the home to your style of living. Upgrades and a bit of modernization are possible, sure, but they all sound and look just that - upgrades. Expensive ones. By craftsmen that perhaps won't rip you off, but they will certainly not charge you hyakuen prices. xD
Everything that you change, if authorized, will cost you a pretty penny. Which of course makes sense since all of those look more like a complete art showroom... xD
Of course, if you are able and willing to pay for all that, absolutely love the style from top to bottom, plus wanna preserve that kind of historical home... pretty good opportunity, worth knowing about.
Anyways, awesome video as always Greg.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
I think we're seeing here why American democracy is basically going down... not in specific attitudes, but overall in a system that allows for something like this to happen.
If no one else is gonna say it, I will. First, after past cases, this driver shouldn't be allowed to get anywhere near a motor vehicle, and the actual advised response for any officer should be to take her directly to jail. She obviously still did not learn anything from past experiences, she needs something more than just tickets and stern warnings. And this decision should not fall on any cop's shoulders, this should be standard justice practice, and understood culturally as so.
Perhaps it's a case of reforming the entire process of taking a driver's license to include what can happen if you behave like this. It seems to me, like it is for many other countries worldwide, that there is a complete lack of seriousness in how people interpret operating a 1+ton vehicle around, the responsibilities and dangers that comes with it, and how this lack of carelessness is exactly why fatal car crashes are among the number one killers in car centric nations.
Second, cops are there to do their jobs, and no amount of attitude should justify forcing them to become teachers to entitled ignorant people. They are not being paid for that, this cop should get an extra wage for that.
I applaud for him trying to do something about a hopeless situation that the system is not properly addressing, but his goodwill and proactiveness do not fix the system itself, he should not be made to carry such a burden, he should not need to act as some sort of diplomat of a rogue nation or hostage negotiator, telling her that he's making all these exceptions because of how she flips out and becomes crazy if she feels contradicted somehow.
I don't think any of the past interactions that I've seen with her had cops unfairly treating her, it's all her going nuts when things don't go the way she wants. And that's the sort of behavior I don't like seeing in kids, much less in adults.
When you have people in society that feels this entitled, if there is no actual corrective action, they take nothing from the experience. And the next time a cop stops her, she will go nuts again if she doesn't get a treatment as nice as the one she got this time.
So it's a vicious cycle. And of course, her case is far from being unique. And that's a major issue.
2
-
2
-
Agreed with the video, but still, I think there's more to it than only that.
See, years ago, before Qanon, before far right, before Trump, before all this crap - in discussions like these, about terrorism, about cults, about serial killers - we all knew there were some people with tendencies towards psychopatism, sociopathism, narcisistic disorders and whatnot that are not able to distinguish between fiction and reality, and may haver extreme personal life problems, which leads to them acting violently like that.
It's just a thing that you expect to have in any society - a small group of people that are vulnerable to those sorts of things.
What is happening now is not just a small group, not limited to cults or extremists, not crazy talk focused on leaders and figureheads... it's far worse. Realize that around half of US electorate voted for Trump twice, there are a whole bunch of people in representative position who believes in these extreme conspiracy theories, and there are networks or private and public financing to promote radical ideas already.
So, what are the problems and solutions? I dunno. It's far too complex and far reaching to fully understand at this point. But I'm gonna offer my personal opinion on the matter.
First of all, this has to do with global communication networks like social networks and group chat apps going unhinged and unchecked, somehow replacing sources of news and official information.
Second, it's about profit motivation. Late stage capitalism and liberal ideals have put the value of advertisement and profit generation over that of privacy, hard news checking, balanced views, and pursuit of truth in general.
Third, the US and other countries have allowed, along with global communications, for foreign actors - be it hacker groups, state sponsored groups and whatnot - to interfere with the flow of information inside their own borders.
Fourth, a huge ammount of pre estabilished systems of checks and balances fell through over the years when the Internet took over global communications. Collectively, humans as a species cannot take over doing those checks and balances by themselves, because culturally we're just not advanced enough to do it. Seems it's far more likely that we'll get toppled over before coming to this realization. Critical reasoning is not being taught efficiently and fast enough in schools, individuals are not able to adopt the role of journalists by themselves when it comes to fact checking and general ethics, and it's like entire societies got this foundation on how news and information was previously produced suddenly taken off under their feet and they are falling face down into the mud for it.
Mass surveillance and coordinated censorship only masks the issue, it can't fight back. The way social networks and tech giants are just banning and blocking people with these outlandish ideologies right now, it does not solve the problem, it only temporarily masks it. When these groups have reached the size they did, with entire political parties, private businesses and large masses of people funding them, it won't take long for them to form their own alt-Internet infrastructure.
And because we let the whole thing fester, we long ignored, we long didn't give proper attention to this issue, it's not gonna be an easy thing to revert. Because it has reached cultural level, it's not a fringe group here and there anymore, it's bigger than international terrorist groups, a huge percentage of americans already believe in stuff like that to some degree.
So, what I'm saying is, tech giants will have to be broken off, global/Internet communications will need to have better monitoring and get better segmented, social networks will need to be put back into their original purposes - which is not and should never have been sources of unverified information, replacing the role of traditional news -, advertisement agencies will need to get regulated along with this parallel economy of mass private data harvesting and sales with major funding of harvesting machines that goes unverified and unregulated, sources of funding will need to be investigated and regulated, laws will need to be created, privacy needs to be recovered, and a further series of things will need to happen before we get anywhere near a state of normality.
And it's much easier for the opposite to happen and countries like the US getting permanently into this new reailty where fringe groups are not just a tiny portion of the population, but rather a huge political party. The problem is that we let things fester for so long that late stage capitalism found a profit mode there, and it's not letting go until the country self implodes from it. These tech giants are not worried about the effects of the stuff they do to society, including the society that birthed them in the first place - they are ready to move out once everything starts collapsing.
Changes needed to combat what is happening are coming a full decade too late. And sneaking around meekly about it won't have enough strength to change all that. There are concepts and ideals on modern democracy that needs to be better defined and better estabilished so it's not confused as a way for people to use it against the system itself.
Now, there are multiple ways to go around it, but we cannot afford wasting more time deciding on how to start. Again, my opinion, but things should start moving right away. Dismantling tech giants should not take a decade or more to happen, it needs to happen now. Revision of laws, constitution and whatnot to protect what really matters in democracy needs to happen now. Combatting effects of late stage capitalism needs to happen now. Regulating and dismantling the parallel economy of mass private data selling to advertisement networks needs to happen now. Passing laws and getting to sources of funding on these misinformation and conspiracy theory networks needs to happen now. Finding diplomatic ways of extinguishing foreign actors, bot networks, hacker groups, and misinformation groups that comes from outside to exploit fragilities in national communication systems needs to happen now.
If an attack on the capitol wasn't enough, the next domestic terrorism attack will happen soon enough. The more we let happen without a proper response, the worse it gets. And the worse it gets, the more likely a response in the future will become catastrophic in itself.
And something that people needs to understand is that this type of violent cult like conspiracy theory thinking, this blind faith belief system, this radical extremists way of seeing things... it's very much like an addiction. It dominates peoples' lives and occupies all their time. It's worse than deprogramming brainwashing, worse than cleaning up drug addicts, because it demands a complete start over.
So the longer countries let these things fester and take over, the harshest the actions needed to fight back will be, the worst consequences will be for those people, and the more chances you have of them taking over rather than rationality fighting back.
2
-
2
-
2
-
In my country this phenomenon is likely even bigger, because the motivation is fairly obvious. It's obvious in the crime beat rather than being an ideological stance.
With the rise of the extreme right here, I think one of the most notorious side effects was an incredible rise in feminicide cases, domestic abuse cases, with several if not the absolute majority of notorious cases coming in homes that has adopted the extreme right ideology. You get hammered almost everyday with crime news that reinforces this.
So women here are liberal for their own survival, it's not a matter of politics or ideology anymore. Likewise, you have a whole ton of incels, sexists, cucks, and whatnot that falls straight into the extreme right rhetoric, because it works as a balm for their troubles, in the sense that they can shift blame of their failures straight towards women.
It's hard for women even with a conservative mentality to tolerate a situation like this. And in fact, we also had more than a few notorious cases with public figures where both the woman and the men were self declared extreme right, supporting extreme right politicians, having very harsh conservative and religious positions, that ended up in a very messy and very public case of domestic abuse. It became quite obvious how toxic the ideology and mentality is in the confines of a home. I'm saying this for my country's version of extreme right, just so you know... it can be different for other nations.
There is of course all the logic mentioned in the video, but it's just become more extreme and urgent.
We now have a liberal government, and from micro to macro, this logic is proven by fact. For instance, the current government proposed a law that brings wage equality in gender. Surprisingly, extreme right politicians that sell themselves as being for gender equality in politics voted against it with some bullshit excuse, including all the women in the party. The party actually fronted those women to justify voting against the bill, but the excuses were so crude and insincere that it became obvious that they were there as puppets to the majorly male dominated party.
Extreme right here is also very centered in "traditional family values" which is moonspeak for religious extremism, and other euphemistic terms like those which in practice means maintaining the paternalist male dominated status quo.
But the current government has shoved politics chock full of minorities, so it's becoming harder and harder for the extreme right to hide their implicit racism, homophobia, sexism, extreme religious views, and stuff like that.
Nowadays, particularly for younger generations, the only reason I see young women being in favor of conservative views would be either on the radical religious views side, on the radical ideological views side, second intentions related to power or money - status quo, or just complete ignorance on the news that are happening everyday.
Not a single day passes without a new senseless murder, violence case, domestic violence case, feminicide, domestic abuse, ranging from poor people to extremely rich people, that does not involve some sort of extreme right ideology. It has become patently obvious the correlation, which might sometimes not be causation per se, but very strong correlation to the point the link becomes inevitable.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
Yeah.... that's gonna be very hard, specially if we're talking about stasis for hundreds or thousands of years. I mean, it's hard enough if it's "only" a few weeks or months of something similar to hibernation, because we don't have the biology for it, but at least we have animal counterparts.
More than that, it just goes against everything we know about biology. Extremophiles might even last longer, but they are usually very simple organisms with not many parallels to us.
Honestly, even though we're talking about completely extreme sci-fi scenarios here, in this case I think it's more likely that we'll first get to a point of sending surrogates (remotely controled humanoid robots), cyborgs (body of a robot, human brain), or robots that have a powerful enough computer in them to upload our entire brains into it somehow.
First one is easier... human surrogates just don't need to be activated until you reach the end of the trip. Cyborg it already becomes a problem... brain is organic, you have to find a way to preserve it physically and mentally. Uploading the brain, if it works exactly like a human brain, then you gotta find a way to preserve it mentally.... or find a way to shut down and turn back on later.
Anyways, the whole problem here is that we're still in kind of an infancy, and a very dangerous one, of biology and anatomy. We understand few things, we have a limited ammount of stuff we can do with it, and we're not quite past extending the natural limits that we have. Stasis seems to be further beyond curing all diseases, surpassing natural limits, among others.
2
-
2
-
Very useful and relevant Cris, saving for reference, thanks!
This is a transition that it seems more and more likely that one day I'll do.
I've been staying on Win 10 because of inertia and because I still can't do some stuff on Linux, but I've been slowly researching and finding replacements for almost any possible thing I want on a PC for... around 5 years now more or less. Slow and steady so I don't give up.
The stuff I can switch before the OS I'm already doing. I already use Gimp, Audacity, VLC, 7-zip, LibreOffice, OBS, tested Blender, Kdenlive and others. It's not only about the OS, it's about migrating to as many open source software as possible I guess. Moving away from big corp.
I never really worked with any of those though, just surface knowledge, so I don't know how well it'd go. I know that there's still tons of thing that you cannot do in terms of video and photo editing unless you go for the major brands... Adobe mostly. But if work does not require advanced tools, Adobe is another brand that I'd very gladly let go forever. Yes, I've also been looking at Vegas and DaVinci Resolve, keeping an eye on other alternatives too.
But I do suspect that at some point the privacy invasions and just overall exploits and lack of security will make me switch.
2
-
Oh My Goddess, Trigun, Spice & Wolf, Chii's Sweet Home... then X-men compilation comics... then Lord of the Rings, Manchurian Candidate, Tom Clancy books, Umberto Eco, Shakespeare, Poe... down at bottom right, Forgotten Realms books!
Kel's a man of culture, and is also providing justice where it's needed. xD We need more like him and Devin.
2
-
Mercosur is likely going nowhere, and your analysis is right - with the direction Argentina is currently taking with the new president, even if Argentina relents and decide to keep going with the block, the situation will be too unstable for any firm deal to happen. But the block will keep going, because even if Argentina got out completely, that does not change the core objective of Mercosur existing in the first place.
Argentina is in a bit worse situation than Brazil was in the past government. It becomes mainly a diplomatic and regional stability issue, no one wants to deal with aggressive nationalist crazy assholes, basically.
But Mercosur has small chances of deals with other big economic blocks anyways, because of all the conflicts of interest. France in particular keeps creating new excuses not to sit on the table because it's directly competing with commodity exports of both Brazil and Argentina.
Unless there is some drastic change on that front, France plus a few EU members will keep getting in the way of deals. Which is fine too, people gotta understand that the main objective of economic blocks such as Mercosur isn't to close deals with EU or whatever.
It's supposed to be a Latin American economic interests defense group. It's needed at least as a safety measure, but more largely to solve disputes and close deals between it's members. It needs to be there even in unstable government times because when individual nations solves it's own internal problems, the block is an easy path to mend diplomatic break ups.
It'd be great if Mercosur could close deals with other global economic blocks for global integration and more visibility of the global south, but while that doesn't happen it's like just more of the same old.
In practice, what you really have is lots of trade with countries like China, country to country, or via other economic blocks like the BRICS. In the case of BRICS, Argentina was one of the countries most likely to join the block but still wasn't in, and Milei already rejected the invitation, so it's already out.
BRICS is more about defense of economic interests of developing nations, but it has become more sparse as one can imagine having Russia in.
Paraguay and Uruguay position on the matter is understandable and one that most members have been at some point. Applying pressure for more visibility and active participation.
Of course we all want for the block to have more actual big deals, it was created with that objective in mind, but realistically, it's always been kind of a long shot. xD
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
Brexiteers were delusional back then, that's the main thing. The EU might be in a better position right now, but even if it wasn't, a domino effect was never going to happen one way or another, as most countries in the union are not in a position to leave it.
Ultimately, it comes down to forming a strong economic block to compete in a globalized landscape. That's what the EU is for.
UK came in late and got out because it can more or less afford not being part of the EU, but that's not the reality of most nations taking part. And as I predicted when this lunacy started, this is gonna negatively impact UKs economy for decades if not centuries to come.
Because in some sense, this is all that economic block unions really are - you tradeoff some local political, regulatory and justice powers to take part in a larger economic block that eliminates borders in favor of better economic mobility inside the block, and bigger trading power with other nations or economic blocks.
This entire thing stiffens the ability of democracies to change in political and ideological terms too much, because it has to adhere to a set of things from the economic block it's in, but this sacrifice is generally good for trade, popular or unpopular as it may be.
What Brexit really did for UK in this case is liberate the EU to negotiate deals and accords it had with the UK more freely now. A good part of it will continue having UK as partner, because of geographical advantage and historical dealings, but there is a lot of potential for competition inside EU and outside EU other than UK arising now.
The advantages to UK are much less clear to me... it has more freedom to negotiate it's own set of policies, regulations, and business deals, but a whole ton of it will still be tied to EU because UK wants to continue having a business relationship with EU nations. It has better ability to modify it's politics, but that seems pretty unwise given current global scenario.
I find it very hard for UK to come up with an economic block to supersede EU, it's probably not even in the agenda.
So, it'll likely renegotiate most of it's contracts that were tied to the EU previously, and the way I see it, it'll be on the losing side most of the times in comparison to what it had before, because it's not part of the larger economic block anymore - it's now negotiating with one instead.
All in all, I think this is great for nations other than the UK... I was saying this during all the Brexit kerfuffle, but in general, the more business UK loses with the EU, the more potential business we in developing nations could have. And UK's economy is strong enough to live by itself once again anyways, maybe, I think. It'll take a hit, but probably won't implode.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
I'm with Ireland, not because of anti-Semitic sentiment, but rather against Netanyahu's extremism.
Here's the thing - Ireland is not the only country that people are demanding the expelling of Israel's ambassador - this is happening at least in two other countries that I know off, Brazil and Colombia. Probably more than that, because it has to do with the arrogant attitude of Israel's far right, corrupt, extreme, warmongering government.
It's due to the extremism that contaminated even Israel embassies, with extreme nationalistic tones preaching for the extermination of Palestine.
In Brazil, the Israeli ambassador, in a complete embarrassment to himself and to Israel, chose to go in talks... with the far right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro that not only has been condemned twice by Supreme Justice of crimes that made him ineligible in the next presidential election, he's also being investigated in multiple cases of corruption, and of attempted coup, much like Trump.
It's an offense to the entire country's democracy, an offense against the currently sitting president, and the sort of arrogance and insult that Brazil won't accept.
I've never even heard of a diplomat attempting to do something this stupid, in public, like he could decide who the president of Brazil is.
In Colombia, the Israeli ambassador there entered a spat with the president because of a tweet he made accusing Israel of being a genocidal state, after we learned about the number of civilian deaths happening in Gaza. Israel response to that was going after Colombia's ambassador in Israel to reprimand her somehow, as representative of the country. Now, politicians in Colombia are also asking for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador there.
That's not even to mention how protests were happening for several months now because of Netanyahu's attempt to weaken the judicial system there to escape corruption charges, and how one of his ministers recently even made thinly veiled threats of using nuclear bombs in Gaza.
So, this isn't about anti-semitism, or prejudice against Jewish people. This is straight about a corrupt, warmongering, far right, authoritarian government that is actively targeting civilians inside Gaza and so far has caused the deaths of over ten thousand civilians, with almost half of that being women and children.
The statement that equates Israel to Russia is not only adequate, Israel is likely worse proportionately. Tons of civilians have died in Ukraine during this continuing Russia illegal invasion, but even with all the horrors Putin is causing there, he didn't manage to kill 10 thousand civilians in just a few days.
It's because people see these numbers and they don't understand how horrible the massacre is. Killing this many innocent civilians in such a short period of time is Hitler levels of genocide. People are not making these comparisons just because it gets the attention, or for superficial sensationalization, it's because the numbers actually match, the violence, the crimes against humanity level.
This genocidal Israeli government turned Gaza into an extermination camp for Palestinian civilians, that's the truth of it. They cut access to water, food, closed all access into it for humanitarian missions, and then during that they dropped more bombs there than some multiple year wars, some of which are forbidden by treaties, because of how inhumane they are.
If that's not turning Gaza into an extermination camp, I dunno what is.
So, there is no defense for what the Israeli government is doing. The question is if the so called civilized and democratic world will condemn such actions. Because if Putin's Russia is wrong in their actions against Ukraine, so is Netanyahu's Israel. And the bias some countries are putting up in full display to condemn Russia while turning a blind eye to Israel is the epitome of hypocrisy.
2
-
Well, except that gamification of mundane tasks have been tried for a very long time, it never quite caught on with few exceptions, and there are reasons for that.
Much like movies, games kinda require your full attention (the comparison with music is very convenient though), and one of the most important aspects of it is immersion. For both movies and games, I want to step away from my daily life and immerse myself in a fantasy, sci-fi or whatever setting. Why would I want to tie the ammount of fuel I have on my crappy old car to NFS?
Why would I ever want to take away from my immersive experience of driving a million plus car in a game by being reminded of how poor I am not being able to fill up my real life commuter piece of junk? I don't want my Sims to be anything like I am. I don't want bonus content in games to be dependant on what I do in real life.
Of course this would be plenty great for a gaming company willing to close deals with gas industries, brands, commercial venues of all sorts, big retail chains and whatnot to tie in their game.
But gamers and consumers in general might not want that, you know? It can disrupt suspension of disbelief, make games less immersive, and take away from what lots of people wants from gaming in the first place: to be somewhere away from reality.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
The video is still a great idea, and I'd recommend for people wanting to improve recording quality inside a closed room, but on the subject, there are a whole lot of misconceptions about it when the subject is actually kinda simple to understand, at least from a general perspective.
I think problems began when coverage on anechoic chambers and professional studios came around. People taking a look on how those rooms look, jumped into conclusions and generated theories while ignoring basic physics.
In general, recording studios wants a few different things to improve audio quality: to keep external sounds out, to trap internal audio in, and to keep sound from bouncing on walls (which causes echoing and reverb).
For isolation (the first two), you want mass which in general is not visible. Could be double walls with internal insulation, could be a frame with towels, soft furniture, etc etc. But in general, you want the same stuff that will protect you from external freezing temperatures.
A very thick and hard wall could do the trick... but studios and whatnot sometimes use double walls with something like fiberglass in between because it helps the other property they are looking for: absorption.
Sound absorption can be achieved with the funny looking walls with piramid like shapes. The idea is simple: you need a surface that instead of being flat and reflecting sound back directly to it's source or bouncing everywhere in the room, it'll instead throw it sideways trapping it into a pattern which it can't "escape" or reflect back at the source. This graphic is for an anechoic chamber for RF signals, but the idea is the same:
https://cdn.comsol.com/wordpress/2014/07/Partially-reflected-and-partially-transmitted-wave-into-absorber.png
The reason why the cheap foam doesn't work is first because it's too porous... sound just goes through it, doesn't have much chance to be reflected/deflected/trapped in any way. Second reason is that the shape needs some specs to achieve good results... it's not just any weirdly shaped thing that will work. The walls on anechoic chambers have those piramid-like shapes at certain angles and with specific materials that will do the job.
The professional grade foam also doesn't work because it has to be used in conjunction with other things to achieve the results Matt wants. They are professional in a way that, used with other professional solutions, will work better than generic foam.
The simple way to think about it is picturing sound like physical things you are throwing at a wall. You make the wall thick enough, no one will know you are throwing things at the wall on the other side of it. But if the wall is flat and hard, it'll bounce back at your face. If you make a soft layer between you and your thick hard wall, you get less chances of it bouncing back at your face - some stuff will bounce back, some won't (which is why a DIY solution might be good enough to work for certain sound frequencies, but not so good for the rest). But an even better strategy is making the wall shaped in a way that it'll actually "catch" and trap whatever you are throwing at it.
To be clear, you don't need... or perhaps you don't even want anything as close as an actual anechoic chamber to have good quality recordings - or to listen to your music. If you remove echoes and reverb completely, it can actually sound kinda weird and funny instead. So a bit of isolation and absorption will be good enough.
Final point I'll need to add that is always in consideration for sound treatment: the overall weight of solutions, plus fireproofing and other safety hazards. You see that you could just make a safe with meter thick walls of pure steel or concrete... that would isolate it plenty. Then you can do whatever you want to eliminate reverb inside. But solutions will often come in mix and matched ideas to achieve the desired effect while still being light, safe and cost effective. When you are just putting some panels to improve things a bit, it's not that much of a hard balance to achieve... towels, cushions, blankets and other soft materials will give enough isolation and absorption. But if you are doing it for an entire room, things can get a bit more tricky. :P
1
-
Small nitpicky correction just so people don't misunderstand things: Steadicams also rely on gimbals for stabilization. The difference between older steadicams and modern handheld gimbal systems is that the first is mechanical and uses weights for counterbalance while modern versions uses an electronic system to self-balance and to position itself.
Steadicams are still widely used because if you have experienced operators you'll get more reliable results at command or with pre-planning. Of course, modern stabilization systems also will produce great results when you have an experienced team and the right gear, but as with most things, electronic components and batteries always adds in a degree of uncertainty with the whole thing - could break, could act weirdly, batteries can fail or drain out, cheaper rigs might not work well, etc.
The thing is that mechanical steadicams are plenty heavy and bulky, weights added to keep things more stable, so they were designed to put the bulk of the weight on the shoulders of the operator (thus looking like a reverse backpack or something). As modern gimbals use electronics systems to keep the balance by itself, when made reliably they can strip down the weight and become handheld with similar results.
All in all, for cases like nature documentary among several other situations, the portability of modern handheld gimbal systems wins over electronics reliability problems. Far easier to carry around and transport, setup, less fatiguing, grants more freedom of movement for operators, among other advantages.
You'll probably still see steadicams used in movie settings though.
Back on topic, it really is an amazing series always on the forefront of technology. And with advancements on drone technology, it will only get better.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Poses some interesting questions for the future of long distance transportation...
a considerable chunk of the highly specialized jobs will never go away, but I'd guess that with automation at least part of the overall jobs on trains could be eliminated.
I understand that trains in countries like Japan makes way more sense because of short travel distance, but I'd imagine that with modern trains and modern systems, we could be going towards a future where trains becomes more viable.
Hard to think that planes will get that much more automated than they already are. You will still need pilots for both methods, operators, a few flight attendants, some staff and whatnot.... rail maintenance could become more automated, boarding staff too in both cases. The problems around per employee expenses being directly related to travel times still won't go away, but they could be reduced with modern trains going faster of course.
Well, it all depends on how many of the train related jobs are going towards irreplaceable jobs I guess. But it could perhaps be the case of re-thinking how it's done today to make it cheaper.
Anyways, great video!
1
-
1
-
1
-
My fist HDD was a Seagate 40Mb drive which was as heavy and large as a couple of the "big" HDDs nowadays... it went into an old tabletop PC-XT that had a huge CRT TV style that went on top of it, similar to this:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/IBM_PC_5150.jpg
Then again, my dad started working with valves, went through punch cards, and the earliest memory I have of him taking me to visit him at work reminds me of both 8inch floppy disks and open reel storage, all of which we had examples at home because he used to teach basic computer lessons to new employees, and then later at a private school.
Unfortunately, all gone after moving out. I also remember a 300baud rate external modem that was almost the size of a full desktop PC these days.
Anyways, back to the video, I still think HDDs will last a bit more than that... it'll eventually disappear for the end consumer, but I have a feeling they'll be still used for a while on the enterprise side, particularly for storage... same reasons why tape storage lasted so long.
It's just because there are very complex backup systems that probably won't be replaced for quite a while that uses HDDs in their core, and because of the main advantage HDDs have in comparison to SSDs: data recovery. If your SSD goes kaput, your data probably goes with it. With magnetic storage there are still some chances of recovering data even if something happens with the rest of the hardware.
Though I kinda have to question if it's not just more practical to go with tape instead for those cases.
As long as there's no direct physical damage to the tape/plates, if you don't degauss the whole thing, it'll be there.... well, for a while. xD
1
-
1
-
1
-
Very awesome stuff Joey! Keep sharing content like this!
I currently own a Synology DS 214 play (2-bay) and just started using a FreeNAS on an old desktop I had laying around. More for educational purposes than out of a real need, though I do intend to start producing video content at some point (amateur video editor, photographer, videographer here).
Here's the thing though. Early last year, I had a full NAS failure. Basically, I bought a kit from Amazon that I thought was coming with two WD Reds, but actually came with two Seagate drives... you know where this is going. After coming back from a family vacation trip I found my NAS beeping... S.M.A.R.T. had detected a failure in one drive, and as I was thinking on what to do about it, the other drive also failed. They were mirrored - RAID 1. You can't recover from a situation like this with the NAS alone.
I started reading around and researching stuff, apparently (theoretical, but everything I've seen so far points to this) an overzealous Diskstation update was flagging a whole ton of Seagate drives even when they didn't actually have any problem. I'm not sure on the reasoning behind this, but Seagate drives have been notoriously problematic in some reports, like the BackBlaze ones. Mine were 3Tb NAS grade ones.
My setup was encrypted, so after a week of research I ended up having to purchase recovery software to retrieve my data from one of the drives. I couldn't recover data with free software, and I wasn't able to deal with Linux tools like Gparted, ddrescue, testdisk and whatnot.
Just in case anyone needs this (hopefully never), it was Runtime's NAS Data Recovery software that at the time went for around 100 bucks.
So I got new drives, recovered and transfered all the data, started from scratch. Everything is working fine now, no issues so far. And the new FreeNAS system is using those failed drives without a hitch. I ran diagnostics on them multiple times, I used them to transfer data, and I have been using them as external storage up to now, full year and a half after the NAS flagged it's SMART system.
Anyways, thought of sharing some of my experientation on the subject. o/
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Self-motivation, persistence, disposition and endurance. Not giving up too soon, changing strategies when needed, seeking external help. And then, knowing when to give up if it's looking fruitless.
Fun is what you get at the end of this road, at least professionally.
This is particularly a huge problem with career fairs/expo and showcases for students, and lots of motivational speeches. Showing only good examples, success cases, and celebrities of the area instead of talking about all the crap you have to go through to make it. And the crap you'll be stuck with if you never get to be an iconic professional in your particular field.
Also a problem with jobs that are not well understood by the general population. Focus shouldn't be on what you can achieve once you are a well estabilished successful professional in the area, but rather the process which you have to go through while trying to get there, plus more regular professional cases you'll commonly encounter.
Career advices shouldn't be based on superstar achievements, but rather on what most of the people who have jobs on that career have to work with. It's a way clearer picture that should help people understanding jobs better.
Then it really becomes a well balanced choice and a real pursuit. We all have more patience to learn certain things more than others, more resistance to failure on some stuff rather than others, so you'll balance your ability and patience to persist through failure and long hours of learning to achieve a desireable position in the end.
I know I will never have the patience to go through some board repairs that Louis and Jessa go through... some stuff are plain torture to me. :P I love to watch, but I wouldn't have the patience to work with it. But I do have the patience to write long comments no one will read, keep learning and trying to do stuff around video editing, computer repair, and read through tons and tons of posts in a daily basis writing my own thoughts about it afterwards... probaly why I ended up in Computer Science and then Journalism afterwards. :P
One important thing on Louis' video though: keep learning new stuff. Or sometimes, return to stuff you've abandoned previously. Sometimes we need new perspectives to find new appreciation for things we ignored early on.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Very honest and harsh review... I like it! xD
Thoughts on the matter: perhaps, and only perhaps, the image would be better without adapters in the mix (talking about the included VGA to HDMI adapter... those can really do a number on the video capture device). Then again, a costumer shouldn't have to deal with that, not at that price. Perhaps the USB or DVI version is better... they don't seem to have an HDMI model.
The slow motion effect, graininess, poor color correction and perhaps the not so good image quality can probably be solved by having very powerful yet soft lights surrounding the setup.
I'm saying this because all of those should point out to similar problems when you have regular cameras on full auto in low light situations...
Direct LED light will cause reflections and be very hard on the image. But again, this is a problem with the product. Can't really blame the company because it should be very hard to generate soft strong lights with such tiny area to work with, but still.
And that isn't to say Louis room is dark... you can't get nice crisp images like that without plenty of light. But that microscope sensor probably needs close to blinding light outputs to produce good images, which is something quite common for macro lenses.
I guess the pro point here is perhaps portability, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense for board repair, or for Louis' case. But that's too much of a high price to pay for it.
In turn, I have to wonder how does this camera compares to the cheap sub 100 bucks ones you can find on eBay. I honestly think it's miles better, but just can't be too sure of it.
1
-
HE TALKED TO ME! xD Oh Norm...
I've never been to Comic-Con... well, not in the US, but I tend to agree a bit with Simone... it's all becoming a bit too overwhelming and commercial. My gripes are a bit more abstract than that I guess, but it might be the same feeling.
Not that I think this is bad for the event, venues and fans themselves, but I somewhat liked these types of events a bit more when they were more open to the niche, or more unknown stuff, and smaller overall, with more breathing room. It's like a day was enough to cover a lot of ground, and then subsequent days you could spend relaxing and checking stuff in detail... I dunno. Easier to catch up with strangers that had similar interests too.
I guess I was always kind of an outsider attending these sorts of events by myself and kinda straying away from the most popular booths and such, but I tend to compare the events today and when I first started going there... back in 2003 if I'm not mistaken? It was way smaller, way less organized, with way less people, but that kinda gave some breathing room and chances for less known stuff to be showcased better.
Instead of huge booths visually shouting and screaming at you, there was this kinda timid attempt on showing this new stuff you might be interested in. xD
Another thing for the specific case of brazilian events that kinda ruined them for me was, weirdly enough, the Internets. xD I used to wait all year to go to these events to buy stuff you couldn't find anywhere else... nowadays I just shop online, nothing is sacred anymore. :P Plus I guess I'm getting old, tastes are changing, I'm having a hard time following all the fandom. Movies based on comics are something that fell out of my radar, for instance.
I still read comics and stuff, but they are usually the ones you don't see anything related to in these events.
Honestly, I'd still love to be at a big Comic Con like that... here in Brazil Comic Con is still kinda small in comparison (still pretty big, but nowhere close to San Diego and other venues in the US), but there are other events (more focused on Anime/Manga) that grew up too big for me personally.
Eh, I guess it has a bit to do with my personality too... always looking for stuff that's outside the mainstream.
Anyways, liking the new content. Seems not everyone will agree, but Simone is bringing a breath of fresh air that I really like. :D Great video, keep 'em coming!
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Another nice video, thanks Louis!
Man, you'll have (more) headaches regarding capture cards... pretty much all tech channels I follow that bother to get into the subject all have complaints about getting to the perfect setup.
Don't think I have a good recommendation to give you, but if you ever consider going for huge spendings in pro gear (talking about 7000 bucks minimum), there's always Tricaster to consider:
https://www.amazon.com/NewTek-TriCaster-Multimedia-Production-Integrated/dp/B00OL0HVM0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1471917141&sr=8-2&keywords=tricaster
Provided that I'm not even sure if it'll attend all your needs... it's broadcast level complete hardware with multiple inputs, and you'd be abandoning Open Broadcaster Software for their proprietary stuff that I dunno what sorts of codecs it supports: http://www.newtek.com/products/tricaster-mini.html
I only know about it because of a channel I follow that is a one man show with very high quality, and he did some videos explaining how his setup works (name is Lon Seidman):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2xDqtLFwrc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dArYVL5aX7I
I'd also recommend his channel for capturing gear stuff... he has reviewed some ElGato products, the Magewell crap, and whatnot. He seems to have some similar complaints about some of the devices:
https://www.youtube.com/user/LonSeidman/search?query=capture
In any case, I hope you manage to solve it all, and thanks for doing it for us!
Needless to mention, if you ever reach a setup you feel comfortable with, let us know! Also enjoy hearing about the problems you are having on that side of things. :D
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Wow... fishing scam. Doesn't seem to be anymore than that... they have a standard contract that rapes content producers up their asses, and they send it to everyone to see if it sticks. Sadly, I imagine lots of people will go into it without even reading the whole thing, glad you are sharing this Louis.
Man, and I like Vice produced content. Not that this must be the same contract that is closed with all their content producers, but it does leave a sour taste after watching some of their videos.
I'll readily admit that I watch content from Vice, Vice News and Motherboard that are all coming from ViceLand, liked several of them... but if this is their business model, perhaps I'll just unsubscribe from all channels. I mean, the content itself is pretty great, but if the company has contracts this shitty to producers, better not to support it.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
I dunno exactly what's the discourse for minimum wage in the US, but if it's anything like what has happened in Brazil, it's quite simple and kinda endless really.
On one side you have idealistic utopic types (or sometimes just short sighted people that are only looking it from their own perspective) that will always preach about minimum wage having to be a baseline for anyone with a job to have the very basic living standards.
Which is something very hard and very broad to define, because you can have anything from a single person living on rent in a small town where food and other basic needs are kinda cheap, to large families living in capital cities where real estate is impossibly expensive and food anywhere will cost double than the countryside.
But since the cause looks so noble, people won't think about it much. And I don't question that is it a noble cause, but if you don't match it with the reality of the economy, then the preaching becomes kinda empty.
On the other side you will have people facing the reality that it's unsustainable to maintain a business that has to pay all that for each and every one of their employees. It won't make sense to have a business in the first place.
Sure you definitely have some business owners that just don't want to let go of their profit margins, but when you are talking about minimum wage for all, things will by far and large affect more small owners that are already struggling to maintain their business afloat.
Idealists will often only look at major companies though, because that helps their discourse. For most countries the reality lies in between.
It comes down to something like this: sure you can have a minimum wage value that enables people to live a comfortable life, perhaps even having access to some luxuries and stuff, no matter where they live. But would you then have businesses willing to pay for that? Would you have enough businesses to give jobs to all these people? Would it even make sense to create your own business under such circustances, and how much money you'd need to do that?
The money has to come from somewhere. Jacking up minimum wage without taking the other side as a factor only creates a couple of things: unemployment and informal jobs.
So in turn, you get to another question: is it worth creating an economy in which less people get paid a standard living wage, while a whole lot of people is either unemployed or working informally? With less businesses being opened because of the risks involved? Which in turn creates less competition, and a more stagnant economy? It's a very fine balance.
In Brazil it's particularly bad because for each employee you have, the business is also burdened with this huge ammount of taxes you have to pay for the government, which effectively means you'll be paying close to double the wage the employee is expecting to make. Which is ridiculous.
Well, ridiculous for a country that has a government as corrupt as ours, perhaps not so much for others.
I'm not even mentioning all the tons and tons of other costs involved in creating a business in the first place, because with brazilian bureaucracy and taxation it's kind of a miracle we have people willing to start a business in the first place, but employees are definitely the most expensive part of the equation, and it's kinda easy to call business owners greedy when you don't have a business of your own to see how hard it can be to keep it afloat.
If you effectively use the government or law to oblige business owners to pay a certain ammount of money, it sure is good to avoid abuses, situations close to slave labor, among other non desirable scenarios. But as most things, governmental and law control needs limits. You put too much in one side of the balance you risk crashing the whole thing altogether.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
While I am a big advocate for not using drugs if you don't need to, for cases like Steven I can see why it becomes necessary... great to see he's able to cope better with traumas after going through treatment.
His case and of many other similar ones aside though, I fear that we are becoming a society that is too dependant on drugs, specially when it comes to drugs for escapism because we fail to and completely give up changing reality to something that we can better cope with.
Say, even if a supposed drug was approved by the FDA and had no side effects, isn't it kinda backwards to become dependant on some sort of drug because we can't fix what's wrong with society?
Lots of people will hate me for saying this, but for a more specific example, isn't it sad that we have people ending up as alcoholics because they need it to "loosen up" or "take initiative" or "help socialize" among other justifications?
Apart from exceptional cases where there is a clear trauma or system imbalance that's irreversible, the point when a big part of society becomes dependant on certain types of drugs, I think it's necessary to look back on our own cultures to see if there isn't something wrong there that could be changed so that people can lead healthy and happy lives without having to "tweak" things articially all the time.
I'm no hippie myself, I'm a smoker, I have my stash of medicines for every sort of usual illnesses, and I would never refuse taking medicine and treatment if I became ill with something, but just a reflection.
1
-
Some weird compromises, but I still want one. Well, at least I'll be able to brag my OnePlus 3 has better scratch resistance and robust fingerprint reader... :P
Kinda weird the direction Gorilla Glass went with though. I mean, I can kinda understand making a more shatter proof screen on a big smartphone with curved glass that is bound to take some hard falls... but not to the point of it being almost as scratchable as plastic.
Kinda took it to the same level of S7 Active plastic screen in a way, minus burn test. :P
I don't think it's absolutely horribly or anything like that, but that will be one damn ugly all scratched screen after sometime for careless users... though I guess Note users might also tend to put their phones into a notebook style case perhaps? I know I'd do it if I had one, even if I didn't watched the video. :P
I don't think people will damage the fingerprint scanner that much, but this one also seems worse than the S7 active? Or perhaps the same, since both stopped working.
In any case, the Note 7 still has the best camera tied with great software with some very interesting applications for that stylus... I do appreciate the video and your tests Zack, don't get me wrong. But it's just as you say, durability tests are one factor among several others for consideration.
Thanks!
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Extremely agreed to infinity and beyond. xD The first real talk, real analysis and down to Earth review I've watched so far. Gizmodo also had a recent piece written by Alex Cranz that didn't quite get it, but was going in the right direction.
I wonder why the general tech press has been so positive about Windows 10 S and Surface Laptop. It's most likely because there isn't enough people who ever had any experience using Windows Store in recent years. Probably also because they are just running on Surface hype train inertia.
Let me add some stuff to your arguments here Chris, very very grateful for you posting the video.
I've been a Lumia 1020 user and more recently I had a Dell Venue 11 Pro tablet which came with Windows 8.0. In both products I tried using the Windows Store, as well as when I upgraded the tablet to Windows 10.... because you know, I thought a app store system would work well for a tablet.
People often talk that these days the most important apps for productivity and stuff like school/work environments are already on the Windows Store, but they completely ignore the state of those apps because they just do a cursory look in lists of apps available while not actually using any of them. It'll soon become evident when Surface Laptop comes out and people start reviewing those.
Basically, nothing much has changed since the times it was the Windows Phone Store. Nothing much has changed since Surface RT, or Windows 8.0. You have a greater number of official apps, but a whole bunch of them are in several states of disrepair, abandonment, left behind other OSs counterparts, lacking most features and generally mixed with tons of crappy, shoddy, generic apps that are basically shovelware, when not outright dangerous.
Weirdly enough, regarding how closed down it is, Windows Store is closer to Apple App Store rather than Android Play Store. That is, it's more strongly curated, pretty solid in regards to security, but still the walled gargen philosophy. It's as hard to make anything that Microsoft didn't plan for you to do as it is on iOS devices. For instance, finding files that are stored by a given app is the least intuitive thing ever. Apps are installed into random directories with codified names.
Discoverability, much like other app stores, is basically crap. The app store paradigm goes against developers because they force them to set unrealistic prices, deal with an oftenly horrible review system, and an approval and curation system that is usually unfair and bureaucratic.
Now, I've been hearing talks about the Windows Store getting better and the problems with lack of apps or being the last apps to be updated getting better... since I purchased the Lumia 1020. That was almost half a decade ago. It never came to fruition. And there have been no substantial changes in philosophy to indicate that this will ever change. What's the difference between RT and Windows 10 S that will make it work when it's practically the same idea?
And then you have to consider how much more aggressively Microsoft has been introducing stuff like forced telemetry, ads everywhere, shady upgrade tactics, among stuff that Chris already talked about. It's pretty clear that most recent strategies regarding Windows have been all about profit, advertising and data collection rather than what users really need.
Now, don't get me wrong, I like some of the stuff that has been made in the Surface line. I don't particularly like the cloud everything paradigm, and Chromebooks should have more competition (which the Surface Laptop really is not). But I've been inching ever towards Linux these days, something I never considered a decade or so ago.
That Lumia 1020? I eventually got fed up with the poor implementation of apps, having to rely on replacement apps for everything I wanted to do, feeling left behind and getting sick of hearing unfulfilled promises, and being forced to participate in a community that seemed to be even more toxic than hardcore Apple or Android fanboys (yes, I'm talking about Windows Central). The experience I'm having with Android is night and day, even if it has it's own flaws. The Dell Venue 11 Pro? Leaving aside that it's a horribly constructed hardware overall (plasticky back that doesn't fit anymore, horribly made docking station that broke after weeks of usage, battery that inflated on me without any mishandling on my part), I just installed Ubuntu on it.
I'm already also planning my desktop downgrade to Windows 7. So I definitely agree with Chris... Windows 7 S, I'll also pay for it if needed. I just want Windows without telemetry, without ads insertion, without Windows App store, without login requirements for full functionality. I also want no part in Cortana or any other of the always listening always dialing back assistants. The last thing costumers need right now is to get locked into yet another walled garden. If Microsoft is going to take part on that, I'm out.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
It's very interesting and nice of Avid to put out a free version... but it's pretty limited too. :P
Seems they've been switching models to match Premiere Pro and Final Cut X...
Thanks for sharing Chris!
I kinda hate doing transcoding, but oh well. Will give it a try later on.
Of the free video editors I've tested so far the one I liked the most was Kdenlive, despite it's bugs. Even made some chroma key stuff, but the timeline got all confused at some point losing links and linking to the wrong sources... it has a good selection of compatible codecs though.
The one in Blender is useable but kinda awkward, Resolve also has some file format limitations (particularly mp3 files), and then I think I tried a whole bunch of older stuff that just didn't work out, like Lightworks.
Of course, this will vary with needs and experience... I learned editing with Sony Vegas and worked mostly with Premiere Pro/After Effects, dabbled a bit with Final Cut Pro 7.
I think the worst problem with Avid is that if you ever decide to go pro, it can get expensive as hell. Yes, it's industry grade software, lots of Hollywood studios go for it, it's the one major NLE in the market which Hollywood studios go for, it's a plus to know how to deal with it for your curriculum and all that... but it's targeted and priced for the professional market, something to keep in mind. I'd love to have editing studio suites with switching boards and all that, but I'm only a hobbist at this point. xD
If I was ever to go back to commercial packages... well, it's around 20 bucks a month if you pay for the yearly subscription for Premiere Pro CC, Avid Media Composer is more towards 50 bucks a month. It ends up being highly dependant on where you are working at, so there's that... but since I have no aspirations to work in Hollywood studios, for the rest of the market it's all entirely either Adobe or Final Cut.
1
-
1
-
1
-
It has been long coming, and the message here has been spread and talked about for a long time now... since 9/11.
It's the politics of fear. And it triumphed once again. The terrorists won back then, and there's just a whole lot of people that still seems not to realize it. Catching Osama Bin Laden meant nothing once his message was received and spread out. And instead of fighting it, we just fell into the trap and been there since then.
Not only the US, but a big part of the world has been infected with the sense of fear, anxiety and urgency towards rushed politics that will supposedly make problems go away, not realizing that decisions are being made exactly how terrorists wanted it.
People, governments and press all fell for it. It seems to appeal to the vast majority of people because it feeds primal urges and fascination. It speaks to a primitive and core part of us, something we need to actively and consciously fend off.
People have to estabilish a timeline of political and administrative decisions that were lead by fear and anxiety towards a fictional doomsday scenario, instead of decisions rationalized to make a better, more accepting and tolerant world.
The irony is that the road taken with fear in mind only ends up with the realization of it. It's a self feeding machine that can only explode in a final catastrophe. There's no escape or good ending.
We're one minute closer to midnight in the doomsday clock now. And even people who absolutely hates Trump's guts seems to keep making the wrong decisions even now that he was elected in an undeniable demonstration that the politics of fear are still there, still winning, and still deciding our future.
We need less hatred, more acceptance, less people throwing accusations at each other, and more people accepting their own share of responsibility and failures to work for a better future. There is no other route. Doesn't matter your personal ideology, beliefs and whatnot. Doesn't matter if you voted for Trump or not. Without dialogue and understanding, there is no civilization and no society.
This is the essencial part of democracy. We win some, loose some, but always keep fighting towards a better future, even when things looks gloomy. Trump or Hillary, people would and will have to keep monitoring their politicians and the decisions taken by them, and this is not only about POTUS, but all levels of administration.
Lots of people might disagree with me, it's ok, it's your fundamental right, but to me it seems that we couldn't escape the politics of fear so far because it became deeply rooted into governments and society. Our failings to fight back against this particular type of politics surface not only with acts of violence from certain groups, or prejudice, extreme nationalism and religious extremism, but also from the apathy and lack of action of those who are against it.
And like I already said, apathy, lethargy, closing yourself down, refusing to talk, refusing to share, refusing to discuss in a civilized manner, judging yourself superior to others that don't share your beliefs, isolationism, hatred, keeping it to yourself, and being completely inactive in the face of politics of fear just feeds into the system, because it's the path with least resistance. It has always been like a shortcut, something that seems to have results in the short term, but with the most risks of ending up in disaster.
This goes from very minor to huge scale. From threatening someone close to you so that he/she does your bidding, to a level of politics that involves the entire world.
Start looking around and consciously analysing decisions taken that you somehow feel are unfair in a general sense. You will start noticing how fear seems to always be somewhat related to it.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Some stuff worth clarifying:
As most in the phone repair business will know, the Apple recycling thing? It's mostly PR talk and marketing stunt. They might have some flashy robot that disassemble iPhones, but at the same time they are fighting against the right to repair bill, and their actual repair services are just either replacing easily repairable phones with refurbished or new models. The tendency on Apple making more parts of their iPhones proprietary also works against repair efforts, specially when they lock stuff down via software to work with a single unit alone. Because you know, it's plenty easy to make ads and marketing with flashy robots and specialist interviews saying they are trying to do something about it, while hidden behind the curtains are all the measures they are activelly taking to sell more phones that they hope will end up in landfills faster to be replaced by newer models.
Yes, smartphones, computers and all sorts of electronics have a whole lot of base components that could be used for all sorts of applications, but for the most part, extracting them doesn't make economical sense. It's cheaper to mine for new raw material than going through the entire process of extracting them from boards and components - because those require chemical baths and extraction processes that not only are costly, take extra time and extra work, they probably would be even more harmful to the environment in comparison to just throwing those away.
This has been a reality before smartphones ever came to the market... it's an overall electronics problem.
Unfortunately, returning the phone to whoever sold it to you or even the brand/manufacturer himself will mostly not solve the problem. It's a whole other rabbit hole, but there's a whole trail and articles written about it how big companies will pay for 3rd party "recycling" companies that just stuff all that eWaste inside a warehouse and leave it there to rot. The trail for those will often end up in abandoned warehouse, or go all the way to some poor country in cities with people living with all that toxic waste with nowhere to go.
We HAD a pretty easy and economical way of prolonging smartphone life: replaceable batteries. This trend is dying, and summed up with barriers put up against independent repair, it's all going towards people replacing smartphones even more frequently. The last top tier phone to have a replaceable battery right now is probably the LG V20 alone. And the market is going against it because a replaceable battery also means no water/dust resistance, at least for now, with current smartphone design.
The research on graphene in batteries, and graphene in general, is great but is also a very long way away. Techies have been hearing about the miracle material for over a decade now... but there are lots of hurdles to go over, and getting it to production scale at the size it'd need to replace something like Li-po battery manufacturing at the demands we have today is no joke. It really won't be happening anytime soon. We're talking about decades here, and something more significant like a Lithium shortage spiking prices to a point it becomes economically viable to explore making all new industry level machines for a new material.
Some good news: with sources like iFixit and some other YouTube channels and sources, it is possible nowadays to get your own set of tools, sources for components (repair shops, eBay, etc), and learn how to fix some of the most common problems without much prior knowledge. I replaced two cracked screen phones and I'm stupid, so you can do it too with some research time and risk. :)
If you really can't be bothered to do it, look around... chances are you are going to find someone who can, or some shop who will at least accept the material. It'd be better if something like the right to repair bill passed, but even if it doesn't, repair shops will still exist.
Our smartphones are also becoming incredibly powerful, and communication protocols have become standard without many changes over the years (like when GSM replaced TDMA and CDMA in several countries). So those old phones? If they are not broken, they could be handed over to people who don't have the money to buy a new one. Sensitive information could be wiped out, and even for broken phones, they could be either fixed to be used again, or be harvested for parts by repair shops. Any of those alternatives are better then letting it collect dust in the back of a drawer. There are tons of creative ways of using old devices, and even the late dumbphones already had Wi-fi, mp3 player, bluetooth and some pretty usable stuff in them.
My past two smartphones were given over to relatives who don't need all the fancy app stuff, the one phone I still keep in my drawer is a replacement/burner/spare dumbphone I keep for all sorts of usages. But smartphones from the past 4 years or so could be repurposed for other stuff with the right accessories... a media streaming device for the living room, an Android device for lightweight tasks, a gaming/entertainment device for kids, alarm clock, part of a smart mirror... these are also very valid and good ways to keep the device from becoming eWaste. Just use it for something that you'd otherwise need to buy more electronics for.
1
-
As much as I think transgender people should have all the rights and abhore prejudice of all forms, one has to think if a kid won't change his/her viewpoint after he/she matures.
I guess as long as it's not a big deal to change the name back afterwards it's all good, but fortunately surgery isn't allowed too soon.
Cases of parents influence, some sort of childhood trauma, an understandable lack of experience and knowledge, or just simply pure experimentation could make a kid plant it's foot on just about anything.
I'm not saying that it's an option or a choice for fully grown mature adults, but as far as I know, given the choice, some kids could choose to be dinossaurs, a dog or something. We don't know much about the whole story there, but sometimes a kid wanting to be of the opposite gender might be something else entirely.
Perhaps someone will correct me on this, but something sounds kinda dangerous there.
1
-
1
-
1
-
I love the perspective, insight, and vision plus inspiration to rebuild a better more integrated Syria, and I think several other cities around the world could take the idea to heart on urban planning and community building... but I have to admit I find it a bit disingenuous to tag the ongoing war on poor architecture.
Part of it, perhaps, but I'd say it's either a minor problem compared to the whole, or more like a symptom of the bigger problems. And while architecture, urban planning, and thinking differently about community integration helps, I don't think it's enough to prevent scenarios like Syria.
Great cities with great civilizations rose and fell with civil wars, and in some cases, we're only left with the ruins of great architecture to look at afterwards.
Of course, everyone is welcome to have a different perspective on this, but imho if we don't want cases like Syria ever happening again... it just seems to me that we have to dig deeper than this.
1
-
This might be the one single thing that US could learn from Brazil.
I mean, our politicians are all either corrupt, stupid or both, pre-election campaigns are a complete shitshow, candidates spend 99% of the time talking and doing crap that doesn't matter, and people continue fighting on social networks to attack or defend politicians that deserves neither. But I have absolutely nothing to complain about voting and election day in particular... well, at least in the couple of cities I voted.
The whole thing is well organized, spread out, happening in multiple places - most public and private schools are used for elections, as well as other places. Recent local elections I didn't have to wait 5 minutes before voting. First round I got there early at around 8 am, no lines, very few people around. Second round I got there right after lunchtime. One person voting and another in the line of my section. It wasn't that much different in other elections and back at my hometown, though in my hometown things were just a bit more crowded... I guess the most I had to wait was like 15 minutes or so, and that's almost a decade ago.
Oh, and voting here is obligatory... and on Sundays. You either go vote or you go justify why you are not voting, because if you don't you are kinda f'd. :P No "too ocupied" bs. Justifications usually go around not being in your home state currently for some reason, medical stuff, and if you work on emergency services. Other than that, no excuses, so you can imagine the volume of people is pretty high.
1
-
1
-
1
-
I wish all companies had your vision Louis... personally never worked for places like those, but man, I've heard the stories from several friends.
And here's the thing folks: treating employees like shit tends to come back to bite you in the ass. What the mexican shop owner there doesn't seem to realize, is that as soon as his employees understand they are being exploited (they probably already do - it's as easy as being asked to pay on the first mistake they make), they'll start planning to open a business of their own, with better conditions, lower profit margin, already thinking of a way to screw things up for him.
You know, nothing more insulting than a boss who doesn't want to take any responsibility... it immediately makes people think, even when it's not true, that anyone could be a boss like that - so it's just better to be my own boss. A boss that does not act like that, and takes hold of eventual damages, acts like a safety net basically. That is something not a whole lot of people are willing to deal with. It brings respect.
No brainer. It's unsustainable for employees to keep working that way. You'll be on this constant pressure of not being able to fail every now and then, the job puts you at risk of not getting a pay check on a given month, morale will always be low with stress always high, and you will never get the most talented people to work for you given the conditions. It's really self defeating... might look like an attractive thing at first due to immediate profit margins, but it impedes conditions like Louis has and likes on his business - caring and competent employees.
Another thing that conditions like those outright kills is experimentation. If employees are always afraid of failing a repair, damaging a product, or having to pay for parts that broke and whatnot, they'll just assume the most guaranteed procedure, regardless of how much time it takes, how optimal it is, or how outdated it becomes. The scenario does not allow for people to try new tools, take a risk to optimize repair timing, or even evolve in their jobs, which also stops them from enjoying their jobs.
And it really doesn't sound like repair business is a whole lot sustainable once you start having problems with rotation - much like programming.
1
-
1
-
Nothing short of a nightmare removing a cracked screen from this one...
Take care of yours guys, if the glass breaks, the LCD will go with it.
It's amazing how thin the LCD is... probably 3 times thinner than the glass touchscreen itself. Feels like paper with a varnish coating. Cracks just like it too. xD
Also hard to take a cracked screen from the plastic frame itself. You'll probably damage it a bit just to start taking out, and it's most likely that the tiniest cracks will happen either on top or at the botton of the screen. Is that's the case... you are f'd. :P Oh, confirmed... borderline impossible to take the LCD+touchscreen out without damaging it. If you don't crack the glass or damage the frame, seems to be extremely easy to crack the LCD by shoving any sort of prying tool there. It's just too close to the edge.
The good part is that the middle of the screen unit (LCD+touchscreen) is not glued, so it'll be easy to remove a good chunk of it. The bad part is that top and bottom are well glued together, and you'll probably have to rake all those tiny shards of glass.
Also, if the bottom cracked, be careful about the fingerprint reader and the ribbon cable for the back and menu buttons. This cable is between the plastic frame and the LCD panel, I ended up ripping mine up, oh well.
Zack, thanks again for the teardown. iFixit still doesn't have one for this, so I was a bit lost.
Now it's waiting time... not sure how long it'll take for the replacement panel to get here.
1
-
Just a snippet of what I already said in other videos. I still haven't managed to find a single reported battery fire case directly related to 3rd party battery replacements.
I did manage to find 3 separate cases of batteries, probably original ones, going up in flames during official repair inside official Apple stores. One in Zurich, one in Spain, and one on an iPad in US. Probably because whoever was trying to make the repair was either inept or overworked, poking a hole into the battery while trying to open the phone.
I'm curious to know where all this thing about cheap chinese knockoff 3rd party fake generic battery came off of. It doesn't seem to be a thing that really exists. Shitty 3rd party chargers, yes, definitely. Some of which has definitely caused explosions and fires. But LiPo batteries, the ones that goes inside phones... legit question - do they really even exist?
I have some pretty cheap generic LiPo packs with me coming from external batteries and some cheap tablets that I got for some experimentation projects... none of them failed so far. I had one crappy Dell Windows tablet official battery (that uses LiPo packs) failed on me... but it only puffed up and stopped working. No fire. No thermal runaway.
People who are in repair, or even Rossmann himself... do you guys know of smartphone replacement LiPo batteries that are really dangerous? Apart from Note 7 I mean. xD
I am truly curious about this because it just doesn't seem to make any business sense. Mass production of LiPo batteries seems to be too costly and involved for anyone, even ill intended pirates harrr, to try these days.
Trying to come up with a proper analogy, but drawing a blank here. It's kinda like, but not exactly, trying to fake a CPU. For anyone dealing with that level of component, it'll be immediately obvious how it's cheap and fake, it's just too expensive and complex a thing to try to falsify or make cheap to sell, and any big problem with it would immediately put distributors and manufacturers into a black list or something.
From this perspective, it just seem to make much more sense for whatever battery manufacturer that Apple hires, or other companies for that matter, to sell their batteries unlabeled as 3rd party replacement. Because from what I could understand from limited research, there are actually not that many industries out there that are actually capable of doing LiPo batteries specifically with the specifications that a modern smartphone requires - size, power output, capacity, etc.
Do note that this isn't true for cylindrical shapped Lithium batteries (like 18650)... for those, generic, fake, cheap, crappy batteries are almost an epidemic in sites like eBay. Some with completely ridiculous claims that are outright impossible for the form factor. But specifically for LiPo batteries intended for smartphones, that does not seem to be a thing.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
It's always interesting to analyze the rhetoric of proto-dictators because they always end up in some contradictory point one way or the other, because all of those feelings are reactionary and FUD based instead of well pondered and balanced. These people don't do politics, they rule in the basis of freakouts, hysterics, Karen level behavior.
See, there is all this fear from the alt right and far right, the most radical side of the current Republican party that every Republican politicians is trying to attend to.
Wasn't cultural assimilation, anti-immigrant, and totally racist ideas just on the forefront of those people not long ago? Nationalism with jingoism, empty calls of morality in a holier than thou fashion from zealots and puritanical assholes. There is no freedom in that situation, it's just imposition of will by an elite, which is exactly what a dictatorship is.
It's funny how if Meatball gets elected, the types of policies he passed in Florida and that will get proposed with him as president at a federal level, would just put the US in a very specific list of countries worldwide that also contains all middle eastern theocracies, several dictatorships, and then some other authoritarian regimes.
For how much sanctimonious Republicans talk ill about other countries, particularly what Republican morons will often come in news to say "religion of peace" not understand how this automatically marks them as ignorant morons everytime who cannot understand anything more than surface level racism, they are sure electing exactly the sort of guy who weaponizes religious concepts to oppress people, and who is constantly saying he will do everything to impose his personal opinion by force on others.
1
-
1
-
I think that at this point I probably heard about 20+ (very conservative number) promising new battery technologies that solved pretty much all aspects of Lithium batteries and made them 5 to 100 fold better in some or all aspects, in the past couple of decades or so.
And then they completely disappear out in the ether because most of the times, the reports and studies are overly optimistic, didn't mention any of the drawbacks, and they become ad pieces instead of real feasibility studies on large scale production and applications. To be fair, several of them do talk about timelines of development, how far away they are from production, and how likely they are to replace lithium batteries, but they often get omitted during reporting, because that's not sexy.
I don't wanna be a downer about this because I know these studies and investigations are necessary to get to the next battery tech, but quite frankly I'm tired of the repetitive cycles of overpromissing and underdelivering, and I suspect most of the public also is.
Every time I see the word breakthrough attached to battery, I automatically think - oh yes, here we go again.
Hydrogen cells, solid state battery, carbon nanotubes, ionic, metamaterials, nanomaterials, graphene, silicon based, tweaking purity or shape of element components, refillable, based on algae, based on carbon, based on sulfur, iron phosphate, ceramics, 3D shapes, minimal changes to current production lines, radical changes in production lines, borrowing from lead based battery tech... I honestly have heard it all already.
Which is great because it means tons of scientists are actively working on it, and there is an urgent need to make batteries better than lithium, but at the same time this has become yet another case of over reporting. I fear the public in general are becoming oversaturated on this type of reporting and soon will cease to pay any attention to it anymore. Investors starts getting tired of the confusing influx of information and stops putting money into it. And then, we'll be further away from a real product than we ever was.
Just Google "new battery tech". You'll probably be able to find some 20+ different lines of research from tens of different startups, companies and universities all saying how their tech will completely replace Lithium battery tech in the next 10 years or so promising all sorts of stuff. It's quite frankly overbearing.
The other thing I don't like about all these promises of new battery tech is that they often criticize Lithium batteries for all sorts of things. And of course, Lithium batteries have several problems, the most visible one being how volatile they are. But current lithium batteries are already miraculous in what they can do, and it's importance shouldn't be diminish nor people should adopt a mindset of waiting for the next battery tech to come around, because we'll be living with Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer batteries for yet a very very long time.
Because it's not only about the underlying tech of the battery, it's about an incredible almost unimaginable infrastructure and scale of production that was developed around it, which is not something achievable overnight. That's the whole thing - the biggest hurdle to come up with a new type of battery is not about the base materials used, or stuff like energy density, recharging cycles and whatnot. It's all about mass production. Doesn't matter if we're talking about batteries for smartphones, or batteries for solar power plants, it still is all about mass production. And unfortunately, it's pretty hard to beat Lithium batteries on this. It'll eventually happen, but a whole ton of the ongoing research is aiming at the wrong targets.
1
-
Actually, no, this one CEO didn't kick nazis off the Internet, Cloudflare does not have the power to do it, and websites like DailyStormer can always find a way of going back online.
First of all, CloudFlare doesn't host anything, they are not making content available on the Internet, nor they have any responsibility to do so. It's a service for protection from DDoS attacks. That's all it is.
And as a private company and provider of protection services against common hacker attacks, they are not obliged to follow first ammendment, they don't have to provide service to anyone they don't want or like, and you as a costumer is not guaranteed any freedom of speech there.
People should realize this already: freedom of speech only applies to the government and public spaces. Outside those, you are bound to terms of services, contracts and agreements. This is why in certain forums or social networks you can get the boot for doing stuff that's not necessarily criminal.
GoDaddy and Google kicked DailyStormer from their servers, refusing to provide hosting service for the website, but even they didn't "kick nazis off the Internet". Nazis can always go look for a host that is neutral and doesn't care about the content it's hosting, there are several of them out there, and it's why websites like 4chan and even more extreme websites that sprouted from 4chan are still around. You'll always find hosts in the world that will put your content up, even when it's outright criminal. We all know how many websites out there have pirated content,
And if all fails, there's always the Dark Web, which is were stuff like Silk Road was formally located. Nazi websites would fit right in since they are not actively commiting any crimes as stated in US law there, so there probably wouldn't be an FBI raid for it.
If they go that route, not even Google de-listing websites from the search engine along with all other search engines would take them off the Internet.
Mind you, I'd rather have the US properly criminalize hate speech, have proper and strong anti-racism laws, and stop pretending to defend some high moral ground of freedom of speech. The constitution and these principles are there to serve you, not be a disservice against what the nation stands for, what the culture is about, and what the people really want. Leniency towards these groups have lead to this situation. Not everything has to turn into the proverbial slippery slope, and quite frankly, I'm tired of hearing this shit. Banning neo nazi websites and groups that actively call for violence and prejudice against minorities isn't a slippery slope - it's doing the right thing.
1
-
"The worst thing about the 21st century dictatorship in the US was how it convinced portions of the democratic population that rulers still cared about laws, constitution and foundational notions the country once had, for too long a time. Lots of scholars, professionals and analysts were so convinced that democracy and democratic rules were set in stone that they didn't see it getting eroded until it effectively became dust.
The delay on realization of what was really going on, that such things were already long gone and just a shadow of them remained, delayed the revolution that was necessary to restore the country and restore democracy for years"
- an excerpt from a history book someplace on Earth, decades from now
The reason why this is Trump's worst lawsuit is only because no one is there to stop him anymore. He'd have thrown multiple of those lawsuits in his previous administration if it wasn't for a few peers around him that were at least hesitant to act this brashly and haphazardly.
Trump, much like Musk, never cared about Freedom of Speech ever in their lives. What they care is about talking and doing whatever they want without consequences. A whole ton of things Trump has done over his entire lifetime was about reaching that goal.
Proof of that is that the idea of Freedom or Freedom of speech is only ever brought up to defend immoral, criminal, and/or unethical behavior that aligns with their beliefs, but never to defend similar things that are seen coming from opposition or perceived enemies. It's so much that way that you already have the creation of undefinable umbrella terms to encompass everything that goes against their ideals, ideology and politics to classify it as a crime that Freedom of Speech has no power over - such as "wokeism", "leftist ideology", "commies" etc.
The US has a rich history on exactly that, but not enough people learned from it. Or rather, learned only to repeat it. Red scare tactics joining together with renewed racism, religious zealotry, jingoism, undue nationalism, fascism, and ultra conservatism as a tool of oppression against those not following it, and to privilege those that think alike.
Here's to hope people actually learn from it, this time. So far, the consequences are spread thin around the nation in such a manner that most people still don't care enough to act upon it. But the time is coming when action will become inevitable. And the delay will have horrible consequences. This is a once in a century or millennium scar. Everything will soon change in the US forever, once again.
1
-
1
-
He's not totally wrong, but he's also not presenting anything new to the table, which I'd add is pretty convenient. His tone is very conciliatory, but ultimately it's denialist and demeaning. We can't do much because things are as they are. My experience tells me so, you cannot go against it. If you are trying to go against it, you are either inexperienced, or being manipulated.
Here's the thing - "because poor countries wanna become richer and more modern but don't have money to support renewables" is not a great excuse to keep using non-renewables. It's just a good excuse for the world to make renewables cheaper, more accessible, and more advantageous over other forms of energy production. Which is hard to accomplish, but this is what is needed to do for the future of humankind on the planet.
If we are playing a simple math game here, it's either press hard for change or accept the consequences later on of not doing so. Bet now for less future losses, or do nothing and guarantee a very harsh scenario in the future. Kids and teens might not have the experience of adults, but of course it's in their best interests to change the outcomes of the future because they are the ones facing it, not us old folks who will likely be dead when the worst comes to pass.
Countries that are only developing now have an incredible opportunity to follow a different path towards progress. Since you don't have to follow the "old ways" of getting richer or more developed, it's almost a necessity to learn from mistakes of other countries and develop your own path.
For instance, no one is asking for Africa to build their entire waterworks/water supply infrastructure out of lead, because we already know the consequences of that, even if it was cheaper. In a similar manner, countries should come together to lead progress in poor countries with renewables instead - because we know the consequences of relying on coal and oil.
It skips the whole huge problem that old rich countries have regarding culture, laws, regulation and huge costs of replacing current infrastructure.
It's also worth noting that politicians never share the enthusiasm of long term solution proposals, or reprehension of policies that will lead to a dark long term future. Why? Because it does not benefit them. At most, a politician term is his lifetime. Their worries are mostly centered on term. It doesn't matter what happens next. And so, this is not something that people should rely on politics to do out of their own personal interests.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Cold reading, exploiting the vulnerable, incredible gullibility, inducing memory by suggestion, misleading people with a potential past history of abuse... and then cultism, tribalism, perhaps a necessity to create a huge excuse to form bonds and community, to feel special or entitled to the friendship of others, or even the reliance of something invisible, untouchable, immaterial, and outlandish to so that they can feel comfortable with the stuff that they can't find or can't accept and explanation for their lives.
It's a belief system. Religion. Focused on a negative imaginary force, which other religions in the past also did.
This is kind of a failure of society, a failure of education, and a failure of development. If only a tiny ammount of that energy and dedication could be used to act on actual problems we face with everyday in the world, perhaps we wouldn't be facing such a dire situation nowadays with economic disparity and potential catastrophic scenarios with climate change and whatnot.
It's one of the problems with prosperity... it can aid people to get a better life, but sometimes it shoves people into bubbles that traps them indefinitely in some weird mindset.
I wouldn't have a problem with all this if it helped people come to terms with problems in their lives and just feel better about themselves in some way, but there isn't a single case of those where you can't immediately detect some very bad and problematic stuff floating to the surface - scams, financial exploitation, abuse of power, ideological brainwashing, some attempt of entrapment and control and whatnot.
You can also always see that most of these communities around conspiracy theories or outlandish stuff seems to thrive most only when people have the conditions to support, or rather waste money on it. And that power is mostly centered on some figure. It's because it is exploitation. People living in a bubble that cannot see anything past it. And sure, fine if they just use it, consciously or not, as an excuse to gather together and do some social activities.
But the danger remains. This is exactly how many violent, terrorist, or crazy groups started.
1
-
Hank, I really really reaaaaaaally wish I could agree with you on people not caring much about celebrities... unfortunately I have been running away from celebrity culture for all of my adult life and part of my teenage life without a whole lot of success. :P
Then again, I don't live in the US, so perhaps there are some cultural differences there. But you can see the extent of how much effort and energy I have put into escaping my own culture which is majorly focused on celebrities. I spend most of my time on the intertubes consuming and writting stuff in a foreign language after all.
I know celebrity culture in the US is the mainstream too, just that there are at least options for avoidance I guess. Or just in english in general, not only stuff from US.
For me personally, that is the disease of the century. Societies give little to no recognition to those who truly deserve it, and tons of people dedicate significant part of their lives, attention and even life changing decisions to so called celebrities which are often unqualified, ignorant, and too full of themselves to care about others.
Feels like we put ourselves right back into a caste system.
Ah well, I'm ranting too much already. o/
1
-
Eh... perhaps Penguim books contributed to part of it's success, but the argument simply doesn't hold water by itself.
There are some key factors in To Kill a Mocking Bird that several literary staples and cases of explosive success and endurance also usually have:
A somewhat subversive style for the time. As in, uncommon type of literature that took some by surprise.
Also subversive ideas. Exploration of taboo and controversial themes.
Usually a fresh take on a theme.
Portrait of a given era that people might not be quite familiar with - microcosm exploration.
Closeness to the authors' own raw, potential scandalous stories, sometimes drawing controversies after publication, sometimes not so much.
Simple writting, easy to follow, easy to understand.
A somewhat realistic style, often coming with a bit of grittiness to it.
Not following a mainstream or conventional structure - monomyth, clear moral lessons, etc.
(optional) Realistic and raw coming of age story, reality crash, or a complete change of perspective and opinion. Critical reasoning put to test.
The common people in extraordinary circunstances thing.
All of those might be realized right after publication, up to years after the author has already died... matter of perception of the time it exploded in popularity.
A whole bunch of literary classics follow some of these, when not all of these. Kerouac's On the Road, Sallinger's Catcher in the Rye, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Palahniuk's Fight Club, Capote's In Cold Blood... to name a few.
See that I'm not criticising the works for following a certain structure nor trying to diminish the works because they have common characteristics... rather, I love them all and think they deserve the success.
1
-
1
-
Let me ask something that people more in the know about encryption algorithms might have the answers...
The Signal protocol what you see being used around nowadays by all sorts of messaging systems... that's for text based messages right? One to one messages? Or just... everything?
Signal also has on by default encryption for group chats, voice and video calls and group calls, right?
Is the algorithm behind encryption for those also open source?
I think it all is, not sure if it's a different system or just included in the Signal protocol altogether.
Asking both to confirm this, and obviously, to point out the first immediate problem that comes to mind with the Discord announcement - Why create an entirely new thing when you have an open source proven encryption algorithm right there to use? Not say they absolutely have to, but at least some rationale on creating something from scratch.
Of course, still good coming from a point of having nothing at all... but if it's going to be some experimental opaque thing, I wouldn't celebrate it at all. Doesn't matter if it's DAVE or JOHNSON, or whatever name they want to give it, it's not really a win until we have all details and it gets fully audited.
This could end up in a similar situation as Telegram is, which my guess is exactly why Discord is making a move. I think Durov's arrest, but more like how visible the whole thing was, is incentivizing some platforms to make a move there.
Not really sure how exactly Discord works because I never felt comfortable enough to use it myself, but nowadays it's also more of a community rather than just a chat platform, right?
In terms of algorithm, Telegram uses that custom encryption MTProto 2 which has been vetted to a point, but still has criticisms regarding how secure it actually is. Which in the end doesn't matter much since the problematic part of the platform is not e2ee at all, it's just an encryption running from clients to server.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
You know why people keep dying and laws don't pass to prevent such things? Because some governments have decided that the money generated by the homeopathy or alternative medicine industries is worth more than some human lives. Not only the government, but societies at large. This is a systemic problem related to Internet's lack of regulations and monitoring.
Because if regulatory bodies starts classifying toxic substances for what they are and not based on scandals like this one, and starts limiting it's sales only to people with proper credentials and proper justification to use them, it kills the highly lucrative industry that alternative medicine is nowadays - and they have tons upon tons of lobbying power.
UK government may or may not pass this reclassification, unscrupulous people will just find the next chemical compound to use in it's place, and people will continue getting killed, because this is how this whole thing works.
This isn't a winning battle... sad reality is that the way online markets operate and how things stand, what parents, teachers, schools, educators and whatnot should be doing now is reinforcing lessons on who to trust and what to consume in terms of drugs and supposed medicines, and in a broader perspective, information.
Cases like this one will keep repeating themselves because the Internet has allowed anyone to sell anything and advertise it as a solution to any problem. The only real barrier for the sale to happen is about convincing potential costumers that it works, and there is not enough awareness going around for kids and adults to understand the potential dangers of what they are buying online, no matter how many promises the seller makes.
1
-
Just forget the semantics war man... you'll never win. xD Particularly if it's composed of common English words.
I mean, I do agree with everything said, but still.
Same story of other common language words and expressions being taken with second or commercial intent to mislead people or give an erroneous impression.
Gives me headaches thinking about hoverboards, drones and whatnot. xD
In the end, companies will have to start using "free and open source as defined by the free software foundation criteria and x licensing agreement" yadda yadda... or stuff like that (see CreativeCommons with all it's CC somethings).
But you know, even if you state that free and open source is a specific thing that cannot be used to define others, you see splattered all around the term open source and free used to define licenses that are, in effect, a midway between the definition given by the open source foundation, and commercial proprietary code. And really, in the end, you just can't deny those definitions just because it violates the free software foundation definition of it... no foundation, organization, or authoritative power has the position to strictly define common language words as they see fit, language is always in flow. Heck, not even dictionaries and encyclopedias definitions stick, they are constantly changing and updating it.
The confusion about Chrome, Chrome OS and Android often comes from the fact that these draw from "open source" projects such as Chromium, Chromium OS and AOSP. The three of them have a licensing salad that involves BSD licenses, Apache, GPL and GPL-like, plus all sorts of other stuff. They are indeed open source, but not the free and open source license and definition according to free software foundation, they indeed are somewhere in between.
And then there is of course the entire separate discussion that if you have code that is free and open source licensed, but majority controlled by a tech giant, is it really conceptually free? Reason why we really don't want Firefox to die and we end up with a scenario that the only browser engines available are Chromium and WebKit (Safari). Good to note that WebKit is also LGPL and BSD licensed, but you know, mostly Safari and other browsers running on iOS, so mostly controlled by Apple in current scenario.
1
-
1
-
So, here's the thing... this will sound radical, I know, but here's the thing.
The US has to find a way to criminalize the practice of scam alternative medicine crap, or else the population will eventually pay severe consequences for it.
This is something I've been saying for well over a decade now, and I think the consequences are starting to show up.
See, it's all fine and dandy when people are fooled into these things and end up dying because of it. Well, not exactly fine and dandy for everyone who knew it was bullshit and still end up affected by all of it... family members, friends, people who gets fooled into it because of others supposed experiences.
I don't want a nanny state as much as anyone else worried about privacy, self reliance and freedom, but there should be limits as to what people promise in these sham products and services, and if before the Internet this was already an urgent problem to fight against, with the advent of Internet, and particularly with the shift of people's attention towards social networks which is something that should never have happened in the first place, the speed, reach and size of audiences who are become victims of these scams, radicalized by the speech, and becoming like cult followers.... it's just unprecedented in human history.
And something like this will have all sorts of consequences in all levels, but perhaps the most damning of it all are the cumulative consequences this has in the psyche of an entire culture.
The thing about scammed people that fully believes into these things is that eventually one case will arise when someone that is already vulnerable, potentially with mental issues, and ready to do anything to get what he or she wants, will use violence to get it.
You might end up with a case of murder, mass murder, or even something worse if a group of these lunatics get together.
The fact that QAnon is something still active in America is just, from an outsider perspective at least, as dangerous as if not more dangerous than the gun violence epidemic. It seems less damaging because it's not as visible, and it's eroding things bellow the surface, but eventually ignoring this and making little of these stories Vice puts out will resurface in a very bad manner eventually.
I'm telling you, I am truly hoping for the US to get a president, politicians, justices, institutions, regulatory bodies, and a whole set of laws to stamp these things down. Or else there is no hope for healing a nation that is already as damaged as it is.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Oof, sometimes watching US political stuff is like deja-vu. We brazilians had a whole ton of these discussions some years ago, the a whole ton of the comments sounds pretty much the same, specially around centering things on income rather than ethnicity, or saying that there's nothing wrong with basing it on merit alone. These are valid arguments, but they do not solve the problem that these strategies are trying to address - historical discrimination that is still present because institutions never did anything to correct the historical deviation.
Personally, I think universities in Brazil did it right. There are reservation of seats based on income, ethnicity and a merit based system that is applied on public schools via standardized testing. Private schools also have reserve seats based on certain things, and scholarships are given for a portion of it, as long as students manage to keep a set performance. It won't be perceived as fair and equal for everyone for a long time because historical discrimination created extremely unbalanced grounds that can only be corrected by tilting it the other way.
But even though education in Brazil is pretty bad in itself, and it's for now an unsolvable problem because politicians couldn't care less about education here, the strategy has improved diversity in public and private universities, it has widen the range of experiences students have, and I've seen families truly transformed because it happened.
Each society will have to chose itself what strategy to go for, of course. But it's worrying the choices some are doing right now. Brazil will most likely shift towards the wrong way too now with our new president. He never mentioned touching affirmative action in universities, but the guy is as sexist, homophobic and racist as they come. He has done some efforts to shut down LGBT affimative action groups while a congressman. We will need our institutions to stop him from shutting everything down.
This isn't about putting white people as the enemy or anything like that, it's about recognizing the weight historical racism had in the past and trying to correct it in all fronts.
When you have a foundation that is this tilted one way or another, it's not enough to correct current actions and let it go thinking that will be enough to balance things overtime.
If we can't recognize that more needs to be done to balance things better, than progress won't be achieved. And I personally think this is one among the several things people in this generation can do to give better chances for future ones. People have to stop with tribalism, nationalism, explicit or implicit racism, complete polarization and other stuff stopping progress of humanity as a whole. The ability to overcome things like that can quite possibly be the biggest barrier the next number of generations will face.
We have statistics and other measures to tell when things have gotten more balanced overall. And we need, as societies, to recognize, celebrate and elevate initiatives that try to correct historical distortions better. Because talk is just talk, there are very few and far between actions that are really contributing for more equal societies.
1
-
Semi-related question - if we're talking about large scale energy production, how much sense does it make to instead of thinking about battery solutions like huge lithium based batteries, to use stuff like hydro power pump based storage instead?
I know that hydroelectrics also have huge environmental impacts, but comparatively speaking, perhaps it's still better than huge chains of lithium based storage.
There will obviously be huge losses in powering pumps to send water to higher elevations and then recovering that power with water turbines, probably way less efficient than batteries, plus you need all that water there... not sure if it's worth consideration.
But yeah, very good points. I had some idea around problems of scalability for most renewables, but it's very nice to see it put on paper with an identifiable case like this one.
We need to keep looking at all fronts imho. Nuclear power is definitely something that needs to keep getting looked at, as something that can evolve and not something to be constantly looked at with the eyes of something stuck at 70s tech. Other types of battery is something that I think one way or another will be constantly moving forward... because it's not just about renewables or green tech, it's just something we need to evolve one way or another.
1
-
1
-
Expand a bit on the subject for those curious...
I'd say Hen na Hotel is mostly for the novelty factor, not how hotels will look like in the future in Japan.
I'm saying this, and you can confirm by staying at more recently built hotels there, because the actual system to reduce number of employees and general human to human interaction is closer to those vending machines or ATMs than robots, and they already exist in several hotel chains. In fact, they came way before Hen na Hotel I think.
I stayed in a couple of hotels back in 2018 close to Narita station that had them. They still had staff because lots of people were still not used to the fully automated system, but it was there as an option, and people who were used to it went directly to those instead of going to the reception desk.
Checkout also done automatically. One hotel basically had an unattended urn for you to just throw your room keycard in and leave.
And really, the reception desk was there more to teach those who didn't know how to work with the automated machines, rather than as an alternate method... because your check in had to go through them one way or another - it's all in the system.
Not all that different from other stuff that has been automated long time ago, like ticket machines in fast ramen restaurants, or kaitenzushi.
It's also not all about making business cheaper by not hiring employees... it's about finding employees at all. Lower wage jobs such as hotel staff, kombini staff, and a bunch of other places, nowadays in Japan are hiring more and more foreigners. Because there are less and less young japanese people to work on those, and they don't want to anyways, much like how it is in other developed nations.
Problem is, even though Japan has been opening up for foreign workers more and more over the years, reality is they are still a very small minority - in comparison to other countries and the general population I mean. And so, you do have a hard time finding people to work in those places one way or another.
Plus of course, there sometimes is the thinly veiled racism/jingoism or just plain fear to put staff that is all foreign, particularly in Japan with the whole omotenashi image to care for. Not to mention the language barrier and other obstacles.
High end hotels, traditional ryokans or onsens, and more expensive types of accomodations usually have an all japanese staff, family run or just higher paying jobs due to the size of operation. Cheaper smaller business hotels have to lower costs somehow, so they will try all sorts of different things.
Speaking of, capsule hotels might look kinda futuristic and unique, particularly for westerners, but one of the main reasons why they exist, endured, and are still going to this day has less to do with futurism, and more to do with practicality. And origins has less to do with futurism, and more to do with the history of accomodations in Japan, and a particular need.
Put very simply, they are a cheap place for workers who lost the last metro/train ride to crash in, because it can be cheaper to just sleep in a capsule hotel than pay a cab to go back home. Sleep there and get the first train in the morning back home, or just go back to work I guess. xD
But of course, lots of people crash there on weekends after the obligatory binge drinking happy hour.
This is also why you have business hotels in Japan, that have extremely cramped rooms with weirdly a whole ton of practical stuff to use included (toiletries, electric kettle, sometimes even a free to use smartphone), but you also have hotels with larger rooms without all of those things included. They are designed as places to crash for business people, locals, not for tourists with large bags and whatnot.
As omotenashi is a hugely important japanese cultural thing, I highly doubt staffed hotels will just cease to exist. But for business hotels, love hotels, capsule hotels and other forms of hotels that are designed with practicality and locals in mind rather than tourists... yep, it's already going that way. Automated, no human interaction.
o/
1
-
I'm a huge fan of tons of japanese stuff, including lots of modern pop culture, but absolutely yes, japanese tv is attrocious. Though to be fair, I also think open public TV in my own country is also attrocious, just in a different manner.
I do like anime and a few dramas though, but oh God, the variety shows and the fake always positive reactions about everything on japanese channels are just mind numbing. It's like a mother trying to convince a little kid that veggies are tasty, constantly, non-stop, with as many distractors possible.
The pulsating exaggerated text, thrown on top charts and graphics, and the reaction boxes are downright offensive for western viewers (specially graphic designers), but I kinda skirt off that for cultural differences.
But the shallowness of content and the lack of authenticity in everything is far worse. I wouldn't really mind the screen carnival so much if at least the content was more thoughtful or interesting, but nope - it's just insipid trash.
There is absolutely zero content for learning, for reflection, to discuss, to promote critical reasoning... it's just food, novelty, pranks, celebrity interviews, with then a sequence of extremely short jarring ads.
And like Chris said - it's all this Pollyanna style endless positivity that you feel like you are going nuts. Even the bad stuff is portrayed in a positive light. Presenters are brainwashed drones that cannot say bad things about anything, criticism is not on the menu.
Now, to be fair, the whole reason I'm writting a long comment on YouTube in a foreign language is exactl because I also hate the surface level shallow crap content of TV in my own country. It's also plenty bad, I stopped watching stuff other than news over 20 years ago here. In my home, the TV isn't even connected to an antenna anymore... not even cable, it's just directly connected to my pc.
But at the very least, I know that despite being flooded with insipid soap operas and feel good talk shows, brazilian TV still at least try to talk a little about world issues, conflict, relevant topics like racism, sexism, domestic violence and abuse, depression, etc etc. They try to keep up with times in their own way. And every now and then some stuff is produced in a less crass shallowminded manner. There are some pretty good artistic renditions of important brazilian literary pieces from time to time, and you can expect every week or so for a big production piece on a serious topic, or at least an exploratory piece on a subject... even if it is borrowed from a foreign network like the BBC. xD Usually related to nature and overseas ecossystems.
This is something I've never seem in japanese TV. Then again, it's not like I've watched lots of it. I tried during my 2 month long trips to Japan, but I always ended up tunning to BBC world news instead...
1
-
Artificial? Guh... this is probably the argument of either blasé people or people who just don't want to admit they cannot go there for some reason (money, distance, social anxiety, etc).
I can imagine also people who bought so much into the whole "citizen of the world" spiel that they only want to experience countries by going there and mingling with locals and whatnot, not realizing that their experiences in said countries are probably just as artificial as a smaller state fair or something. We don't live long enough to become true citizens of half a dozen countries during our lives as adults, and short tourism trips are not enough to "authentically" get in contact with other cultures, so it's kind of a moot point.
This argument about authenticity disgusts me at times. Disney is great, it's a marvel of entertainment, peoples' dreams and goodwill. I went there only once a very long time ago (1995), but it was just incredibly awesome. Not sure how the park is nowadays, but from my experience I agree with Alec... Epcot is just on a whole other level.
And yes, the world showcase is an artificially made and curated walk through countries (obvious, no need to point that out of course), but you are experiencing a good curated portion of cultures in compact form that would be kinda hard to experience in such a short period of time in any other place.
People complain about commercialization, about the american perspective on foreign cultures, stuff like that. Sure, there are problems in those too. But man, forget the negatives and marvel at what was accomplished there for a bit. People need to drop the always negative lenses they see things through all the time and enjoy things for what they are sometimes.
But yeah, I guess there's just people like that... I mean, people who don't wanna see man made things as something to marvel about. You see, my hometown (which I don't live in anymore for around 5 years) have both a natural wonder and an artificial one. I've heard lots of people who visited my city and didn't bother visiting the artificial one, just because it was artificial. And to be fair, the natural wonder is really incredible (I'm from Brazil, talking about Iguazu Falls), so I guess priority goes for it. But little people know that the artificial wonder (Itaipu Dam) is just as jaw droppingly impressive as Iguazu Falls is.
Much in the same way, of course on a smaller more practical scale, that Disney is. You stop and wonder, how incredible and impressive it is that hundreds of thousands of people got together to create this monumental work for the benefit of all of us.
1
-
1
-
I don't have to say no one should listen to what Rene Ritchie has to say because he is an Apple fanboy, apologist and fanatic that will always distort any piece of information to justify Apple practices. I have enough of his bullshit on channels like Twit. The crap he comes up with sometimes is just brainwashed cult-like talk.
But just for the sake of argument, let's analyze this defense about insecure batteries, particularly about if it makes much sense to be paranoid about this.
People who have dealt with tons of batteries from all procedences and all quality levels will know this, you'll need to talk to them for confirmation. If you yourself dealt with lots of lithium polymer batteries, you'll know. It should even feel kinda weird that given how potentially explosive these things are, that the number of accidents and faulty batteries outside extraordinary cases like the Note 7 really is... insignificant.
In general, lithium polymer batteries are pretty safe altogether. This has nothing to do with branding, how much one company invests in it, how official it is and whatnot - it has to do with business sense, basic economics.
See, whether you are a counterfeit, white label, generic or an official maker of lithium polymer batteries - it's is a highly costly, highly involved, and highly specialized process. Meaning, it's expensive as heck. People don't go around building their own DIY lithium polymer batteries in their backyards. You can search on YouTube for lithium polymer battery industry, production or whatever to see how involved the process is. It requires an investment of millions in machinery, specialized workforce, and all sorts of other things to make it happen.
The last thing you wanna do as someone investing in the technology, be it to put into original branded expensive products or be it to sell as lose component that someone might re-label and re-sell as a counterfeit part, is for them to spontaneously explode at any given point of it's lifetime. Because if that happens, clients will blacklist you and all the investment you've put up so far will go up in flames with your battery. Again, your investment of millions.
It is in the best interest of any lithium polymer battery industry to only sell products that are guaranteed not to spontaneously combust.
You can make your batteries less efficient, you can overshoot their safety systems and false alarms, and in the worst types of practices you can even lie about it's capacity - but you will not risk a thermal runaway because that's an automatic ban and potential lawsuit waiting to happen, even in the land of no copyright China.
This is why it rarely happens. Battery explosion is a problem that even people doing counterfeit, cheap, generic batteries will avoid at all costs. Because it makes no economic sense.
Ok, so why did you hear about so many cases of smartphone explosions and whatnot. There are some reasons behind this.
First, because it sells. Everytime a case like that happens it goes all over the news, gets covered extensively, and replicated around. Because.. it's an explosion, of course it would.
But if you put things in context, if generic batteries were really a huge issue, we'd be seeing not one or two stories a week or so, but hundreds of thousands every single day. Because that's just how many of them are out there. The cheaper generic batteries that are sometime used as counterfeit for official products are everywhere in the electronics industry.
Ok, now why it happens. For the vast majority of smartphone explosion cases, the culprit usually is:
1. improper handling of electronic devices. This includes stuff like shoving your phone while it's running in an enclosed space, like under a pillow, when it needs a minimum of ventilation to cool down internal components, like when it's charging. The vast majority of fire incidents happened that way. Ever heard the story of the teen who put her smartphone under the pillow while it was charging and it went up in flames? Yep, that's it. Or the guy who left his phone under layers of towels inside the car in mid-summer heat while he went for a dip in the beach? Yep.
This also includes stuff like people sitting on top of their phones, damaging internal components like the battery, repeatedly over the years. This just ups the potential for a battery to blow up. Zero surprises in cases like those;
2. using shitty chargers. This here is the one thing manufacturers can cheap a lot on to the point of them being absolute crap. This happens because different than building a lithium polymer battery, building your own charging outlet circuit is pretty cheap... any backyard shop could do it with extremely cheap readily available components. They will also work plenty well for the vast majority of cases - less nowadays with USB Type-C charging and general fast charging tech. But super generic chargers are almost all USB 2. Those are so easy to do that even I could do one with enough time and practice, knowing very little about electronics.
eWaste recyclers could do it as a side business. And a shitty charger might leave out protection circuits or safety components, which can put too much charge against a smartphone and battery, which can lead to thermal runaway;
See how both scenarios I wrote about have nothing to do with the battery itself? It's because the vast majority of reported smartphone fires didn't happen because of faulty batteries.
The exception is the Note 7, again, because Samsung made a design error. It wasn't even about quality control and whatnot - they had design errors in the battery because they wanted to put as big a battery possible in a very small space. And this mistake must've cost a helluva lot for Samsung... if it was some other smaller company it probably would've gone bankrupt.
So, the biggest battery problem regarding lithium polymer batteries we had so far came from the biggest battery production company. Funny that. It's because it doesn't happen a lot. So why the heck would this suddenly be a problem? Well, because fanboys are once again trying to distort a decision that was probably about further closing the walled garden and trying to close down independent repair as a move with "security" in mind that addresses an inexistent, imagined problem.
So there you go, my 2 cents.
1
-
1
-
1
-
In a way, I kinda look at France with envy for having the privilege to protest so hard about an increase in retirement age... it's both understandable that people would protest to that, but it's also understandable why such a proposal would be in the books.
I live in a developing nation that has a mixed retirement age of 63 for men, and 58 for women, with 35 and 30 years of work for full retirement respectively.
But we are also a country nowhere near France in terms of aging population and average age of the workforce... we are nowhere near the average of EU nations on that aspect, and France I think is amongst the EU countries most affected by this.
Now, of course, that isn't to say I disagree with some of the things protesters are saying... of course, a tax reform that increases taxes for the richest sounds way more sane to me if the idea is to fund the retirement system, but of course aiming at the status quo never works for the political class. It'd be way more palatable to see, if Macron is going to lose his job anyways for this, for him to force pass a tax increase on the 1%, cut costs on government spending, and stuff like that.
But also, I can see why France would have a retirement age of 65, if that really is the only complaint for protestors.
It's just weird how Macron got reelected if the major problem he had in his previous administration was exactly the protest against something he tried to do, promised to do again during campaign, and is now doing it. :P
I just hope this doesn't open the doors for someone like LePen to get in power. Raising the retirement age to 65 will be nothing in comparison to that.
The real danger here imho is a radical party using this argument to get in power, saying they are gonna lower the retirement age back to 62, but then also do nothing about the problem that Macron is trying to address here... it doesn't matter if you retire at 65, 62 or 50 if there is no retirement funds there. Retirement into poverty is a real thing, and is what I see in my own country everyday.
Sure, our retirement age is lower than 65, but regular workers gets so little money from it that effectively most people just continue working to pay the bills. This has less to do with retirement laws, and more to do with our minimum wage that does not cover most basic necessities, but still - when retirement becomes a "on paper alone" thing, then the injustice really gets the entire population in one fell swoop...
The thing is, my country is so engulfed with other political problems, scandals, threats to democratic institutions, radicalism from the far right, and lots of other major problems that I don't think raising the retirement age would even register much by the population in general. We'd have protests for sure, mostly by unions and parties from the left, but it would get nowhere close as the fever pitch that is happening in France. Again, not because it's not a serious issue, but because we have so many more crisis threatening democracy down here that it'd necessarily take a backseat.
1
-
See, here's the issue I see with this and several other things that surrounds Trump, the far right, Republicans right now, and political extremism in general - I think it's perfectly fair and sound for a jury not to be asked about political affiliation, who they voted for, and all of the things mentioned that should not matter in a fair court decision regarding an ex-president.... unless you have politics and a party that does not operate by standard democratic rules, but rather by the rule of scammers, religious extremists, terrorists, and "we're above the law" types. Or worse - by blind loyalty and obedience, adoration, cultism, fanaticism. To the point you are willing to attack and overthrow democracy itself if your leader says so. To the point you have people living in some alternate reality filled with conspiracy theories and fake news everyday that they might just kill others, and commit all sorts of crimes, in the name of the ideology they are following.
This jury selection process works in a regular democracy - but the US is not a regular democracy. It arguably hasn't been a regular democracy for decades, depending on your standards. It perhaps has never been one.
It's not that justice is exactly wrong here, but it's trying to use fairness in a situation that's already unfair by it's own nature.
And this isn't only about this judgement, it's about several other judgements, it's about politics, culture, law, and so many things that are currently happening.
So, clumsy analogy as it may be, you are trying to play soccer in a field where fair rules will be applied... only one of the teams are using androids indistinguishable to humans. Bots. Zombies. It's pretty hard, if not impossible, to have anything that is deemed fair by it's own rules, when you have a playing field that starts off with a foundation that is unfair by itself.
Can a trial be fair when you can expect one side of the equation to always pass judgement based on personal belief regardless of what is presented on trial? The danger of having people adamantly against Trump that will always find him guilty no matter what is presented on court, at least as I see things, is far less than the danger of people radically for Trump that will always give an excuse for his crimes and bad behavior. You already see this in everyday life, I'm not sure if people should expect things to be different inside a trial.
And this has all to do with allowing this sort of fascism, this sort of anti ethical behavior, this sort of cult of personality, this sort of anti-democratic behavior, to take hold in politics, or just in a culture and country in general.
Because when you let a president willing to attempt a coup on democracy to remain free and unpunished, that's the sort of mentality that you get spread in parts of the population. It enables people who think like that to take over. And when this happens, the regular systems don't work anymore, because they were not designed to work with throngs of people who think like that. It's just a fact of democracy - if you have a large portion of the population unwilling to play by democratic rules, you don't have a democracy.
Democracy can only happen under strict conditions that have always historically been ignored in modern democracies, but they are being increasingly being more and more ignored as time passes. You know how there are many people who wants and now are being able to pass legislation based solely on radical religious beliefs? What happened to the separation of church and state? If this is allowed, it's not a democracy anymore - it's a theocracy. Religion teachings trampling over and taking control of the rights of people. It's not a condemnation, it's a statement of fact. Religion cannot be behind government legislation and laws because this is not part of the democratic system.
And the ultimate result of that is it's fall. It's not only because of far right parties, only because of Trump, only because of an increasingly radicalized Republican party - it's mostly about the erosion of the foundations of the democratic system itself.
Ultimately, what the questionnaire relies upon is on the candidate juror honesty, right? Yes, both defense and prosecution can and will investigate the lives of jurors in detail, but they can't really read minds, and they have limited time and chances to do so. The limits are imposed by time.
So, it becomes a question of honesty between democrats and republicans, because we're talking about an ex-president that is running for office. It shouldn't take a genius to understand how unbalanced the situation already is.
See, of course you already have Trump supporters spreading the message to potential jurors that they should acquit Trump unconditionally to end this trial. That's the entire Trump supporter strategy. They don't care about rules, law, reality or fairness. The think Trump is innocent regardless of whatever proof or argument you present.
Now, you don't see anyone calling for Trump to get a guilty verdicts regardless of how the trial goes, do you? No, instead you have the entire press, lawyers, and people overall discussing the minutiae of the case to see how it goes. Plenty of us are convinced that he's guilty by the preponderance of evidence, but we are not calling for jurors to plead guilty regardless of outcome.
So, when you have a situation like that, trying to be fair will always be unfair. And so the system is broken.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Complicated matter... I mostly agree with Rossman, specially regarding his own area.
But it's a case per case basis I guess.
For instance, on the property owner side, say he or she paid a lot for the commercial property and was trying to make a return of investment in 20 years or so... or just someone who had property there, closed down the shop for whatever reason, and is making a living by renting the place.
You see how it's also unfair for the owner not to get anything because pandemic closed it down. Particularly because government action also left owners with no option - you can't evict people, you can't charge, you can't do anything even though you paid for the property?
The rational solution is to negotiate, one side being irreductible is kinda bad.
See, I heard some cases that goes almost the opposite way. It's not commercial, but just to make a known parallel. This person lived in a relatively big house, owner, decided it was too big, moved to a rented apartment, and was paying the apartment rent plus some utilities by renting the house.
Pandemic hits, people living in the house said they couldn't pay rent anymore, which in turn means there's no money to pay the apartment rent too, nor utilities and living costs. Can't evict to rent it to someone who can pay for it, can't sell the place because of eviction blockage. It's kind of a cascading effect.
I agree that insane pricing on overvalued real estate areas is a bad thing, but you gotta remember that sometimes it affects both sides.
Unless it's some investment bank or group that sweeped all real estate en masse when it was cheap and are actively exploiting people nowadays overinflating prices on purpose, it could be people who worked their entire lives to put money there, and now they depend on rent money.
People don't like to hear this, but for urban centers that have over inflated real estate, there should be some degree of regulation to stop it. But when things have been going this long, people on both sides can have their lives ruined if it's not looked on a case per case basis.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Yeah... this system, standard, or something that Japan has is often an untold part of the whole experience in Japan.
Kombinis are often called to summarize it, because of convenience, but the whole neighborhood centered around train stations taken to the next level is what I personally think allows Tokyo to work like it does - it's the most populous metropolitan area in the world, but it doesn't feel like it... because it seems wherever you are, you don't quite feel stranded.
I've been to just a few other metropolitan areas in the top list, and the difference is quite drastic. For instance, in Sao Paulo, depending on what you need, if you are at some random point in the city, you are faaaaaar more likely to need a car ride for it - if not taking a bus, then a train, and then a car ride.
Ignoring safety factors, cleanliness and whatnot, just considering geography and city planning in general... you just don't have these clear indicators on where to go and what to expect. Each neighborhood is different, and you don't have a whole lot of organization or standardization to rely on. Rather, it's almost the opposite... commercially speaking, there are neighborhoods where you only have like, one type of service for several blocks, like car mechanics, or chothing stores, or furniture stores.... blocks and blocks of them. The philosophy is different that way - it's built for you to have multiple options tightly packed so you reach the neighborhood by car, but then can shop around on foot.
On my two trips to Japan we stayed in hotels close to stations... though the first trip was more neighborhood-like. First one was close to Shiki station, in between Tokyo and Saitama. Lovely neighborhood that was still expanding at the time, local supermarket open 'till 2 am, plus kombinis, and at the station you had a sweets shop, a ramen-ya, bookstore, drugstore, and a few other things. Around the station you had pachinko and other stuff.
Narita station on the other hand, the one I stayed on my second trip, isn't a great example of typical neighborhood because it's highly focused on people on business trips rather than a typical japanese neighborhood. Perhaps a good tip for tourists - you might want to avoid staying around stations where lots of business trip people also stay at, typically close to airports. Lots of business hotels, lots of car parking towers, lots of kombinis and izakayas, but you'll have less family restaurants, mom and pop shops, bakeries, shotengai stuff. I dunno how to explain it... there are still plenty of conveniences for tourists and all that, but you don't get a feel of community per se... it's like no one really lives there, it's just a permanently transient space rather than something build by and for people living there, you know?
Anyways, great video Greg! Love revisiting my trips considering the perspective you a put up on these videos.... xD
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
The disconnect in logic is so palpable that it becomes totally ridiculous at this point...
Number of cases are shooting up right when the preparations of the games are beginning, lockdowns have been extended for multiple months which clearly points out that it's not having the desired effect, Tokyo and overall japanese government have had this Olympics guillotine over their heads since before the pandemic, all this time for planning, all this time for coordination, and their vaccination speed has been ridiculously slow even in comparison to developing nations, entire countries, rich developed countries mind you, haven't been able to contain Covid variants inside any defined borders be it country borders or city limits.... and yet somehow the Olympics, famous for corruption and mismanagement of everything, together with the japanese government, who has clearly not been able to do a good job on controlling the pandemic, will somehow magically do what no one has been able to do so far?
You know what these speeches of "we have taken all the necessary precautions", "people are being tested multiple times and staying in isolation", yadda yadda yadda has resulted up to now? 3.3 million dead people and over 160 million infected so far, that's what. The price you pay for overestimating your capabilities, or lying because of money.
You take note japanese citizens... 10 years ago it was TEPCO and government mismanagement and corruption that ended in a nuclear meltdown there. Not nuclear power, not the tsunami, TEPCO and the japanese government had been warned a decade before the incident that it was gonna happen.
This time IOC and government will go ahead with Olympics regardless of public opinion, and right after the fanfare and whatnot of the event, Covid cases will shoot up, tons of people will die, health system will collapse, think about what you will do next.
And if anyone living in Tokyo actually reads my comment, if it is possible in any way, just take a trip away from Tokyo during the event and stay away for a while, monitoring what is happening, please. Take your family with you.
I don't think people understand the totality of the problem there, but even if you consider japanese health hygiene and culture, even if you consider Japan didn't get hit too hard so far in comparison to other countries, even if people are used to masks and other preventive measures that the world has had to learn these past couple of years, you gotta understand that the mix of Tokyo being one of the cities with highest density of people per square meter in the world, tied together with low vaccinations and people from all around the world going there with potential for carrying Covid 19 variants is a powder keg waiting to blow up. All it takes is one of the thousands of participants of the event coming from other countries to slip through the extremely wide Olympics cracks and it'll be all over.
Was the responsibilization and culpability of people properly handed out on the Daiichi power plant case? Or it took some 10 years for justice to find a few scapegoats to put blame on? What do you think will happen with the Olympics and it's consequences? Take a look what is happening in the city that hosted the last Olympics.
It's time for this event to die and start over, without IOC, without the shitstorm it has become. If you truly care and want to see athletes all around the world given an opportunity to shine and share their culture, I think you will agree with me that they deserve a better, less corrupt, less power and money hungry organization to work with.
1
-
The strategy is probably more or less like this: Apple is likely paying people, or there are some rabbid fanboys out there accepting to do this, to delete all and every recommendation to search for anything that resembles independent repair, or self repair. Or just anything that is not line by line dictated by Apple.
Most likely, press pieces and whatnot won't have any effect on it, because most won't know about it, so until Apple is actively sued because of deceptive practices, this won't change, because Apple thinks they can get away with "my way or the highway" approach. They have been doing it like that and it has been working, so there is zero incentive for them to change.
They keep preaching the entire villification bullshit against independent repair, making everything they can to paint repairing i devices by yourself as an evil thing that no one should ever consider, and patting themselves on the back for some costumer service that seems good on the surface but is just shit with a coat of golden paint.
Problem is, it does not matter what they do if people still keep buying their crap despite all the problems that happened in recent years, plus all this shitty costumer support related practices. The thing is that your average consumer just don't know enough and often can't be bothered with learning how repairable their iCrap really is.
Apple will keep pushing this culture of forcing people to accept that if they don't pay for some cloud service to save their stuff, it's their own fault for losing photos and there is absolutely no other way around. Not because there isn't, but because Apple says so.
And people will accept it because they fucking love Apple so much. They'd force their iPhones into their own buttholes if Apple said it was necessary to make it work.
The solution? Stop giving Apple money. Just stop it. It is the consumer's own fault if a company like that is getting a trillion bucks of revenue every year. Why the heck would they change practices that have been guaranteeing profits year after year? Not only that, this is also the reason why other smartphone brands copy Apple's worst practices. It's because despite tech people complaining over and over again about their practices, and "scandals" happening over and over again, it not only doesn't affect their bottomline, it probably guarantees them marketing and air space.
My comments means nothing too, and none of the YouTube comments saying Apple is shit matters, because everytime Apple releases something, it is touted as the second coming of Christ by the entire press. I don't even know why I'm wasting time writting all this, it's useless.
1
-
I'm honestly not sure if I 100% agree with law on this, because at least to me, the bar has become too high and it seems to benefit particularly sensationalism at the cost of individuals. Funny enough, this may get some far left figures out there, but it's likely the GOP that would endanger itself the most with libel laws becoming more strict... but you know, separate discussion.
Between all examples given, I think Whoopi Goldberg's one is the most clear that it cannot be actionable... because she prefaced it with "in my opinion". "arguably a domestic terrorist" goes in the same vein because of the "arguably" part - means it's a matter of opinion up for argument, not a statement of fact.
MSNBC's case seems to be the worst, if it directly said "this little murderous white supremacist". I imagine it can be taken as opinion, sure, but it is more direct and pointed than the other examples. Dunno if libel/slander/defamation applies, but still.
Biden's tweet doesn't seem to have nothing there as far as I can see, because Biden is not referring to the video, but rather on the fact that Trump didn't disavow white supremacists.... though I didn't watch the video itself, perhaps the video has content that would imply a pointed directness... like stating that "all these people are white supremacists" or something.
At the same time, I do understand what Devin is saying there... in order for a suspect of murder acquitted by law to prove there was libel against him in respect to his case, judgement and status, it'd need to be something like a credible statement that he is in fact a murderer, because of an objective fact or proof not observed in court. That is to say, someone is still accusing him of murder despite the verdict.
On one hand, I can understand that only this would be clear libel/slander. But from the angle of a victim, on damage of reputation, psychological damages and other similar effects, isn't the bar a bit too high there? I mean, there are real effects caused by sticking all these labels on top of an individual in public channels... if law isn't protecting individuals from stuff like that, does it mean people - and particularly public figures - don't have any grounds in law to protect themselves from constant attacks from media pundits, journalists and whatnot on TV?
I am taking out my personal opinion on the case itself, but looking at it in broader terms.
1
-
1
-
The reason why the government avoids saying "immigration" is because it's a conservative government, made of conservative people, elected by conservative people.
Their electorate ranges from moderate to ultra conservative, and that side of politics is also extremely nationalist, revisionist, and generally xenophobic.
Biden isn't exactly wrong if he's talking about the government itself, but this story kinda changes if you look at general opinion pools.
Public pools gives a different image because that's all people, much of which don't even vote or participate in politics.
Participating in politics in Japan is seen as something "for old people", so you don't really have a whole lot of young people participation. It's both because of the seniority vertically structured culture, and because of general disinterest in politics. People tend to not have strong political opinions too, because of the "nail that sticks out" culture. Which is to say, Japan still has a culture that is very much focused less on individuality, and more on community based thinking.
I think the average turnout in elections have been around the 50% mark for several years now, but it's very skewed... like 70 somethings per cent in the over 60 years old demographics, and 20-30% on the young adults portion. That's even worse if you think in raw numbers, considering the population pyramid graphics, as you have many more people above 50 than bellow.
So what the government says is tailored to their electors, not the general public.
Something that, to be clear, has been slowly changing over the years, and was very different in the past. Talking decades ago, there were some pretty violent student led protests back in the late 60s or so. Youth participation in politics used to be very prevalent and heated, but that's half a century ago already.
This goes hand in hand with the fact that yes, Japan is slowly broadening access to immigrants and foreigners, but in such a slow pace and coming from such an isolationist position that at this pace, it's unlikely to reach todays' US or Germany levels, even in several decades.
Though of course, with the aging crisis I think eventually Japan will have it's hand forced to change the tune more drastically.
I'm just not sure which side will break first - the side that maintains this vertical seniority based structure that ultimately contributes to negative birth rates, because it essentially takes out the voice of young people which also results in crazy work hours, unhealthy work-family balance, and whatnot.
Or if they'll try to keep this side of the culture and open up for immigration because they don't have enough people at working age to sustain the top. Something's gotta give.
Probably a mix of both. It also just so happens that with the kickback scandal and low approval rate of Kishida's government, there might be a movement to oust LDP from power once again, a rare occurrence. Only problem is, I don't think a change in which party is in power, even if it goes towards a more progressive party, really has the power to change things by much. It's just not typical for Japanese politics in general to go for drastic changes. It's still a constitutional monarchy after all.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
For current technology, I think this is kinda moot and presents more risks than benefits.
Don't get angry with me, my opinion, let's just analyze things a bit.
Potential risks:
- Power output. Because of the need to convert solar power to something else for transmission, even if you have the gains with 24/7 reception plus no atmospheric loss, the ammount of raw power you end up losing during conversion to microwave or laser for transmission, in the end the total energy gains are almost the same. Which means, a fraction of what you'd get from several other types of power plants. There's not a whole lot to be gained versus ground based solar power, I mean - at least for now;
- Kessler syndrome. Those space solar panels will have to be in low Earth orbit so while it wouldn't be that much of a problem to decomission and let it burn during re-entrance, there is always the risk of something going wrong, those solar panels getting smashed into bits, and becoming part of the already worrying ammounts of space junk we already have out there. We're of course still far from blocking our routes outside the planet, but each and every extra piece of junk we put out there risks a chain reaction of space debris that makes it impossible to track everything that's out there, upping the risks of manned rockets leaving orbit. We're putting too many things in space that could and should be solved on ground - and yes, I also mean the Internet sattelites;
- Impossible costs for anything of real significance. Yes, reusable rocket technology has certainly reduced costs of taking solar panels to space, and technologies that are being developed could shove huge solar panels to very small sizes during transport. But it's still very expensive nonetheless, specially at the scale it'd be needed to make a dent in current needs for power. Remember, we're not only talking about putting the solar panels on orbit - we're talking about maintenance, replacement of panels that get damaged for several reasons (bad deployment, damage because of space debree collisions, decaying electronics), construction of the entire infrastructure that is needed to receive, convert and distribute the power on Earth, maintenance of that part too, staff to manage everything, dedicated R&D, etc etc. We are still not left without any alternatives on the ground;
- Climate change, light pollution, sky pollution, astronomy interference. Not the ones we're currently facing, but a potential side effect that might emerge when a program like this gets to scale. One of those space solar panels, no matter how big we manage to make it to harvest solar power, is insignificantly tiny versus the size of the planet. But if we scale the entire thing up and up, because we need to collect more and more power from those systems, at some point they will start having some effect on the planet's climate, and perhaps even on what we see in the sky. I know this would be something very far in the future when we have managed to put perhaps several hundreds of thousands of those panels out there, but it is something to worry about if the idea is to be taken seriously. Studies and small tests don't count. Shooting lasers or microwaves through the atmosphere will have an effect on it, and if it's something to be employed 24/7, it might have several other problems associated with it. And the problem is, the more raw energy collected and transmitted from orbit to ground, the more chances of having worse side effects;
What I'm NOT saying - that we shouldn't do research in this area. Because solar panels in space might still be a great idea to power, for instance, space stations, remote Earth locations, or as a backup system for power generation during emergency situations. Plus, the tech that could come from a research like that could always be very valuable.
Alternative - With the tech we currently have, and a whole ton of work in infrastructure, we could just have several solar farms spread through the world and close at least a bit the night gap. Not 100% because one face of the planet is just ocean, but still. Combined with other technologies like wind farms, underwater turbines, wave energy harvesting, thermal and whatnot, seems more plausible than space based ideas. Specially because we already kinda did this with the Internet. Ground based energy transmission is far more complicated than data, as inherent losses are greater, but isn't it a bit ridiculous that we're thinking more about a global Internet while not thinking about global energy grid? The barriers, both political and technological, are certainly far bigger, but I don't think they are insurmountable. And in a way, I think it's less costlier, safer, and more reachable with current tech than space solar panels. But that's just my uninformed opinion.
o/
1
-
I've been following news about molten salt thorium reactors for... well over a decade now if I'm not mistaken, my conclusion on it is that it just sits in an awkward middle ground that no one wants to fully dive in and put a ton of money into because of that.
So, evangelists and most pieces about it will always start saying how much cleaner, safer and generally better it is in comparison to traditional existing nuclear power plants, plus add the fact that we already had past research on it, and then comes the argument about it not being viable at the time because nuclear weapons and whatnot... good job questioning this DW.
Problem though, like that video already puts, those tests runs are still a long way away from proving it's viable at scale. That's what you really have to consider - this design is still one step behind proving it can produce results at scale reliably. Lots of evangelists say that we will eventually get there if just more money and time is put into research, but there is no way to know this for sure, so you have one risk point there.
Ok, now you should also consider that usually, the comparisons being made are sneaky... they often compare what the promises of one were, to early designs of what we got, or current designs, particularly the ones that failed spectacularly through history.
What the theoretical non-proven molten salt reactor design is rarely compare to are modern nuclear power plant designs that are an evolution of plants like Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island, and Fukushima Daichi. The principles are the same, sure, but the designs and tech used to build those also evolved over the years, and they would make for cleaner, safer and better plants too. And not only they already exist, the tech has been already thoroughly tested and proven to work.
See, the stat that is often left out of these talks is that the world currently has over 400 nuclear power plants in operation, some other 50+ in construction. Not knowing this and only paying attention to Chernobyl, Fukushima Daiichi and 3-mile Island is misleading. Yes, it's super scary when these major accidents happen, and there is an argument to be made about societies always being fallible, always having the potential to fall to corruption, and thus these nuclear power plants always being just a step away from a major catastrophe... I understand that.
But it is also true that new power plant designs limits damage, that only a very small portion of old designs had catastrophes, and that it was mostly due to a long chain of human errors and mishandling, not even because of faulty designs.
Chernobyl everyone knows how corrupt and flawed the entire handling of the operation was now that we have a documentary about it and lots of people who covered the subject.... sometime from now, you can bet the same thing will be done for Fukushima Daiichi. There was a long chain of corruption, mishandling, and problems there too, even more poignant than Chernobyl. Because despite lots of people thinking it was inevitable due to the unprecedented earthquake and ensuing tsunami, it actually wasn't, that scenario had been predicted 10 years prior, independent inspectors and regulators had warning both the government and the company behind the power plant repeatedly over the years that a small change would prevent disaster in such a scenario (moving backup power to higher ground), and because all those warnings were ignored that the disaster happened. So we once again had bad design, and a chain of corruption and mismanagement contributing to a disaster that was very much avoidable.
The other side of consideration is that because molten salt thorium reactors is unproven and requires more research, there is no way to know for sure how much it would cost to build such plants once there is enough solid theoretical grounds for it - but it is often theorized that they will be more expensive than current tech because of several of it's characteristics.
You kinda end up in this middleground where you could simply build new plants with improved designs and tech today to offset dirty energy, and then the other end being to wait for nuclear fusion tech to mature and become viable, which is even further away, way further than Thorium would be. But we only have a finite amount of resources to put on it, so we have to chose the battles.
One way or another, neither Thorium not Fusion are in developed enough stages to be used to fight Climate Change. If anyone is waiting for those to solve our problems, stop waiting. Both are too far away from production at scale. And if we don't do a whole ton of other things to reduce greenhouse gases, we might not have a future to keep researching those technologies. Our future without catastrophic Climate Change scenario depends on other things. Molten Salt Thorium Reactors might play a part of a future that we have already controlled Climate Change and are seeking to ramp up cleaner forms of power generation, but for Climate Change itself we need to use what we have at our disposal now.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Just another thing to add up to the war fucklist. Think about it. If it wasn't for militaristic mindset and cold war mentality, we could potentially have developed this technology already, and perhaps even transitioned to an entire grid system that would already be cleaner, safer, and producing far more output, with potential big delays for climate change.
But nope, we decided that we needed to have the bigger guns so that we could shoot ourselves to death, and so we got more than we bargained for.
And then, to make things worse, we are electing people who have the exact same mindset of the lunatics who puts us here. Several countries in the world today are spending a huge part of their taxpayer money to fund more militaristic purposes rather than attending basic human rights of their own population. We'll give you a way for mutual destruction, but we can't give you a way for proper healthcare, job, nutrition, education, public safety and whatnot.
Countries haven't got past giving their own citizens the very basic of what we know humans should have, and so we turn our backs to helping neighbors who are in dire need.
And the supposedly more developed countries are far more interested in funding their own megacorporations and industries, which ultimately enrich the less than 1% richest, rather than contributing to worldwide necessities of fellow human beings.
I guess we get what we deserve. Humanity is a failed experiment, we're past our expiration date. Like a virus that is killing it's host, and is not smart enough to progress past a certain point.
1
-
1
-
Yeesh, BBC had enough dumb Trump supporters already, now it seems it also has tons of stupid ass Bolsominions too.
Before the stream of shallowminded criticism comes around, no, I am not a PT supporter, I actually voted for Bolsonaro not because I particularly liked him, but because I just wasn't going to vote for a PT/Lula puppet.
Now, as for how he's handling the pandemic, it really is a shitshow.
What we mostly see on TV and international news media coverage is his personal wanton display of stupidity, which quite frankly, I am getting very tired of. But much like i pn other cases like Amazon forest burning, among other stuff, what the president says and does are not often reflected on policy because policy in Brazil is done not by a single president, but rather by a group of ministries and institutions.
Bolsonaro can shout all he wants that we had to open up businesses and whatnot to save the economy, but this decision mostly ends up in the hands of governors and city prefectures, which are mostly going against Bolsonaro's speeches and recomending partial to full lockdown, as well as passing laws for the obligatory use of masks.
The end result of that is a lack of organization and coordination between federal policy versus state policy, but despite this, numbers in Brazil still aren't as high as they could've been. In comparison to countries like the US and the UK, it's comparatively quite low proportionately (taking in consideration the population and density numbers I mean).
But like I have been saying from the beggining of the crisis, Bolsonaro's line of reasoning and where he is getting his ideas is no different from where Trump is getting his. It's the false dangerous artificial (read ignorant and shallowminded) dychotomy between "the economy" and preventive measures.
He keeps repeating that the medicine against the pandemic cannot be so strong that it ends up killing the economy with it.
But international cases have proven again and again that this simply isn't true at all. There is no medicine worse for the economy in this pandemic. These measures we are taking, like lockdowns, social isolation and quarantines are the absolute least that can be done to make the effects of the pandemic as mild as possible. Not doing it, re-opening businesses haphazardly, telling people to get out, particularly when number of infections and deaths are still on the rise, only prolongs the time we'll have to live and deal with Covid19.
I have been telling people this from the beginning, but unfortunately, the reality of Brazil is that it has an even bigger majority of highly uneducated and highly naive people who cannot think and do research for themselves, and cannot take conclusions from analysis of what's happening in the world.
So what is already happening in several of the most devastated states in Brazil, particularly in the Northern region, is that after re-opening businesses and trying to relax social isolation stances, they are closing everything back, and implementing lockdown measures. Because the governors of thosr states did not listen that it was too soon for a re-opening, and reaching a peak that would break the health system was all but guaranteed at the pace they were going.
To note, despite the posturing our president has, he is going against what our own ministry of health has been advising, to the point he got a replacement that just resigned himself to go mute and play a smaller role. Same thing he is trying to do with the head of federal police right now, to protect his son from corruption investigations.
His strategy is similar to Trump's even on that front. Replace key personel in the government to force these government sectors to do his bidding.
But it's not gonna work. Despite the bunch of Bolsominions in the comments here, it is true that his popularity is going down, and that lots of people who voted for him to escape from the grip of PT will not vote for him anymore.
Much like Trump has it's cult like followers that will defend his actions no matter what, so does Bolsonaro. They are the loudest and stupidest dumbfucks out there.
In any case, Brazil is not doing as bad as the video seems to imply. But we are definitely not doing great. It's just that our public health system was already trashed, particularly in the worse hit states. Rio was already a bankrupt state, Sao Paulo being one of the biggest brazilian cities with biggest wage gap was gonna be hit hard one way or another, and the northeast states being as poor, corrupt and badly administered as they already were, was sure to be hit hard too. Brazil is quite unfortunately a poor country that has extreme inequalities. It's basically like the US, but several steps down the latter, with most of the country living day by day without any protection, money reserves, plan, or education to go through a crisis like this one.
And so, the pandemic was always gonna hit us hard. We are just getting into winter-like season now, temperatures going down, so things are bound to accelerate.
The economy is going to crash one way or another, and I always knew that most of the population wouldn't last a long period of self quarantine, be it for economic reasons, lack of comprehension, or just lack of discipline.
It is just unfortunate that the "strong man" in power chose the coward's way. Military background, supposedly in favor of taking harsh measures to accomplish goals to the benefit of the population, he is doing the exact opposite of what he preaches, going down the corruption route, blaming it on the media, and taking the side of least resistance not to damage his political platform.
The trouble with all this is that because of the complexity of the pandemic, when we are out of this, no one will recognize that the states who followed the least his advices are the ones who will recover faster. Because of course, brainwashed extremist people never learn anything from real life experiences. They just stick to their own propaganda channels. If it happens for the extreme left, it surely also does for the extreme right.
Which is why politics should be left out of the equation, and everyone should be listening to doctors right now. But no one does. No matter how many doctors waste their time and effort amid a horrible crisis to tell people they should stay at home and isolate as much as possible, the extremist idiot that is clapping hands and calling doctors heroes on social media the next day is doing exactly what doctors told him or her not to do right the next day, because his politician idol told him or her so.
1
-
Can't even imagine what pain and hardship these moms had to go through, incredible strength to get to this point... but I'm glad they are speaking up, and it's a huge sign that if justice and politics are not hearing, then both needs to be changed from the ground up.
Trying to keep the emotion out, still, completely agreed - the central idea of the punishment is completely counter sense to me.
Someone who repeatedly stabs a person who is known to them and who a relationship of trust was established should stay in prison far longer than a case of stabbing a stranger outside. The criminals who did that to their daughters are far more of a danger to society, their crimes are far graver, and they are far more likely to be dangerous sociopaths.
Just think about it. Killing someone close to you like that needs premeditation. It also has not only the intent to kill with it, but also someone who cannot get away from a situation that would lead to that, and a mentality of looking down even on people close to them to the point of thinking it's right to take a life like that. It's inexcusable, there are no possible attenuating circumstances there.
Killing someone on the street could also be like that, but it could be the result of something else like a robbery gone wrong, road rage, a fight, all sorts of other things.
I dunno how justice there got the idea that people who killed people close to them inside their homes in a place of trust should get less time, but it just makes no sense.
If anyone knows the reasoning behind this, please share, I'd like to know. Is it coming from misogynistic or puritanical history? Religious backgrounds?
1
-
1
-
1
-
I mean, this should be obvious for anyone with a hint of logical thinking, but the real problem here isn't having judges and special prosecutors stating the obvious, it's the fact that you have a ton of people living in a democracy that are actively asking for the country to become a Monarchy or Dictatorship under Trump. And in part, that justice is not treating this seriously.
A democratic regimes requires active vigilance and defense, this level of erosion of democratic principles is completely unacceptable, a political and justice system that let this happen is unacceptable, and this is why democracy is about to end in the US - there can be no leniency towards people who actively attack democratic principles, and failure to punish this sort of behavior is failure to protect democracy itself.
Democracies should never grant immunity to anyone, the office of the president, judges, congressmen, governors, mayors... all these people are elected representatives working in public service, they are not above the law, and they should also not have special privileges in comparison to common citizens. Political immunity has always been a mistake, and contrary to democratic principles.
They should not only be subject to common law, they actually hold more responsibilities due to the virtue of their positions, so it's the opposite - they should be even more liable to prosecution. It comes with the job, just as much as private business CEOs should hold a bigger responsibility in managing a company.
The fact that current US politics is not working like that is a sign of it's ruin. And it's been going on for decades, all of this has not only to do with Trump, with the current Republican party, with far right, and whatnot.
Reality is, Trump is an opportunist. He exploits the weaknesses and wounds that American Democracy has been breeding for several decades now. This type of tyrannical cycle has happened multiple times all over the world during our brief democratic history. And I'm not personally seeing any institutional signs that American Democracy will be able to recover this time. In fact, there are so many institutional problems in the US currently, that a fall of democracy is getting close to inevitable.
There is an identification of problems, but no actions to correct it. Press has been talking for almost a decade now of all the problems US democracy has, but nothing is changing, rather it's only getting worse.
So, good luck for American citizens. You are in for a crazy 2024 ride. It might be year of the final conclusion of any hint of democracy your country still had.
1
-
ooof, I'm not too sure about that one... perhaps because it's not the same type of front loader washer and dryer I'm used to, but those vibrate like hell, so I can't put anything in top of them without it being basically shaked off. xD
I don't have a two tier setup like that though, but my washer/drier needed a thick EVA pad under it, and if I was going to put a folding table on top, it'd have to be suspended.
Let us know if it worked up in the end though, Adam. xD
I never know exactly what is best to do with those. If you clamp them too much down the floor and fix things, all the energy of the out of balance tumbler ends up in the machine itself, which could destroy it overtime... but if you let it too lose the machine starts walking around and doing too much noise for an apartment.
You have those feet that acts sorta like a suspension for it, but those elevate the entire thing too much to fit into the space I have here, so I just got a thick rubber mat (EVA) for it and it has been working ok.
I just have to be careful to use it only when it's at least over half full... or else it'll start vibrating too much.
1
-
A lot of overall prejudice, racism, sexism and discrimination towards minorities is rooted in ignorance that comes from living a lifetime inside an isolated bubble.
This is particularly true for the rich and powerful, or those who grew up and lived their lives in those circles, and royals might just be the extreme example of it. Wage and power disparity eliminates the benefit of empathy towards the other in countries that are diverse on paper only.
The reason why this sort of thing happens is because for someone like Lady Susan, it might as well be 18th, 19th or 20th century London, with a predominantly white population and other ethnicities not considered British citizens... the changes in society, what happens outside their own bubbles can sometimes be totally foreign to them. This is part of why King Charles also acts the way he does.
People can live their entire lives not having any meaningful connections to anyone in a minority group, and that's a major issue. You can't relate to or sometimes even understand the problems of minorities if you don't have significant contact with someone there on a personal level. The default reaction for people like this is to consider it all whining or unfair victimization. It gets even worse when somehow, these people end up in a position of power, a position that is supposed to represent a diverse population, which unfortunately still happens more often than not.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Wherever the IOC and Fifa goes in the world, corruption always shows up like a participant member, always. There haven't been a single exception in the past century or more.
It's in the entire history of both organizations, together with the ruins left in the countries they've been in, the untold riches stolen by the governments who participated in organization of the events, the broken promises with the populations of cities that hosted events, and to complete lack of punishment and justice in each and every one of those cases.
And people still ask me why I don't watch and why I refuse to give any support for those events. They are not a symbol of global unity, sportsmanship or anything like that for me anymore. Honestly, they have never been.
It's just a symbol on how people all around the world can be roped into corruption schemes, easy money, bribery and crimes when you put a good enough façade of goodwill in front of it.
Here in my country, the main city that hosted the Olympics has been bankrupt ever since the event happened, it's in a permanent state of civil war between a violent underfunded police force, crime gangs, and militias, all the infrastructure that was built for the Olympics is either abandoned or already rotted away, almost none of the infrastructure reforms that were supposed to benefit the population were actually done, and the very few that were done are in a complete state of disrepair, with some cases that even have fallen apart further killing more innocent people in the process.
The day both of those, both the IOC and Fifa gets scrapped over, forced to being from scratch once again, and this time becomes organizations with strict monitoring and strict regulations, then I'll start believing in global unity from sports. Until then, it's just an ill disguised criminal enterprise.
Fans are just drug addicts who don't care about the consequences of the rush they get with their sports of choice, they don't pay attention to what happens in cities that hosted the Olympics, or the price they are paying as citizens when those events go through their nations. As long as they can get their sports goodwill rush, everything will be fine.
Oh, and let's not forget that it's exactly news networks who fund all this operation. They all have their hands on dirty crime bloodied money.
Reason why we keep hearing about the fall guys such as these private companies, and not the IOC and Fifa who have actually made the corrupt offers and operations a standard for their events. Let's not talk too much about who is really responsible for corruption crimes like those happening lest we lose our sponsorships from them.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
There's where most conspiracies die an early death.
If people in key political positions, government staff, elected officials, representatives and "purveyors of truth" are this dumb, how the heck could any complex conspiracy that relies on a number of people keeping secrets, organizing everything without anyone noticing, being extremely smart in the ways they disguise stuff and whatnot ever happen?
People mystify and idolize others too much, it's all dumb people conflating about inexistent smart evil people... or aliens, or reptilians, or something else.
Look at the mirror lady. If you got in, the problem is not about conspiracies, it's about people with mental health issues getting into representative positions.
1
-
1
-
Somehow, I had a sneaky feeling that it might be related to extreme capitalism... which of course it did.
But yeah, very much agreed. The cultural exchange that happens in education interchange programs are invaluable beyond belief, but quite unfortunately intangible too, much like good education in general itself.
It's really hard to grasp how much we owe to such programs for general peace in the world, advancement of science, and better understanding, cooperation and development between nations.
I have personally and presently watched testimonials of lots of people who went on interchange programs, despite not having the opportunity to do it myself.
It goes much beyond just general education. It provides a level of maturity, world knowledge, empathy, a sentiment of working for the betterment of the collective and world, plus stamping out lots of teenage years radical thinking problems that no institution can provide by itself.
Even if the levels of exchange have improved over the years, we still sorely lack it.
I also think both that the US would benefit a lot if it sent more students in interchange programs worldwide, and think that China has benefit much from going pretty hard into it, despite the not so great reasoning behind it.
The current political situation is pretty dire there, but there are good chances this is gonna change with newer generations... specially if it's taken by citizens who have matured their worldview through interchange programs.
My family has hosted an interchange student from Japan. We have a great relationship and this has certainly influence in the family deciding to save the pennies and make so far a couple of trips to Japan. While visiting as a tourist isn't nowhere as valuable as a proper interchange program, it still brought a lot of happiness, fullfillment, information and education to us. While I can't speak for the interchange student herself, I think it was also an extremely valuable experience for her own life too.
It helps orient our own life philosophies, ideals, and sense of moral and ethics by a whole lot. Because you get to experience different perspectives and different ways of living other than that of your own country.
1
-
1
-
I think the most important thing to pass in this story is that it isn't unique in any way for any of the countries involved in WWII.
Just to be clear, this is propaganda. All sides involved had an interest to sell their side of the story and amplify/distort it as much as possible because this is absolutely needed in times of war, because ultimately the country and it's civilians have to fund and justify funding for the war. It's not a minor expense in financial terms, and specially in human lives terms.
So you basically have to keep building a dehumanization narrative for the enemy and a blind unjustified promotion of allies up to fictional standards to trigger suspension of disbelief for an entire population.
But there are no innocent sides in wars, it's only hell. It brought the worst of all sides, you can be sure there was rape, torture, unjustifiable deaths and terror coming from all sides. If you don't think this happened on all sides, you didn't look deep enough in WWII history, just the romantified superficial stuff.
Editing a photo is a drop in the bucket in comparison to all the lies, all the fabrications and all the fictional narratives created during times of war. A brief look at surviving propaganda materials on all sides of the war gives a pretty clear notion, no matter how incomplete it is, in how much civilians were being fooled on all sides.
We all should know better by now. There is enough information, enough historical records, and enough proof out there that only people who chooses to turn a blind eye to the terrors of wars would believe there were any innocent parties in it.
It also helps understanding how current dictatoriships and dictators work, and how current wars are happening. The consequences of belligerence, how wars have no victors, and how much we are risking by toying with the idea of war again.
1
-
Nothing really surprising nor new, particularly for Brazil.
Travel agency scams are older than the Internet down here, Internet scams are common in all areas, and what all the victims have in common is that they didn't do their due diligence when looking into the businesses they were hiring - which is still sad and no one should have to go through this, but because it's such a common type of scam in Brazil, I just can't feel surprised by it.
Honestly, with all the news we've hear about this sort of thing everyday, how many cases happen every year, and how much warning there is out there about this, what I am surprised about is that this isn't more ingrained into our culture in general. I guess there will always be outliers out there.
So, here are the obvious stuff.
First of all, beautiful photos on social networks means nothing. Absolutely nothing. In fact, I'd be suspicious from start if a travel agency or agent starts shoving personal travel photos to me because that's not what I'm looking for, what I'm looking for is what MY experience will be, and how the experience was for other costumers. You are looking for factual and actual information, not rando-guy personal photos. I'd go even further saying that if the person is a self proclaimed influencer of some sort, you gotta be extra careful because whatever credit you think he or she has, has nothing to do with the service he or she is offering, which more often than not leads to an excuse to a crap service because he/she already has the clout to escape from accusations should those arise.
How many stories of influencers selling and advertising sh*t you've heard so far?
You are not trying to hire a photographer or an influencer, you are hiring a travel agency or agent. The trip and destination itself, sure, they might want to give you an idea on the places you are going, particularly hotels, transport companies and whatnot, but for the service itself what matters is credentials and contacts, as well as receipts and reservations as soon as the process begins.
What matters here is not social network crap, social status or whatever - what matters is the opinion of other costumers, how long they have been in business, the contracts you are signing and the practices of the company. You don't send money without either a contract or reservation slip in hands, and you only pay the travel agent for his or her services, all the other stuff you are paying directly to airline, hotel and whatnot.
But of course, charisma and cult of personality plays a hand here, and on this matter I have to say I don't feel much pity for anyone. Be it to do business, elect politicians, chose friends, form social groups and whatnot, if your priorities goes around evaluating people on social networks at face value, you will eventually get scammed and grifted out of your money, particularly in places like Brazil, corruptland. You can have initial contact on the Internet with other people, but if you are not willing to go over that for who you do business with and what you believe in, you are just painting a target on yourself.
For Brazil in particular, here is my tip: get the f*ck out of Facebook, Whatsapp groups, Instagram and whatnot, go back to doing both business, social and whatnot outside of those, and you'll be happier for it. Social networks are a disease down here, it's full of lies, scam artists, grifters, conspiracy theory morons, and ignorants tripping balls on Dunning-Kruger effect.
Everything that is "cheaper" in those are only cheaper for a reason, and they are usually not good reasons. Save a year more and go to an actual travel agency with a proven track record, insurance in place should problems arise, and a proper running business that impedes a single person from taking your money and running away with it. In fact, do this for everything that is too expensive for you to lose money with. Don't send any money to anyone without a contract and a properly defined destination for that money that you can check where it's going. Yes, it requires more work on your part, but this is the minimum you should be doing if you don't wanna get scammed.
Simple stuff like this is what is needed to solve the absolute vast majority of these travel scams down here. You can of course still have problems even doing all that, but then legal action have real chances of compensation. When you just find a rando-guy on social networks and swallow his lies whole, sending money without contracts, letting them leave it all up to the last moments, losing track on what is actually being done with your money, it's way harder to see your money back because you were just sending it without any legal guarantees. The process to prove it was a scam gets way harder. I hope the victims there still get it back, but it's like, we see this sort of stuff happening almost every single week.
1
-
It's kinda laughable that so many people conveniently pile on Facebook, and put themselves on high horses claiming they don't use it or never used it, and yet here all of them are, on YouTube, owned by Google, which operates in a very similar manner to Facebook itself.
I'm sorry folks, but even though the ball is in Facebook's court right now, if you use Google, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Amazon, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Apple, among other corporations products, you are not immune or in any superior position to anyone else.
In fact, even if you don't use any of those, you are still not free from them. Because the problem here is that over the past decade or so, a new economy based on opaqueness, data harvesting and big data sellouts has been formed behind everyones' back, it is the de facto way several corporations make business these days, and you are not free from it if you are using anything connected to the Internet.
Doesn't mean we can't recover some ground from it, but don't fool yourself thinking that just because you deleted your Facebook account you are better off than the rest. If it improved your life somehow, all the power to you. But not only it's not a victory in privacy terms by default, it also does not mean that people who is still using are worse off by default too.
The problem is not these platforms by themselves, it's about how people use them and what sort of trust people put in them. Doesn't matter if you go back to newspapers and TV as sources of news if you actively choose the most shitty sources on those mediums. Doesn't matter if you take your stuff away from Facebook only to give it away to Twitter or Google. It certainly doesn't matter if you are moving your oversharing habits from one platform to another, particularly if it's between Facebook owned brands like Instagram or WhatsApp.
The biggest things that has to change with all this in peoples' minds is not what your platform of choice is, but how you use them. Of course it's super easy for a millionaire or billionaire to say they can live without those. With enough money anyone can shut themselves off in a bubble and live in another world without external interferences. Give me a billion dollares and sure, I'll get off the Internet and live a lavish live of spending all that money without technology.
In the real word of the 99% though, we all have to advertise our products, our skills, search for jobs, socialize, communicate with peers, with family, be current and be part of our surroundings. Most people cannot afford to shut the rest of the world off.
But we can control what we believe, what we share, and what we consider trustworthy.
1
-
1
-
1
-
ROFL save... if Milei has his way he will completely destroy Argentina, far further than it already is destroyed. There is no situation bad enough that it can't get worse. That's gonna be the lesson.
I feel sorry for Argentinians, but it'll also be interesting to have a real world example on what libertarianism taken to it's absolute extremes, anarcho capitalism, let the market decide kinda thing, can do to a nation.
Perhaps Argentina gets first at the eat the rich stage of this, before the US? When people who are already poor starts starving, and people see an emergence of an ultra rich class that gets richer and richer by exploiting privatized essencial services, corporations having zero social responsibilities and turning to modern slave labor practices, the environment being completely destroyed due to lack of regulations, and all this type of thing... I wonder what will happen there.
It's one thing to have a failure of a system like this historically, but it's quite the different thing to introduce all those chances all at once completely changing everything in the country by a single president.
I mean, Milei already does not have a majority in congress there as I understand, but he'll likely be able to still do lots of damage.
1
-
1
-
Religious zealotry is a disease that must be exterminated from this planet.
I don't mind religion and religious people, as long as it's not being used as fuel for extremism, to trample on human rights of others, and to force their worldview against people who don't agree with it.
Also, it should be clear to each and every politician that when your country adopts the stance of being a secular state, this needs to stand true, not be just something on paper with no value.
A globalized world needs to stand against practices like these. While nothing is done, terrorism and extremism will continue.
And this is not only for the Philippines... there's a whole ton of presidents out there that seems to conveniently ignore the fact that their countries are secular states, chosing to discriminate against religious minorities and put their own religious creeds as something to be followed.
This zealotry has always been, is and will continue being the biggest source of death, wars, conflicts and human rights violations on the history of human race. We cannot evolve as a species while this goes on.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
I think it's a bit unfair to ask people what they think of the whole thing without context.
I also live in a country that officially criticized the show because of portrayal of it's people (Brazil) and am descendant of another nationality that also had some pretty weird portrayal by the show (japanese). But what most people don't seem to get is that The Simpsons is a comedy of stereotypes, pure and simple. It's not a documentary, it's not historical retelling, not current news, not a soap opera or whatever. The main characters themselves are stereotypes of americans. Kinda exaggerated offensive ones I might add.
The thing most people criticizing the show don't get is the bigger picture. You obviously don't have to like the show for what it is, but to say the show is targetting only this or that community because of stereotypical portrayals is just ridiculous and shows how little you know of it. All characters throughout the entire history of the show plus several of the settings have been stereotypes. While you don't have to like this sort of humor, it sounds kinda stupid to start complaining now about it.
I will also add that much worse than comedy shows, is just plain mainstream international news coverage. The main problem with bad image of foreign countries comes from news outlets that are considered "serious" but actually do a worse job showing foreign cultures than even comedy shows. Mainstream news only cover other cultures to either criticize or fetishize. Neither are good, but I'd much rather see India or other cultures from a stereotypical but positive character like Apu than mainstream media portrayals that are always talking about poverty, overpopulation, lack of education, all the rape cases, child brides and stuff like that.
1
-
1
-
As someone who uses smartphones very differently to how Louis do, I agree with a whole ton of what he's saying... xD
I just don't get it. Smartphones got into this plateau of lack of useful innovation for a while, and then they ramped up the price absurdly for no good reason and people still keeps paying for it. And currently, it seems the tendency is for high end flagships to have LESS features and be LESS useful than mid rangers... plus all the beta testing stuff at the cost of people with too money to spend on it - foldables, dual screens and whatnot.
It's all design centric to the detriment of usability.
Curved everything, all glass, no headphone jack and it seems to be heading to no ports at all... it's all these obvious moves to force people to pay for more and more accessories and no one bats an eye.
Even the extremely expensive and experimental stuff... if only they were useful for something, I'd understand. But all these foldable devices, that ridiculous Microsoft Surface phone thing, the dual panel phones... what is the point of having those if Android doesn't work well for them at all? All I heard from people trying to use these multi panel devices for productivity is that the experience is just crap because Android has shit support for multitasking, multiple screens, and weirdly shapped panels.
And then Google went on another level of abuse selling a smartphone branded as flagship with a mid ranger SoC. Dafuk is wrong with these people? SoC has always been the one single differentiator between phone categories. Comes the f*cking brand behind Android that made the Pixel line to serve as a model for other brands to follow, and releases a new Pixel 5 with a mid ranger SoC. What the hell? And people keeps trying to justify the move. Come the f on
Dunno how we got here, but man, it's just surreal.
And I was again just commenting in a recent IFixIt video that, yes, if smartphone brands wanted to make a phone with removable battery and good repairability it'd be more than possible...
Here's a bit of curiosity that most people probably don't know about - Samsung has a relatively modern IP68 smartphone WITH removable battery, mid ranger specs, no one talks about it in the tech rounds. It's called Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro. Launched in January 2020. Look it up.
I think reviewers and tech bloggers in general are just ashamed about their constant claims and gullibility on the advertisement campaigns that batteries needed to be sealed in because of water resistance. A myth that persists to this day. We had IP68 phones with removable battery before the sealed battery trend settled in, and we still have phones like that to this day, and yet you still keep hearing people say that you can't have removable battery AND water resistance on phones together. Yes. You. Can.
Anyways... I'm very brand agnostic... went from Sony to OnePlus to Xiaomi and now I'm on Samsung, but contrary to Louis' experience, my Samsung has been perfect for me.... but it's not a flagship, it's a Galaxy S10e.
Bit more expensive than the Motorola, but it basically hit everything I needed on a phone - mind you, hit MORE than all of Samsung's recent flagships.
First of all, totally agreed with the curved display bs. Not that it matters much to me because I always stuff my smartphone into a wallet style case, so it really doesn't make any sense to me for phones to have curved displays. I do it because instead of carrying a wallet and a smartphone, I just carry the phone inside a wallet style case. :P Also, I have broken a few phone screens in the past, the wallet style case helps protect it... oh well.
Punch hole camera, notch, under display camera... also, whatever. I never cared if the phone has a chin and forehead anyways, and in fact, because I use wallet style cases, a front facing fingerprint scanner matters more than some 98.9% display coverage crap. It's one of the reasons why it took me a very long time to switch from my OnePlus 3 - for a while, all you could find was phones with the fingerprint scanner in the back of the phone, because of this bezel less f*cking trend. Can't put a button/fingerprint reader right bellow the panel anymore, it's not fashionable. ugh
Galaxy S10E has - headphone jack, a side mounted fingerprint scanner doubling as the power button, dual speakers (the earpiece and a bottom firing one) that are reasonably loud, DeX support (because I wanted to try it), two cameras out of the three on the flagship S10 same quality no crippling, a flagship SoC (same SoC of the Galaxy S10), 128Gb internal storage, SD card support or dual SIM, 6Gb RAM, Bluetooth 5, smaller and lighter than my previous OnePlus 3 which always felt a bit too heavy and bulky to me. I got really used to my first Android smartphone - a Sony Xperia Z3.
The display isn't curved. It has all the wireless stuff, but I don't really use it... wireless charging, power share, etc.
All of this, I paid the equivalent (considering currency exchange rates and importation taxes), something like 250 dollars new. I think it's still a bit more expensive than that in the US, but here it was a pretty good deal all in all.
But all of this is mostly because I use the smartphone a lot... I play a few games, have tons of apps, and I like tinkering with the thing. It's my computer outside home, and I've been spending lots of time at relatives' these days. And it's also a matter of availability too I guess... easier to find parts, support, and places selling it.
I didn't have any of the problems Louis mentioned, but this is probably kind of a crapshoot. I modify my phones quite a lot on the software side... I don't mod them, but do almost everything else in the books around it - replace most brand apps with F-Droid FOSS apps, block everything, uninstall or deactivate all shovelware, and the stuff that I can't, I force them to go through Orbot... it's a process.
1
-
Kinda late to it since I found your channel just a few days ago and been binge watching everything, but yes, please do the long form life in Japan by Dogen videos!
I'll admit that I follow a whole ton of foreigners-in-Japan-vloggers, but none of them have quite your perspective, which is extremely useful and rich content.
Which was kind of what I was originally looking for before getting lost in all the vlogger style content... xD Which is great for what they are, but I needed the more in depth stuff.
Just stings me a bit that I didn't have anything like that back when I was at an age where I could take the advice and go through this regular route of moving to Japan - JET program or something similar, saving money, getting a job in the area, seeking something later on, making the right contacts, etc... but it's still a bit of a dream of mine that could be accomplished with a few of the tips anyways, so there's that.
In any case, thanks a lot for sharing all this info! I've been getting lots of information from other vloggers, but it's becoming a bit repetitive, so it was nice to watch your videos about buying property there, which is something I was curious about.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Sorry, I understand it's a shitty situation to be in, but obviously, it has nothing to do with race or discrimination, and all about the disease itself.
The whole reason why countries like India or Brazil are having the highest spikes in Covid 19 related cases and deaths is because of local variants of the disease. All countries should do whatever they can to stop those variants from crossing borders. And so, being extra careful about overseas travelers and repatriation procedures should be considered the absolute minimum.
Sorry if this makes people angry, but truth be told, planes in these countries should be grounded, period.
It's not only protecting your own country, it's also about managing the pandemic globally. The more variants spread out, the more chances we have for new variants, new combinations, making the disease even worse and vaccines less effective.
I don't want to be callous because I understand how shitty the situation can be for those affected, but it just makes it sound like you are still not taking the pandemic with the seriousness it deserves, if you are gonna invoke the race card like that.
It is plenty understandable that you had to take the trip at such a critical time because for lots of people, nothing is more important than family. But everyone should understand that personal priorities are not necessarily the priorities of public health in the entire country, and your fellow citizens are not obliged to take the same risk you chose to take, even if it was an inevitable choice.
Is your return to your country urgent enough to justify the risk of taking the variant from India to there, and risking a peak high like India is experiencing currently, putting your family, co-workers and compatriots at risk? Because so far, what the pandemic has taught the world is that the measures we've been taking guarantees nothing. Variants are crossing borders even with the strictest measures put in place. We just don't have enough control on it to stop something like a virus that can go around asymptomatic people.
There is no surefire way to allow repatriation while at the same time guaranteeing people won't carry a Covid variant back. The 2 week quarentene is good practice and can diminish the risks, but it has already failed a few times.
In fact, if people still don't realize this, may it be a wake up call. If you choose to take a trip to another country, with the most justified of reasons anyone can have, and that country has a pandemic spike due to a new Covid variant, be aware that you are also risking getting trapped there for a while. Go prepared for that. Taking an urgent trip to support family members happen, and there is nothing morally wrong with that, but you gotta understand potential consequences, this is not a normal situation.
I've been voluntarily stuck back in my hometown which has frontier to other two countries here in Brazil. I heard all the stories and complaints. And people can and do bring up discrimination and whatnot all the time, but the fact is, this is just what needs to be done, not to let the situation become even worse.
I haven't been stopped from going back, but I know it's just too risky. I'll do it when I'm fully vaccinated. My recommendation is, find a way of also doing that, if you can. And here's the thing, the more people do just that, the faster we can go through this, and the less people have to suffer because of it.
Also, word to the wise... this pandemic might just be a preface of things to come. Learn and adapt. I hope we never see this situation again in my lifetime, but reality is, there is nothing outright unique in how the whole thing developed to say it's not gonna happen again.
1
-
1
-
In my hometown, no metro or train, buses are always late and packed, and the solution they came up with for rainy days because of the horrible conservation state of buses and poor state of streets was just throwing sawdust on the floor to keep it less wet and slippery, no joke. You get into the bus, it's like getting into a pig pen of something.
On the city I currently live in, which is the capital of the same state as my hometown, the bus system is supposed to be one of the best in the country... yet it still pales in comparison to buses in Tokyo or Japan in general. They are still packed, dirty, and like a rollercoaster ride because of the sad state of streets.
But I guess they are considered a model here because of numbers, articulated buses, plus bus terminals that have enclosed spaces to protect from rain, though it's not all of them. Oh, we also have dedicated exclusive lanes for buses and emergency services only, which probably also counts, but is a constant source of accidents.
We also have ancient trains that are mostly used for cargo and sporadic touristic runs, and a plan for commuter metro that at this point must be like 50yrs old, and probably had 3 or 4 sitting presidents "inaugurating" the start of implementation. Pretty much a running joke at this point, it'll never happen. Corruption and public funds mismanagement, plus a lack of competency and administration capability pretty much guarantees that commuter metro in my city will never happen.
We didn't take buses much during our 2018 trip to Japan, but the few times we did, they felt more like expensive private buses that we do have around here. From Narita station to Aeon Mall, and from Shisui to the Premium Outlet there.
Thanks Greg, another great video!
1
-
1
-
1
-
Great piece... I'll just add some stuff of what I know about the subjects in this video.
Ok, first and foremost, chip production both in US, China plus a few other nations already exist, like in Europe. The problem with those are in quantity and quality. You can see it as Taiwan having the full stack - large quantities for the lowest to highest end technological products. The high end is needed for stuff like smartphones, desktops, laptops, video games, industrial machines, robots, AI, and a bunch of other stuff - all sorts of electronics and components that are pushing the boundaries of technologies. Low end you can think about pretty mundane stuff, like chips for basic functions, chips inside very basic electronics that don't seem to have any advanced functions. Basic clocks, a simple battery or power brick, domestic utilities, kitchen gadgets, stuff that you don't automatically think "computer" when you see it.
China is also already in production of the high end side of things, but in a smaller scale, and a few steps back on the technological chain. So, if you go buy a low end smartphone these days, you may end up with a product with a Chinese chip, like say Mediatek, HiSilicon or UNISOC. On the low end China already dominates large quantity and steady production - chips for the basic electronics that it has become an industry of. China also has a lot of production on component chips of these same high end electronics - then you have to think about chips for stuff like wireless communications, power regulation, audio functions, sensors, etc etc. There are tens to hundreds of chips inside any computer-like device, it's not only processor, memory and whatnot. You have a myriad of sources for each one of those, but Chinese companies already has lots of them in the stack.
The fabs that are coming to US side industries, if they ever happen (which I still have pretty big doubts about), they will necessarily need to start at a further step down even current China production. Reason is pretty basic - you cannot jumpstart high end production without all the necessary environment needed for it. If we're talking about tens of billions of dollars - that's far from being enough to support this type of industry. You could focus on a single thing, which would allow for faster development, but even with several years of development, sinking trillions in this, and a total cultural shift and infrastructural shift towards this, you'd still be nowhere near "independent".
It's exactly because this isn't only about building factories somewhere in the nation - this type of industry involves everything - culture, logistics, knowledge base, education, infrastructure, with entire cities with several different types of industries to optimize production. Because we're talking about the very high end of industrial production here.
To make it simple to understand, just think on the individual level. Have you ever seen a disassembled smartphone, for instance? How many components and parts are inside it? Now, think about a single country producing all of those enough to attend current demand, even just US demand.
Now, if we think about past attempts to 'bring jerbs back" to the US, all of those are pretty modest and more realistic attempts that also didn't go through. You can read all about a particularly symbolic case here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconn_Valley_Science_and_Technology_Park
A Foxconn led panel assembly plant is a million times simpler than chip production. It doesn't even compare the level required for worker education, specialization and training, the amount of parallel infrastructure and industries also don't compare, how much you need to process base materials don't compare, the amount of rare earth minerals and components don't compare, how many workers involved don't compare, the level of advanced machinery, logistics and infrastructure don't compare... plus a whole ton of other stuff. And that's for actual production, what was being attempted on Wisconsin was a simple assembly factory. Get all components from China and put things together there.
Now, the Foxconn Wisconsin plant plan failed, and failed hard. This chip initiative is on a higher scale and budget, but it is still prone to failure, because the level of complexity is exponentially harder. The budget is higher, but there are things you simply cannot solve by just throwing money at it.
What I think the problem is in all of this is that US politicians, plus lots of people, extremely underestimate the complexities involved in these industries. They don't even have the start of a hint of knowledge to really understand what it takes to pull off a TSMC, or a Foxconn, or any sort of modern advanced technological mass production. It's because offshoring in the mid 80s or so completely took away that side of how things are made out of the view of most rich nations, they only get to see the final product, and with late stage capitalism, anti consumer and anti repair corporate culture, and all of that - the absolute vast majority of people simply does not know what it takes to make the stuff they use.
You know those docs showing the entire chain of production from farm to table about the food we consume? Electronics are some two to three steps exponentially more complex than that, and most people don't know. From base materials that are needed for the entire process, all the way up to the extremely advanced machinery required in these industries, it's all a world unto itself.
But anyways, back to the topic, I agree with the general gist of the piece - even if China has a totalitarian regime with a propaganda stating that Taiwan is a rebel state that needs to be reunified with China, if the CCP ever decides to invade it, if chip production halts in Taiwan, not only China but also the entire modern world will get f*cked to oblivion. The chip shortage that happened during the pandemic can't even be considered a hint of what's to come, because remember, as bad as it was, we still managed through it with stocks and a few options. If the chip factories in Taiwan ever gets shut down, damaged in a war scenario, or production largely interrupted for a prolonged period of time, you need to think about how the war in Ukraine caused famine in countries dependent on it's wheat production, only it'll be about technology, globally. We'd have a complete freeze in technological advancements throughout the world, and then you'd start having shortages until it becomes complete paralysis of production of anything that requires a chip. This not only takes us back before the computer era... it takes us back before even that, because a whole ton of stuff we used to do without chips in the past, we can only do with chips today.
I'm being a bit dramatic here because like I said, the US, Europe, countries like South Korea, do have some level of chip production - but again, even all of those combine don't come even close to the quantity that Taiwan currently has. So even if we can fall back to an earlier level of tech, it still would be tech for the extremely few who'd be able to afford it, because it would become extremely expensive given shortages and high demand.
People, not even the most optimistic ones, should expect for these chip localization efforts to render real results in several decades. It's far more likely that those efforts will break down and result in nothing. It is realistically a far better bet to just bet on diplomacy, restore talks between opposing nations, and vouch for global peace so we can work on the global problems that are currently encroaching on us as a species. But since we can't have that, I actually think that the time that it takes for these extreme localization efforts just cannot be met. In a few decades or so the effects of climate change and of the ongoing political division, plus effects like mass migrations, wars on resources, among others, will be in such a level that we'll need to dedicate far more resources and far more attention into, in such a way that this trend of trying to hyper localize things will take a step back and eventually get abandoned.
But we'll see.
1
-
It may sound a bit counter intuitive or "icky", but here goes a tip from a tropical nation - you wanna stay in the shade no matter how you do it - umbrelas, more rather than less clothing, etc. Better to just avoid getting under direct sunlight altogether.
And for the hot humid effect that makes you sweat profusely... you want a wet small towel around your neck. Some people might say it's gross, yadda yadda, but you stop thinking about that when you are constantly at the verge of a heat stroke. :P
Drink tons of water no matter how many times you have to go to the restroom. :P
For people who already sweat a lot, it's just better to use a wet towel rather than being constantly drenched in your own sticky sweat anyways. And for people who don't naturally sweat much, it's even more important... because it means your body doesn't cope well with hot temperatures.
It's because the most important thing is reducing your internal temperature, there's a whole lot of blood flowing through your neck that is more exposed, so that's why there are so many neck cooling contraptions out there. But I guarantee none of them will be as effective as a towel soaked in cool water. And yes, you wanna carry around a cold water bottle which you will use to soak the towel from time to time. Clean the towel and soak it constantly.
We're in the middle of winter down here, but during the day it's almost as hot as it is there. Crazy. We don't really have winters that are cold all throughout the season, but this year it's completely abnormal. It's like, we had a week long colder days, then perhaps half a dozen couple days long colder days, and the rest was the same as summer... the only difference is that at nights it's cooling down a bit, but not by much. I don't even wanna think how hot our summer will be...
1
-
Respectfully disagreed, partially.
I understand what the video is going for... unnecessary vilification of wealth inequality is really a thing, when it should be seem more like a spectrum instead of as black and white as lots of people see it.
But while I do agree that outrageous investment is an even worse problem than wealth inequality per se, what I see in the US is the wage gap gone rampant, symptom of late stage capitalism, and that it has indeed become a problem in itself, not only about investment.
The video is understandably US centric, so what it ends up lacking is a clearer more global vision of things.
See, there are plenty of countries in the world that also have modern economies and a modern society that has advanced steps in cultural and societal evolution over the years which did not require extreme inequality or wealth accumulation.
In this, both the affirmation that insane wealth accumulation and that luxurious spending by wealthy people generates jobs and wealth in itself is a form of fallacy, specifically retrospective determinism - you are mounting evidence and a premise on top of a selective collection of facts or annedoctal data, ignoring the bad consequences of those, and with the benefit that we can never know what the alternative could be.
This is a very dangerous and very simplistic way to analyze things, and it justifies the status quo.
People working on products or services that only the wealthiest 1% of the population can afford might look good versus those people not having jobs at all, but it might not be good in comparison to those same people working on products and services that the majority of people can enjoy.
In the very same way you can use this example to say it's a good thing, I could say that one of those workers, if it wasn't for the rich people yatch business, could've become a doctor and found out a cure for cancer or something. It's neither one nor the other, but we can't deny possibilities.
You could be effectively taking out labor, research and time out of essencial services to attend the needs of a tiny elite. And this is a direct consequence of huge wealth accumulation and income inequality - part of the labor force, research, technological evolution and other societal elements dedicated towards the elite while ignoring the needs of the poorest.
The premise that wealth accumulation is a necessary condition for technological evolution and big accomplishments also tends to fall flat on it's face when you do not selective pick and chose what advances were important and what weren't. Some in the video itself aren't even dependant on wealth inequality per se, not of the capitalist kind, unless you are stretching the definition of wealth inequality to private companies and governments, which isn't exactly the same thing.
Let's remember that the space race, majorly responsible for the entire landing on the moon thing, had another side which strictly forbade people to accumulate wealth (apart from government, of course, as a function of corruption). It didn't stop them from being ahead several times. Yes, the US eventually won, but USSR's space program should be more than enough proof that individual wealth accumulation or huge wealth inequaliity is not strictly necessary to produce technological advances and whatnot.
Going back to a more global view on this, and giving this another direction, if the objective is happiness, human health, rights, technological advances, societal advances, the betterment of human race and other potential objectives societies might have in mind, I mean no offense, but I think the US is a pretty good example that on the extremes, wealth inequality is working against most of those potential advances.
Almost every one of those measures for the betterment of humankind, US is not first, and the country that is first likely has a smaller wage and wealth gap.
And then, looking at wealth inequality as a tool, I think yes, we can argue that it can be a great tool to motivate people or societies to strive towards good things. But it can also be a great tool to do very bad things, and it's not always needed for either. Again, if we can pick and chose advancements and technologies that we elect to be good or bad, you can always prove the point to one side or another. But if we consider the whole, it's fairly easy to see that a big part of humanity's advancements didn't need wealth inequality to happen, and that it's not the only motivator out there.
My final point being, I think yes, it is a problem, when taken to extremes. So much so that I think if we continue in this path, it might be a component part of our great filter event, because of how limited human vision is.
The US is on a path of such extremes of wealth accumulation that it's creating a severely disjointed modular society - rich people living in a world so different of middle class and poor citizens that it might as well be in different planets. Bubbles so thick and opaque that rich people in power have no way of seeing or understanding what the problems of the poorest are, because they never get in contact with it, they never hear about it, they simply cannot understand it.
Tribalism arises from that, radicalism, and extremism.
It's not that I think some people don't deserve recognition and wealth from their individual contributions to society as a whole, but it needs limits, so that recognition doesn't turn into cultism, worshipping, or practical elevation to godlike status. Because in the end, people are people. We are all the same. And I still think the worth of societies have to be measured starting from the bottom.
Technological and societal advancements have it's place, for sure, but you understand that, for instance, raising the life expectancy of a country or community up to 200 years is better than bringing immortality to the .1%?
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Awesome stuff, very informative, well packaged. xD
Here's an extra tip for all - if you are going there in any sort of busy season, BOOK EARLY. :P
Specially if you are going to stay anywhere near big cities, like Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka.
Also, depending on your level of japanese, I'd highly recommend seeking smaller local hotels without big international names. Japan follows some very strict standards for hotels, you'll likely have a great experience wherever you stay, so smaller hotels not only will give you a good experience, they'll probably be cheaper, and staff will likely treat you even better. o/
1
-
Here's something to think about - crowd density at a measure that you'd think would cause crushes everytime happens almost every week day in Tokyo metro, at rush hour. Not yearly pilgrimage, not a huge concert, not a sports match or a shopping sale holiday - almost every week day. Like, somedays are less packed, but still.
People get pushed into trains, literally by helpers, to the point the last people get their clothes or bags/backpacks caught in the closing doors. You can search for photos of people so tightly packed inside the trains that some have their faces pressed against the windows. And then of course all these people have to exit. They pour out of trains in droves, lots of people late and in a hurry for their jobs.
But I never heard of a crush incident.
And this has been going on, if I'm not mistaken, for over half a century now... there are photos of train staff working as crowd pushers from the late 60s.
It's just kinda insane. xD You need to see it to understand how bad it is.
Been there twice as a tourist, but I think we only got into Tokyo rush hour metro once... it's just a huge nope. xD We just waited it out. Not possible for the salarymen and office ladies, but we were just touristing around.
Weirdly enough, it's only at those situations you kinda get that Tokyo is among the capitals with higher density of people per area... it really doesn't look like it, except for hours people are going to work or leaving.
1
-
Let's make things worse.
Japan: you are expected NOT to tip at all. If you leave money on the table, they'll call you and hand it back. I'm serious.
Brazil: years ago, some restaurants started inserting percentage tip (usually around the 10% mark), the thing caught on, and soon pretty much every restaurant you went to there it was, as an obligatory thing. Came with the bill and all. Before that it was entirely optional.
But then, the practice became illegal. Not tipping per se, but having it as part of the bill. It was considered inconstitutional and like the restaurants were improperly passing part of their operational costs to costumers, which does not bode well for tax purposes. Because there are taxes for everything here, and this just overcomplicated it.
So we basically went back to, if you wanna tip, you leave some money on the table. It cannot be an obligatory fixed percentage included in the bill. But it's still common to tip restaurant staff, hotel staff, people working on gas stations... I think that's more or less it.
1
-
1
-
1
-
This is very interesting for the technical info, but I gotta add some caveats.
If all you want is a small form factor converter from USB C to A, eBay will probably have what you want for cents on a dollar. I've seen adapters that are smaller than the one Matt has there, though you will always be limited to the size of the USB A connector... so his solution is still smaller.
Shouldn't need to be said, but just to reinforce, no matter how much you change the connectors, you will always be limited to speeds of the lesser device.
So obviously, your USB 2.0 device won't go faster just because you replaced the USB A connector with a type C port.
Kinda stupid, but it gives way for another thing I wanna point out - devices having a Type C port are not a guaranted that it uses all the power and data speed that the protocol can offer. In fact, I have seen smartphones and some other devices that have a USB Type C port, but internally they are actually going at USB 2.0 power and speed.
Finally, about the reluctance of certain manufacturers to adopt the Type C port, such as Logitech, Microsoft and some others, it has to do with how universal the ports really are, and the problems that USB Type C had right out of the door regarding shoddy cables and chargers that were basically frying electronics all around.
As some might remember, few years ago a Google engineer saw fit to review all cables sold on Amazon to tell if they were reliable or not, because there was a major manufacturing mishap happening that allowed generic USB Type C cables to pass that were not built under spec, and could fry devices connected on both ends.
Shoddy cables were not much of big deal back in USB 2.0 times because they were handling little power, 5V 2A max. But with USB Type C, that power jumped to a level that can fry and destroy devices if it's not done properly.
So my guess is that big companies have been late or aprehensive with the change because of that, but also because outside US and other developed countries, the true universal standard still is USB A, and micro USB to a point.
The change happens much slower here on the third world. I swear I have yet to see someone else with a USB Type C phone around me here in Brazil. Most friends, relatives and coleagues are either on micro USB, or the richer folks on Lightning.
I do get wanting to unify everything under USB C though... :P Personally, I got adapters and maglev style cables. Unfortunately, the cables I have can only charge at USB 2 speeds, as the magnetic connector is round with a central pin for positive and an outer ring for ground... but the convenience makes it worth.
1
-
1
-
Fell free to disagree with me, I don't wanna force my personal view on anyone, but just put it out there.
The problem with Apple is the problem of every other corporation out there. It's just a repeat of things in modern times. Counterintuitively, the problem is exactly how much money it's made and how big it has become. It's not a small company risking a lot to put out it's best ideas of innovation to the world regardless of criticism anymore... now it's a huge company with tons of investors and a responsibility with profit and their bottomline.
This progress is usually irreversible. The reason is simple - you already make millions a month from what you do, there's no need to risk everything for the next step. Specially because your products are already seen as expensive, and R&D costs are stratospheric for platforms as mature as smartphones, so it makes no sense to try to reinvent the wheel per se.
Why tons of people perceive Apple differently has just to do with the timing it rose to prominence - along with the shift of information, how we consume news, and how we see things in the Internet era. That's mostly it. Most other tech giants exploded before Apple, and so the way they were portrayed is not the same as Apple. News networks became all shallow, co-dependant and repetitive themselves as they entered the Internet, specially regarding tech. They don't have the money or independency to write about anything that isn't trending, so when you get a segment like tech which most journalists don't even understand all that much, they'll simply go for safe bets and easy to reproduce and write pieces. Apple is the perfect target.
I posit that contrary to what tons of people think, Apple isn't as incredible or as transformative as lots of people put it or like to imagine. I won't dismiss the several accomplishments Apple had over the years, but in the same manner I cannot dismiss the accomplishments of other companies that were way more influential over their lifetimes.
Apple just played the image/marketing game better than most. That is it's true unique biggest accomplishment, which isn't small by any means, but it's less in numbers in comparison to others. It's perceived as the cool kid in the class, with the shiniest new toys, despite not having made all that much by comparison.
Let's examine other tech giants. Google/Alphabet has search, online e-mail client, easy GPS and satellite mapping, the expansion of YouTube/video streaming, tons of backend developments, and a few other stuff under it's umbrella. It also dominates worldwide in mobile OS with Android... americans often don't realize this, but iOS has a tiny market by comparison worldwide. iPhones, iPads and Macs are very competitive in the US, but not so much for the rest of the world. This is obviously because Apple is an elite or luxury brand, the vast majority of people in the world cannot afford or has no access to Apple devices, so the market is limited. This exclusivity plays a part in making Apple look cool or big in news, so it contributes even further for marketing. But the de facto king of smartphone OS is Android. Much like the de facto king in desktop and laptop OS is still Windows.
Microsoft popularized personal computers, still has the majority of the enterprise and consumer install base, they are behind several of the software and hardware advances on computers. Yes, they failed on mobile OS land, but it's still a company behind massive tons of innovations and tech advancements that don't get recognized because it's just not the pretty lady the press would like it to be.
Microsoft laid the entire groundwork of personal computers and laptops that devices like smartphones came from, and it still holds most of the structure.
Amazon took the world by storm in both how things get bought and sold, but also where and how data is stored, processed and accessed on the Internet. Their AWS service has a hold on a huge part of the Internet itself. It needs no further explanation... these things are huge by themselves.
Even Linux, the OS everyone ignores and no one recognizes as something big, currently dominates the backend of services everyone uses. Linux is powering cloud, servers, and a whole ton of things that you use without knowing. People are not aware of this, specially those who don't work with tech or are not savvy, but Linux runs something over 80% of server class computers and above, which basically all Internet services run of. It dominates the scientific research area.
Outside OS and computers... let's take Sony for instance. The company is pretty down the dumps these days on western countries, but remember how much stuff Sony brought to market? Tech advances are almost everywhere. TVs, portable devices, a next step in gaming systems, early Android devices, components for smartphone cameras... it's a wide diverse history of things.
This might come as a shock to lots of people, but out of all the companies (and OS) we could live without... Apple is the one. Or to put it better, it'd be the company that would have the least effect if it disappeared tomorrow - among giants of course. Mind you, that would still have a catastrophic effect... but we'd probably survive.
I'm not saying the company isn't important for tons of people, nor that it didn't have and still has an enormous effect on other tech companies, but just think a bit deeper.
There are replacements for basically everything Apple does. Current Apple users would most likely hate being forced to switch to something else, because usability is king in Apple land, but I can't think of anything that Apple offers that couldn't be replaced. Not easily, and not without several drawbacks, specially for those that are both used to and perhaps grew up with the ecossystem, but still.
Of course, several of the innovations we have today in desktops, laptops, smartphones, software and OSs came from Apple... so if it never came to be we'd likely have a completely different scenario nowadays. Some innovations would probably have risen with or without Apple, but some only came up because of the company. It still leads by example setting trends and tendencies... to a point it's almost harmful imho.
A whole ton of product categories and companies became Apple followers, which for a period was very benefitial, but nowadays I kinda question if that's how things should still be done.
Apple contributed a whole ton for the popularization of smartphone photography, for cleaning up and making UI/UX properly, for making smartphones and computers more accessible to everyone. iTunes was the first music streaming service to catch on, and even though mp3 players alternatives were out there, I don't think that category would becomes as widespread as it did if it wasn't for iPods. Tablets also probably only became a things because of iPads. Android tablets still aren't ideal after so many years of existence... Windows in tablet form is even worse. Macs had a hugely transformative role for several professions and areas of expertise.... content production, marketing, artists, musicians. It freed lots of people from drowning or just plain giving up on computers entirely because of the clunkyness and technical aspects of Windows or Linux.
But yeah, this is more or less it. Personally, I have no hopes of Apple ever recovering the "magic" of Steve Jobs days. Or of it ever satisfying the expectations or things fans imagine the company could still do. And counterintuitivelly, that's exactly because of the size of Apple.
The major contributions I talked about almost every company also happened in early years. They stopped risking and innovating as soon as they became too big. And as we empower them too much, it becomes hard for a new startup to come around and disrupt things. We are even treating small startups the worst way possible nowadays - as "unicorns" or some other crap, which makes them too full of themselves, acting and working like big companies.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
I'd sure love the experience of dragging friends to a Blockbuster, or whatever movie rental service, and then spending a good time talking about movies and whatnot (my hometown didn't have a Blockbuster per se, but it did have a local huge rental store with half a dozen units on it's peak), but just as much as gaming used to be treated in the past (all friends playing the same games), this is dead not because stores aren't there anymore but because people fell out of the habit. Still do it in retail stores though... xD. It's kind of the same setup anyways.
You still get friends to go for a movie theatre session, but in the last days of movie rental no one wanted to go into a Blockbuster anymore.
So, in a way, I hope that Alaskan Blockbuster stays as is. Or perhaps not because the people there sure could use less crappy Internet service I guess. But in order for things to stay that way, community has to stay the same...
But yeah, good times... used to be friends with the owner of the local megastore of my hometown, hope he's doing well despite the hardships. Pretty sure of that though, he's a brilliant business guy. Way before rental started going down, he had already started to diversify and prepare to close down some shops, and he made a whole huge ton of money during the good years.
1
-
Agreed with course correction, not so much with the hyperboles, though I do understand why it happens.
First and foremost, I far from want to criticize the NHS and the system of universal healthcare that I think all countries should have. And I certainly will never say that what the US' system is better, because it's not. It's just one among several things that didn't already completely collapse only because the country in general has a whole ton of money to keep slapping some haphazard supporting structure here and there. If privatization and neoliberal crap happened in any other nation at the pace it happened in the US, the entire political and cultural system would've collapsed long ago already.
But at the same time, I don't think I agree much with the notion that the NHS is the best example of healthcare worldwide or that it's somewhat significantly better than other universal healthcare systems in other countries.
I guess the problem here is language barrier and people's access to data about universal healthcare in other nations.
And I'm talking about the system in general, not on particular results. Because of course, for instance, if you live in a country that can put billions of taxpayer money on the thing, chances are it'll have better outcomes even if the system is worse than in a country that can only put millions on the line, but has a better system overall. Money serves as a kind of a crutch, but a pretty bad one.
So, I think there's opportunity for further analysis and comparisons to be made on universal healthcare - in other countries... like, I dunno, Japan, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, Norway, etc. I personally dunno a lot on how things works in those countries, but it seems to me like a very unexplored topic, because of the persistence of this myth or comparison only between the NHS and US healthcare. Plus of course, language and cultural barriers. It's like, you know, there are other nations out there.
But I'm nitpicking... I basically agree with everything else. I'd go further to say that privatization indeed and undoubtedly is the villain, as part of the general neoliberal ideas. Not giving this bullsh*t any discount.
Essencial services are where the so feared and vilified socialistic or communistic government take over makes sense. In the theoretical sense of the thing, not in this tendency to call regimes that are clearly dictatorships as communist or socialist somehow.
Healthcare, among several other essencial service sectors, needs stability and regulations. They should be directly controlled by government, not because it's a perfect way to administer things, but because it's the best that we have so far.
It's boring and it has the risk of falling into bureaucratic traps, corruption schemes, overbloating, and whatnot, yes, but you just cannot treat essencial services as if they were commercial enterprises. Your local Apple store is unnecessary and can close whenever, you don't depend on that to keep going. That's not true for hospitals, water treatment plants, local PD, and a bunch of other stuff. Service will get worse or better depending on who is elected, but it'll be there.
And the thing about sector privatization is that it always goes the same way. Following basic market logic, as soon as private companies gets the contract, they start cutting down employees, cutting down service costs, offshoring and further privatizing other parts of the service, and then focusing on profit, because that's all that really matters for a private company - which might be a system that works for some stuff, but it doesn't for essencial services. And if they don't get the results they promise, because the service can't be close, then they'll start demanding government loans, debt forgiveness, costly re-structuring, government subsides, and all sorts of privileges they don't deserve, because line goes up. Government and people have minimum control where all of this will be put on, so you are hostage to the whole thing. And criminals working from inside these privatized sectors, as you all know, never pay the price for their wrongdoings.
It's a basic lesson all citizens of a democracy should learn. We have a whole history of things going this way, there is no reason to believe in the neo liberal fantasy land anymore. People need to stop being fooled by the grandiose promises of politicians and business people who have a lot of money to make from these schemes, and start realizing that reality doesn't work that way. And getting angry after the deal is done also doesn't change anything. You gotta actively work to undo these wrongs, because once privatization happen, it's extremely hard to undo it. You will be fighting the status quo, so what you need is numbers and action.
1
-
1
-
My personal biggest worry for France and French people is directly related to these protests and what might happen in the future in relation to it, and it's not about the pensions.
Macron, as many French protesters are saying, was not elected because French people like him, but rather in opposition to the far-right party. A whole ton of people voted for him because they didn't want Le Pen and her party rising to power.
With his popularity now in shambles, with him not running for re-election, and not having any chances to be re-elected anyways, this opens up a route for the far right party to get it's turn.
And in every single country that the far-right took power, this meant chaos and destruction, and an increase in chances for an autocratic regime, elevated levels of corruption, a deepening of political divide amongst citizens, when not the outright destruction of some democratic pillars and pro-social systems that were in place to support the poorest and minorities.
And I do agree with the protests in large part. The pension age itself despite on the surface looking pretty tame, when you look deeper into it you can understand all the worries people have about it... it's not just simply raising retirement age from 62 to 64, it's all the other stuff embedded to this that is problematic. Minimum number of years you have to work to get a full pension, for instance. Other than that, I think a lot of protesters are right when they say there are other ways to complement the pension system without changing the age, there are lots of areas that France should explore. But I think most important at this point is that it's just not about the pension anymore, but the fact that Macron himself is using some pretty autocratic mechanisms to push his will into law, the exact thing that people fear the most from a far-right leadership.
I just hope France has the option to vote for a government that is more democratic and more in tune with social needs. Not the far-right, not Macron or someone his party will support, but rather a new leadership that moves France forwards while still supporting and strengthening France's democracy.
1
-
You see how bad things are in the US when you can very honestly, appalingly, say that Uighur camps shown in China looked several times better than these camps for immigrant children in the US.
Really, just look at previous reports. Sure, they are brainwashing and erasing Uighur culture in China, but I still remember the facilities shown. Rooms for up to 4 people in bunk beds, classes of 50-60 people, and when the whole thing began they even gave journalists a tour, no matter how fake and ill disguised it was, it was still more transparent than an immigrant children camp is in the US. At best they looked like basic school camps, at worse like prisons. Those tents? They look more like improvised pandemic installations, or emergency shelters. It's just not the type of place you shove a bunch of people, let alone kids, for long periods of time.
And given all the stuff that has been reported happening in these camps, how young the kids are, how little recourse they have... it is quite possible that the psychological damage done to them is on par with the brainwashing of Uighur camps, if not worse.
So, like many other criticisms of foreign countries the US is constantly disparaging, it seems a worse example is always present locally.
I don't know if people understands this, but what is happening in those camps will absolutely have consequences in the future. Part will be traumatized kids who will carry the scars for the rest of their lives and hopefully manage as best as possible, but this sort of trauma is the exact sort of thing that leads to violence, radicalism, and all sorts of bad things in the future.
1
-
Ooof, this trend hasn't caught up here yet, not that I noticed, but because my country tends to mirror everything that happens in the US, it's probably coming... thanks for the heads up! xD
I know I won't be using this sh*t if it appears here... first, because no way I'm scanning random QR codes out of some modicum of convenience, but second because I hate restaurants with too much crap on their menu. And as a general rule, I wanna use my smartphone for less stuff, not more.
Oh, this also applies for digital menu systems, particularly ones that wants to take a photo, collect data, and whatnot. I'm not paying a meal with my privacy and personal data.
Personal standpoint I guess, but I only bother going at restaurants and ordering from a menu (versus takeout, self service or drive thru) if they are specialized at something, not trying to serve everything under the Sun. And if they are specialized at a few plates then you don't need a QR code system to tell what the recommendations are.
If I'm asked to read a QR code or worse, installing an app, then I'm just leaving, sorry. You have a regular menu on display, QR code can be an option at most.
Dealing with smartphone or general security and privacy problems is really not something I wanna be thinking about during lunch or dinner...
1
-
1
-
Incredible.... xD
I mean, I can admire, but never do it. Nice that it seems to fit his lifestyle, but man, it can't be an easy thing to maintain.
It's interesting though - he has a GPD Win Mini, a Nintendo Switch and a Macbook. GPD Win Mini you can also play games (though not Nintendo games), and you could do most things that you do on the Macbook in the Win Mini too, though you'd have to deal with different OS and small screen.
I think his camera gear could also be minimized somehow, but you always end up in that situation of jack of all trades, master of none.
Still, just amazing. I can really empathize with the ease of moving... xD Moving once a year or two is a nightmare scenario for me personally, having done it twice for me and twice with my mom. It does make complete sense what he's talking about - that it helps rethink what you need and what you don't.
Sharing the video with relatives... xD Thanks for the video and interview Norm! Rare finds
Oh, also love that coat! xD Closest thing I have laying around but almost never use is a fishing jacket filled with pockets. Useful for the exact same reason, but I can't imagine going around with only it and no bags... :P
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
The hole goes deeper down the more you look at it, and it's truly disheartening because of how intractable the whole case is.
Chris made very good points on his particular point of view on "influencers", the effect it had for Japan visitors and these big prank and borderline or outright criminal behaviors, and the way it gets the attention because of drama, toxic masculinity, and other factors at play.
But you wanna know the ugly truth in all of this? It's all about the platforms and algorithms that both made this channel successful, but also elevated the Logan Paul, Mr. Beast, Johnny Somali types and tens if not thousands of hundreds of others to prominence, gave them tons of money for what they are doing.
It's exactly because of how the algorithms are designed, and how people just consume whatever is thrown at them. When you make the metric engagement for engagement's sake, what comes to the surface isn't what is best for people, it's what gets the most attention, and promotes more engagement. Which results in the type of content those idiots make. Pranks, dares, toxic crap, and sensationalized stuff. It's not only clickbait, but rather stuff that appeal to raw superficial emotion that while it sometimes may be good stuff, more often than not it's just crap. Too easily abused, too easily exploited.
And there is no way of fixing this, because changes would need to be so fundamental that it completely kills how big tech profits from this, would need to kill social media past a set size, so that there can be actual human moderation and monitoring capable of cutting things short before they have bad consequences.
We're nowhere near acting on it, most people don't even understand this very fundamental concept that should explain why things are going the way they are. The ensh*ttification thing, the hatred towards "influencers", the fake news in politics phenomena, how many people are falling prey to scams, to grifters, to radical discourse, to FUD campaigns, to all this crap that exists on social media. It is all singularly related to the type of environment that was allowed to fester online, that people have come to accept as normal, as natural in some sense, as the way things always were.
But it isn't. And it has no signs of going away. The boundaries and limits of what people felt moral and ethical to do for fame and fortune are gone, the regulatory processes and controls we had in place do not work on the Internet anymore, instead of being replaced by something it was just unleashed against an unprepared ever growing public that are unable or incapable of handling it. And then it's getting compounded by a whole throng of other stuff accompanying it, on the economic side, on the environment side, on the technological side. It's inevitably going to come crashing down on entire societies if nothing is done about it. Might already be too late in fact.
It's important to have people like Chris give a shout out about this, as it is for several other content creators that still respect limits and thinks about the effects they have on people, but it simply is not enough, and it doesn't reach the ears of most people who needs to listen to this stuff. You can't lead by example when the system has no limits to stop others who will constantly abuse it for their own gains. Abusive behavior always wins when there are no boundaries, no penalties, no limits, no punishment to stop it. People always fall trap to hatred, to division, to ignorance, to the most crude and raw primitive feelings.
This is the real awful truth about YouTube biggest influencers. They are a product of the platform itself. YouTube promotes and makes these people popular because they are masters of engagement. They sell more ad placement than others. Marketing on the Internet lost all the previous close engagement it once had on newspapers, magazines, TV spots and whatnot, and it has all become algorithmically distributed to the "influencers" with the most engagement power. Advertisement agencies couldn't give two fs about the content itself as long as it is generating so called "engagement". People may think Adpocalypse has to do with that, but it actually has nothing to do with that, just the kneejerk reaction of media panic around the subject. As soon as the media panic ceased, the same big brands went straight back to putting their ads wherever, either pretending they don't know, or being blissfully comfortable in their own ignorance.
So there, the truly awful truth.
1
-
This was the only content related to crypto I've watched for the past several years... I know what crypto is, I can understand what is happening by just glancing at headlines (which is exactly were I thought this all would end in from the beginning), but I avoid everything related to crypto, nfts and whatnot these days not even to vociferate against it just because I don't want to feed the monster. The less we talk about it the better. Same thing for stuff like Twitter, Musk, AI, Meta and some other crap.
But you know, John Oliver pieces are always good for laughs, and reaffirm the commitment I had for all these years - that it's just another one of those ideas that might seem plausible at first, but when applied to real life it's just disastrous.
It also has become a blatant symbol to me that a scam can work with pretty much anyone, you just need the right angle for it. The power of crypto is that it sounded technically complex enough to give that false sense of accomplishment in understanding what the f*ck is going on, which then for tons of people translated to "trust", which ends up in the biggest global scam in modern times.
That's why the scam was so successful... it got a whole bunch of people who thought they were immune to scams because they thought they were so smart, these people dug a whole lot on the technical aspect of cryptocurrencies by trying to understand how blockchain systems work, but they never looked into the realistic part of it, application in real life, socio economic aspects, how these companies actually operate, how a financial system should operate, and so on. They stopped at fascination with tech. Which btw, is the say way things like Theranos happens. You see the magical box, you hear the explanation on how the magical box works, you think it'll revolutionize something traditional you have gripes with, and so you put a shitton of money in it. Only you didn't understand anything, you didn't even analyze the proper aspects of it, because you are not an expert in the actual area that the product is about.
By the way, for those who don't know, cryptocurrencies are about overturning the role banks have. If you don't understand how a bank works, to compare it to this new system, you shouldn't be putting your trust on that.
Oh, and this is only the first step... you get technical people who can understand the technical part of a core component, but does not understand the rest and what happens when it's applied. Then, the next step is to get all the idiots who understands nothing but deposit their trust in these key people who think they understand the tech and how it's gonna work.
Crypto, in the end, is not all that different from alternative medicine, homeopathy, and the like.
It relies on a bit of distrust (banks), a bit of science (blockchain), a bit on general negative sentiments people have, a ton of magical thinking, idealism and marketing. You add that to promises of getting rich fast, and there you go.
To this day people defend the tech, or at least always go on the defense with whataboutisms and whatnot. I don't even engage in the discussions anymore. I will go further than most and say blockchain technology will likely never produce anything of real value, let alone currency.
I have my doubts even for non-currency related proposals.
This idea of using encrypted distributed database or ledger system where each node has to validate transactions is just too burdensome and overcomplicated to be used for anything.
It is too complex by nature, which makes it opaque for the vast majority of people using it, and it's this characteristic of it that supposedly makes it more trustworthy, that is incompatible with a realistic system for anything.
It automatically means that only technical people with time to dig into it will really understand what is happening behind the scenes, which makes it unusable for practical applications, because what people want from such systems is simplicity and ability to understand and audit it.
Perhaps an open source blockchain system can be useful for some limited applications in the future, but you don't need to know nor hear about it, same way your average joe doesn't need to become enchanted by hash and salt on cryptography to use it.
1
-
1
-
1
-
We are unfortunately running out of options in this day and age of mass production commoditization market logic.
To the point I really dunno what phone I'd get next, even though we are practically swimming in brands and models of smartphones these days.
Flagships are right out for me. It's just plain unjustifiable to charge anywhere close to a thousand bucks for a phone. Not if you think logically about your phone, and how you use it.
A baseline gaming laptop these days cost that much, and there are plenty capable phones for 1/4th that price.
Like, really, just think about it. With a $1000 bucks you can get a pretty decent 15" touchscreen ultrabook with baseline 1050TI discrete graphics that is several times more powerful than a smartphone. How did we get to this point?
Now, I would pay $1000 bucks for a phone if Google stopped worrying about cannibalization of their precious Chrome OS and Chromebook line, and made a feature like DeX or EMUI Desktop Mode a standard instead of a proprietary thing, which would make your smartphone basically a portable desktop device. Because that would add value to it.
Lately though, the industry has been going the exact opposite direction. Removing useful things, locking features behind proprietary walls, and "innovating" on useless cosmetic crap. This is exactly why, since I got my first smartphone, that I'm going on 3 years with my phone already. Before that I was replacing every one or two years tops. Because I see nothing of real balanced value in newer phones. It's all bullshit after bullshit after bullshit. Blah blah bezel less, blah blah camera notch, blah blah under glass fingerprint scanner... it's all, for me, 3D TV over and over again. I don't care about any of this shit. I wanna know what new features a smartphone has that is useful for me in my everyday life.
Seems like we're trapped into this paradigm of vapid shit and cosmetics.
Back on topic though, I personally never had a Samsung phone and I see it pretty much as second place when it comes to fanboyism, stupid decisions, and bucking the trend downwards - sorry fans. Like Rossman already said, this isn't the first time this happened, and Samsung has a pretty patchy history which made me stay away from the brand.
Initially, I didn't like their skinned Android version... Touchwiz, was it? It was heavy and bloated, Samsung phones were always slower in comparison to other phones with similar specs. It has become better, but I think Samsung phones are still not great in this matter.
Samsung also tried to build their own walled garden ecossystem for quite a while. They are often unrepetant about it too. Overpriced accessories, all sorts of Samsung branded crap (store, browser, app, etc), and now the entire DeX thing. Bixby, Tizen, all things that point to a company philosophy that just doesn't work for me.
And then there was the entire Note 7 debacle, which people forgot about pretty quickly.
The ads are just the icing in the cake. In this case, they are removing ads attacking Apple for something they just also did. But Samsung also has a history of sexist creepy ads, out of touch marketing campaigns, and a whole bunch of other crap.
Now, to be fair, there are two things that I liked about Samsung - one is their investment in camera tech up until recently, and two is how at least their flagship phones always seems to implement the USB port up to full specs. Aaand that's about it for me, which just isn't enough.
It's just amazing how paralized the smartphone market has become. With so many brands and models, you'd think there would at least be a handful of models trying to do stuff differently. But nope, even brands that were investing on some different ideas have turned to either gimmicky crap (LG V series) or just caved in to become another clone of other brands (OnePlus).
It's just sad all around. Specially because there is much more that could be done in terms of hardware and software for smartphones. Just that no one is trying to really innovate on usability ideas.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
First world problems... xD Or, to be fair, problems of countries with proper winter with snow and all time, versus tropical countries - at least in part.
Problem here in my mom's apartment isn't about finding the right balance, it's about hoping that the water gets hot enough during winter.
Electric shower that although new and fancy by country standards, it's yes, that famous type with exposed resistance in direct contact with water... Even Mehdi was kinda surprised by it (Electroboom).
Also, I guess a symptom of winters not getting cold enough, insulation here is kinda poorly done, not only for internal spaces, but also pipes and water tanks. As temperatures never goes bellow freezing, the attitude towards insulation and putting up thermal barriers on houses and apartments in the entire country is... cavalier at best. xD
What this translates to is that when the weather gets cold here (by our standards, single digits C), the water temperature also goes down by a lot, and then electric showers struggles to bring the temperature up.
We're not even in winter here yet, cold days probably dropping down at least some 10-20 degrees C more than it is right now, and we're already hitting the limits of how hot the electric shower can go. Cranked to the max, reducing flow rate to get to the right temperature.
I'm not really sure why, but it's like, it's hard to even find different options in the market... of course, basic electric showers are cheaper and so they'll sell more in a country that is mostly poor, but it's not like there is zero market here for fancier alternatives.
For some reason though, for electric, you either go with very simple exposed resistance wire electric shower, or you need to get huge tanks that requires separate and complex installation. No in between option like small wall mounted systems that can go all in the shower box or something. I used to think it was about market monopolization, but we actually have at least half a dozen big brands cornering the market, it's weird how little innovation there is.
The "fancier" more well known local brand have a huge range of electric showers which... well, don't have much difference between models at all, outside looks. You get some fancy slim line multi shower head with smooth flow control yadda yadda with internals that is exactly the same thing as the cheapest model - one or two exposed standard resistors in direct contact with water flow. So, you can change things around a bit, but water temperature, the most important point of contention there, will only get so hot no matter if you take the cheapest or the most expensive model. :P
1
-
Yeah... it's hard to believe a common currency is going to happen given current situation and what is happening soon.
Brazilian politics is now, with Lula, extremely for Mercosul and general strengthening of Latin American partnerships, after several years of an almost complete cut of ties in Bolsonaro's term, but we are in a far more unequal and unstable situation today collectively when compared to when these relationships were formed in the past.
There's the election in Argentina which I'm not sure what side it'll be swinging at, but it seems a center-right party is ahead so far, so it doesn't seem it'll favor the deal.
There's also the fact that even if the current Brazilian president is bullish on Latin American aliances, anything that has to pass congress and depends on cooperation of governors, senators and whatnot, will get resistance because the president's party does not have a majority everywhere.
The other thing that will have to go through is also the reaction to other big economic partners of both nations... I'm not sure about Argentina, but here in Brazil, a major issue with strengthening economic relations in Latin America is that it might look bad for relationships Brazil has with countries like China, a major importer and exporter. It could be seen as good or as bad, it all depends. I imagine the government is waiting to see how other nations will interpret this.
1
-
Also, since we're on this topic, here is a guide to ban fake news, enforce, properly regulate it, aall while staying out of first amendment violations altogether. It's not hard or complex, it's just that justice is unwilling to do it.
1. Elevate libel, defamation and slander laws to federal crime status for certain categories, period. Which means the state can and will prosecute, independent of victim's actions. A whole throng of fake news would become punishable by law if it wasn't for the fact that libel laws remains mostly under civil lawsuit status;
2. Properly define and penalize crimes related to racism, prejudice, sexism, minority persecution, discriminatory action and whatnot as serious crimes not protected by the first amendment, federally. Explicitly include Internet and digital realm into it;
3. Properly define crimes related to stalking, doxxing, unwarranted persecution, threats to life, psychological torture and others federally and put proper enforcement, penalties and regulations into it.
The rest is a matter of enforcement and regulations. When those become federal crimes, Big Tech and other platforms that harbors these kinds of discourses become accessory to crime if they don't take proper action. But this also depends on regulation and enforcement. If you are going to change laws on paper alone, it's useless.
Even then, bureaucracy means that those crimes will still be committed, but sooner or later the culprits will have to face justice. Until this don't happen, there is no hope for fixing the problem with people considering scam artists, radicals, cult leaders, saboteurs and criminals as a normalized part of democracy.
1
-
Non flagship that, and pay attention to this, I would not replace for a flagship even if it was the same price.
Ok, now that I got the attention, hear me out. I got my current phone this year, after keeping a OnePlus 3 for... I think it's over 3 years now. My "new" phone is a Samsung Galaxy S10e.
I did consider several others, including Pixel 3a, Xiaomi A2, Asus ROG phones and few others.
I don't say my first statement lightly, but it's due to very particular needs that I wanted to fullfill with a new phone.
First, it had to have a reasonable price, of course. Here in Brazil we not only have to pay huge importation taxes that can add up to a bit over the price of the phone itself, we also have to contend with currency exchange rates which are currently in an all time high. The S10e was relatively easy to find, at a reasonable price probably due to competition and sheer volume, in reputable stores that I knew would ship it right, and replace a broken unit if something happened.
Second, good camera, at least a bit better than the one on OnePlus 3... not too hard. The S10e has the main and wide camera of the S10. Zero complaints there.
Third, headphone jack. I have a couple of regular family visit trips during the year that can take anywhere from a few hours if I'm lucky to get cheap airplane tickets, up to 13 and 16 hours inside a bus. Bluetooth is fine, dongles are an ok alternative too, but I just like having the regular headphone jack to fall back to. S10e has it, S10 Lite didn't, decision point there. Oh, also, good speakers. S10e has stereo that uses the earpiece, S10 Lite only mono downfiring one.
Fourth, a fingerprint scanner solution that fits with a wallet style case. Not only a case, a wallet style case, which means no back mounted. So it's either under screen, or side mounted currently. The OnePlus 3 had a front mounted one, practically non existent these days because of the whole bezel less thing. S10e has a side mounted fingerprint scanner.
Fifth, good quality screen, 1080p and above. Not a big ask, but if possible OLED because I got used to it. S10e has an OLED panel... I think it's even 1440p, or some weird res between 1080p and 4k. Good bright panel too because Samsung. The S10 Lite has a bigger screen, but regular LED panel... not a huge problem for me, but the S10e also wins on this for me.
Sixth, Mid range to flagship level SoC, ram and internal storage, preferrably with sd card support with the dual sim design. Due to how I use smartphones. S10e has either a Snapdragon 855 or Exynos equivalent, 6Gb ram, dual sim/sd card scheme and 128Gb storage on the model I got. Couldn't ask for more for the price.
Seventh, I wanted some form of desktop mode to test if I can live with it alone during trips. This ends boiling things down to Samsung and Huawei I guess, but it wasn't a huge priority. Didn't test DeX a whole lot just yet, but it's just nice how most USB-C related extra functionalities seems to always be there in Samsung phones without having to go into discussion forums and whatnot to find out.
Eigth, something lighter and smaller than OnePlus 3. Not a huge priority too, but since screens are occupying more space, it's nice to have something smaller and lighter because the wallet case itself already adds a lot to it. S10e is smaller and lighter than the S10 Lite for some reason.
Ninth optional, stuff that I currently don't really use, but are nice to be there. NFC, wireless charging, power share, MHL, wired and wireless mirroring protocols, that sorta stuff.
Tenth, also a bit optional, big brand with good knowledge base and local support. My replacement OnePlus 3 screens were expensive and a bit hard to find because it's not a phone model well known around here. I had to wait long times, import the stuff, and repair the phone myself. This should be a bit easier with a Samsung phone, even if it's not the flagship model.
And so, the S10e became the perfect flagship killer replacement to my OnePlus 3, weirdly enough. Similar price point, similar flagship specs that matter, while keeping "older" standards that also matter to me. It really felt like an upgrade with no downgrades, which I was selfishly expecting.
I do hope Samsung keeps this line going... because my needs don't change much, and paradoxically, given how much choice we supposedly have to buy smartphones, it was extremely hard to find something that fits the needs.
My past OnePlus 3? I activelly chose to replace cracked screens twice instead of buying a new phone. Not because it was cheaper, but because I couldn't find a phone that fullfilled my needs as much as it did when the screen broke.
So I agree with MKHB one this one. Flagships are still important to showcase the bleeding edge and be the device for those who don't care about price. Low range is important for emerging markets and those who can't spend much on a smartphone, which will always be the majority of the global market in numbers. Mid range, currently, is where I feel most techies, most people trying to do as much as possible with a phone without breaking the bank really are.
In most cases when reviewer have to pay for their phones, the phones tend to either be in this category, or be a past flagship it seems.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
I've been to Japan twice... back in 2008 and in 2018.
Weird as it may, speaking as a foreigner/tourist myself, I just gotta say... Kyoto back in 2008 was just better, more balanced. Less crowded, more beautiful, less artificial. More... japanese.
While I do understand how much foreign tourism drives japanese economy these days, and that a sudden drastic drop in tourism like 2020 was must be extremely harsh for the economy in general, plus the inevitability of attracting foreign workers due to an aging population and stagnant economy, I can't ignore the difference I saw in those 10 years. And it's not that back in 2008 Kyoto didn't have tourists... of course it did. But it was at more manageable levels. You could still visit some touristic spots without feeling you are entering an overcrowded metro at peak hours.
My own hometown here in Brazil is a touristic city. It's nowhere near as huge as any famous touristic city, specially one like Kyoto, but it's a city oriented towards tourism. This orientation towards tourism can often have a creeping slowly encroaching effect in the place that is not very pleasant to watch.
Crowds are the most obvious visible effect, but you also have a change in attitude from the community, prioritization of resources, quality of service, how open to conversation people are, stories that are told throughout the place, the mood and relationships people have towards each other, and several other general sense stuff that happens in daily life.
It's not that I don't understand why places like Kyoto will change overtime and 2020 was just a brief pause on things, this is a process that started way before 2008 in any case, but I do worry that something was already lost there.
But you know, it's just something that happens everywhere. Japan is still fairly insulated, the language still generally presents itself as a barrier, it has some very strong sense of internal culture and code of ethics, and tourism generally hits only the biggest urban centers, so there is a degree of separation there, which I hope gets intelligently managed over the years.
Looking at global tourism, there are some places that have been worse hit, and that already turned into something else losing all it's cultural backgrounds and local customs because of it.
The ultimate consequence is extremely worrying... people don't pay much attention to it because you know, we all want to visit several places in the world, and no one wants to say tourism is evil or whatnot.
But I've read about entire cities where stuff like AirBnb has practically driven entire neighborhoods out. You have blocks and blocks of city space where the vast majority of real estate is dedicated to tourists alone. Apartment buildings, houses, etc all either unoccupied or occupied by weekend tourists. Consequently, so does commerce turns to tourists alone, the attitude of the place changes, and it becomes sort of an empty shell.
So what happens is that there are no locals left. No culture. No authenticity. Nothing there but the buildings and infrastructure that are slowly being transformed to attend tourism alone. The place became so attractive due to it's looks for tourism, which majorly pays attention more to looks than to substance in a mainstream way, that it got carved out of what made it, and got replaced by an onslaught of gawkers. A museum, or greek ruins.
As important as I understand tourism and foreign workers to be for the japanese economy, I don't wanna see what makes Japan the country it is today to slowly vanish into the sunset or something. Bit alarmist to think of it this way now, but I guess the decade difference between my trips gave me a perspective that I didn't really want to see...
And I am very self aware how highly hipocritical this is coming from a foreigner who visited Japan only twice and has a limited understanding of the culture itself, and still wants to move to Japan one day to adopt the culture as his own, but you know.
Even back in 2008, I understood that the Japan I liked was not in the big cities... we visited smaller towns up towards Fukushima that had a different vibe. While I did enjoy a lot the vibrance of Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka and whatnot, I think the places that really connected to me were small cities and towns we saw while my relatives were trying to find connections to their ancestors. In 2018 we didn't have the opportunity to go much into the weeds, my family and relatives who went with me on both trips are all at retirement age, it's hard to stray much outside urban centers with mobility problems.
If I was to go back to Japan by myself though, I think I'd stay away from the big cities. Stick to the west coast or something. xD But I digress.
1
-
Bernie is among the very few American politicians that I've seen freely speaking that understands the problem in US today, and that has the right ideas to really change things there. It's just unfortunate that today's US politics is not fit to have someone like him as president.
None of what he said is radical or extreme. It should be common sense. But the real problem in US politics today is that almost no one agrees with him. And those who do, do not have the courage to step forward to spread the message. It's a politics divided between scammers who wants nothing but power and money, and to keep US electorate divided while they fill their own pockets, and a politics of cowards that constantly avoids talking about the most important topics for democracy because they are afraid of losing votes.
People are so blinded by a whole ton of corrupt ideas that traps the entire nation into a situation of exploitation by a rich and powerful privileged class. Worse yet, a rich and powerful privileged class that is so ignorant and so trapped inside a bubble they cannot even grasp the consequences of their actions, and what it is doing not only for the country that gave them the status they have today, but also to themselves, their families, and the future of their own children and loved ones.
It shouldn't take any sort of genius intellect or experience to understand how unsustainable the politics of hatred, status quo, and elitism really is. Be it billionaires, other politicians, or the electorate that is vouching for one of the most dangerous figures for US democracy, it should be clear and obvious why you cannot go that way without it ending in bloodshed, suffering and tears - for everyone.
But the whole main issue in all of this is how infected both justice and politics already is. This has all started all the way back during Obama's administration. When justice and politics is already this dominated by politics that constantly favors status quo, favors rich and powerful people over the rest of the population, is so easily influenced and swayed by money and power, imposes opinions based on radical religious beliefs in a democracy that is supposed to be secular, and has warped things this much already, it's hard to believe that whoever takes the seat of presidency, even if he or she has a will, would manage to make the changes that the American people need.
If it's going to be a constant battle against a harsh current that never lets projects, law and policies pass to move the needle, is deathly afraid to try anything new because it could dethrone them, if it's always going to be blocked by Congress or SCOTUS, if it's always going to be challenged no matter how much it'd be beneficial to those most in need in the US population - it's only gonna be labeled a "failure", and nothing changes. It's like a fight not to fall into the abyss.
Simple fact is, I don't see progress happening in the near future for US politics, justice or society. The richest and most powerful nation in the world cannot resolve it's own internal conflicts.
And that's damning to us all. That the most democracy in US can do right now is put up a shield to the worst impulses of it's population. And that all sorts of corruption, ranging from moral, to ethical, to just violation of extremely basic human rights standards, has reached this far into American culture and society already. It's really a dismantling of society and community as a concept. A deep regression that is so bad it's already killing hope.
The world needs a new symbol for justice, democracy and freedom, and the US isn't it anymore.
1
-
1
-
Two things always comes to mind when looking at crazy terraforming ideas and it's requirements:
1- if we can't fix and take care of Earth itself, there is no f'ing way in hell we're ever gonna be able to terraform another planet;
2- doing the opposite always sounds way more plausible - that is, not the planets being changed to attend our demands, but we changing to be able to live according to their conditions. Yes, it is also far fetched anyways, but given how insane the multiple demands are to terraform these planets, often requiring so much raw material that we would need to process entire moons worth and technological breakthroughts that we're not even close to imagining how to do, wouldn't it be more realistic to imagine one day we'll just transplant our brains or general mind processing into a robotic shell which will enable us to endure the harshes conditions instead?
I mean, I know mind replication, complete linking, or even fully understanding how it works is still far into the future, but it just feels closer than what's required to be done on planetary scales for terraforming... and even though we might hit hard limits which would make it plain impossible with the cyborg idea, the terraforming idea seems to have multiple times more chances of those by comparison.
1
-
1
-
Fascists never cease to be fascists. But I guess this is a lesson the world will need to learn once again after mistakes have already been made.
And here's something for the people who constantly underline the immigrant problem for you to chew on - NO PARTY is going to solve this issue, and it will only become worse over the years. It's time to face reality, and not keep mumbling like stupid assholes who cannot see the truth that is right in front of you.
Any party that is promising to solve this issue is just straight faced lying to you. Several of them already did this all throughout the world. Which by itself already shows a degree of willingness to be dishonest with people by making promises they know they cannot deliver.
This is not a political issue, this is a situational issue. It's about the world having too much wealth disparities everywhere, which causes opportunists to exploit extremism in order to make vapid promises of solving issues with hard line policies that only further exacerbates them.
This has been proven to be true in several nations facing masses of immigrants crossing the border already. I dunno how many more cases and how many more decades stupid people will take to understand this, but the sooner you get it, the better.
Because if wealth inequality wasn't enough to de-estabilize entire nations which ends up in the hands of unscrupulous dictatorships, often military ones, that destroy these countries from within causing yet another surge in immigrants escaping death from their own nations, Climate Change is right next to elevate the immigration problem to new highs exponentially worse than it already is.
And there needs to be ample understanding of this, plus thinking about real solutions and not stupid crap like "building a wall", "passing laws that pretends to make it harder for immigrants to get in", and "getting away from economic blocks so we can adopt a harsher stance on immigration". None of that bullshit will solve the issue, because those are tactics of digging a hole in the sand and put your head inside it. They refuse to even look why mass migrations are happening, because they try to dehumanize the question in such an ignorant manner.
If people keep thinking about immigration in such a f*cking stupid way, when the worst effects of Climate Change start hitting, what this really represents is mutual self destruction.
1
-
Here's the logical fallacy - if you cannot estabilish a single, pretty simple, Brexit deal with all this time you had, all the dedication of taxpayer money, time and attention of the governmental body that could focus their attention solely on that for a very long time, how can you think that all of these hundreds of thousands of different areas with all sorts of complex ties to EU and other countries would be able to come up with their own individual, perfect no-deal Brexit measures in the same period of time?
Given that a Brexit deal is pretty well understood point by point for having the pre-estabilished EU set of rules, I think it's pretty absurd and preposterous to think all businesses in the country are ready with their own individual deals in a no-deal scenario. And obviously, any industry or business that does have it, it's likely to be a much worse deal than if they just stayed in the EU.
That's not even stupid otimism anymore, it's irresponsible skirting off governmental responsibilities towards international trade, diplomacy, economic health and a pre-emptive scapegoating of business in general once the "worst case scenario" happens and the countries economy gets wrecked along the way.
Here's what's actually happening there. Boris just wants for Brexit to happen regardless of consequences. That much is clear of course, it's the sole one phrase platform he was elected on.
He doesn't have a deal in the table because that deal would be no different than May's. So "last case scenario" is just newspeak for "most likely scenario", and then, when it happens, when businesses starts closing down, jobs are lost, multinationals leave the country, and the economy is left in a state of disarray, he'll just blame private companies, business owners, and industries in general for not having prepared properly for Brexit. Tons of people will suffer, and the government will maintain the position that it's not their fault. Because it seems obvious at this point that there is no plan in place for anything.
At most, unconvincing interviews like this one trying to oversell some industry in the country that no one believes. You really think the international market will buy into crap like that? Dude, I have some plots of land on the moon to sell ya.
1
-
It's interesting if looked in isolation, but really more of the same if you look into the history of storage research from CD onwards. Those who followed news about this at least from the Blu-ray era will know - but just to share a few tidbits.
Between the DVD and Blu-ray era and onwards, tech news always had these periods with piles of new storage formats popping around, which would either replace Blu-ray or whatever was there at the time, or "revolutionize storage" in some way.
Just to give some examples, here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Disc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archival_Disc (already exists, but read about future promises)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LS-R
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stacked_Volumetric_Optical_Disc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_optical_data_storage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5D_optical_data_storage
Those are for disc formats only. If we get out of the realm of discs, there's more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Card
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat-assisted_magnetic_recording
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_digital_data_storage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant-based_digital_data_storage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterned_media
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spintronics#Storage_media
And then there are more concepts, experiments, ideas, prototypes and whatnot, some that have been around longer than CDs themselves, with a promise to revolutionize things in the future. Like the already mentioned Spintronics, but also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnonics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor#Potential_applications
What is the problem the majority of those have? Basically the same issue of emerging battery technology that will supposedly replace Lithium - they never get to commercial scale at acceptable prices. Some are only theoretical, some have working prototypes in labs but can't be done at scale, some use existing media but the reader is unfeasible, for several the math simply did not work.
The thing is - there is no real demand for more and more consumer level high storage anymore. It got replaced by the cloud paradigm. So really, if any of those technologies comes to replace current storage methods... people might not even learn about it. Unless we break the cloud paradigm somehow.
One can say that this still matters for the backend, the servers in the cloud, etc - but really, do you even know what most of those are using these days? As in the data centers that are holding most of the data.
It's HDDs, magnetic disk storage. The storage format that has been around since the mid-50s. xD
Of course, it's newer tech with a lot of storage and fancy new improvements like Helium filled drives, or upcoming tech that we still don't know if it'll pan out like HAMR, TDMR, 3DHD and others.
Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive#Development
Even if SSDs have substantially dropped in price over the years, for operations that large every cent counts, plus things like longevity, and all sorts of considerations. So it's fully expected that HDDs will still be the majority, potentially a decade from now. Not just because they are cheap proven tech, but because there's still all this potential for improvements.
Another thing to note - I think the best price to storage size ratio on HDDs is already hitting the 20Tb or a bit more... so, it's still 10x less capacity than the 200Tb disc, but that's at readily available commercial level and does not need a special reader for it. It's around 400 bucks.
That 100Tb SSD is just not something on the same level... it's sold at an exceptionally high price just because it's at the top of the top for now.
This means that with 4000 bucks you can already get one of those disks worth of storage.
For which you'll need a lot of power (but nowhere close femto laser levels), it's of course a whole bunch heavier and bulkier than a single disc (though again, we are disconsidering the reading and writing drive necessary for usage), and it's still magnetic storage with it's longevity limitations, though newer tech has improved that side a lot too over the years.
I mean, we're talking about different things here... discs you only have to buy one read write drive, and then just media at cheap for storage. But still.
Thinking about creating a read-write femtosecond laser that consumes reasonable amount of power and can read and write at speeds that would make it usable requires so many huge jumps in technology that you might as well consider DNA based storage instead, with a magical machine that can encode, decode, read and do everything else needed to store data in a longer lasting way.
The one thing left out of the video is that disc based storage doesn't last as long as most people think. At least if we're talking about materials used to make CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays. Those, well stored, with the latest tech, last longer than magnetic storage or solid state, but the materials will still degrade in a matter of decades.
This is what the 5D optical data storage covers - making discs not with plastic, but with something like quartz or glass, so that it really can have a long life as long as it's properly stored. They are fragile if handled improperly, but if you store it in the right conditions they can last for a very long time. Then we're talking about centuries or millennia.
Anyways, I blabbed long enough.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Some people may find what I'm about to say as a sign of authoritarianism, and disrespectful to notions of freedom and liberty, but this is ultimately just an opinion and I'm not in a position to take action, nor an American citizen anyways, so here goes.
I think a judge like Clarence Thomas should not only be taken out of his position, he should be arrested as a traitor. He should have his day in court, but laws if not the constitution itself should have provisions to punish people who behave like him in the position he occupies. I'm not being extreme or thinking of vengeance here, that's how things should be in a democracy.
This would be in an ideal democracy, which is not what the US has now.
People will say that this doesn't make sense in a democratic society where everyone has a right to freedom of speech and whatnot, but I will say why this is wrong - it's a democracy, a political system with rules, and a rule by the people.
Further, a democracy is a system where separation of church from state is... either a fundamental pillar or the very foundation of it depending on your perspective. Democracy, from my perspective, is a political system that yes, was created to give power of decision to the people, or elected representatives, but more importantly it was created to take away power from an exclusive privileged minority who could push decisions they made arbitrarily upon the whole of the nation, without need for justification. Which is, of course, a dictatorship.
In the case of most democracies, it was also to take away power from church, with it's arbitrary rules created by twisted interpretations of what some will call fiction or fairy tale.
So, we are well past the point where politicians will fully admit taking decisions based on their particular interpretation of the Bible, or some other sacred text. We already have people in power saying they should eschew separation of church and state, or secularity, as a rule for the system, openly. If that politician isn't immediately removed and potentially jailed for treason, you are not doing enough to protect democracy, period. This is, or should be like a player of any given sport spouting that we should consider letting people just bring lethal weapons inside a match. A player like that is unfit for his position, a danger for the whole sport or system itself, and should not be anywhere close to a match, if not thrown into jail for his or her danger to sports in general, and people overall.
Now, you have one judge or a group of judges acting inside the Supreme Court of Justice in a supposed democratic nation ruling based on their personal beliefs or personal brand of politics and/or ideology, imposing the suspension or elimination of rights that took decades if not centuries, much bloodshed, suffering, and struggle for the American people to get to. This is unacceptable, abhorrent, and criminal.
I won't even enter in the discussion of this being fruit of straight out corruption. It is, but let's pretend it isn't for a moment, focusing on speech and intentions.
What is the difference between what Clarence Thomas is proposing there, versus what you'd expect from a country with a fundamentalist theocracy? The stuff he's saying there is just about what I'd expect from a judicial body that would next propose a morality police in the US.
It's not only what is happening, but the way it's happening, how much focus is being put on moral panic content, that proves that it's already all over for US democracy. People tend to focus too much on singular cases, on singular scandals, on singular happenings. Looking at the bigger picture there to me it's already at the point of a civil war.
So, yes, the US system created a trap for itself, when you don't have real mechanisms to take down a radical fundamentalist, or a completely corrupt puppet working for radical fundamentalists, from the highest level of power in the judicial system.
What needs to happen? Of course, a complete reform. But also, opening an exception to correct a complete perversion of the entire democratic system. If the US as a nation still values democracy as the system that it uses for justice and politics, plain and simple? Clarence Thomas is a traitor. Him, and the entire portion of SCOTUS that are making all these abhorrent decisions to tip the scales towards Trump and his minions.
If this cannot be done, democracy in the US is already over. Everyday people like Clarence Thomas continues holding a position he is unqualified to hold, the US distances itself more and more from a rule of democracy. Turning this into a spectacle is not a solution, it just normalizes the problem. Asking people to vote otherwise might alleviate the issue, but it also does not fix it, because the issue here is that US democracy isn't strong enough to fix itself.
I've said this for the political situation of other nations, because I understand this isn't a problem that only the US is facing. But if the democratic system of your nation isn't built to resist this sort of attack by itself, using it's own tools and own structures, independent of who is or isn't in power - it's a failure. Politicians are a body of representatives, not a body of absolute power. The justice system should also never be so monolithic and invincible to the point of having enough power to destroy democracy from the inside out.
It's time to go back to the drawing board, rethink all of the areas that failed, and change it. Because if this isn't done, the fall towards a dictatorship or theocracy is just inevitable. Both of those systems have strategies to exploit people by feelings, hatred, prejudice, bigotry, zealotry, ignorance, fear, confusion, in a reactionary manner. And we are still a species that is majorly a slave to those. Which is a situation ripe for exploitation. Which is what this so called political party, which I consider a coup movement, is doing. A democratic system and government should be a moderating power to those. Not only to late stage capitalism, to which it has also already failed, with strong regulations and strong rules, but also on bad human impulses that often bring down entire societies.
So, that's the reality that the US is currently facing. It's not another election, it's not a normal process of democracy. It's an existential threat. Of the system that has allowed US society to flourish. And it's coming at the back end of multiple defeats the US democracy has already had over several decades now. Wage gap, normalization of racism, normalization of homophobia, systematic removal of attendance to basic human rights for huge portions of the population, monopolistic control in several areas of the economy, public taxpayer money being exhausted to give more privilege to already insanely privileged people, exacerbated by a political system that lets powerful people dictate what projects and laws should pass via a corrupt lobbying system... there's almost nothing left of what a democracy is inspired to be in the US right now. Almost everything that a democracy is supposed to attend to is hanging on a thread only because the US is the country with the most money and power in this planet. And if it wasn't for that, it'd already become much like a poor ravaged nation already.
The scenario is that several of the hard earned rights and democratic wins that the US had didn't go far enough to guarantee it's continuation. And all of them are getting slowly but surely defeated. So people shouldn't even be pleading for a return to normalcy anymore. I think the US is already at a state that only a complete and total revolution will set it's path towards fixing all these issues. It's become way too reliant on it's money and power to sustain itself, but it's already completely broken. And I'm not seeing any potential for a fix there. The people who are at least aware of how broken the system is never gets in a representative position - they have already been put down in positions they can't make significant changes. Or they are already so disgusted with US politics that they don't want to get anywhere near it. And a self defeating system like that only has one way to go.
1
-
Should ads be obliged to show how traumatic cancer is though? Real question. Because I don't think they need to, as most awareness advertisements are not required to show some of the worst potential consequences of the problems they are presenting.
But I can see the side of these women, honestly. The subject is breast cancer, they are breast cancer survivors, and they are not seeing themselves represented or a clear image of the subject being shown. And the tone of the ad didn't seem to be very appropriate.
But, if the objective is raising awareness, perhaps funding for some non-profits, and just get attention for the issue... you cannot say there is a definite better, single strategy to it. Because fundamentally it's advertising, not documentary. An ad for such a complex problem cannot and should not be considered information complete in any way, it's mostly a call for attention on a subject.
Personal opinion, feel free to disagree... but honestly? I think a more light hearted, uplifting convocation to pay attention to the issue is ok too. As long as more people become aware of the importance of early detection. Because you know, yes, breast cancer detection and treatment can be extremely traumatic and leave life long scars, both physical and mental, and can be extremely invasive and whatnot... but early detected stage 0 and 1 breast cancer can be treated without chemo and without mastectomy. Perhaps that's the point that has to go through.
1
-
There's a lot to unpack there, and I think it has to do with normalization of justifications that should actually be unlawful and clearly tips the balance towards corporations with big law firms and whatnot.
The first thing that Devin talked about that caught my attention, which is a well known problem when it comes to arbitration, is that the justification of it is because the justice system is too clogged with too many lawsuits, and so arbitration was created to expedite cases.
When you get to this argument, the problem already starts showing. If justice is clogged with too many cases, the question then becomes whether you should create a parallel method of solving cases in a more expedited way or not.
Because if that expedited way of solving cases tips the balance towards those with more money and power, than one can easily argue that this is not justice at all - it's a way for the powerful to go above what people inside a democracy consider justice and law.
Isn't a right to a fair trial both in the human rights chart and inside the US constitution itself? So, is arbitration to be considered a fair trial, and by which standards?
I personally find arbitration clauses an aberration and a travesty of regular justice. It might be needed in practice to keep justice functioning in a litigation heavy country like the US, but first, it's not like it's the only option to solve the issue, and second, it breaks the very notion of a fair trial to me.
Then we'll pass into the scope of contracts. Personal opinion, I think a contract can only stipulate terms and conditions inside the scope of the service itself. It cannot and should not have any effect outside the scope of the service it's offering. So, in this case, the Disney+ contract is about Disney+ only, and the parking app should be only about the parking service alone.
Disney cannot enforce a clause on neither of those into something that happened in a restaurant inside it's park, because it has nothing to do with either of those services.
It's both an unconscionable clause, and an abusive contract.
Now, if Disney is going to argue that the restaurant holds their own responsibility in the case, and that Disney does not have responsibility for what happened there, then they can make that argument. But also, if Disney's website make certain guarantees in the ad for the venues, they've assumed responsibility for themselves. That's both a false advertisement problem, and one that they need to take responsibility for. The restaurant is likely paying to be inside the Disney Park, this comes with a set of responsibilities but also privileges, and one of those privileges is the advertisement, for which Disney will need to acknowledge responsibility for. Disney guaranteed security and care for the restaurants inside their parks, and so it's responsible for this statement. If the park chose not to regulate, enforce training, and properly inform restaurants on how they should do things, or what is expected from them, that's a separate dispute between Disney and the restaurant. They can't say "we have nothing to do with them". And they wouldn't want to do this anyways, because it'd be further damaging to the brand.
Costumers have an expectation of a higher quality of service attached to the brand, particularly because of their own advertisement. So if you deny that this is true, first it would damage the brand itself, second we'd fall into false advertisement issue, and third - why the heck would people pay extra to go to, or open a restaurant there anyways?
I think some people might be getting some stuff wrong on this case... but in the end, Disney fully deserved it. And while Disney is not the only one that does stuff like that, this does not mean it's innocent or that the attempt is fair. At least to me, that fact that other major corporations already won cases against it because of forced arbitration clauses is not a redeeming factor - it's actually only proof that this form of injustice has been going for too long in the US already.
This case is far more dramatic because it involves a tragic death, but I've been talking against forced arbitration since well over a decade ago now. I remember multiple cases of injustice in the past that went that way. Some were also justified on expediting cases, some you even had corporations complaining they couldn't do business if it wasn't for forced arbitration because they had to spend all their time and money with defense of cases in court.
And again, my argument was the same. Forced arbitration not only isn't the right way of addressing the issue, it's also far from being the only one. This is actually an informal fallacy known as false dilemma. You don't need forced arbitration to solve the problem with clogged down justice system or for corporations not to spend too much time and money with litigations problems - there are multiple other ways to address those. From modernizing the system, investing more into it, reforming the code of law, increasing regulations and monitoring, plus a whole ton of stuff. It's also curious how some corporations will think by default that they'll be overloaded with lawsuits so they want forced arbitration everywhere. To me, it sounds less like "the legal system is propped against us" and more like "we admit that we'll likely be doing illegal stuff, so we don't want to be judged in the same terms that others are".
I'd also enter into an argument about monopolies and the supposed benefit of higher standards they are supposed to bring, but my comment is already too long.
1
-
Here's one important lesson we did not learn with Covid, and Monkeypox is there to reinforce that it's perhaps the most important lesson of these pandemics: It spread because we let it. Because we don't have systems in place to take immediate and strong action in their early stages. Because, for Monkeypox, despite we having vaccines, because they are expensive and limited, it likely didn't go to the Republic of the Congo, because we don't have a strong enough system to fund vaccination programs for poor countries that are basically serving as the breeding grounds and mutation zones of zoonotic diseases.
Which is all too good to be coincidental, right? What is threatening the human race is general inequality, division, our failure to provide basic human rights for all, while billionaire companies and billionaire individuals are living in bubbles so thick they can profit from and spread disinformation around without consequences for themselves.
I always find interesting how it somewhat seems that at macroscale, nature seems to be trying to set us back on the right track, by force if it needs to. I'm very much the non-superstitious, skeptic, non-spiritual, no woo-woo bullsh*t person. And yes, this is likely just a coincidence considering how much nature affects us and we affect it, with me having a bias towards a position that we need more equal wealth distribution and less excess at the cost of others. But sometimes it does seem like these things comes at the right moment to teach people about some things we'll likely need knowing a lot about in the near future.
1
-
This might become a case display on why authoritarian/totalitarian ruling can often do more damage than good, even when well intended...
People are panic buying and panic testing out of fears of a replication of the situation in Shanghai. But you gotta wonder if all this panic doesn't end up spreading the disease even faster, forcing people into situations that are basically superspreader events by themselves.
I mean, sure, several other countries are doing even worse in times of pandemic, with several bad consequences... and as much as I also don't trust Chinese official numbers, I don't really doubt that China has done much better than several other countries in the world in infection and death numbers. It's likely not as good as they are saying, but I don't think it's quite as bad as some western countries did... whatever reasons are behind it. Just reminding people that several western countries got to the point of digging mass graves and having morgues putting corpses out in the open for lack of space.
Problem is, when you have a government that is so insular, authoritarian and all powerful giving out policies and rulings without much regard for it's people well being, having other political priorities in mind, stuff like this can and often do go awry pretty fast.
Particularly for governments that are too trusting in numbers and absolute concepts, their personal beliefs and whatnot, but gives no regard for individual, minorities and specific issues.
It won't matter if you save thousands of people from getting sick and even a few dying from Covid cases, if you end up having tens of thousands with mental health issues, lives destroyed, suicides and people running away from the country because of how traumatized they were with overly strict measures.
Even though I am in favor of doing everything you can to fight against a pandemic, and I have done a whole lot myself to prevent myself and family from getting it, I can understand there are limits to how much you can push large populations. Different people will have different baseline conditions to live.
The priority needs to be saving lives and health, not trading one problem for another.
1
-
1
-
Common problem during the prohibition era in the US, as lots of moonshine and illegal alcohol was produced, and methanol can either be produced in the process and not properly discarded, or added to it later on for volume.
The article is talking about "a number of people" being hospitalized, remains to be seen if they were all tourists, or if this includes locals. If it's tourists only, then this could be elevated to an intentional targeting.
As for others... if you wanna be on the safe side, stick to known brands and sealed containers. It's not a total guarantee, but eliminates a few risk factors.
Kinda reminds me of a case that happened in Brazil just a few years ago during the pandemic... there was an explosion of homebrew brands in the market, the entire idea sounded bad to me. But interestingly enough, it was a relatively big brand among the homebrew stuff that had their beer contaminated, which ended up killing 10 people and leaving others with lifelong health problems.
It wasn't methanol though... it was antifreeze contamination. Which the factory should not be using, it's forbidden by law to use toxic components in the brewing process so this type of accident never happens, but they did it, and they are in jail for it.
1
-
1
-
Warning: I'm about to dump a truckload of shit on top of Pixel and Google, it's only my opinion, you don't have to agree with it, feel free to skip my comment.
Honestly? I have no idea why reviewers and people are giving Google a pass for probably the worst precedent set in smartphone land of recent years, from Google itself no less, but sure, let's discuss this.
First of all, it's not a flagship, they should at least have the decency to change the name, call it a Pixel 4b, or something else entirely if it's a new direction. If they are admitting defeat already, they should just call it Pixel Last, Pixel Quitter, Pixel End or something less vexxing. But not Pixel 5.
The argument I'm hearing from most reviewers and people is that a flagship SoC isn't needed anymore for a premium or top experience these days. Let's get down into this argument.
Sure, I happen to agree that most people don't really need the latest most powerful SoC for their daily stuff. I agree so much that I refuse to pay absurd prices for flagships. 1000+ bucks is way too much for that insignificant edge. Let the rich people buy them, we'll get the benefits of either mid rangers or flagship killers.
Arguably, most people haven't been needing the latest SoC for a few years now - basic navigation, media consumption, social networking, light gaming... mid rangers have been able to do those for a while now, for at least some 3 or 4 generations past.
But, hear me out on this, that's not really a justification to call a smartphone with mid range SoC a flagship, is it? Flagship never meant "good enough", flagship is latest and greatest, period. It always was, is, and should keep being despite Google's moronic take.
If there is one single component inside a smartphone that aptly defines in what category a smartphone is - low ranger, mid ranger, flagship and even stuff like flagship killer - it's the SoC. Almost everything else could be different - Screen resolution, refresh rates, camera configuration, smartphone size and weight, materials, extra features, RAM size, internal memory size, whether it has wireless charging or not, dual SIM, SD card support.... of course, more of those means it's in a better category, but as they are always changing, and flagships often skip some of those, you can't really tell which is which from that alone.
From the SoC though, you can. The main flagship line and above like limited edition niche phones (read folding screen phones), will always have the latest SoC. You get the latest Samsung Galaxy S something, it'll be Snapdragon 8xx. Same for LG, OnePlus, Huawei, Sony, all major brands. Exception for a few brands that have dramatically dropped out of the radar in recent years, like Motorola, or chinese brands that targets emerging markets - those just don't have flagships anymore.
It's not a matter of how functional the phone is, it's about flagships using the latest specs. I understand why some people wants to justify Google's move with an unrelated excuse, but I don't think people are taking the time to really see it for what it is. Whatever reason Google had to use a mid ranger SoC that is weaker than the previous flagship SoC, and still use the flagship denomination, there is no excuse. It broke the entire nomenclature thing, and it will confuse tons of consumers. Specially further ahead when those phones start aging faster than the competition.
Now, times ago when Google announced they were coming up with their own phones, what reviewers and tech people took as justification for the move, despite being puzzled on why Google would put out phones to compete with other brands that were also their costumers, was something like this - oh, Google is gonna make a phone to be the "founder's edition", or to point out the "model to follow", or to serve as basis for other brands to base their own devices on. How has this worked out?
If I remember correctly, the Pixel line has set a ton of negative precedents, and nothing else. See that I'm not talking about good specs specific to Pixel phones themselves, I'm talking about examples to follow. I know the camera tech is among the very best around, calm down.
Some Pixel phones had problems on release. Some stopped receiving new Android versions sooner than other brands... like little over a year after release? I remember there was at least one eggregious example on this... either the original Pixel, or the Pixel 2.
Costumer service I heard from good to appaling. It certainly didn't set any standards, it was just haphazard as most other main Android brands are, at best.
Pixel 2 ended up following the iPhone trend eliminating the headphone jack. Which lots of Android users didn't want to happen, particularly because Bluetooth keeps being a shitshow of a standard. Apple at the very least put their own standard in there to solve most of Bluetooth lack of intuitiveness problems. So it was worse than following the trend.
Instead of coming out with pure Android with a standard Google package, Google chose to create a Pixel OS that was neither one nor the other, but something in between. It's less heavy handed than other skins, but it also isn't pure Android. Obviously Google has the advantage of updating Pixel as soon as a new version of Android comes out, but that's a given. Problem is, because Google is using a Pixel skin, no matter how light it is, this ends up obscuring the idea that it serves as a model. Because it's not pure Android anymore.
Then again, this is something that Google doesn't seem to get, ever. Android One and Android Go has similar problems. They have changed overtime going outside their original propositions too.
Their strongest spec, the camera, can't be an example to follow because much of it's success depend on proprietary software working intimately with camera hardware to achieve results - it's not something other brands can take much advantage of. We can all gawk and praise what Google has achieved with Pixel cameras, but that's it.
Google also followed the price hike for flagships like all others did. Cut down cheaper models like 4a came after other brands had already done so. Not setting the precedent there too.
Afaik, Pixel phones also don't offer many of the extra standards on USB port that brands like Samsung always do - regular MHL screen mirroring, a desktop mode, the latest fast charging standard, etc. In many ways, Samsung is just better in setting a precedent standard on this for Android phones, in a way that I don't see Google ever being able to replicate. You know what you'll get with the main Galaxy line. You know what the main characteristics of a Note is. If you are a tecchie in emerging markets, you likely know what the compromises are for the A line. The S line, be it the main, the plus, or the cut down versions like Lite and e, all have DeX, mirroring, and all the extra stuff you'd expect to get - wireless charging, power share, knox, NFC, a bunch of ways to share files. I'm not all too familiar with the brand just yet, got my first Samsung phone recently, but the S10e, a past gen cut down version of the flagship tramples all over the Pixel 5.
The SoC in particular, which is eggregious, is somewhere between 10 to 15% faster depending if you get the Snapdragon or the Exynos version. And it's around half the price of the Pixel 5. It also holds almost every spec from the flagship that matters. Camera, ram, internal memory, wireless charging, stereo speaker using the earpiece, SD card, a side mounted fingerprint scanner which I prefer over the back mounted one because I use wallet style case, glass back, DeX, mirroring, etc.
And now, Google pulls this flagship not flagship shit.
I think it's safe to say Google didn't create a phone line to follow. It's just another brand, one that is becoming less and less consistent in strategy. It stood out for it's camera, like a one hit wonder Lumia line (feature wise, not number of phones), but almost everything else was just following trends, or bellow the estabilished average. Other stuff Google tried fizzled up. Soli? Dedicated AI chip? VR stuff.... what's it called... Daydream which they just killed?
It feels almost like some of the stuff LG tried to do with their ThinQ line, or the Velvet line. And even on that, fair comparison, I think LG did better, risked more. Dual DACs, full manual controls for camera, they had the last flagship with removable battery, the dual screen case thing, and now this weird cross shapped Wing thing. I think LG also had some model that tried to use a gesture over screen thing times before Google came out with Soli. It also didn't catch up, but it just seems LG is investing more on their ideas.
It's like a plague that affects Google. First on services, then apps, and now also hardware. Too big to fail, but also too big to truly innovate or revolutionize.
It's not don't be evil anymore, the tagline should be something like - Don't take us seriously. Or don't expect anything from us. Or don't know what we're doing anymore.
There. /endrant
1
-
Ex-president Yoon, hopefully. Effective immediately.
Doesn't really matter whether you agree or not with his assessment, which seems most people already don't.
There are very few other absolute proofs of total incompetence and inadequacy, when not absolute maliciousness, for the seat of a president in a democratic nation other than declaring martial law out of nowhere. Even forcing a change in law or constitution to prolong their term comes second to that.
Even if his reasoning was rooted in legitimate worries, you don't just declare martial law without a major consensus, both internally and externally, that they are justified in some manner.
If it's all coming from a single person, it will always be considered an attempted coup, period. Yoon is not only a bad president, he's a traitor, and a criminal.
Very glad that tons of South Koreans immediately reacted in defense of democracy there.
And also, the best defense against North Korea is exactly this. A strong democracy that will fight tooth and nail to keep democracy going.
1
-
I'll faff around the question and just say this - the reason why these problems and thought exercises often cause so much confusion starts from the nature of them - the scenarios don't happen in real life, so we just don't have a frame of reference to think about them.
Sometimes it's an unrealistic situation - such as being able to put someone asleep and waking them up without them having any memory of what happened in the past except for understanding the contextual nature of the problem itself. That's a very unrealistic scenario.
Or perhaps it's a situation that stipulates something outside our capability of understanding, such as beyond death, multiverse or simulation theory. We can't form any concrete theories around those because they go outside the capability of human conscience.
I think these problems precludes an understanding that we just don't have, we'll anchor the answer on something that we do understand, which might vary because it's not a fixed or clear thing.... so it ends up in the realm of speculation.
I imagine some people who study this will put the divide being a problem regarding frame of reference or context.
So, back to the video, I voted 50%. Why? Because if I was put to sleep, woke up with no memory of anything, even if I was explained how the problem works, for me at that moment a coin flip still has a 50-50 chance. This is rooted more into basic probability and statistics rather than a given context.
More importantly perhaps, that reality cannot be overridden. A single coin flip in a single moment in time has a 50-50 chance. In order for that to be changed, you need to input further context into the problem, then changing the frame of reference, then allowing for the answer to be changed in accordance to it.
Oversimplification, if I tie you to a post and ask how fast you are moving, you'll say you are not moving at all. But I could change your answer if I change your frame of reference. In relation to what?
1
-
Different market, different needs, different size, different target. Almost everything about the japanese market for cars is on the opposite side of US requirements.
Considering that Nissan has a huge scandal going on with it's CEO right now, you'd think japanese people would start considering brands from other countries, but nope.
Basically, low numbers are not surprising. In big urban centers like Tokyo, Kyoto, and others, public transportation reigns king, and the vast majority of real estate don't even come with car parking. It's the exact opposite of western countries where major metropolitan areas gobble cars by the hundreds daily until streets are fully clogged by them.
The reason why service on car dealers in Japan is so great is not only because of japanese culture, it's because cars in big cities are mostly sold to a middle upper class to rich people only, or to the service sector - most of the working middle class don't have the money (not only for the car, also to pay for parking space, taxes and whatnot) and don't have the need to outright buy a car - because public transportation is so efficient. So it's a far more select market.
The size problem is also real, specially for people living in urban centers. I've seen people with key cars stopping in the middle of the street to push their cars into tiny parking spaces because that was the only solution for them. The space they got to park the car would never fit a regular US car, it barely fits a key car, they had to push it in manually because there wasn't enough space to open the car doors to leave once it's in there.
But I do have relatives living there all who own cars... it's a cultural thing more than anything else. They were born and lived part of their lives in Brazil, so they value car ownership, and they are living either on smaller towns or in big city outskirts, so they have the space for cars. But I think all of them have japanese cars.
The thing is, this isn't only about Japan having a different market, this is about US cars getting behind times too. Here in Brazil the more time passes the more I see people buying japanese car brands. For decades, american and european cars were the go to here... Fiat, Ford, VW were all there was, basically. GM was never much of a thing here. Like Jeep, I think it's just for people who have lots of money in Brazil. Peugeot got a bit of traction for a while, but I don't see many of them around anymore. But in recent years, I've been seeing more and more Honda, Toyota, Suzuki, Nissan/Renault... and even some Kia.
My family might be a bit biased due to japanese ancestry, but I don't think this factors a lot when buying cars. Most of my relatives have either Honda or Toyota cars these days.
I have a '98 Ford Fiesta and my mom has a 2000 something Fiat Palio. We're still on the old trend because for us cars are only a means of transportation, not something to get too attached about. For the next, price will be the biggest factor, all the rest is negotiable. But I'd really got more towards small, economic, perhaps electric and autonomous? We'll see.
1
-
Reality doesn't matter (and barely is a thing I guess), and Matrix has to create an ideal narrative and character for the story to make sense, which proves just that. Mr Anderson, no friends or family, fits nowhere, feels something has always been wrong with his life, to the point of following strangers and believing in some outlandish claims... which ends up being the whole point of his existence, etc.
Heck, it's basically jumping into the unknown and resetting life... Some people might do it, but I'm willing to bet that if people were really presented with the choice, most wouldn't. But some would. You kinda need the right situation, impulse and motivation, together with the mindset though.
1
-
1
-
A bit presumptuous and myopic, but sure, let´s take it as a particular point of view.
For those who are open minded and are not completely blinded by prejudice I´ll just focus on the vaccination part and put things in contrast.
Just to be clear, not that I think there is no justification to have a bit of bias against China... long standing anti human rights position of the CCP is more than enough for people to be prejudiced against actions from chinese government, but at the same time, you can´t do that at the cost of not being critical of western countries too, or your own government.
Brazil is getting vaccines from whetever it can because it just drastically jumped to worst affected country, vaccination is extremely low here, and the public health system already collapsed. And it´s NOT thanks to our president, it´s thanks to governors and mayors who joined forces with labs, medics and scientists running the show due to the total absence of the federal government.
If it depended solely on Bolsonaro, we´d have no chinese vaccine, and we´d be even further more fcked than we already are.
Most of the country has no ICU beds available anymore, some cities have lines of hundreds of people waiting for a spot and dying while waiting for it, and we´re getting close to running out of even medication and equipment for putting people under mechanical breathing, running out of medical grade oxygen, anesthesics, everything... no country has faced such an extreme collapse just yet, and things are only getting worse.
So, it´s not only chinese vaccines really... it´s vaccines from whoever wants to give us. Brazil has bought russian vaccines too, european vaccines, labs are trying to make deals with US universities.... it´s just waiting for local regulatory agency to approve it to handle it out. Our regulatory agency is bureaucratic like most of other governmental bodies, so it takes time to pass through, but we´re basically accepting everything from anyone. This is just how desperate we are. We trailed second place during the entire pandemic behind the US, but we currently surpassed the US not only because the US is getting better due to a better vaccination campaign, but because we got several times worse due to people just not caring anymore, sluggish vaccinataion campaign, and general mismanagement, corruption. Just as a dramatic point of comparison - more brazilians are dying in a day than people have died on 9/11, and numbers are still growing.
mRNA might be the newer tech and "better" in some points, but not only at this point this really doesn´t matter much (what matters is volume and speed), but also, it´s really not that significantly better to make any difference right now. Being marginally better is not a point of consideration at this point.
In fact, if aything, and I´m not 100% sure on this people might confirm it or not for me, aren´t mRNA vaccines the ones that requires ultra cold storage? If so, they are very much worse for our particular case. Brazil is a huge country with tons of people living in small poorly equipped cities. We barely have freezers in several cities, let alone specialized storage space to keep vaccines at -20C.
Clarifying comment was already posted saying that results in effectiveness between vaccines don´t really compare, but I still don´t think this makes the video content valid or fair. A good portion of the video makes it sound like mRNA is so much better that alternatives shouldn´t be considered, which is just not the case.
What made Sinovac a significant vaccine in Brazil wasn´t even the fact that China is sending it to us... it´s the fact that due to vaccine trials happening partially here, the farma entered a deal with local labs to enable production locally. This is what Brazil really needed, because we don´t have that much money to import everything, and our population is big and spread out enough that we need to make things locally for a vaccination campaign to be effective. Which is why there are a few initiatives currently with an US university and I think some deal with a company or university in UK to also allow for local production of a new vaccine... it´s still early days as it hasn´t even entered trials yet, but it´s obviously gonna be needed anyways given our current situation.
Understand that because of the proprietary nature of several labs in western countries, particularly in the US, something like that would just not happen. Patents are being broken and production and modification is being allowed in some of those deals.
I dunno how things are right now, but afaik, the Moderna vaccine was completely hogged to the US alone... so it´s really no wonder other countries will seek for other alternatives.
Astra Zeneca is embroigled in the whole EU UK situation there, which is yet another barrier for countries that are not the UK or part of the EU.
As for the decision of China to use Vaccine as diplomacy tool and ignore it´s own citizens, sure, we can have a callous stance like that.
But the reality that several countries and unions seems to be happily ignoring is that for a pandemic like this, you either go global or you go bust.
You have all the right to be cynical about the intentions, as you´ll probably be partially right, but really, the worldwide objective right now should be giving out vaccines to the worst affected countries - because if you allow for Covid 19 to fester in specific countries, we already know what happens - fast rate mutations giving rise to new variants which might be more virulent, more deadly, and eventually render current vaccines ineffective.
So, sure, it might not be out of CCP´s charitable heart, but ultimately, it is the right strategy.
If China has low internal Covid levels and it can send vaccine to countries that are at their worst right now, this is the better way to go, even at their own interests. Let the vaccines, from wherever they are, go to reduce high proliferation rates at countries that are not being able to contain it.
Because if this pandemic has really proven anything, is that most countries just cannot block a virus like that by closing borders. Most, not all, mind you.
China has been doing a good job keeping it out right now, as New Zealand did, as Japan more or less.
Which takes me to another point - there´s the other country that has very low rates of vaccination... Japan. You´d think a country that is trying to make the Olympics still happen this year would be rushing like mad to vaccinate people... I dunno if it´s japanese government inefficiency, or just a general understanding that they can wait longer, but for the current pandemic it´d help if it´s the former, and other countries in similar positions should also see it that way. Vaccines should go to countries worst affected, period. And of course you can see it as a selfish position, as I am a citizen of the worst affected country, but really... it´s not. If the brazilian strain that is rampaging through the country right not become widespread worldwide, things are still gonna get much much worse in the entire world before getting better...
What I mean is, the whole thing is far more complex and intricate than it seems. But there you go, just wanted to share my two cents on the matter.
1
-
So, again, to be clear, it´s not that I don´t see a reason to be cynical about CCP intentions and some of the stuff that is happening, but really, I also don´t think being this one sided helps much.
Investigations on China about the origins of the pandemic, misreportings, and trying to censor doctors who were giving the early alarm are very very bad per se, but at the same time, there are reasons why CCP is very wary about western countries, organizations and unions trying to come into their soil to investigate stuff.
At this point, can western governments, countries and citizens even deny using such investigative teams to spy on other countries? Let´s just not pretend that most of these health related organizations are majorly backed by western countries, and promote western views.
Can western countries really say they´ve dealt better and in a more prepared way with the pandemic from start instead of running around like headless chickens not knowing what to do and how to deal with other countries at first? Particularly on the governmental level?
As for the Huawei, US-China trade war, and american intelligence thing, I just wanna put out an outsider perspective on this.
First, allegedly, personal opinion, Bolsonaro would likely suck Trump´s cock given the chance. He absolutely followed the same far right news sources Trump did, absolutely trying immitating the same rhetoric, absolutely doubted the american elections for no reason.
This part is completely true.
But from a opsec perspective, not only Huawei has a big presence in Brazil and most politicians don´t agree with this hard line stance against the company, China is also a major importer of brazilian products.
You add that to the fact that US was also spying on a former president of ours as revealed in Snowden leaks, plus the fact that we are also facing fake news and misinformation campaigns coming from american social networks that operate here, you start seeing there is much less clarity on being negative about a chinese company versus an american one, political views notwithstanding.
What really has been happening in Brazil to change attitudes and change positions is that the federal government has majorly failed on the fight against the pandemic, it has some considerable chances of getting the blame for the severity of it, and politicians on the state and city level, plus justice system, plus institutions are making everything they can to revert things, with so much pressure and so many actions that the president is being forced to supress his egotistical views, or has an immediate backlash everytime he spouts his bullshit. His followers are dwindling, his popularity, despite still being too high, is at record lows, and it is very unlikely that he´ll be re-elected.
1
-
This will be interesting to watch... xD
So, this is how you know cars in your country are ridiculously expensive.... :P
See, I have a 1998 Ford Fiesta junker that is in a pretty sorry state... dirty, bruised, old, and all that thing. But I'm still pretty sure that if it wasn't for the fact that it's motor is probably busted, like if it was running at all, I'm pretty sure I'd still be able to sell for the same price or even more than that kei car you guys got there, currency exchange included.
Actually, the base price for my car even being from 1998, with currency exchange, goes over 1500 bucks. 25 years old car. Mine wouldn't reach that because it's in bad condition, but still.
I'd gladly sell it off to get a 10yr old kei car like that, looking great, brand new almost. Alas, something similar to that I'm sure would be super expensive here.
Though to be fair, I don't think any Japanese kei car would survive a road trip here too... xD Those tiny wheels, we have bigger pot holes than that.
1
-
1
-
Ooof, I dodged a bullet with this one... I tried installing GrapheneOS plus a bunch of other Android based OSs, including Calyx, Lineage and others, in a couple of old phones here, they weren't supported officially, but they half worked... apart from sound.
Seems to be a problem with the phone itself, sound simply won't work with anything else other than the original stuff.
Possibility for me doing something wrong too, it was the first time I got into the whole rooting process, and it was quite a lot of work for me personally. But since a bunch of different OSs I tried had the same issue of sound not working, I'm guessing it was the phone itself... perhaps some obscure hardware or drivers. Even OSs that were just slightly modified from AOSP wouldn't work.
Which made me revert the whole thing and just keep the original OS with a bit more work to delete and deactivate shovelware.
I also wanted them to be a bit more private and secure, and I only really needed core functions to work... but I needed all core functions to work, so I had to revert back to factory.
I had overheard a bit of drama in the community, but quite frankly, I didn't think it was this bad. Been following Techlore for quite a while now, but I don't remember ever watching any video that explained this problem with GrapheneOS to this level.
Like I said, I tried installing Graphene OS recently despite following Techlore for years now.
Maybe I watched something about it when it was happening, but it didn't catch my eye at the time. I don't remember any personal attacks against devs though, more discussion about some stuff Graphene OS had that didn't attend the needs, perhaps the guys alluded to problem with the devs, but I don't quite remember it being just about that.
Techlore often have spats with open source projects, but afaik, I've never watched anything they are totally one sided... most analysis are on threat modeling, and so while something might not be good for themselves, they always seem to state that it might be fine for others.
And indeed, there are lots of things they say they do themselves that I don't, because my threat model is different.
For instance, they always reinforce the problem of Signal requiring a phone number, which makes the app just a bit less private, but this doesn't stop me from using it... and I think it doesn't stop them from recommending it too.
Guess it's good to note that if there was ever an attack on GrapheneOS, it's really not something I see Techlore talking much about. The guys there either went towards Pixel phones getting away from AOSP forks, or they stayed/switched to iOS... and now I'm starting to see why.
I have to say, totally agreed with Louis, particularly because I have dealt with other people with this sort of attitude before. It seems to be a personality type that is not necessarily about being on the spectrum or not. I've dealt with people who behaved like that who had no apparent mental health issues. They see the entire world going against them, it's a mix of martyr complex and persecutory delusion, anxiety, which has to do with ego, and it's just something that you can't solve by talking only. It's one of those problems that will only be solved once the person realizes it's a problem with himself or herself, and then seeks help.
It's more about how you see yourself in relation to others, maturity in general, sense of self importance, and perhaps some degree of empathy, of putting yourself in the position of people you are talking to, knowing how to separate things, and then plain communication skills.
The worst thing about these types of people is that the more you talk with them, the worse it becomes, for both. The best thing you can do is just cut communications off, if possible. Or try to reduce it to the bare minimum, if things haven't escalated too much already.
And then just hope, like Louis is talking there. Hope they find a way out of it.
To note - things get worse when they are in a position that gives them some credibility or power about something... like being the main developer of a beloved OS, game, software or something else.
But yeah, I do agree.. wouldn't feel comfortable using an OS coming from someone who behaves like that too. We've actually seem some meltdowns coming from people like that happening in the Open Source community before.
In any case, good to know, it's good that you shared this Louis. I don't expect to be diving into rooting and whatnot too much in the future, just a bit too much work to be worth it for me personally, but still.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Radio City Music Hall should (and likely will) be sued and then some for this, because it's discrimination on no justifiable basis, and it's also an invasion of privacy lawsuit.
Basically, the woman that got barred from access yes, worked in the firm that is involved in a lawsuit against the company, but is not directly involved with the case, which means she was targeted wrongfully and unfairly - they used guilt by association without proof. The argument that it was a conflict of interest or something falls flat, which is likely not even a thing to begin with.
Even if she was working directly in the case there is still no basis to bar entrance to the venue based only on that, or else we'd be opening a pandora box of venue owners being able to pick and chose who to attend based on personal views - which can range from petty vindictive personal reasons all the way up to racism, prejudice and whatnot.
Further, the venue itself has no rights to retain data like that, pass judgement on who should and should not attend shows based on petty reasoning like that, and there is also nothing in law to back the venue out on this. You can't just block access of others willy nilly, we're not in Jim Crow laws era anymore.
There are of course some reasons to block people from entrance, but that usually falls into categories protected by law, such as people who are visibly intoxicated, not wearing clothes required for attendance, people who might put other attendees at risk, or themselves, or the venue itself at risk, and stuff like that. But this obviously wasn't the case there, and in those cases there is proper procedure.
Last but not least, correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I'm pretty sure New York was one of the states that enacted a temporary ban on usage of surveillance cameras with facial recognition software in them, which makes the whole thing even worse for Radio City Music Hall. Well, probably why the venue is already being sued... this only makes things worse for them. The fact that this lawyer was blocked proves that the venue was using face recognition tech, that they had data on her somehow, and that they unjustifiably targeted her based on where she worked.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Great doc and material, gives a very good in depth look on the subject.
I just have to add something that sometimes people don't understand about this type of analysis, often through no fault of the material itself. It's talking about economic crisis and effects on society, and it doesn't have anything particularly wrong there... but it is predominantly negative and it shouldn't be taken as a basis for comparison to other nations. Which is still a good analysis, but perhaps some people will think Japan is hell or something after watching the video. xD
Let me tell you that even at the lowest point that Dagogo portrayed on Japan's economy and situation, it'd still be exponentially better than living in my country at the best of it's times. :P
Some other stuff - that real estate bubble that Japan had was very bad and serious for Japanese society... but it's no subprime crisis, and not even close to the extremely absurd prices we still have today as a normal thing in several developed nations. xD
In fact, even before this steep yen devaluation, the difference in price for real estate in Japan is pretty reasonable like going from big city prices to smaller cities.
Last I heard, rent and buying prices for real estate in Tokyo for similarly sized apartment is like double or triple in Tokyo (depending on neighborhood) as compared to other big cities, more or less. Double, not like 10, 20 times that some other capitals around the world has. xD
There are several themes and things about Japan that people tend to either blow out of proportion, or take it as a comparison to other nations. But many of those things are sometimes created and sometimes sensationalized by international news coverage, and sometimes they are legit worries in the minds of Japanese people - but they are actually not as huge of a problem as they are in other nations. It's a frame of reference issue. A problem considered big in one society does not mean that it's bigger in comparison to the rest of the world.
Dagogo didn't enter this discussion much there because it wasn't the focus of the video, but I'll give you some examples.
Suicide for instance, it was indeed rampant back in the 80s and up to the late 90s if I'm not mistaken - worryingly high for a developed nation back then. Still not the world's highest, but worryingly high nonetheless. It was never higher than in countries like Russia, for instance.
People should know though, that nowadays, suicide rates in Japan are probably lower than that of some developed nations. According to some statistics this includes the US.
It's a bit because suicide rates there have declined, but mostly because suicide rates in several developed nations skyrocketed.
So, it's always kinda interesting to see how to this day docs on Japan are produced talking about the incredibly high and worrying suicide rates in Japan, when in fact several other nations have higher rates.
This is partially because it's more comfortable to talk about this subject when talking about another nation, and it's partially because Japan has elected this to be a topic for worry internally.
Which leads me to the other topic Dagogo mentioned - Hikikomori. It's another topic of worry that was even given a specific name in Japan, because it was portrayed in media, it was addressed by politicians, it had specific projects and policies to address it, so like suicide it is a major worry for Japanese culture.
But what people needs to understand, again, is that just because we're talking about a problem that Japanese people say is bad there, doesn't mean it can't be even worse in our own backyards.
Hikikomori has it's own specific characteristics, but it's basically a subset of social isolation, which is a huge problem worldwide.
Worse yet - several nations haven't even recognized it as a problem yet to have proper statistics and think of strategies to deal with it. You might have a "hikikomori" neighbor and you don't even know.
There are many things like this, that people watch a doc about Japan, think it's an "only in Japan" thing, and never realizes that his or her nation has very similar issues, very similar things happening, and that he or she just happens to not be in direct contact with it.
There's another problem that Japan coined a specific term for it, which is overwork related deaths - Karoshi. This is very much not exclusive to Japan. Or how about abandoned houses - Akiya. European nations also have lots of them.
It's actually pretty hard to come up with something that is truly an "only in Japan" thing, when it comes to general trends.
Aging population? Of course not. Plenty of European nations and Asian nations facing the same issue. Hentai! Bruh, cartoon porn is one of the oldest forms of art. xD And yes, there's plenty of modern western cartoon porn. Oh, weird fetishes. Not sure if people wanna know this, but every nation has it's share of weird fetishes. I guess they are less openly discussed in western nations because of all the catholic roots, puritanism and whatnot... but yeah, a whole lot of weird fetishes you heard about in Japan likely came from the west. Modern anime and manga can trace origins back to Disney. People who watch a lot of anime and pop culture content from Japan can sometimes be appalled by specific content and themes - like bullying in Japanese schools. But actually, when you look at statistics and compare, it's really not that big of an issue as it is in comparison to several western nations. And so forth and so on.
Lots of people grew up watching anime and reading manga came in contact with some topics portraying Japanese society in a pop culture manner, they think these problems are huge in Japan, they don't even realize it's also a problem in their own countries. It's a weird thing.
Let me pick some stuff to talk about that Dagogo didn't cover on the positive side though. Did you know that, for instance, Japan has had a form of Universal Healthcare way before western nations started discussing it? It's not 100% free, but something like the government covers 70% of costs for most things, and everyone needs to pay a fixed tax on it - which is comparatively cheap if we think about private healthcare systems.
Education in Japan is also considered relatively cheap in comparison to private and public education in western developed nations.
There's lots of talk about gender inequality in countries like Japan, which it can be comparatively bad to some modern democratic western nations, but wage gap in Japan, the income inequality problem, isn't as big there.
The more you dig into these subjects the more you see that well, Japan is just another country, that does have things to be worried about, but also has lots of great things going for it too, even now at it's stagnant recession years... and the good and bad areas are often not where you think it might be.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Oh yeah, if a corrupt government puts a price to skip regulations - something that should never ever be done in any government I'll add - that's exactly what is going to happen, because a corrupt government is only looking at money, and not the safety of citizens. If regulations have a price to be skipped they are not regulations anymore, they are just the price of doing poor business in a country imposed by the government (aka corruption).
I posit we don't even have to wait for inspections to be done, since those will likely delay things as much as possible if not mask the truth even further - this is a foregone conclusion. Just keep in mind that usually whoever is paying for inspections also have a vested interest to blame it all on the earthquake, this way it's made so that the victims collectively have to shoulder all the burden themselves, not construction companies, government and whatnot.
Mind you, this is not by far exclusive to Turkey... it happens in all nations, including developed ones. And a lot of lives are lost every year to catastrophes because of it. It's just too sad that it's the poorest and the innocent who end up paying with their lives for the folly of the rich, powerful and the political class.
From the outset, if you think about it, given that this entire area is basically an active fault that has been producing several large earthquakes for the past century or so... should it even have buildings with several floors at all?
I know it's hard to think of alternatives to house so many people and businesses in urban centers, but given the earthquakes that have happened in an almost regular 20 year interval, reconstructing everything so that it all falls and breaks down again in another 20 years seems like a huge waste of money, human lives, and criminal in itself.
The images coming from this disaster are just apocalyptic, it's complete hell. But remember people, it happened multiple times in the past.... which makes it even worse. There must be several people there who went through this multiple times... it's just that now, we have more access to real time information and images.
I hope that people in Turkey and Syria can put people in government and public institutions that truly works for the sake of citizens... and may they overcome yet another disaster as well as humanly possible.
1
-
1
-
All this legalese and looking at "what the text is trying to say" examination with a microscope is all fine and dandy for entertainment, but I think what people should really be doing, particularly in the US, is taking a step back, looking at all of this from a distance, and think about it for just a moment.
I'll use some words here some people might not like, it's just my personal opinion, you don't have to agree with, but I'll just lay it down anyways.
First, if a Constitution is incapable of protecting the democratic system from being taken over by a fascist who already tried to overthrow it, isn't it the case to consider if that constitution should be held in such a high regard anyways?
Some people don't like to listen to this because they consider the Constitution to be something as sacred as the 10 commandments or something, with all the mythology, all the cultural and historical weight, all the romanticization of the land of the free, manifest destiny, yadda yadda crap (sorry), but brass tacks, it's a document written and signed by past US politicians with the intent of preserving fairness and peace in the US right after a civil war. And that's it.
It wasn't written by God, it isn't religious sacred text, it wasn't made by some superior all powerful all knowing being, it isn't immutable, it isn't infallible, it's not made of unobtainium. In fact, it has been amended and corrected several times because people change, countries change, cultures change, politics change and so should political tools and documents.
What I'm saying is, people are losing perspective of what is important here. What is important is that there is a presidential candidate for 2024's run that attempted a coup back in 2018. I won't even count all the ways he blatantly and evidently spitted and trampled over democracy as a system during his term, but specifically on the part he put himself over all the democratic traditions not giving a sh*t about anything that makes a democratic system democratic, you let someone like that run again, your democracy has a death wish.
And it's not only about Trump too. Anyone who has blatantly shown total disrespect for democracy, a hunger for money and power that far surpasses any legal stipulations, a willingness to destroy fundaments and pillars of a democratic regime, no people like that should ever be allowed anywhere near a public building, let along to occupy a representative position.
When US citizens think about failed states that fallen to dictatorships and fallen to totalitarian regimes, how exactly they think it gets there? Like, I know there is a ton of prejudice involved because the entire far left seems to think they are so superior to people from other nations, but what mechanism people think dictators use to get there? I think international press do a piss poor job of making understand what leads a country to losing democracy over to some autocrat, but it's exactly people like Trump exploiting holes in the system that leads to it. It might not even be Trump that overturns US democracy in the end, but people should understand that the US is in an extremely fragile situation already with or without him, and if people don't stop just discussing what the Constitution mean, if this law applies or not, and stuff like that, and don't start reforming everything so that those are clearly there to protect the democratic regime, you'll just end up losing it, and then all this discussion will have been worthless.
It's like, hey democracy defenders, do you realize you have congress people and governors that are actively trampling over the secularity status of your country right now? That you have one of the most corrupt SCOTUS in the history of the US right now? That your congress is full or lunatics that believe in all sorts of bunk crazy conspiracy theories? That huge portions of tax money are being spent on this crap? That the current government cannot work on stuff that matters to your livelihood because it's getting blocked or getting all it's time stolen by this political divide discussion?
Truthfully, in my own view, US democracy is already over. The one two punch of late stage capitalism plus extreme right fascism was just too much. The most rich and powerful nation in the world has a huge portion of the population that cannot act on the surrealist scenario they are watching, and another huge portion of the population is so fragile and so badly educated they cannot see they are giving voice and support for something that amounts to a terrorist radical group or cultist group. They don't have enough critical reasoning or cognition to understand a speech of violence and hatred is being used to manipulate them. This movement has grown so large and so fast that people are unable to act on it. Grifters and scammers exploited the worst sentiments that America has, in their dark fundamentalist religious corners filled with prejudice, hatred, and shallow opinions about the unknown, took large sums of money and power, and because of the state of late stage capitalism, they managed to find a way to keep in power and keep the attack indefinitely.
]
Decades ago the state of late stage capitalism already worried me. How all these tech companies were taking over US economy, monopolizing it, destroying entire sectors of the economy in their wake, and people were just accepting it because it was convenient. This would so obviously amplify the wealth gap in the nation and yet no action taken. This happened in multiple sectors, in multiple industries, to the point it became a path of no return. Now these behemoths are so huge that changing the situation would require taking down chunks of the entire US economy, and so nothing is done about it.
But now, this same logic is also taking politics, because why wouldn't it? Monopolize politics, villainize opposition, no matter what it takes. Economic strategy becomes political, you put an arrogant holier than thou asshole who has dodged justice his entire life weaponized by his money and fame as president, it's arguably already over.
It's already too late to act, but even then, people are still wondering if they should. Funny and tragic enough, it tracks with Climate Change I guess. People still considering what actions to take, when the world is already burning down around them. That dog in the burning room saying this is fine.
1
-
It's good to make the link on tech companies that are enabling this sort of thing to happen, but let's be real about the entire case here - this isn't only about apps and corporations, this is culture, religion and customs. Morality and ethics corruption.
Which isn't to say it's exclusive to Kuwait and other middle eastern countries. Stuff like that happens on plenty of western countries too. Domestic slave labor is just a type of work slave labor, by exploiting people from other countries, which the US also has plenty as well as several developed countries. And the tactics are pretty much the same - hold on to documentation and papers, rely on scare tactics plus the fact that the worker doesn't speak the language nor knows the way of the land, rely on authority corruption and prejudice, and use that to lock people into the most deplorable situations.
It might be shocking to see it happening in other countries, but I'm pretty sure you have heard of things like that happening in your own country. It just doesn't register anymore as much as it does when you see through international press lenses.
So yes, tech corporations do share part of the responsibility, but this cannot be happening without a large allowance of culture and people. I guarantee you it happened before tech companies were around. The problem is, much like anything else, these apps, social networks, trading websites and whatnot work as enablers of anything they let pass. Much like they make it far more convenient, easy and fast to sell legal regular goods, if not monitored they also empower illegal trade - from drugs, to weapons, to people.
I don't wanna hear about these places taking down this type of content, I wanna hear about those cases being taken to the police and police taking action on it, cracking down hard and fast on sellers. If that doesn't happen, it just means the trade will continue in some other platform.
Doing something like this is perhaps the only chance we have of making all these social networks, trading websites and whatnot to do some good for society. They are revealing some of the most rotten parts of our cultures. But because we don't face it, and use the knowledge to enforce legislation and action to fix things, instead trying to block everything back from view, it keeps happening.
The attitude shouldn't be - oh, this thing is illegal, those websites should be taken down. The attitude should be - despite being illegal, it keeps happening, and we have to address it in more ways to keep it from happening.
This is the entire problem with the age we live in. Corporations and people are more worried about legal repercussions and their own image or bottomline, and less worried about the most basic of things - the basic human rights of others. It's also the age of scapegoating and skirting responsibilities. We elect governments and pay taxes to live in societies where things like this do not happen. Not so much in Kuwait that still has a monarchy and is still semi-democratic, but in all other countries where people are known to use foreign slave labor.
What ultimately really happens is that we hear these shocking stories, but nothing really changes - as it has never changed through decades this has been happening already.
Few people are arrested if much, but the prejudices remain, the people who do that keep feeling they are justified in doing so, and the people in poor countries with no conditions to move on keep being fooled by these schemes, because there is no real legislative or government level changes to crack down hard on key factors that leads to this.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Great episode guys, keep doing those!
I actually had a short stint of being a super taster by accident... if you are moderately allergic to something you can do it too, though I doubt you'll want to. :P
Long story short, I'm allergic to cats and I stayed during a month in a place where the air was saturated with the allergen (finely powered cat saliva). Symptons started with a sore throat on week 2 all the way to fever, headaches, swollen hands and feet, couple of visits to the ER, shortness of breath, sleepless nights, lots of anti allergy medicine (which solves nothing when you are practically submerged in your allergen), a feeling of being pricked by a thousand needles at times (skin/touch hypersensitivity) and general pain.
One side effect I had was a very accute sense of taste... probably my entire system panicking and acting up.
Here's how things tasted in comparison to my normal sense: anything with sugar, specially stuff like Coke, had a sugary, burnt, overpowering taste. Kinda horrible. Like eating the juice of a burnt cake.
Everything with sweeteners on it became too bitter to bare. A little salt was too much salt. Industrialized, pre-packaged stuff didn't match my taste anymore, everything was overpowering.
On the other hand, stuff like fruits, salads, pure fruit juices, food with no seasoning, bread with juuust a bit of butter and stuff like that became waaay more bearable. I'm not really huge on those, but they suddenly became plenty tasty.
Tea without anything added, even coffee which I thought was going to be too bitter but was actually nice. Regular drip coffee though, not sure if espresso would go down.
Kinda great for your health I guess. It was also an interesting experience because I think my mom tastes things exactly like that by her preferences and how she describes the taste of things. Eats a whole ton of veggies and fruits, does not like red meat, does not like sodas or chocolate, avoids processed food... it was quite surprising to feel a bit how she tastes things - it puts things in perspective.
Not sure if this is exactly like being a super taster, but more like having a very accute sense.
I'd actually love being able to keep my sense of taste that way without all the horrible side effects because I'd be forced to eat healthier... xD Alas, as soon as I came back home, everything went back to normal. But since this includes all the horrible allergic effects, I can't really complain. :P
1
-
1
-
Great info from experience!
I'd not cycle in Tokyo or any major city mostly because I'd likely end up in an accident. xD More to do with me being a lousy cyclist than anything else.
I wouldn't cycle in New York not even if I rode a bike like a pro... xD
Calmer cities and towns are fine though, kinda wish to do that someday.
Having cars and trucks passing that close is kinda unnerving to me... I'd just prefer going slower and just walking, even if it takes way longer.
And I used to bike a lot back in my hometown... I guess my perspective changed over the years.
City I live in currently has some bike infrastructure and lots of people who bike... like, it's pretty good in comparison to other cities in my country, but still very dangerous compared to Tokyo.
In fact, this just reminded me of something... wow.
I'm pretty sure that a kinda distant relative of mine died in a bike accident in Japan. He was the son of the sister of my mom's aunt, I was still a teenager back then, he was just over 18 if I'm not mistaken. Their family helped and guided us in both our visits to Japan, but this was much much later on. Like well over 20 years after they lost their son.
At the time, it surprised all of us because of the perception that Japan was a safe country... must've been devastating to the family there.
Anyways, personal rambling aside, it's calm and leisure biking around that seems fun there. Commute... not so much. xD
1
-
People who thought the situation is ridiculous in Germany, it's even worse in Japan.
Well, obviously, the disaster happened there... but how much worse?
Previous to the Daiichi Fukushima disaster (not an accident, disaster), Japan's grid had a 30% reliance on nuclear power, and there were plans to rise that up to 40% over the next decade or so.
Because a huge part of the rest is imported, which is extremely costly to japanese economy.
Yes, the majority of power in Japan is imported. The strategy was to ramp up nuclear power generation to curb those costs, rely less on imported power, and it needed to happen because Japan as a country doesn't have many other sources of power to rely on. No coal or oil reserves, no fossil fuels.
Then the disaster happened, mostly due to corruption between japanese government and TEPCO, which is basically a monopoly on energy. Repeated warnings from several scientists, organizations and whatnot had been issued between a full decade up to months before the disaster happened, and they were ignored. Including several that specifically said about the exact issue that led to the disaster - the need to move backup power generators to higher ground in case a tsunami hit the plant. Yes, TEPCO and the japanese government had reports in hand telling them the exact scenario that hit the Daiichi plant, but they chose to ignore it.
This then led to huge public outlash not at the government or at the company, but at nuclear power in general. Which is a catastrophe in itself. Lots of people were led to believe this was an unavoidable disaster, or as some will mistakenly say, an "accident", only it wasn't - it was mismanagement, corruption and incompetence. It's a multi level catastrophe, because it didn't fix the corruption responsible for the incident, people guilty for it were not punished, and the public misdirected it's anger towards a mistrust of nuclear power in general, leading to protests, and subsequent government policy towards de-nuclearization.
The entire case is more sad that people realize. And yes, the response to the disaster and subsequence rebuilding of the area was spectacular, which you might see how a Stockhold Syndrome arises from that.
People were grateful that the response to the disaster was so well controlled and whatnot, but they forget that the disaster was avoidable and it happened because of corruption. Even international media coverage tends to ignore that fact. You hear about Fukushima disaster over and over again, talking about victims, about recovery, about emergency responses... but you never hear about causes, responsibility, and all the people who didn't get punished for it.
Anyways, so what happens today is that Japan has 54 nuclear reactors, 42 operable ones, but only 9 in operation at 5 nuclear power plants. 24 scheduled for or in the process of decomission.
And anti-nuclear people may rejoice to this, but the reality is, power needs to come from somewhere, and it's mostly being imported at extremely high costs - this is taxpayer money. Meanwhile, nuclear power plants that could be in operation are being left to rot, or being maintained at a loss because they are not in operation, which further puts a burden on public coffers.
Recent government policy is turning around on it and vouching to increase nuclear power generation gradually - as a Paris Agreement target, but it's a decade long loss of money and progress that cannot be recovered.
And while I do understand fears, and particularly worries about nuclear waste (yes, please do a video on this Kurzgesact), extremism is useless. If we can't think rationally about the problem and put it into a balance, it's not progress, it's radicalism.
If you vouch for a measure such as de-nuclearization while understanding that this leads to economic devastation worse than multiple nuclear reactor accidents put together, what is the point?
Japan has been in an economical recession for more than a decade now, and you can bet the cost of energy imports had a part to play on it for the past decade or so. It's not only the aging population, or whatever... these things have huge impacts in society. It slows progress, it burdens people with taxes and debt they can't avoid, it discourages progress in several areas due to increasing costs, and it redirects essencial government money. It's not only that Japan had to import all that energy from other countries for the past decade, it's decades of planning and preparing to build a nuclear power plant energy local infrastructure to combat importation costs that went to the trash... who knows how many billions of dollars invested in that, how many professionals left with an useless knowledge base, how many people involved that lost jobs, way of living, how much development, research and effort abandoned.
And look, I'm all for green energy. Renewables. Solar and wind power. Those are great. But if you can't understand they aren't enough, and that they can't provide the needs we have today, you are not being rational, you are being radical. Renewables are not pollution free, as those things need to be made, and they are particularly not sustainable to reach global energy goals, as they'd have to rely on battery power to sustain unimterruptible loads, and batteries themselves have their own cycle of pollution and scarcity of resource in themselves. And don't come argue with me with future promissing technologies... future promissing technologies we have all around, including for nuclear. We have to work today with what we have today.
1
-
That's one part of japanese culture that I'd fail so friggin hard.... xD
Well, I've wore suits. For weddings, university graduation, and... that's about it. Perhaps a few other occasions, usually parties that required the outfit.
Even graduation, these days you just rent the graduation gown thing and that's it - doesn't matter what you're wearing under it. xD
Well, I did an internship and a freelance job inside the executive branch of a large company times ago... I wasn't forced to wear a suit, but it had to be business casual. As a former metalhead it really didn't feel like myself, but then again, I didn't have to choose what to wear everyday. xD It'd probably be an issue if the place didn't have central AC that kept the place at the exact same temperature all year round...
But I'm gonna guess, and people may correct me if I'm wrong, that in a tropical country like mine these things tend to be more relaxed because quite frankly, forcing people to wear suits or heavy clothing here is asking for heat strokes, all sorts of bad body odors, and sweat stains everywhere. xD
You end up being more presentable if you are wearing casual but comfortable clothing, rather than formal heavy clothing that you sweat all over because of the heat. :P
If your employer will ask you to wear a suit here, it'll need to provide the environment for you to be comfortable with it... So it's limited to stuff like law firms, and few othet jobs.
School, mine actually had uniforms... Both private schools I attended. But it's shorts and t-shirts, pants and jackets for winter, far from formal. It's more like something you wear so it's easy to identify and so you don't have to waste time chooseing what to wear than a strict rule.
I think these days it's more common for schools not to require or have uniforms anymore.
Also, no rules about hair, make up, accessories or whatever.
University all bets are off... no one cares. xD CompSci course we had people showing up almost in their jammies. xD
Journalism course I swear some days in winter I saw some girls wearing pajamas under some layers of clothing, crocs with socks on, no make up, and like, whatever. xD You did have to be a bit more presentable in front of a camera though, less because it's a rule, more because common sense. xD
But yeah, journalists and reporters do have a more formal dress code still...
Anyways, an interesting topic, thanks for sharing Greg!
1
-
1
-
Right wing per se doesn't worry me, as well as regular conservatism... I'm more of a centrist myself, perhaps center left, so I think there is space for discussion for everything.
So, discussions around illegal immigration isn't a problem for me, and leaving or staying in EU isn't a discussion I'm having as I don't live in an EU country anyways, and even then I think that's up for discussion for countries that are. Brexit should serve as more than a lesson for all involved I guess. Even leaving EU I don't think is impossible or a huge issue, as long as it's done with a plan and a reason for it - which wasn't the case for Brexit.
The real problem with far right and fascism though is not that. It's clinging to power, being a corrupt government, and then having an extremist speech that leans towards hatred, FUD and fake news. That's the main issue. If the government does not have those types of strategies at hand, I don't even consider it far-right.
So, the key word perhaps is radicalization. The propaganda, which uses sensationalism and fake news to demonize opposition is the problem in itself. Like the use of terms such as "woke-ism", "communism", plus a bunch of nonsensical terms (I mean, that are co-opted in a nonsensical manner) that means nothing and is only used to inflame followers against some invisible unknown enemy - that's a problem for me. It's this use of the crudest psychological warfare schemes that worries me.
It's also fair to note, I guess, that there is a huge difference between making liberal propaganda, and acting on it.
For instance, the previous administration in my country said, particularly on election period, that it was for the poor hard working class, that it was for equality, that it was for progress, that their policy was to finally elevate the status of the nation, that it wanted to eliminate corruption in politics and crime in the country - but what it actually did during it's term was to actively pass policies against minorities and poor people, elevate several politicians into the super rich class because of the mountain of corruption schemes they went for, sellout for nothing a whole ton of public companies with deals with several politicians enriched themselves with, elevating corruption to a whole other level, and crime rates skyrocketed because of the dumb policy of flooding the country with more and more firearms.
The other side that might sometimes be linked to far right that also worries me is religious extremism, which we can observe in US. Down here the previous administration also had that side. I think all democracies worth anything needs to be secular, it's a pillar of democracy, you cannot have a dominating religion serving as basis to force their opinions upon everyone else. It's not about being anti-religion, it's about being respectful towards a diverse population, and basing politics on common grounds, not on the imposition of the precepts of this or that religion. To make things worse, of course, it had to be a religion with tons of leaders that enrich themselves by taking money from the poor. People with no morals using faith to steal money from those who need it the most. So of course it will only add to corruption in politics.
I dunno how much people associate those things to far right specifically, but that's the main issue I have with right wing politics that employs that sort of thing to take and remain in power. Politics itself, conservative and right wing, people can deal with it by being simple opposition. Even with a right wing government in power society can take a progressive stance and work against it.
Of course it's better if there is government support, but all these progressive agendas, minority equality, green economy, diversity acceptance, opening up for immigration... those can still be done by society itself.
It's when it becomes extreme, radicalized, authoritarian, corrupt and criminal that it becomes a problem.
Well, that's for myself... of course other classes of people will have more pressing reasons to be against right wing politics. Minorities in particular, it's an existencial problem.
As for green policies, environmental policies, I think it's more or less like this. Left wing or right wing, because of capitalism itself and how most nations work today, we just won't be able to do much. You can be as right wing or left wing as you want, it doesn't seem to make much of a difference.
I have come to accept that the world will have to face the worst consequences imaginable to realize how radical the transformation really needs to be. We're already well on our way. I don't think many people in the northern hemisphere realizes this, but while you were complaining about record high temperatures up there, we on the southern hemisphere were facing summer like temperatures and climate - all winter long. We had record high temperatures - in the middle of winter. That's how warped climate is already becoming.
Thing is, independent on what posture we take today, we will still probably face several decades of consequences. We will continue facing an increasing number of bad consequences from Climate Change, period. Because there is an accumulation effect that has been going on since the Industrial Revolution era. It's not just let's go renewable and hurray. If we were to really reverse Climate Change we'd need to be sucking out greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, and we can't even start reducing emissions. Scratch that, we can't even stop the acceleration of greenhouse gas production.
So, perhaps if we changed things drastically today, perhaps humanity would be able to survive the next decades of increasing Climate Change consequences. Perhaps not. Changing today is a bet on that. But we probably won't. We became too dependent on all the things that generates massive amounts of greenhouse gases. And this is independent from politics.
And of course, as all things are interconnected, expect the problem of immigration to get increasingly worse over the years. Things will get so bad that eventually countries will either start accepting immigrants en masse, or we'll either have war-like massacres everyday, or we'll have de-facto wars over it. Because huge portions of the planet will become uninhabitable overtime, slowly, in increasing urgency and damages, and people will need to escape somewhere.
There you go, my doomer comment of the day. I'll probably be dead when the worst of those things happen, but that's what we're leaving for our children.
1
-
1
-
I don't hate the guy, I hate a system that let a guy like him happen... because while it is easy to say he is entitled to all he has with his humble beginnings and all that, you need to be quite stupid to simply ignore how many honest legit businesses his company shut down unceremoniously, several in very shady circunstances. This is the far more damning part.
I'm very far from being an idealist socialist communist or whatever, but if people still din't realize that capitalism and corporatism was taken too damn far in the US, something must be broken in their heads. People are quite literaly reverting to a stage of slavery because it's becoming impossible to compete in a business environment where a whole bunch of market have been taken by monopolies or oligopolies that not only knows how to manipulate the system, several times they are shaping and creating the system themselves.
But just to be fair since we are scraping the bottom of the barrel, at the very least Amazon does provide a service that lots of people consider essencial. I have even less empathy for Zuck, Tim Apple, Dorsey, Pitchai, Nadella and some others. These are the true current parasites who have let the situation spiral out of control, and they do pretty much all the crap Amazon does, without providing real essencial services.
People will argue that their smartphones and social network profiles are essencial to them, but that's not what I am talking about. I'm talking about logistics of delivering physical products to people. It is not fair that Amazon became the monopoly it is, but without it people would still need products delivered to them somehow. Social networks, smartphones, the current state of computers in general... look, I'm a tecchie myself and I enjoy my gadgets very much, but the negative toll it's having in societies obviously unprepared to handle it and all this exploitation and violation of basic democratic guidelines, I have to wonder at times if we wouldn't all be better of with the tech we had a few decades ago.
It doesn't need to go as far as no cellphones or computers, but right there, that point in time with no social networks and no extra tech appendage that spies everything you do.... think a bit about it.
1
-
The opportunity that we are being given with this pandemic is to properly pin down anti-science, conspiracy theorists, poor information inclined leaders, politicians and representatives, and shove them out of their positions if not outright put them in jail for being directly responsible for deaths and suffering through their speeches and policy making.
But we won't take it. Comformity, accomodation and a lack of understanding about the consequences of our lack of action already has too much of a hold. The cost in human lives, economies, and the responsibility that people in representative positions should have will end up getting lost in a fog of misinformation much like in climate change discussions. The subject gets too complicated and too burdened with excessive analysis for most people to see things clearly.
It'll take a full sequence of life altering, way of life destroying, economy shattering pandemics to put our mindset in place for us to make the necessary adjustments to really make human life sustainable on this planet, if that's really something we're capable of doing.
If we just let these politicians and people get away with choices that puts thousands if not million of lives at risk, while they occupy themselves with self glorification and blame shifting, we will keep getting the same exact results.
The current pandemic is a very gentle and very appropriate wake up call. We can't afford a rude awakening. But it might be exactly what we ultimately need.
Just think about it. If the leaders of some of the worst affected countries can make public statements that they are doing a great job despite basically everything proving otherwise, without getting publicly lynched and persecuted, what real significance accusations even have?
It's akim to a serial killer caught in a basement full of corpses while dismembering one of his victims saying he didn't do it and the public doing nothing about it.
We went from an age where politicians had administrative and representative jobs when they were admired for what they did, to an era of putting up with politicians as long as they keep shouting around like lunatics extolling their non-existing virtues and accusidng everyone else for their perceived problems.
We have reached the literal tipping point of decadence. The pandemics might be our last wake up call. With how much humanity has advanced scientifically, culturaly, and in terms of information and access to it, things shouldn't be like this. But if we keep dragging our feets, perhaps we deserve the next big extinction event, the next big reset. Because we went far this time, but ultimately failed much like our predecessors.
1
-
1
-
Awesome stuff Matt... went all the way covering all ranges of options to address the issue.
I'll just add so that people knows how these things likely goes.
It probably has nothing to do with Canon engineers, they likely already very much knew this was gonna happen. Overheating processors have been a major problem while processing huge files (such as 4K and now 8K too) in cameras, engineers have this very firmly in mind.
Sure, I'm just speculating here, but given the nature of the problem, and how easily it was solved, even if Canon will never admit to such a thing, here's what I think really happened.
Canon engineers probably designed this to work well, perhaps with a copper plate solution, perhaps using a vapor chamber design that would fit the insides of the camera better, perhaps with some way to vent the heat better. Heck, prototypes of that camera might even have included fans and whatnot.
But then comes along a range of other stuff to poop on top of the whole thing. Cannibalization worries for more expensive Canon camera line, cost cutting measures, production worries, fitting the camera to a certain price category with cost of materials being a limiting factor, etc etc.
Canon in particular is a brand well known to segment it's camera line too much, with sprinkles of specs distributed here and there among their line to attend different niches, which ends up just generating confusion and a camera line range that gets almost impossible to choose from.
This came from the entire tendency of commoditization of the Canon DSLR line. Ever since the 5D Mark II became an explosive success, this practice of purposedly crippling model features and releasing new cameras with small incremental improvements has become a thing. It's one of the reasons why I'm still holding on to my T2i to this day.
And so, Canon decided to use the worst possible solution to cool the camera off, because it puts the camera in a lower price category, makes it so it doesn't compete with more expensive models, and cheapens the cost of production plus complexity of it.
It's also very weird how easily accessible the whole thing is. Like it was designed with repairs in mind.
Don't get me wrong, the camera itself is still fantastic, and unmatched for 8K afaik at it's size and price category. But I think it's also fair to add that not every videographer is seeking for 8K recording, and that there are plenty better rounded cameras out there for cinematography, such as Sony cameras, or Panasonic. It's true that none offers everything this camera does, but specs aren't everything.
Personally, I think I'd rather go for a GH5 or A7S 3... but you know, to each it's own. :D
1
-
1
-
I wouldn't dare running through the minefield of arguments on this topic even more because I know very little about it and I don't live anywhere close to this problem... but perhaps let's get back to basics.
Discrimination, persecution and prejudice based on place of origin is just something people should get over with proper education. Humanity has a long way to go in those terms, but I don't think this is justifiable, with war or without. Violence against minorities is always unjustifiable.
Radical ideology and politics, then yes... but you can't really prejudge people on this, based on something as lose as place of origin. Broad generalizations never help anything.
For a situation such as current Russia it's even worse, because most of the Russians fleeing Russia now are likely fleeing Putin's regime, which people should know is persecuting it's own people and using them as cannon fodder.
Now, as for baseline demands to reach certain status, if it makes logical sense, I just can't disagree with. For instance, you are coming from a different country to mine to live for an indefinite amount of time. I consider it pretty reasonable for a nation, whichever it is, to demand a basic level of understanding of the language in order to grant voting rights, and perhaps some other stuff.
Hard to pinpoint what level of understanding about the language, culture and other factors that one would need for voting rights and whatnot... that will be on the government's hands, but at least a basic understanding is needed, as it is for the country's own native population.
Usually the baseline is adulthood that comes with basic understanding of language, a certain level of maturity, and a certain amount of time that you have lived in the nation, right?
So I guess the range of acceptance for voting rights goes along basic understanding of language, to a set period of time living inside the country.
Here you get the separation between basic human rights, which everyone should have, and basic abilities to understand cultural, politics, economics and other stuff inside a nation.
So, if my country is accepting someone from another country to get in and live here, basic human rights should be guaranteed in the same measure it is guaranteed to native citizens. Access to healthcare, education, a place to live, dignity, etc.
But then I can see how if someone can't even understand local news, this person also shouldn't be allowed to vote. Because that's about the same as granting voting rights to a child, or to an actual foreigner not living in the state.
Temporary workers, visitors and whatnot also shouldn't have it... it's about a fairness with all other voters that there must at least be some interest shown from the part of the person on representation in the nation he or she considers their own now.
This comes down to fairness to a nation's own citizens, culture, identity and rights. Self-governance would be another way to put it. Say in some extreme scenario you have a nation that ends up with more foreigners than native citizens. I think it is right for the nation to protect it's own identity, via politics, laws and whatnot - not by violence. Of course, foreigners' cultures will end up influencing the region overtime.
I think the danger that is underlined here is that there are always chances of people coming in droves to another nation refusing to change, refusing to accept the culture and language of the country that is hosting them, even with malignant ideas to take the territory for themselves. That's just unacceptable, and it should be considered a foreign nation attack on your territory, particularly if it is a neighboring one.
There is real importance when it comes to a nation's sovereignty. I mean, it's the whole reason why when USSR was dissolved it separated into several different nations in the first place.
Anyways, very complex topic indeed.
1
-
Logistics is a huge part of everything, that is often overlooked, and it's also one of the reasons why insanely huge global mass production of several lines of products is never going to "come back" from countries like China, to the US or whatever.
It's not - like some that have a decades late mentality - only about cheap labor, lax regulations and that surface level stuff.
And the technology, R&D and investment in it is also something that lots of people don't get.
Because it's not part of the news circle, and not interesting for most people... except Wendover and fans. xD
It's not only the infrastructure that determine these things... it's a huge flurry of technological development, mountains worth of tiny to huge improvements made over the years in every single process that involves all of this, which most developed countries fell behind because they offshored the entire thing decades ago.
The factories build by foreign companies in countries like China decades ago are not the same anymore, they have evolved, and they have changed, by the hands of chinese companies and chinese workers.
In the west, we're still talking stuff like just in time, fordism, blah blah blah... we don't have the tech, the practice, the experience, the knowledge, the manpower, the anything anywhere close to attending market demands such as producing millions of units of commoditized complex electronic products before the holiday season or something like that.
Yes, western media likes to focus on stuff like slave labor, exploitation, child labor, horrible factory floor conditions, pollution crisis, plus a bunch of stuff from time to time, with good reasons to do it, but we don't see much talked about the miracle that had to happen for industries in China to mass produce products to the point it does.
Modern afluent western societies only reaped the benefits of stuff like fast fashion and an insane ammount of cheap electronics being churned out as peanuts out of factories.
Even stuff on the very tail end of it, like mining... it's not that you can't find minerals in other places of the planet, it's that most countries cannot outcompete China because it has been developing new tech in the area for decades, shaving every tiny portion of fat from the extraction process.
And for people who are thinking, well, there are lots of other poor countries, mostly poor Asian countries, replacing China on that role... yes, that's true. But guess what? It's chinese factories going global, not those countries doing it by themselves.
When you read news and hear stories about iPhones not being made in China anymore, laptops moving production to some country like Vietnam or Indonesia, some commodity that is now being produced in some African country or Latin American country... this is happening, as a result of China moving more towards a middle class society.
But if you read the fine print, it's not exactly that poor countries are assuming the role... it's chinese factories expanding globally. And for stuff like smartphones, laptops, game consoles, portables and whatnot... it's mostly Foxconn, and a few other chinese electronic component producers that opened factories all over the world, or assembly facturies that basically import everything from China, put it together using local labor, and then often ship it back to China, where the massive chinese logistics is used to redistribute everything worldwide.
And so, this is why the Foxconn plant in the US failed... it was an expensive symbolic gesture made to appease Trump, which his adminstration probably knew full well or were just composed of enough incompetent people that couldn't do the math. It just doesn't make sense for a company like Foxconn to open up factories in the US - the labor is too expensive, the regulations are too high, and it doesn't make sense from an economic standpoint.
This is also why some factories are closing doors here in Brazil. Our currency is too unstable, our dumb bureaucracy is too slow and taxing, it has become too expensive to do business here.
But this is the price we're paying for overreliance on mega corporations dominating entire markets and being free to pick and chose the poorest countries that are more willing to offer cheap unregulated labor, cut taxes, pay more incentives, and comply with whatever demands corporations have to increase their profit margins.
The Amazon case if pretty symbolic inside the US, but it's just another piece of the puzzle of late stage capitalism.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
3rd comment, sorry. xD
So... I've been using an induction cooktop for... about a decade now, and my mom's new apartment which she moved to last year also has one. Rather, we got one because we didn't want to deal with gas.
The problem with cookware is totally real, and it's kind of a pain in the ass, but after that initial pain you kinda get used to it. Extra expense, you'll likely get more than a few products that don't work quite well, but after the trouble there isn't much of a problem anymore I guess... unless you need an active fire for your type of cooking I guess. xD
Here's the thing - a whole TON of cookware that is labeled as "works with induction"... actually doesn't - which is infuriating. I think several manufacturers put that there because of material alone, but they never actually tested it on an induction cooktop.
If you can get something non-generic that was very specifically designed to work with induction, that's the best choice even if it is more expensive.
Material is one important point, but also how flat the contact surface is... and some pans and pots might pass the magnet test but actually not work all that well with it.
We had a pretty large frying pan, super expensive, imported, advertised as compatible with induction that... just didn't work.
The material it was made of passed the magnet test, but because of how it's bottom was designed, full of detailed work, engravings and whatnot - the cooktop would only start doing it's thing, intermittently, when the pan was off center.... and it never got up to temperature.
Too late to return, we ended giving it away and buying yet another super expensive one that just wasn't as good, but good enough, and this time it works.
Still trying to solve a few items for my mom though... we found pots that works well, but they stain and hold crud too much. Eh, it's a process.
It's also weird how collections are changing all the time. Back when I got my cooktop, there was this perfect set with removable handles from a well known brand here that was... not cheap but also not very expensive. I absolutely love it, full set with glass and plastic covers with removable handle that makes it easy to store, and to use as fridge storage too.
Problem is, they stopped selling them and I've never found anything even close to it... just a few years after I got mine. I was planning to buy the complete set and just give it to my mom when she was still using a gas stovetop because it was so freaking practical... now that she also has induction I want it even more. xD
Oh well...
1
-
Personal opinion, but when you start defending a president that attempted a self coup with martial law to bring down democracy, a traitorous criminal whose actions could have brought decades of suffering to South Korea, this is the point where you should be arrested for being a traitor to the country by proxy. There is no justification to defend such actions.
There should be no right for protesters to use numbers to protect a criminal. It's being complicit to crime, if not a conspirator to the continuation of it. The highest crime possible in a democratic regime no less.
I don't care if those people are fanatical, paid by the party, have vested interests on it, or whatever the case may be - this is a direct attack on democracy, and they should be arrested and judged for it.
I have high hopes for South Korea and South Korean people because they know full well where this dance with fascism leads to, thanks to their neighbors in the north. It's alarming how many supposedly democratic nations are blind to this.
We are living in times that either democracies all around the world strengthen themselves and starts applying laws designed to protect democratic rule of law soon, or we'll end up in a WWIII situation sooner rather than later. Arguably, the process of acceleration towards it has already started. We need more strong democracies to stop it, before it's too late.
1
-
The other thing that the Theranos case exposes, which is one reason why it went so hard to court, is the investment environment in the US that has been extremely worrying for quite several years now.
See, good ideas that turned up being scams, extreme cases of overpromising and underdelivering, crazy science defying products that are supposed to change the lives of everyone forever... they have always been around and will forever be in the history of mankind.
There are two particular things tied to Theranos and the times we live in though. Number one, crowdfunding and some of it's mechanisms. Why so many scams and crazy crap ends up in crowdfunding, how they get so much money, and why people keep falling for it endlessly... Theranos wasn't crowdfunded, but it may help understand it a bit if you think in terms of that.
The second thing is on how you now have large corporations, large investment groups, extremely wealthy individuals as investors, and just... this mass of people who will put insane amounts of money into an absurd idea - without any hint of proper vetting, verification, display of proof, consulting with multiple specialists, thorough analysis... heck, sometimes even without a hint of critical reasoning, criticism, thinking through.
Theranos is basically the cold fusion in a shoebox of medical science. And the shame here is that a whole ton of very rich people, very powerful companies, very big investors feel flat on their faces in believing such a fairy tale.
This is why Holmes is going to jail, this is why it became such a symbolic case.
There is a huge tendency in current and recent generations of over fetishization of technological products, over romanticization of characters, too much focus on cult of personality, and too little understanding and hard work to figure out the logic behind things.
Jobs wasn't some perfect genius that came with the concept of smartphones by himself alone, he wasn't some sort of crazy super genius that revolutionized the world, and I'm gonna argue that even his supposed miraculous product has as many downfalls as supposed benefits.
But people like fantastic stories, so they shape and mold things in a way that when told, it seems to be that way.
Jobs was a workaholic with lots of talent and focusing on his personal marketing, taking credit for a crazy number of stuff he didn't come up with, and charismatic enough to force people to work their asses of towards a single goal. But he was also extremely flawed in numerous ways. Flawed enough that it ended his own life prematurely.
But hey, that's not the important part, and shame on you for trying to look for flaws on a dead person, yadda yadda.
Yeah.... screw that. People may want to see things in black and white all they want, I'd rather see it for what it really is and avoid being the next scam victim.
Separate subject that I'll just leave here because it's related: I also hate the "quantified self" trend. Medical lab equipment and new ways to make diagnostics are fine, new trends to detect pathogens and identify sources of illness are fine too. But there are two main problems I have with health monitoring gadgetry and constant tracking of health indicators.
First and foremost, of course, privacy. The current state of electronics and data collection isn't appropriate enough even for non medical private data, let alone constant detailed monitoring of it.
While the time does not come when regulators, law, and governments still haven't realized how damaging this level of privacy erosion is for a nation in general, we cannot have detailed data information being constantly collected and insecurely transferred and maintained in some proprietary database patients have no control of.
Second, the "quantified self" crap is useless when "self" has no clue what to do with the information.
The flaw in target in this case is the false belief that the more information we have, the better, period. No thinking about consequences, no pre-conditioning, no rationality to the logic.
See, lab diagnostics are all up to interpretation. You can't see in your blood or DNA the name of illnesses and how to treat them. It's not some sort of medicine 101 for noobs that you can see in a microscope the minute you put a blood, saliva or urine sample there. So, you need a specialist to understand and interpret the data that you have there, as people cannot be expected to buy a gadget and suddenly acquire with it the experience a doctor built over tons of years of learning and practice.
Oh, but an AI will do that for us, yadda yadda. AI is yet another thing that is not magic, not without extremely problematic side effects and consequences, and that people have been over fetishizing and overrelying on too much these days.
Look at any practical example of AI in use. Apart from the curious, oversimplistic, and made for show inconsequential examples such as defeating people at chess, video games and whatnot, almost all AI applications I can think of nowadays are extremely flawed, not even close to achieving what it's supposed to do, and in a few cases putting up a full display on how wrong things can go when you rely too much on them. Racist bots, false positives and negatives everywhere, and perhaps most important of all - creators not knowing why and how to fix them.
See, this is the main issue often ignored in AI development - it's a black box that people, not even creators, can fully understand how it works. And it tends to be as flawed as whoever created them, with all the biases, all the assumptions, all the flawed logic creators had included in it somehow, or at the very least a whole ton of prejudices and problems general society currently has, because it has been trained with only that.
So you see what the problem is in relying human health diagnostics to it from start - if you let a branch of human sciences be taken over by AI, how is it ever going to forward human knowledge about it? You can't simply deposit all your future advancements inside a single box, let alone a black box, and just leave it at that. If something goes wrong there, and it eventually will, how exactly people think they'll fix the problem when they don't even understand how exactly the thing works?
That's the general problem with AI - we get convenience and perhaps some functionality by surrendering our ability to make progress by ourselves to a black box we can't understand. Even if AI can be continuously trained and evolved overtime, if you can't see how it's doing that and you can't understand why, this is devolution. Machines and algorithms becomes the new Gods, and we go back to praying for favorable results.
Enough of a rant from me... but yeah, some stuff to think about.
1
-
I agree with everything in the video, but I also think there are even more factors at play... which EE probably also knows, but it's hard to compile it all into a single video I guess.... it starts crossing into other areas too.
Of course, these are all just theories... some might be right, some might be totally wrong, but for single case examples it's easy to see how other stuff also play out in shortages.
For the graphics cards, the recent ressurgence in value for cryptocurrencies also contributed for shortages.... and for scalpers going after them, because cryptominers pay well and at bulk.
Which has contributed more? - interest in these new graphics cards because games and professional usage, or cryptomining, with scalpers going after it because it has guaranteed returns, I dunno. But scalping the latest high end graphics card release has been going on before the pandemic, and it really ramped up when cryptomining came at play, so if it isn't the main reason, it certainly helped topple the scales.
More on the base level, late stage capitalism created this whole culture of overhyping, getting stuff as soon as possible, FOMO, being the first in line to get your shiny new useless gadget, and making them the most sad status symbols I can think of.
Reasonable prices are a component, but if you think about it without bias, cold analysis, it just makes no sense. People are running over themselves to basically be beta testers. And these so called reasonable prices are far from being very reasonable. This is even more obvious when you look to what happened with flagship smartphones. Hiking the prices to totally absurd heights really didn't have a huge effect in how much people are seeking these things, and it makes no sense.
And the companies that mostly cause this effect, are incredibly bad in putting out bug free problem free products in the first place. I'm thinking a bit about Cyberpunk still I guess.
How the heck this keeps happening? People would be quick to point out to the short term memory of consumers involved in these rushes, but it is so repetitive, so prevalent, so persistent that I have to think there is more to it.
So, I bring down to this all being a component on how information is circulating around these days. Base level, this is the source of several effects that are happening in western societies.
What is en vogue specially now, is the tribalistic and divisive effect of how information spreads on the Internet. Politics. Crazy extremist cults with false information networks taking over politics and destroying democracy.
But actually, the shift from traditional media - newspapers, TV news, radio, cable TV news, magazines, etc - to Internet based portals, including here YouTube, social networks and whatnot, is faaaaar more pervasive than just that.
Most people understand that there was a huge paradigm shift when we started using the Internet, but even people who fully understand that, perhaps still can't fathom the complete dimension of it.
Because yes, it also affects consumer habits, what people are interest in buying, what people think is important to buy, and all other things related to consumism, to a higher degree than what is already known - Amazon killing retail and the like. It goes further beyond that, it shifted the foundations of everything.
And worse, it doesn't only affect rich people with plenty of money to spend on whatever they want, it also affects poor people thinking what they should spend what little money they still have.
You will perhaps be able to see this difference if you get to compare countries that fully shifted things towards the Internet, and places that are still more reliant on older traditional stuff. But even countries that still have strong traditional media communication, and retail that wasn't overrun by eCommerce, plus other stuff like that.. they just can't avoid the contamination. What we have as traditional media and communication these days also shifted their own sources to digital ones, usually news agencies, so it's all coming from the same space.
In that, lies the link between the latest graphics cards, the latest gaming consoles... and products on the opposite side of the spectrum that seems totally disconnected - toilet paper.
These disparate, seemingly absurd, consumer rushes that are hard to understand and on detached cold analysis seems to make absolutely no sense at all, they all have roots in how people are making decisions these days.... decisions about politics, decisions about how they lead their lives, and decisions on what is important for them to purchase, to want, to need.
If you look at it this way, links start to show. The toilet paper panic spread out pretty much like a pandemic. This has always been something in prepper's minds, particularly in the US. Buy as much as cheap basic necessities as possible in times of crisis so you can hole up and survive should the worst come to pass. This mentality goes back to Cold War, nuclear threat, building shelters and whatnot. It had a reason to be there times ago, and it continued to be promoted over the years.
But then you started seeing it replicated in UK, Europe, Japan... and several other countries. Why? Why if several of those countries didn't have a cultural mindset of doing stuff like that? Don't have a similar history to support this? Don't have traditions that would align to such a thing?
Because information is flowing through globally, and likeminded people are seeing the exact same type of information everywhere, so they become guided by it. We are increasingly lacking diversity in the way different cultures think, react, do stuff. And likeminded people are coming together more and more... sometimes for good, sometimes for bad.
On the tech side of things, it's about the same thing. Tech minded people all around the world are following and being guided by very similar sources. They might not be the exact same people, but it's a group of people that more and more, mirror each other instead of creating their own content.
And I'm not saying this is all advertisement and marketing too, it's just what the collective, sometimes well intended tech platforms, reviewers, news gatherers and whatnot have collectively elected to be important.
So, everytime a shiny new gadget, graphics card, gaming console or whatever is about to be announced, comes an incessant, mindless, hype train occupying every single outlet. Apple is the biggest example of all of that, in more ways than people might think.
People who are interested in tech in general, cannot escape the avalanche of news about this one single thing that might be important to some, but is absolute useless to many. It completely occupies the mindshare, and so tons of people feel it's a dire necessity for their lives. Companies think they need to copy everything to stay relevant, people think they need the latest thing to be happy, news think they need to cover this to stay afloat.... more and more you start seeing less critical reasoning and more immediatism, more of a follow the crowd mindset, more cultism.
And there is no one to blame really. If you are interested in a certain thing... hobby, professional area, entertainment - it doesn't matter what it is - and the information you get, that you are surrounded with, only shows a single stream of thing, you eventually get convinced that that's what you need.
Turns out, firehosing isn't only about politics, and we've been living under this influence for so long, that it's starting to have huge effects.
Well, not starting... we've been under it's effects for way longer than people think, but you know.
In a way, this might be showing the upper limits of what we understand as social bonds. Everyone is quick to say that humans, as a species, individuals, are social beings. We weren't made to live alone by ourselves. We can't stand it. You heard this time and time again during this pandemic. You felt it.
But no one stops to think about the upper limits. Are we a species prepared to live in a world what is completely linked through open communications networks globally? We are testing the limits now. And perhaps, only perhaps, the answer is no. We, as a species, are not prepared, or even physically capable, of living long under an information regime that is globally reaching, unifying, and being put out at such speeds that it neutralizes people's ability to think critically. We, as individuals, can't handle unrelenting streams of information that only attends our confirmation bias and only has room for shallow content and fast, non carefully audited, analyzed or curated pieces. Our species isn't capable of handling this entire new paradigm, and we are failing under it.
How soon will we realize that? Who knows, right? It's only been a few decades. But eventually, we'll have to come to terms with it.
1
-
That's not only it, and unfortunately I think until someone makes a movie showing what happens, people will have a hard time understanding.
People who are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms but infected are only a single component of the equation. They can basically be seen as mass virus factories and distributors.
People who are not sick are not only in danger of becoming sick, but also of spreading the virus around unknowingly. Because one key thing that people are still ignoring, which to be fair still isn't totally understood, is that this virus can survive longer than most other diseases on all sorts of surfaces, including door handles, seats, ground, rails, grass, tables, packages, plastic bags, clothing and all sorts of other surfaces. You don't even need to be sick to spread it around. Estimates depending on the type of surface/material can go anywhere between a few hours to days.
It is more than enough time for someone to spread it to another place with a second or even third person getting in contact and becoming sick inadvertedly.
Reality is, we are just not prepared for something like this. Forget all the irresponsible people, governments and whatnot that are still not on quarantines, even people who can and are locked up at home at all times, it is all too easy with current customs and practices to still get in contact with the virus when you get your food delivery, your mail, your groceries, when something breaks and you have to call someone to fix it, among others.
The guidelines are less clear for those situations, so people are going anywhere from no care at all, to sugested stuff like leaving shoes out, no touch delivery, and improvising staging areas between inside and outside home.
This is also one of the cases where income inequality is coming to bite our asses. Because we allowed the world to be a place where the majority of people do not have the minimum safety and comfort conditions, education, culture and whatnot, the majority of people are prone to be strained and behave badly in a situation like that.
Sure, if you can afford delivery of grocery, food, and have a spacious home to exercise, walk around, isolate sick people, have room to breath... it's relatively easy to sit still for some weeks. Try doing that if you live in a shoebox sized shack with no windows without reserve money to pay the extra costs of food to order, grocery delivery and whatnot.
Yep, most countries are going to inevitably take this pandemic badly. And we'll have to change, as a global society, because the next one might be even worse.
1
-
If the EU has a head on top of it's shoulders, and any economic block or nation for that matter, they'll know NOT to follow US' footsteps for economic growth. It is a bad path that is both unsustainable and has severe consequences for democratic rule.
Because it's basically a sacrifice of lots of important things to trade for empty numbers.
And this is shown plenty in several of the things cited on the video. You have the big tech companies that sacrificed market competitiveness, becoming semi monopolies in their respective areas, killing small and medium competition, destroying privacy as a concept, creating and then becoming dependent on a parallel market of mass private data collection, and being responsible for an intractable political divide that destroyed several central democratic pillars.
It's investment sector basically became a casino for the richest. Nothing of real value is coming out of there these days, it's just bs on top of bs mostly predicated on ways to exploit people, criminal enterprises, scams and other crap to manipulate money from one side to the other. I'm talking about the past few decades or so.
Other big corporations on the top list there came up by sacrificing public service and citizen's rights to the private sectors, several of which comprise of essencial services that the population can barely afford anymore due to arbitrary raises in prices. So, health sector, major insurance companies, real estate conglomerates, and so on.
I've said this before in other videos on the topic, but I'll say it again - protectionism doesn't benefit anyone. If an industry of a given nation or economic block truly wants to be competitive and profitable in the global scenario, they need to become truly competitive independent of protectionist measures and/or government incentives. An industry does not survive long term or at all just because a government is shoveling money into it, and it specially cannot compete on equal terms for a global market if it needs to be sustained by protectionist measures.
Specific examples such as Chinese EV, people can keep telling themselves all the lies they want to, the reality of it is that Chinese EVs are dominating the market not because of some artificial extraneous Chinese government incentives - it's just because they are the only ones putting EV prices at prices and numbers average people can buy worldwide.
Countries that do not have a history of protectionism in their hands might not notice the problems of protectionism because they have never been through decades of trying to sustain internal markets with that type of policy, but if you analyze the reality of nations who have had overburdening protectionist measures for decades, it should become more than clear - it does not protect local industries, it puts excessive tax burdens on top of the population, it ends up slowing down further industrialization and the tech sector, and it's often the biggest source of governmental corruption and mismanagement.
Now, I'm all for eliminating bureaucracy and simplifying tax to businesses, plus guarantees of stability, so that the market can thrive. But not at the cost of a comprehensive and strict regulatory system. Quite the opposite, it's well thanks to EU's regulation that we have managed to fine, recover a few rights, and better control US Big Tech. Most of the extremely well deserved anti-trust lawsuits that US Big Tech has taken so far has come from the EU. It might not be enough to stop them, might not be enough to correct most of their wrongdoings, but it's exactly because the EU has a good comprehensive regulatory system that US Big Tech hasn't gone to it's ultimate consequences of late-stage capitalism trampling over everything so far.
Another major issue about comparing countries and economics blocks with the US is obviously the US' singular status as a globally dominating nation that can take unlimited amounts of debt to spend insane amounts of money on several of it's sectors. Anyone can become the richest person on Earth if he or she can take unlimited debt with no expectation to pay it off.
So, this is my personal opinion on it. If growth equivalent to what US has today is predicated on all of those, it's better to not pursue it at all. And if you stop to think realistically about it, of course the EU would have slow growth in a period it got fractured by war, infighting, losing countries like the UK, energy crisis, plus a bunch of other stuff. I wouldn't have predicted anything different. In fact, I think the EU is doing extraordinarily well given the conditions.
What is unnatural to me is US growth, but you start to get why it's happening once you understand the lack of balance a late-stage capitalism state really has there. You have extremely rich corporations and companies in a society that is absolutely under their control. You have a insane economic disparities. You have people living day by day, or in abject poverty, burdened with lifetime debts, in a country that has some insane amount of money and power. You have legalized child labor and work conditions too close to slave labor. The strain put on the workforce to exhaust their lives towards increasingly erratic, unpredictable and abnormal businesses that looks more like gambles is just unprecedented. This partially translates into political instability and divide.
It's complete absurdity. By now, given how much power and money the US has, if it was a rational state it would have no one living in the streets, no one going hungry, no one going without healthcare, no one riddled with crippling lifetime debt, no one having to work over 40 or less hours a day, and so on. It's insane that a country as rich and powerful as a population facing as many problems as they have. And yet, it is like that, exactly because of those artificial growth numbers there.
I'm sorry for those who are proud of US economy and culture, sorry if I disagree, but I don't think that's a healthy thing to follow, nor think other nations or economic blocks should look at it as an example to follow. In my humble opinion, it's obviously an unsustainable scenario. One that is hugely funded by an unlimited amount of debt due to the country's historical position.
And I hope we see it restored to balance one day in the future. Because the whole problem with this is, that US' economy is so big, and so dominant in a global scenario, that it's not the case of it crumbling down by itself. More likely than not, if the US economy crumbles down, it'll drag most of the world if not the entire world with it. It can't be easily excised from the rest of the global economy.
1
-
It's not only bots too... you go look for reviews on gadgets, particularly tech stuff but I think it applies to everything these days, inevitably you will have to swift through all the videos that are basically the products own promotion photos and a robotic voice behind reading the ad brochure or something.
But on the bit about AI, I have to disagree somewhat. YouTube doesn't go after these things, neither the spam video generators nor the comment spam bots, not because they don't have the tech or resources to do so, not because they can't create an AI or algorithm that is plenty capable of detecting and banning those - it's because they don't have an incentive to it.
YouTube, like Google, has only two major costumers to attend to at this point - investors and advertisers.
Not only investors and advertisers don't care much about those things, just like many other social networks, it's sometimes the opposite - YouTube uses the statistics inflated by bots to brag about numbers to them.
We are a platform that have single users generating millions of video content, millions of videos are submitted every second, we have a level of engagement on comments like no other social network, yadda yadda.
I gotta say that these days it's also becoming kind of a myth that super intelligent and creative people are working in these companies... you do have some genius people there for sure, but I'm willing to bet there are far more morons without any vision working with some extremely boring stuff that not only have no creativity to solve problems, they also have no liberty to do it, and a whole ton of them live so much inside a thick Silicon Valley bubble that they have absolutely no clue how common users see their service, what problems are out there, etc. Personal opinion.
1
-
There haven't been? Are you living under a rock or something?
Both India and Brazil have launched huge app based cashless systems in recent years in a joint effort of government and banks, other two countries that are part of the BRICS economic block. Not private companies inside the country, I'm talking about central bank or government related cashless payment systems.
Also, let me tell people something that they should've known already - your purchasing habits have been making the rounds already if you own a Visa, Mastercard, Amex or other flags.
They have been actively selling consumer habit data to all sorts of people interested in buying it. This isn't speculation or conspiracy theory mind you, there's actual proof of them doing it.
https://www.businessinsider.com/credit-cards-sell-purchase-data-to-advertisers-2013-4?op=1
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-and-mastercard-cut-a-secret-ad-deal-to-track-retail-sales
https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2018/07/22/mastercard-amex-and-envestnet-profit-from-400m-business-of-selling-transaction-data/
https://www.fastcompany.com/90310803/here-are-the-data-brokers-quietly-buying-and-selling-your-personal-information
https://www.newsweek.com/secretive-world-selling-data-about-you-464789
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/26/spy-your-wallet-credit-cards-have-privacy-problem/
Now, yes, governments spying on individual citizen consumer habits can be worse, as it can be used as a form of targetting against individual citizens, particularly for governments that are increasingly becoming more and more totalitarian over the years. Just keep in mind people - the line between collecting data with ad revenue purposes, and governments using that sort of data for population control, is extremely thin. It has been breached multiple times already, not by (only) chinese government, but by US government itself.
We're talking about parallel economies based on private personal data being propped up with advertisement purposes in mind and being hijacked by governments, police and intelligence agencies for their own purposes. Just remember that in the case of US, we have pretty flagrant past cases opened up by whistle blowers showing mass surveillance and data collection of private citizens done without warrant and without transparency for actions including population control.
So all this fearmongering about how China is doing things is at best feigning ignorance, and at worst highly hypocritical. Developed western nations have been doing worse for longer... if anything, China is taking the worst lessons and putting them in practice there too.
1
-
1
-
That family in Wisconsin, they should know...
Chinese people have tons of experience with eminent domain and people not moving from their places. Different case of course, given that it was about building infrastructure rather than a private company building factories, but it's probably useful to know.
https://www.businessinsider.com/what-are-chinese-nail-houses-2016-8
It even has a term because it happened A LOT during the recent boom in development there. I'm not sure how Foxconn is gonna go with this... due to recent trade wars and whatnot. Foxconn could just pull off and sell the property to some other company, it really depends.
But given the size of the company and how much money they have, it is quite likely that they'll just keep the negotiations going until an administration that is more willing to do business with them comes up. They have that much money and power.
The strategy when negotiations go into a deadlock like that is exactly what seems to be happening there. They kill the entire neighborhood, block off access through every entry they have the right to, and will isolate your home as much as possible up to their legal rights, to a point the property becomes completely devalued. If they have to wait until property owners die, they will. It becomes this huge impossible to deal with hassle for property owners, living in isolation, and access becoming more and more of a hassle on a daily basis.
In the case of chinese government, of course they have the money and power to do it. In the case of Foxconn, unfotunately for this family, they also can.
I'm not saying this as a threat or anything like that, but just in case people don't know... Foxconn produces something around 30 to 40% or all electronics in the world. Yes, you read that right, ALL electronics, not just from one brand or another. All major brands you might think of produce their stuff there - Apple, Acer, Amazon, Dell, Google, Huawei, Microsoft, Sony, Motorola, Intel, HP, Xiaomi, Toshiba, Vizio, Nokia, Nintendo and others.
That is to say, they can play a very very long game.
I can only imagine how much money, work, time, effort and just overall suffering that the family had to go through to get their dream home. But I have to say that if they can somehow negotiate a better deal and get a proper ammount of money out of it, if they don't wanna spend their lives stressing out with and fighting against this company, they should set stubborness aside and consider moving.
Yes, it's totally unfair. Yes, the company probably has politicians and government in their pockets. Yes, Foxconn or Wisconsin government should be forced to pay over double what the property is valued at, or give the family a better property, location, and everything at their expense all made to the family's liking.
But stuff like that never works that way. And I really don't wanna see a family destroyed because of something like that. The danger is that the company, and the government by proxy, has the power to make things waaay worse for that family. And depending on how much in bed politicians are with Foxconn, they will. I'm not american so I don't wanna judge too much, but the current administration is quite obviously very pro corporation and very anti people in minorities or exceptional situation. You can bet that if it wasn't for the trade war situation plus Trump not looking at chinese businesses very favorably nowadays, he would spare no thought for the family and trample over all their rights if it was to create over a thousand jobs for his political cachet.
1
-
I have an answer for the CSAM question, we already do it, and this is what's missing from the conversation - good old traditional police work. Like real boots on the grounds, investigative and intelligence work online without the mass data collection and invasion of privacy part, and listening to reporting, flagging, and calls for help from real people.
The CSAM discussion is just another part of a bigger trend of thinking that giving police more and more powers, more and more access to data, more and more ability to spy on citizens, will magically solve crime somehow. And you see, there is plenty of discussions going around questioning this.
Not only for CSAM, but also for the broader question if this police surveillance state really helps solve and stop crimes or not, from a statistical standpoint.
Because there's plenty of suspicion that it's simply not working, despite what some might think. Most of the mass data collection and mass surveillance techniques proposed and used by police in recent years might not only be less effective in combating crime, it might actually be worse than just putting all the resources from those in regular police work - money and people.
There are lots of mounting bad ideas surrounding this subject, but just to give people one thing to think about - what are people trying to achieve with all this surveillance state?
I think too many people don't understand how crime solving and police work actually work in a realistic way. People have this idealistic vision that somehow a powerful police and intelligence force will solve all crimes and all issues in society, but this is not how it works, this has never been true, and it'll likely never be.
In fact, what has been happening in this reality of giving more and more powers to a surveillance state that we can actually quantify and check is that the more powers we give to police and government, the more those are abused for personal gains. You end up with potentially even more abuse crimes committed exactly by the people who you gave too much power to, while that is not helping solving more crimes.
What is the crime in CSAM people want to combat? I imagine the two main focus are child abuse and crimes rings that profit from child abuse material, right? If instead of trying to come up with algorithms that automatically detect it without somehow also invading people's privacy, instead of trying to put holes into encryption algorithms, instead of risking huge security and privacy risks for the entire society to implement novel forms of doing that we don't know the adverse consequences of... it's about going after crime rings, and abusers. Which you don't have to invent new forms of doing, you just have to put more people into doing it.
See, here's the worst part in all of this. This extreme focus on CSAM and algorithmic systems that would detect it - that doesn't even guarantee you'll get the criminals. Because that's about blocking the material itself, not about a system that would lead to abusers or distributors. So it's a huge waste of effort, discussion, politics, and mindshare, for something that fundamentally does not attack the issue directly.
And then, of course, this is only looking at police work in isolation... but actually, we should be looking at this at a societal and cultural level. Education, citizen policing, strategies to monitor and see signs of potential abuse, actually changing the platforms that enables that sort of content. How about government and justice stop just giving slaps on the wrist of platforms and actually close them down or making them pay a sum to victims that actually makes the CEOs and investors move their asses to monitor their platforms better?
How about breaking social networks platforms down to manageable sizes where you have actual humans vetting content posted in them before they get published? I know this sound crazy, but is it really?
The entire problem with CSAM and other discussions about criminal content on the Internet is that they are so hyper focused on the wrong approaches to solving it that they are basically useless. Somehow, it always needs to be about more or extra powers of surveillance versus our right to privacy. And it does not have to be that way.
And there seems to be no will from politicians and key players on this matter to try to see outside the box, perhaps because it's too hard, or that it wouldn't serve to get their moral crusade brownie points.
I have yet to hear a solution proposed that does not involve some 3rd party going through all your data, but like Henry said, we all know that there are plenty of ways of doing this without some intelligence agency, police, or government necessarily having to put their grubby hands on people's private and personal data.
It's because we have a political system that does not want to see or address the matter directly, trying to do everything by passing laws and regulations, that we have ended up in this place where nothing is solved and everything is turned a discussion of us versus them that only leads down a rabbit hole where someone has to lose something. And it is shameful that it somehow needs to be this way, persistently, endlessly.
The discussion around encryption backdoors should've ended decades ago. It is not a viable solution, it's throwing the baby with the bath water. And yet, instead of changing directions and trying to solve the problem some other way, nope, the only thing that police, intelligence and government does is trying to find novel ways of presenting the idea with minor adjustments to see if the public accepts it.
1
-
Uffff... painful. With the price point and how hard it is to get, it's been a while since it was this painful to watch a phone get destroyed. xD
But kudos to Huawei anyways. This is like... the prototype of my dream phone of years ago. I have use cases for both the phone and a tablet, and it'd be wonderful to be able to carry only one device around to fulfill both needs, plus the fact that you have only one device to manage.
Of course, prototype because I'd never pay that much for something this fragile. It wouldn't last, and I don't have the money for it anyways.
And then, a dream of years ago because the whole software environment around it just killed everything for me. Security and privacy worries, OS and software fragmentation, anti-consumer stuff, a stagnation on the evolution of several features, lack of integration with desktop and laptop OS, plus a whole ton of different factors, and now I'm looking into something completely different.
Still nice to see a physical form factor that I dreamed of getting somewhat realized. And Zack destroying it promptly. xD Thanks man, hope things are going great with Not a Wheelchair! I don't comment much anymore these days, but that's the one initiative I put my full support on despite not being a costumer per se. o/
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Extra fun facts - Facebook Messenger uses Signal protocol, WhatsApp uses Signal protocol, like said Google Messages uses Signal protocol, and Skype uses Signal protocol for encryption. Some of those are optional, some only make it available in paid for versions, so you need to specifically turn on or send something like a "secret message" to use the encryption, or be in some enterprise version of the thing, and most of those do not encrypt metadata, and other parts of the app - which Signal itself does.
So... given how Signal has pretty much become the golden standard for encryption in messaging apps anyways - use Signal. If you have the option and is not forced to use some app because everyone else is on it, the best choice for ages now has been Signal, and it seems it'll continue being Signal for a very long time.
I still only wish Signal kept the SMS side active or at least optional, because while I do understand their reasoning for killing it, I still can't see how it was super necessary considering the environment. I understand encryption only works if both sides are using Signal, and that it was confusing for people to get this, but in an environment where there are no good options for SMS messaging replacement, Signal was definitely better than nothing, just for the in app protections outside encryption. What I'm currently using is an open source app called Silence, which guess what? Uses the Signal protocol to encrypt SMS between people who uses the same app. Otherwise, it's plain SMS. It does have some in app protections that Signal has, but it's just not the same experience overall.
Just the fact that I have to juggle between two apps for this is too much crap already. And with no defined standard to really replace it, people continue using it because it's still the only true universal option.
RCS has not replaced and will not replace SMS for me, and afaik, most people.
In my country, two out of 12 mobile telecoms adopted RCS, which is the same as no one adopting it. The way the specification works is that no end to end encryption was included, Google left it to app makers to adopt some end to end encryption algorithm or not - it's their choice.
So it's not only optional for whoever is using it - it's optional for whoever is implementing it. Which is just plain f*cking stupid, because that right there already breaks whatever pretense of this becoming a standard. It can't be a standard if it doesn't define something as basic and important as an encryption algorithm in it's definitions. This is as f*cking stupid as someone defining a power plug standard leaving to manufacturers to decide their own connectors' shapes and sizes.
If Google Messages adopts Signal, but a RCS messaging system from another developer decides to adopt some other encryption, you have two apps on the RCS standard that cannot communicate with each other using E2E encryption. What is the purpose of something like that? The Signal app itself is a better standard. I only wish people understood this. That banks, businesses, and all the places that still use SMS understood that.
This has been heavily criticized since the standard inception by multiple specialists and organizations, I dunno why Google decided to ignore the criticism, and so to me it's a DoA standard.
BTW, afaik there are almost no apps that uses RCS, because developers see no point in using it. It's Google Messages and I think Samsung Messages on Android. If some other app uses it, I just can't find the information. That's how stupid this standard is. Committing to support the standard is not the same thing as offering a way to do it.
Seems Apple will support it with iMessage too by the end of this year, after refusing to do it for a very long time. But you see, since Google Messages uses end 2 end encryption using the Signal protocol, Samsung messages as far as I know does not have any form of end 2 end encryption at all, and iMessage uses Apple's own proprietary encryption algorithm - this means that between those you have no end 2 end encryption at all. One encryption algorithm cannot talk with another, so it defaults to zero end 2 end encryption. Again, what is the point?
1
-
Meh, for me that thing is a joke even as first gen, and I doubt it'll get much better in the 2nd gen, if it ever comes. The phone I just paid around 250 bucks a few months ago not only have better specs, it just works well aw a smartphone (Galaxy S10e, check the specs). Think about that. Paying over 5x more for gimmicky crap that doesn't work as advertised.
Not only that, to make things even worse, am I hearing this right? Are people really expecting for an overpriced Microsoft device to convince developers to make software to adapt for it's specific niche needs?
After Windows Phone failed spectacularly to do so, and further, Android tablets also failed to convince devs to port apps for dual app usage and whatnot? Ooohhh nonononono, not falling for this crap.
I don't hate Microsoft or anything like that, but this is the one area they don't get to come out with a turd saying it'll get polished for the next gen. Samsung can afford that. Apple would if they dared. Perhaps OnePlus and a few other brands. Not Microsoft.
1
-
That's super interesting...
There is one thing about the interview though that is very true, but tragically countersense - longevity.
See, theoretically, electric scooters should last longer than their gas counterparts. Particularly when you have an interchangeable battery system, because the one thing that really won't last are the batteries.
But in comparison to gas, the mechanics are way less complex, it's just batteries connected to a brushless motor and controls, there shouldn't be anything there that would make gas scooters outlast it.
And yet, there is - the software and other electronic stuff that are mostly unnecessary for the scooter operation.
Those are what have high chances of crapping out, getting out of date, stop working or whatever.
So, it's not the EV aspect, it's all the extra stuff that comes with it - app operated, bunch of sensors, etc. Which also overcomplicates repairs.
And then, I dunno how this is in the Taiwanese system, but because these things are so new... it lacks standardization, so you don't know if the company behind will last, and so several of the designs around all sorts of parts components, battery system and whatnot - you can't be sure if it'll be there 10 years from now. So it really is a thing to worry.
That's also the case for electric cars btw... the mechanics are waaaaaaay simpler than a gas guzzler, but because of all the proprietary parts, onboard computers, proprietary software and systems, all the lockins and walled garden stuff, in the end, an electric car ends up being way more of a hassle to fix, do maintenance and repair than an old gas car.
Anyways, thanks for the video Greg! Interesting stuff
1
-
Nothing new with the idea, it's just going back to tribal life as much as possible while still being supported by a capitalist society... it's at most a very limited and exclusive social experiment that cannot live by itself.
They need extremely like-minded people that are not too ambicious, power hungry, extremely docile, reasonably ignorant of certain stuff, with a very very strong mindset for cooperation, a market that is willing to pay too much for the basic products they come up with their very limited technology and scale of production, and a whole lot of physical and mental sacrifice for some unrealistic utopic extremely fragile ideal that could crumble with something as simple as key people dying or leaving the "intentional community", or just people with diverse ideas entering the community and confronting some of the stuff they believe in.
Even if they try to name it differently, make it sound more modern, and whatnot, it contains several of the same elements of past communes and cults.
I don't think people realize how many of the horrible cases regarding suicide cults and histories revealing horrible stuff that happened inside gated communities started off much like this one, some still existing to this day, and all it takes is one person with different ideas to turn this supposed dream into a complete nightmare.
Because the elements are all already there. It's basically a powder keg waiting for fire.
But we live in a democracy, so if you choose to live life that way, whatever. It's just really unconvincing to say that's a better way of living life when the entire thing is basically sustained by the society they apparently are trying to reject. I just have huge doubts that if their product selling strategy fails, things could keep going as smoothly as they do. Capitalism is far from perfect, I know, but it has gone through times of war, conflict, famine and other extremely harsh scenarios... not because it's some utopic ideal everyone achieves happiness sort of system, but because it probably fits human nature best. It's unfair, it puts people above others, and it has tons and tons of problems, but it's undeniable how much societies have prospered under it so far.
And honestly, I'm fairly open to alternatives. But I haven't seen anything that is ultimately best for an individual citizen so far. Most other historical and actual alternative systems that we have as examples for alternatives to capitalism have been worse than capitalism for the average citizen as far as I've seen it. It's usually far more opressive and unfair. The execution of other economic systems seems to end up in cases that are far more distant from it's ideals in comparison to capitalism. Because there's always the utopic vision for a system, and then what really happens when it's applied.
1
-
It's all about perspective I guess...
I can see how people who were highly invested in the whole thing, to the point of having paid a whole ton of money just because they wanted a cute streamer to have it, would feel cheated about it.
I can also see how people who had no previous contact with the whole deal would think it's funny or weird or both.
It's also pretty hard to make much sense of the entire case while having so little information on it. Who is this woman? Did she do it by herself? What sort of stream did she make? What were the lies? Why were people paying her? How many people got fooled, how much money was involved? etc etc.
It highly depends on what type of stream that was, but basically the woman was a con artist if she was trying to pass for a beautiful young girl, by literal sense of definition I mean. Just because it involves a major setup with several lies. She probably lied about her age, her looks, probably personal details, among several other stuff. Deceptions like that one do not come in isolation, it usually demands building an entire persona around it to be convincing enough. And then, if it involves money, it can become pretty problematic. Not sure how chinese laws goes around this though, but in some countries it could even be considered a crime.
The other side of the equation is how lots of people will say people deserve this. Because you know, sexism is a real thing on the Internet, beauty standards are insane, and people throwing money at internet celebrities with no other reason than looks alone is kind of a vicious and pretty old thing already.
Thing is, people will say this because it didn't happen with them. There's a lot of sense of moral superiority and bias that goes on in these types of scenarios too, plus victim shaming and whatnot.
And of course people will always say they'd never fall for something like this, because they don't follow that type of content, they don't get obsessive enough for it to matter, etc etc. But you know, the people who get affected by things like these are usually the most vulnerable. Everything from people who cannot get into relationships themselves, people who are looking for unrealistic scenarios, people who have personal complexes and can only feel some sort of connection with streamers like those.
I have watched some extremely heartbreaking stories and videos of people who were fooled by online romance scams, to the point of having their entire lives ruined, some who tried to commit suicide, some who went into extremely deep debt because of a very similar type of con. And this is only going to get worse with tools like those.
I'd advise people to be careful before getting too judgy about it. The lesson here should be that this is something that is very possible in this day and age.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
The worst part of this all is that no, I still don't believe Trump had any role of leadership in all of this.
He was just another ecochamber, willing drone, component piece of the whole.
His cell had a role to incite violence, an it succeeded in it, but none of this began with him.
If he's guilty of something, is that of being a gullible brainwashed moron, like his followers, doing his part to advance an agenda.
This conspiracy theorist agenda wasn't created by him, it was created by a far more cultist, extremist, violent core group or groups that will go unpunished and will keep promoting their views for a very long time to come.
They have become a self funding, self sustaining radical group, using psychological predatory speeches in their own self funded far right media, against the vulnerable, gullible, ignorant, weak willed and/or weak minded, not unlike other terrorist groups all around the world, using the very same rethoric and very same tactics of terrorist groups that attacked US soil in the past. It took time to build up, but it's finally getting to the very same point.
Failing to correlate these two is an ultimate failure of american politics and intelligence. The modus operandi is exactly the same, but this fear or unwillingness of looking into these situations in a similar fashion as of international terrorist groups and terrorist states means their rethoric has ultimately won. These groups have found a crack in the armor in the very same way Bin Laden found a crack in the armor with commercial airplanes... but now, it's the american culture and psyche.
That's the whole narrative right there. The whole security theater was worth nothing, domestic terrorism in the US continues to grow, and now it's going from individual radicalism towards organized group terrorism.
In a way, the objective of striking fear in american lives and showing the culture what it is to live under constant fear and anger... it was accomplished.
Trump should be impeached and the leader of cells that showed up should be arrested, but this is not gonna end there because the US let this cancer metastasize for too long, with a permissive weak response that only worsened the problem. It doesn't go away with you burrying your heads in the sand. Both the election that put Trump in power and now the one that took him out where too divided for comfort. The US is hanging on a precipice of darkness right now. If the idea that Trump has been carrying a falsehood of election fraud, of bad press, of being violent to keep power for months or years before this event, just think on how many people still voted for him. This is indicative of a far bigger problem.
How exactly do people think that radical groups outside the US, the nazi party, and others took hold on supposedly peaceful groups and nations? Some magical power that turned everyone overnight? Of course not, it's always a process. A process of radicalization that is happening in american soil right now. Populist leader spreading falsehoods and radicalism, being ok with terrorist actions and crimes as long as it favors the group, keeping a distance but promoting action behind the scenes.
What we are seeing happening with QAnon and other groups in the US is a repeat in history. These closed off coordinated militaristic groups are the strike groups. Every single totalitarian regime has them. They are never publicly and openly sanctioned, but they act on the interest of a totalitarian violent group's name, and when it is for the situation, then it's patriotic or nationalistic. It's always in the name of something intangible... patriotism, nationalism, rightiousness, morals, religious fervor, whatever. Because when you don't have basis for your actions, you justify it on intangibles.
If the country is unwilling to update it's standards, strengthten laws against these types of groups, and instead keep getting confused between democratic principles and defense of anarchy, you've already lost. These groups will have clearer reasoning and motivation, even if they are in the wrong. People can't afford to keep tip toeing in the matter, laws have to be passed and a series of actions need to happen to correct what went wrong there.
I think something lots of people still don't understand, and it's for the benefit of these radical groups that you don't, is that concepts like freedom of speech, right to bear arms, and a whole ton of the entire constitution - those were all created to curb totalitarianism, imperialist rule, domination by violence. I won't even mention that freedom of speech is about public and government censorship because that nail has been hammered to the point of breaking the whole thing up already, but people forget to put constitution in it's historical context and situation all the time, which leads to blind ignorant sticktion to words and phrases as if nothing else was important.
Nothing is perfect or sacred, including the constitution, so if you can't understand what it was made for, and what it was about, you are not respecting it, you are letting it's letters be used to trample over it's intent.
Do understand people. The America I've seen with my own eyes just a few decades ago was far better than an America divided between imperialists and colonists, slavers and abolitionists. But it's letting itself self implode because of hubris and lies. There can be no room given to cultism taking this much power and becoming this organized, that's not the freedom your forefathers envisioned for the progress of the country.
1
-
I had a few weird phones back in transition days... one of the first touchscreen phones, a Nokia 7710. It still used a hybrid version of Symbian, and was crap in all sorts of tiny ways.
Resistive touchscreen which you had to press hard to register, it has a plasticky stylus though. But this was back in a time cellphones were still using proprietary connectors for headphones, and Nokia used their extremely crappy exposed pins connector which was a bad contact nightmare.
I still managed to sell it a good time later for almost the price I paid, because most people in my country still had no clue how to order these things online and import it, and the phone was never launched officially here.
I also had both the Nokia 808 and the 1020, the two top camera Pureview phones, one Symbian and one Windows Phone. Don't really have much to complain about them, they did the job and I knew what I was getting into. But Microsoft really missed too many opportunities, made too many dumb decisions, and just didn't know how to handle a mobile environment properly, so it died off... lasted way longer than it should, tbh.
It had a cadre of foaming at the mouth rabbid fans that fed on overpromisses, smoke and mirrors, and a few devs that were working like hell to port the most needed apps by themselves with Microsoft not giving two shits. Which ended up with an environment of shitty useless apps, extremely outdated or abandoned official apps, and not much more to talk about. Worse, despite being relatively solid, the OS was plagued by the Windows name, jokes, and criticism, but was actually a mix of relatively good ideas, while being almost as walled garden and closed off as iOS, which was kinda ironic. The way they chose to block apps from communicating with one another kinda killed a whole ton of functionality for the platform in the name of security.
Anyways, as for chinese weird novelty phones, I think that's cheating juuust a bit. You can find them in all shapes and sizes. Miniature car models, hamburger, extra big, tiny, etc etc. The internals are all the same, and they occupy little space, so they can just throw it into any shell.
And if you want another source for failed phones that goes along the same line, crowdfunding is another rich one with tons of crap to look at... that faked projection phone that would somehow miracuralously project a perfect hd screen on top of your arm... so much bullshit.
Friend of mine had the Taco phone. It was pretty expensive at the time if I'm not mistaken.
1
-
Agreed on the crisis making people think about grid independence and whatnot! Well, to be fair, not only crisis, but also technology advances... which are powered by crisis, so still. xD
Power outages, brownouts and blackouts, general instability used to be just the reality of things... something you dealt with, but couldn't actually solve it in a more permanent manner.
The past few years though, I've been increasingly interested in those huge camp style powerbanks. Been watching reviews and whatnot with more frequency.
I think the only reason I didn't get one myself, or just tried going the DIY route is because both those and the battery cells needed for DIY projects are still either prohibitively expensive here in my country, or just not available at all.
Still, I sometimes even consider importing them just because it seems to be so readily available in some websites... but then I remember importation restrictions, taxes and the shipping costs. :P
It'd be great to somehow integrate one of them into the mains and have a partial full house backup power of sorts.
Also thinking of getting a few solar panels to set up in a balcony or something (I live in an apartment, no roof solar panels for me). :P
The apartment building my mom is living in (moved this year) is already putting forward a project of solar panels... but this is mostly for lighting on the common access areas and parking.
Important thing is, with international crisis in consideration, cost of grid power going up, and potential for climate extremes that will endanger the stability of the grid all the time - plus lowering of prices of solar panels, batteries and other stuff involved in grid independency projects... I think we're very very close to the point when building homes and places with this in mind will become kind of an inevitability.
People on the market for new homes will have putting a backup battery system and alternative sources of power in mind from the outset, it becomes a point of purchase, and so the market starts changing towards that.
1
-
1
-
I tend to think on this subject like this - EVs are only the first step (or perhaps one of several other steps) that are only starting a very long trend of drastic industry changes that we need to make happen for a cleaner future in general. Climate change certainly is a huge component of all this, but the reality is that now that we are pretty aware of how much pollution we are just putting out in the planet due to current processes, we have an obligation to change. Unless you like flubbing around in filth, that is.
At the speed and scale that we're going, it's not only about climate change, it's also about eating microplastic contaminated food everyday, it's about running out of drinkable water, it's about having no places left without trash to go, no air without pollutants to breathe, no places to safely dispose of trash, no patches of land or ocean without some sort of human made pollution contaminating it. We're slowly getting to pollution levels of London during the black plague, only worldwide.
I have a pretty strong suspicion that at some point a whole ton of people will be regretting not putting faith and investing more on nuclear power plants, no matter how dangerous ionizing radiation is, because we will be needing the power source by them, desperately. Let alone invest more on newer designs.
It might be true that a lot of energy that EVs get is currently being generated from coal and oil, but while you can replace coal plants and oil to renewables overtime, a gas car will always be a gas car, no way around that. Even if we don't get truly zero pollution cars right now, the change to EVs is, at least for now, the way forward. I guess some could argue that liquid hydrogen would be another option.
I also agree that lithium batteries are in no way ideal right now. It's not only about where those batteries are going after they are either depleted or not good enough for current applications, it's also about lithium itself... the huge increases in need for material that EVs will create if replacement comes at a fast pace will be no joke. We're already talking about running out of several other resources... helium, oil, petrol, etc. It's not great to jump from one resource that we're running out of to the next that we'll also be soon overexploiting and running out of too. Lithium is also a limited resource. We still have lots of it, but it's not as abundant as some might think.
But, here's the major reason why I favor EVs - they are way more simplified and way more adaptable designs. It's kinda ridiculous how simple the base mechanics of an EV is in comparison to your average gas guzzler.
See, we'll need cleaner energy storage technologies one way or another. That is innevitable. Future tech development and arguably progress of humanity as a whole depends on cleaner and better technologies for power generation and storage. Even if EVs never became a trend, we'd still have to work on those two key factors, so why not? We should optimize pretty much everything to work with clean batteries and clean power generation, because that's the target.
So, I'd posit that the EV platform is, at it's core, a basis of what transportation vehicles will have to become one way or another.
Because a gas car is to EVs kinda like a coal powered train is to modern electric ones. The internals of EVs are streamlined and simplified to work with whatever electrical input and storage you choose to put in there, whereas a gas car you have all these extra complex stuff to handle chemical explosion chambers, filters to clean up all the crap, coolants, etc etc.
So, if the general idea is to slowly eliminate highly polluting stuff, I guess going from gas cars to EVs is pretty much... the logical route.
Like, in the future, it should be easier to transition from lithium batteries to... I dunno, algae based batteries, urine based batteries, silica based batteries, hydrogen based batteries, trash based batteries, poop based batteries - rather than transitioning from gas based batteries to new tech. The technology invented for gas cars are based on burning stuff to generate power, so it's fundamentally harder to make it cleaner and safer.
Of course, I could be wrong, and some hundreds of years from now, if humanity survives, we'll be switching back to gas cars because we found some sort of way to combust things without the bad side effects. But for now, yep, EVs are the way to go.
I also suspect that we're not really getting much better on the recycling aspect with lithium batteries or EVs. Like I said, lithium is a limited resource, but there's just enough that industries will first exploit it until it runs dry to only then start recycling for lack of options.
Recycling is also a process that don't work as well as people think. eWaste in general is a good way to look at it, but if you wanna scope it down, you just have to see how things really go for categories like smartphones. Extracting stuff like rare minerals and components from it not only is extremely expensive, right now it's potentially more polluting than the entire chain of producing a new one, because it requires highly toxic and noxious chemicals.
So, we could first get new battery technologies that are generally better than lithium, before optimizing the recycling process. But even then, EVs would still be the way to go. Because I don't see us making gas cars much better, and that's why we have to change it.
Even some of the few advances we had supposedly made in gas cars are turning out to be false and straight scams from some of the biggest car brands out there, why should we keep going that way?
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
There is another core reason why people get angry at the ad - because of repeated failed predictions of one type of hardware replacing another, or "the death" of something.
Let me tell you, I heard this story about traditional computers, specially desktops, going away multiple times. When laptops got cheaper, when netbooks became popular, when the first iPad models came out, when smartphones exploded in popularity.
Every step of the way there seems to be some need for the industry, media and blogs to proclaim that the old paradigm is coming to an end and that we'd move to something new in just a few years time.
This doesn't happen because that's not how societies work. It takes a long time to replace a well estabilished paradigm.
Yes, some kids don't even know what a computer is, yes, people have been using smartphones and tablets more than ever, yes, there is some work towards usability and whatnot. But kids have different needs than adults, none of those are full replacements for ye olde desktop, and different people across different cultures, different age groups and different jobs will have different needs because that's just how things are.
And then there's another myth or misconception that I find in a similar frequency with that of the paradigm shift thing: a major assumption often portrayed by media, specialists, techies and whatnot of the fabled majority for which an underpowered device does "just enough".
I think there is a huge misrepresentation on actual people's needs, wants, and overall ease of use that is often overestimated and understood poorly.
Let me expand and explain this better - say you are the tech guy in the family in charge of getting new hardware for your mom, uncle, or sister who doesn't know a whole lot about computers.
Lots of people will tell you to get an iPad, a basic Macbook, a Chromebook, a basic laptop, etc - because it has a browser, a word processor and some other basic functions so it should be enough.
This recommendation more often than not backfires. It sometimes works, yes, but the vast majority of cases fail, and there's a good reason for that. Because it's not only about the needs (mail, word processor, browser) - it's the environment, the room for growth and the people who will be there to tech more, help troubleshoot, and just know what to do.
See, you have to consider the whole, not particulars. For instance, you can get a mac for your uncle or whatever because he has troubles with updates, security, blah blah and he doesn't game, and he only needs this or that functionality - but if he's inserted in an environment where people who are going to help him use the device, troubleshoot, and teach more stuff are all using Windows machines - he'll get stuck and won't be able to use the mac at all. So you just spent a bunch of money for nothing.
You get a tablet for your mom because it looks better and has better usability, but if she's already used to doing all her stuff in a desktop environment, it might not work for her. You get a chromebook for a bunch of students that up to now have been using even Android tablets, which is close enough but not quite, you might end up with a failure there.
See what I mean? What people currently need a device for and what they do on a computer are not the only factors. Familiarity with interface, what people around them are currently using, potential for future usage and learning new stuff... those all can be as important if not more important.
1
-
Always remember phablets... they were fugly, expensive, looked ridiculous, everyone joked about them, the press kept asking who would want one of those, people tried using the Jobs quote on never making an iPhone of a bigger size because the size was perfect, Apple fanboys specially loved to make jokes how someone holding a Samsung Note to make calls looked ridiculous, blah blah blah. Nowadays, phablets of the time are actually smaller than your regular smartphone. Yep, for those who don't know or don't remember, the first Samsung Note which arguably launched the entire phablet joke thing was only 5.3". Note 9? 6.4". iPhone X? 5.8".
Point being, I bet that if this trend continues, gets refined, prices comes down and tech gets improved around it... it could eventually become a new norm. Not because it's new, not because it's different, not because of how it looks, not because of new fangled display tech, none of that. Simply because having a device you can unfold to get a bigger screen is useful. Just that. Useful. It always boils down to usability. All the rest is just hype, it dies down overtime, positive or negative. What matters is how useful it is.
It's more pleasing to watch videos in a bigger screen, you can see more of photos you are going to take with a bigger screen, you can consume content, read text and probably type better with a bigger touchscreen. There could be enough room for multitasking to make better sense, it could reach a size where it's less uncomfortable to use for work, it's closer to regular book size.
The problem of going above phablet levels is portability and handling. But if you keep portability and everyday handling of a smartphone, with the option to open it up for a more involved session, I don't see why people would reject a concept like that, whenever and if it reaches this state of course.
The questions now are: will Samsung or other brands be able to solve the durability problem? Will other brands also releasing foldable phones be able to do something better than Samsung? Will devs and Android make good use of the new form factor? How long will it take for prices to come down? Can we get hardware that is comparable in all fronts to a current smartphone model? How long will it take for pros to be worth the cons?
Those are key. Because it is a bigger shift than phablets. A bigger screen doesn't require many changes in production. It actually enabled smartphones to have bigger batteries and more space for internal components. Foldable phones requires new processes, an entirely different screen assembly, all designs up to now are kinda screen protector and smartphone cases unfriendly, apps and OS is more than a matter of scaling up... etc.
So yeah... this will either bomb and fail to happen right now because the tech just isn't ready yet, and then perhaps it'll come around again years later, or it's a start of a shift to a new direction full of potentials that will mostly not be realized. Because well, that's the way the industry is working nowadays. Let's face it - smartphones could be way more than they currently are right now, if it wasn't for industry level crap like lack of standardizations, fears of cannibalization, lack of vision and focus on features, among other stuff. Smartphones ARE portable computers, and yet we do very little with it versus the potential it actually has. So my fear is that with how current smartphone manufacturers are handling development these days, there is definitely a big risk of foldable phones not happening because they just don't try hard enough.
1
-
1
-
@cfromnowhere I'm an outsider, and not a specialist in any way in the area, so keep that in mind. I'm just a dude that reads a lot on the subject. xD
But honestly? The more I hear about Japanese politics the more I think it's just a mix of corruption, bad or outdated hierarchical internal structure, and living in a bubble disconnected from Japanese people's reality...
While I agree that communication is indeed different in Japan, I don't think it really comes down to only that. There are deeper problems in general, and unfortunately it has to do with politics and culture.
The Fukushima-Daiichi meltdown specifically only happened because both the government and TEPCO, the electricity company that administered the plant, spent 10 years ignoring repeated warnings that an earthquake plus tsunami was possible to happen at Japan's west coast, and that they needed to move backup generators to higher ground. That's exactly what led to the disaster. You can look up for articles about TEPCO and Japanese government judgements regarding culpability in this particular point, it happened kinda recently, more than 10 years after the incident.
And yet, there was no justice there. Neither government nor the company was punished.
Ignoring warnings happened both because of a vertical hierarchy structure inside the company and government that meant the messaging stopped at some point because people in the chain didn't want to incur extra costs to the plant, because that would look bad on them, because they wanted to climb up the hierarchical ladder. And government also received warnings but didn't act due to being complicit to several cost cutting measures going against regulations inside TEPCO for ages, having close ties with key figures inside the company.
Other examples of more recent corruption: There was the whole scandal about LDP party's ties with the Unification Church that culminated in Shinzo Abe's assassination, and only then the party admitted having ties and started distancing themselves from it. They call themselves a "Church", but it's actually a radical right wing cult, also known as "Moonies". A whole ton of people of the governing faction had direct ties with the cult.
More recently, a corruption scandal that has been going on for... I think well over decades now was unveiled about LDP politicians pocketing money from some supposed charity drive schemes there, I didn't understand the whole thing, but it was just that type of very deep and very dirty corruption scheme that is closer to organized crime rather than politics. Politicians involved in the scheme are supposed to have garnered money in the hundreds of millions of dollars from this, while the whole thing lasted.
Problem with all of this is that the LDP has been the only political party in power in Japan for several decades now... it has become a single party affair, Japanese people are also kinda fully disengaged with politics particularly younger generations, and so they end up doing whatever they want. It sounds like the mentality for young people around politics is that they don't want to engage because they don't have a voice anyways - it's an "old people" thing.
It just so happens that the LDP faction that is currently in power, because this party has tons of factions including some that are on ideological opposite spectrums, is considered somewhere between conservative and ultra conservative.
Which is what leads to these overzealous measures, particularly in regards to technical stuff they don't understand.
So the logic is, if there was a nuclear disaster already, and public opinion has turned against the idea, even though it's actually a corruption and mismanagement problem, they'll just follow the FUD mentality of the crowd and not touch it, even if it's at the sacrifice of people's welfare and well being.
Something like this more or less. I hope it helps. But don't trust me alone on this... there are good analysis out there to read and watch. :D
1
-
Nice video overall, but there's a whole bunch of misleading statements through the video.
It's not booming (plenty well estabilished at this point, we're going past a couple of decades already), it's not japanese only, it's not always obsession (though it can be), and it's not male exclusive by any stretch of the mind.
I mean, yes, the term "otaku" is mostly used for males for all kinds of obsessions in Japan... but it's not exclusive to anime and manga, you have stuff like military otaku (collectors and people obsessed with military gear), train otaku (trainspotters), and a bunch of others. In western countries is where otaku became solely related to anime and manga. But there, think of it as a hard line hobbyist.
As for male exclusivity, there's a pretty well estabilished female market in japan for anime/manga/game content targeted for them. It's either "otome", or the pejorative "fujoshi" (those two can have slight differences in meaning though). There's even a neighborhood in Tokyo (Ikebukuro) with a street known as "otome road" where shops for that niche are located.
If the guy who developed this holographic thing does not want to put male characters in it, that's his problem, but it's not for lack of source material, there are plenty of male anime characters targeted for female audiences... there are entire genres of anime and manga targeted for them, and this goes back decades. It might not make international news as much, but it's there. Animes still have a slight majority though this has been changing, mangas are probably reaching a 50 50 split at this point, and stores mainly in Akiba also target males more than females, but the market is way more evenly distributed than what the video is trying to sell.
And there's the thing that most people not familiar with the whole deal always seem to get wrong, which is something that is reinforced by international media coverage in a very pervasive and overall shitty way: stuff like "craving actual intimacy".
It perpetuates this perception/prejudice going that anime fandom has to be related to some sort of perversion, or that it needs to be related to sex somehow.
If people were solely craving actual intimacy they'd buy a blow up doll or something, go to a soap land estabilishment, engage in enjo kousai and whatnot. Yes, Japan also has prostitution, porn, and stuff like that.
All in all, this product is basically a Google Home with a "hologram" function. Western media likes to equate stuff like that to perversion or something because it sells, and because they keep wanting to translate the culture to something else.
1
-
1
-
Just another thing to add up to the war fucklist. Think about it. If it wasn't for militaristic mindset and cold war mentality, we could potentially have developed this technology already, and perhaps even transitioned to an entire grid system that would already be cleaner, safer, and producing far more output, with potential big delays for climate change.
But nope, we decided that we needed to have the bigger guns so that we could shoot ourselves to death, and so we got more than we bargained for.
And then, to make things worse, we are electing people who have the exact same mindset of the lunatics who puts us here. Several countries in the world today are spending a huge part of their taxpayer money to fund more militaristic purposes rather than attending basic human rights of their own population. We'll give you a way for mutual destruction, but we can't give you a way for proper healthcare, job, nutrition, education, public safety and whatnot.
Countries haven't got past giving their own citizens the very basic of what we know humans should have, and so we turn our backs to helping neighbors who are in dire need.
And the supposedly more developed countries are far more interested in funding their own megacorporations and industries, which ultimately enrich the less than 1% richest, rather than contributing to worldwide necessities of fellow human beings.
I guess we get what we deserve. Humanity is a failed experiment, we're past our expiration date. Like a virus that is killing it's host, and is not smart enough to progress past a certain point.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Kinda weird to hear all the troubles that comes from indirect optional elections in US... but it's always interesting to know all the potential problems it generates.
In Brazil it's like this: elections are direct, voting is obligatory, and it's overall an well oiled machine.
Politics itself is corrupt to it's core, it's institutionalized corruption, we need a complete overhaul on how the practice of politics work here. But the entire system of voting should be seen as an example imho.
Voting day is an obligatory national holiday... lessens the excuse of not being able to vote due to work. It usually happens on Sundays too, to avoid any conflicts. Polls are run by people sort of conscripted with their locality and background in mind... kinda like jury duty. Voting is obligatory over 18, optional between 16 and 18 (age).
There will always be multiple localities to vote in every city, like one for each x number of voters, evenly distributed. Usually takes place in schools, universities, gymnasiums and other adequate places.
Personal experience, if you go early you wait a few minutes in line. If you go late at times most people go, it's gonna take longer. But I think the most I had to wait was like half an hour - experiences may vary depending on where in Brazil you live of course.
Brazilian voting machines are electronic but basic, meaning it's not Internet connected but they do help easing up counts and automating some key stuff. System started with floppy disks, now I think it moved to pendrives... and biometrics are slowly being implemented on top, most major cities already have it. Implementation is a bit slow not only because of new tech, but because the national ID system is also slowly getting fingerprint as part of ID.
Those voting machines gets checked in practically all phases of it's implementation... on voting day, some of them are taken out and replaced by backups ramdomly and checked it the results are accurate (open vote made, cross checked with results machines are spitting out).
But it's actually a multi check system... you have your voter ID, mached with national ID with photo checked by staff, and biometrics where available, then you vote, you receive a slip as proof you voted. You can avoid voting with some different justifications, but you or someone representing you have to be on a voting place on voting day to present that justification. If you don't vote, you have a few days to justify, otherwise you will have to pay a fine, or else your ID gets blacklisted imposing all sorts of restrictions. It's a very reasonable balance
Of course, problems arise... Brazil is close to the size of US, and there are some very isolated cities and communities. Plus, tons of mobility problems and whatnot. Ends up with actual voter turnout around the 80%. Like I said, corruption in politics is rampant so the voting system had to go through several reforms and refinements to stop all sorts of electoral crimes like vote buying, voter impersonation, fraud, etc... the system is good not because brazilian creativity or whatever, it's good out of necessity. Much like credit cards - we've been using chip and pin here for over a decade now, not because banks in Brazil are more advance, but because credit card fraud was rampant here way before it started becoming a problem in other countries.
But a direct election system also avoids stuff like gerrymandering... which I guess is a good thing. What it doesn't avoid though, which I guess is true for most democracies anyways, is people electing some pretty crappy politicians. But this is more of a reflection of culture, people overall, and countries I guess...
1
-
Setting gun control aside for a moment, this is just another strike against militarization of police force in the US.
These officers could have a tank outside the school, it means nothing if they either don't have a use for it, or don't know how to use what is applicable in such cases, or have proper training for it.
It's all there to play into the power fantasy that twisted people get when joining such agencies. Less about effectiveness for the job, and more about showboating and feeling superior in comparison to the rest of the population.
Regular and proper training to handle situations like that would be worth 10x the whole militarization movement. But nope, it seems successive governments in the US thought dumping discarded military gear into police would be enough to handle things.
Now back in gun control proper, this whole thing is tied directly to it. Guns are detrimental to the security of everyone when it's put into the hands of unprepared, untrained people. And again, going to shoot targets on your local gun range on weekends is not being prepared or trained to handle an active shooter scenario. It can be fun, it can be a sport, but you gotta consider the consequences of selling guns to anyone without restrictions, regulation and consideration on the overall effect it has on culture and population.
People keep lying to themselves with the good Samaritan scenario, or that they'd do differently if only they were there, but really... statistics just prove otherwise. Mass shootings are going up, and we see no good Samaritan case rise. It happens in exceedingly rare circumstances, and it also can make things worse instead of stopping an active shooter, because as you know, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
You can't make the exception the rule, nor depend on it. You shouldn't live on fantasy style high expectations, particularly when the lives of innocent people are at stake, including those you love and care for.
I am sure those officers intended well, at least most of them did, and perhaps some of them are good Samaritans themselves. It matters nothing if faced with a situation like that, they were unprepared and untrained. Still, they were one step above your average good Samaritan. So, the question really is, do you still think it's a good strategy to depend on good Samaritans to stop mass shootings? Or is it time for America to consider at least restricting access and regulating guns at least a bit? In the very same way you have control for certain materials, substances and machinery? Grow up from the power fantasies and imaginary shower scenarios and face reality perhaps?
I mean, really, I don't see many people complaining about restrictions on purchase and handling of explosives, toxic substances, radioactive material, or further licenses and testing to use heavy machinery, flying a plane, among others. And all of those have uses other than killing other living things. Why are guns of all things needed to be unregulated and unrestricted? Because people have the right to own them to fight against a rogue government or something? Dude, if your government goes rogue, it has a military that would effortlessly trample over any civilian led militia. Again, thinking a civilian led militia would have any power to go against the military is just power fantasy. Have you not paid attention on how much of your taxpayer dollars goes into the military machine? This isn't a zombie apocalypse power fantasy scenario, it's reality. You aren't a lone gunman with the force of a platoon or something, it's not fiction, you are not Rambo, and you with a gun means nothing towards a rogue government, an active shooter, or a criminal gang.
Civilians are not trained, do not have the mindset, and are not constantly on high alert with a purpose to shoot to kill potential criminals, and that's a good thing mind you. It's not the wild wild west anymore, and it's great that we have the mindset that we live in societies where shooting to kill someone is considered a last case scenario.
Through all the years that this gun lobbying has been going on, the fact that purchasing and owning guns has become increasingly easy just worked towards more mass shootings. You want effective measures to stop those, it's all about cultural de-escalation, treating violence as a non-acceptable form of conflict resolve, and giving people conditions to live peacefully and in harmony with each other, such as guaranteeing basic human rights to everyone, and enforcing anti discrimination and anti hate crime laws. Make other forms of living with differences easier than picking up a gun and shooting others. That should be the focus, no matter how hard and how ineffective it sometimes seems to be. Because no one wants to live in societies where disputes needs to be solved by killing each other all the time, no matter how much of a jock or violence oriented person you are. For the exceptional cases that do think like that, I suggest a doctor, helpline, group therapy or moving somewhere else far far away from society.
1
-
1
-
I don't wanna sound cynical, radical and a hater or anything like that, but honestly, the Apple recycling robot is nothing more than a PR stunt. A pretty crude one to boot.
It never got past that flashy Earth day ad campaign after years it came out, in fact, Daisy is a rehash of another robot called Liam that came out like 5 years ago. If you are wondering why this life saving wondrous tech hasn't been brought to scale after all these years, it's because this is mostly a very expensive ad campaign that has been fooling people successfully for years now because no one takes the time to dig much further than the surface to understand if it even makes sense.
Yes, it is a fully functioning system, but like so many smoke and mirrors used by big tech, this is yet another project that didn't prove scalability, receives minimal funding, has been half a decade in production, and doesn't address the biggest problems in eWaste recycling.
It's great for Apple because everytime a video on eWaste is produced, this thing is brought up as something that is being done to save the planet or whatever. It's easibly digestible, flashy, and looos cool. But it's wishful thinking at best, or willingly deceptive at worst.
It's a fancy Hyperloop or Solar Roadways idea. It sounds and looks great on paper, but you gotta look a bit deeper.
You see, as one can imagine, the problem with eWaste has nothing to do with tech and processes capable of doing it.
It's actually relatively easy to recycle stuff from electronics.
It has all to do with feasibility. And it's not only about labor too.
Put simply, those precious and rare earth minerals are there, but to take them out is extremely costly, time consuming, and involves a ton of toxic chemicals, and then it produces a ton of noxious, toxic, expensive to handle waste.
A robot that disassembles an iPhone is cute and all, but that is not the difficult part. It's the least significant part of the equation.
In fact, if it's not being refurbished, for actual recycling, industrial separators and a shredder would probably do it faster and in bigger volumes, there is no need for individual robot arms for the task. It doesn't even make much sense to use super expensive tailor made robot arms to disassemble smartphones one by one for the entire process.
The problem comes when you need to take out gold coatings and tiny ammounts of other chemicals off circuit boards, embedded components and whatnot. Because they are already mixed with alloys and integrated with things, that's when chemical baths, high temperature furnaces, and other stuff comes in the mix.
That's why it's hard. Because it cannot be done mechanically, which is all you are seeing the robot do there.
You don't see the rest in Apple ads because that part is ugly and doesn't fit the image of being environmentaly friendly. And is probably something Apple doesn't even address much, because that's really not their point. The point is to bedazzle onlookers.
This is why eWaste ends up in poor countries landfills. That's why those slave labor kids and people are burning the whole thing - it's a cheaper way of processing chemicals and minerals. And that's the point it becomes a profitable endeavour: when human life is so cheap, and welfare is inexistent, that environment and health paradoxically are not a concern.
If Apple really was worried about being environmentaly friendly and doing something to stop the eWaste tsunami, there are a couple of things they could do right now instead of showing off shiny robots:
1. Stop lobbying against right to repair bill. Because really, the most effective method of reducing eWaste is not recycling, it's reuse. Recycling, contrary to what some might think, cannot ever recover all precious and rare earth minerals, so the idea of it being a closed loop system is bullshit from start. And we are still years from it being even feasible. Using your electronics for as long as possible, fixing them, repurposing for other things, and passing it on for someone else to use it the way to go. A smartphone can have a long life if it can be fixed for cheap, even if it only stops you from purchasing another bedstand clock or music player.
2. Launch less stuff. Less phone models, less tablets, less laptops, less incremental improvements, and focus on durability and support. Which the company is pretty good with, but they could be better. Since Apple still seems to be a trendsetter company to this day for some reason I cannot support, set the fucking right trends.
I am sorry if what I'm saying hurts Apple's ego, but that's all I could see with their robot recycling campaign. Other companies like Google and Microsoft might not make huge flashy Earth day ads, but from the little I know because they don't advertise much, efforts to use renewable energy for data centers alone has already had an impact that Apple can't even dream of achieving. From mundane stuff like building solar farms and using geothermal energy, to crazy projects trying to dump datacenter in a shipping container in the ocean, these are actually doing something.
1
-
1
-
It's great that the government stepped back on this, but I have to wonder... this freedom from mainland China politics and whatnot is poised to end until 2047, is that right? I don't know deeply about the settlements that were made, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
There are three ways things could go when the time comes - China will reintegrate Hong Kong, Hong Kong will try to become independant, or there will further extentions on this deal.
Whatever way it goes, it kinda sounds like a fuse for a powder keg.
There have already been several signs that mainland China is trying to erode Hong Kong's independence little by little. This protest isn't the first, and it won't be the last. Hong Kong has an economic and financial leverage in the situation, but China is just too big to simply let go, and their totalitarian tendencies are just growing further than subsiding in recent years.
One has to hope that the tendency for the next decades will be that of reconciliation and diplomacy, rather than the current trend of proto-dictators, bad diplomacy and populism.
1
-
Yes, all of this.
Not only cars shouldn't be invading the privacy of owners and collecting all this personally identifiable data, car makers have shown repeatedly how incompetent they are at handling such data, repeatedly how incompetent they are at secure and private communications, repeatedly how they cannot manage to get a hold of qualified tech people to handle such things.
There was all this worry over decades now about putting computers in all cars to collect all sorts of data but zero worries about actually making the whole thing secure. It's now a complete sh*tshow, and exactly because of old assumptions that no one would be able to have access to it... because the system was proprietary or some crap like that. They are working at security through obscurity in the best cases, and no security at all in most.
Really, you'd have better chances handing over your data to Huawei's interns or something. The level of incompetence you see on random IoT companies is the same stuff that exists on car manufacturers.
So their argument works against them in those two levels. First, that they shouldn't be collecting and monetizing that data in the first place, particularly when they didn't ask for permission to do so, and they deserve a privacy invasion lawsuit for it. Second, that it's their own responsibility for securing any data they collect, and if they are not, they deserve yet another lawsuit for it.
We need people in regulatory bodies and courts that understand this at the blink of an eye, or else we'll continue having corporations and these alliance groups or lobbyists making these extremely disingenuous arguments that aim to fool uninformed politicians alone and only that. The fact that they write something this full of shit just shows how bad the situation already is.
1
-
I wrote a huge comment on this, yet again (yes, longer than this one, which is also long), but I'll be gracious and reduce it to this:
Call me when maglev trains are a reality. Until then, this is just far fetched design porn.
Ok, I'll explain things just a bit further, because I think there is a huge misunderstanding not about Hyperloop itself, but on Maglev trains, which I also didn't understand enough.
Currently, there are NO operational commercial maglev trains going cross state or cross country.
All that we have are test tracks, maglev transportation systems for short runs (the one in China going from airport to city) at very limited speeds, and stuff that is there more for show than to prove it as a ultra fast method of transportation. Not because we don't have the tech, but because it might not be feasible.
In fact, there have been maglev transportation systems in the past that ran at ridiculously low speeds that got shut down... I think in the UK? Something like a monorail style maglev train system that ran between airport and city at blindly blazing fast 20km/hr speeds or something? xD
The japanese Shinkansen/Bullet Train? It's good ol' electric train, no magnetic levitation involved.
Japan just opened/renewed a line... with the N700S series of Shinkansen cutting the Tokaido line time in half - that's from Tokyo to Osaka. Used to be 4 hours, now it's closer to 2.
It's travelling at 300Km/hr tops... on average closer to 230.
The maglev system Japan is testing reached a record top speed of 600km/hr, but it's really a record... not that it would operate that fast. But you know, it's today's record... plenty of room for improvements too I guess, if time, money and R&D is put into it.
It is true that maglev trains spend the most energy because of air resistance though... but it just didn't justify going the vacuum tube route, not even for tests.
Here's the kicker. Even though JR and others involved in the tech have a vague planned implementation date somewhere between 2032 and 2045 for a real commercial route between cities... the reality of it is that it's not known if it'll ever be financially feasible. Yes, maglev trains, not the Hyperloop.
See, the current Shinkansen, with regular electric lines, sharing tracks with commuter lines which reduces costs by a ton, are already expensive enough that it's already a question how worth it is. Shinkansens as they are use a whole ton of the regular commuter train infrastructure... same stations, same tracks inside cities, etc.
The Tokaido line is a combination of perfect distance between major cities that have insane traffic in between that it still makes sense to invest. They also already had the entire train infrastructure in the cities they attend. I took the Shinkansen from Tokyo Station to Kyoto back in 2018... it's a smooth ride, love it. xD
But if the route becomes just a bit longer, taking a plane can become cheaper and faster. I don't know the exact numbers, but if you ask expats or japanese people, you'll know. Sometimes you can get plane tickets from say... Narita to Hiroshima, cheaper than if you went by Shinkansen. Not sure if it's always like that, but at least on promo you can.
And we're talking about a country where the population is heavily dependant on train and metro as a public transportation system. Like no other in the planet, probably. It's heavily funded, people use it like crazy, tons of citizens simply don't own a car because they rely on metro and train for everything.
Cities grew up around the idea of having train and metro as main methods of transporation. It's just amazing and jaw dropping to see the whole thing work.
Now, we're questioning the feasibility for a maglev train system in a country that has the very best conditions to support it. Hyperloop is orders of magnitude harder to justify.
This isn't a Concorde case... this is arguing for outter space travel connecting two points in the globe... back when the Corncorde was being planned.
All new infrastructure, all new pods/trains, unproven tech, with costs that we don't even know if it is possible in the first place (here, you don't have to just lay tracks... it's tracks PLUS sealed metal tubes PLUS semi-vacuum system PLUS supporting structures - it's several times more expensive than laying tracks). Do we even have enough raw materials to do a significant enough route? Are passengers willing to pay 1000 times the price of a plane ticket to ride it? :P
Oh, about tunnels... tunnels are usually the most expensive part of building train routes, even when they are short and straightforward. Taking the Hyperloop underground... just nope. It's kinda counterintuitive because it sounds so straightforward, but actually digging hundreds of kilometers long underground tunnels that are straight enough to support a high speed transportation system... that's more complex than going to the moon. It might be more complex than going to Mars AND estabilishing a colony there.
And no, The Boring Company won't make it possible to do it. Well, not in our lifetimes in the speed it's going. Make things worse, you know what doesn't work well in underground tunnels? A vacuum. xD
Well, ok, if it's a semi vacuum it could help... but near vacuum, you'd basically need to dig the tunnel and put the metal tubes in there anyways, because rock is porous.
Man... just the thought of having to dig entire tunnels and then also put huge metal tubes in there, and pull a near vacuum inside them... I'm thinking, LHC costs. Interesting that the LHC also needs electromagnets and all that.
I know the LHC has very expensive scientific equipment, but you know, the equipment pales in comparison to infrastructure costs for those cases. And what the Hyperloop would be asking for is an extremely oversized version of it. Not electrons, but pods with humans inside, hopefully not for a collision. xD
For reference, the LHC has a 27km circunference, it's one of the most expensive scientific projects ever built and has a budget of 7.5 billion Euros.
I don't think feasibility for the Hyperloop is a question... the answer is a solid nope. And a decade won't make it a reality... since we're not sure a decade will be enough to make maglev trains a reality.
Sorry, don't mean to be a party pooper, but it is what it is. Perhaps instead of dreaming about the pie in the sky, we should just focus on the steps we're not sure will work first...
1
-
All media is, has always been, and will always be biased towards something. There never existed, doesn't exist and will never exist a definite truth machine. And since the dawn of printed press people on both sides have always been complaining.
The remediation to this innevitable fact has also never changed through the years. Critical reasoning and widening your range of sources.
These should surprise no one, and no one should think that search engines or social networks are any different than what is already out there.
The problem we have nowadays is not of one company, service or the other. It's about people getting lazy and dumb, stopping to use their own critical reasoning, relying on extremely criticized sources for their information, and trusting things without any form of verification or any research. There's an incredible ammount of superficial moronic information that doesn't stand the test of a single cursory verification that for some reason, entire groups of people believe somehow.
The whole scandal around Facebook and Cambridge Analytica revolves around this.
We don't have social networks or search engine crisis people, we have a cultural problem.
What increased with the over reliance of people on these unverified and unverifiable Internet sources are psychological and marketing strategies to make people trust some of the most untrustworthy sources of information.
This is also the problem that comes with advertisement revenue going not for a specific publication or tied to specific articles and stories, but rather evenly distributed through platforms. People get ad revenue money detached from the quality of content they are producing, so it shifts responsibility of evaluating content properly to readers.
If you cannot distinguish good sources from bad sources, what you get is a bunch of conspiracy theory morons yelling their lungs out and using the dirtiest misinformation tactics for attention, fame and money. And it has worked royaly so far.
This is both an entitlement problem as it is a decompassing of tech development and societal development. People were used to traditional media with ethical and moral standards and a high degree of verification and source proofing, they thought they'd get the same from an environment like the Internet that works in a completely different way.
Unreliable blogs without a hint of journalism in them often produced by people who don't even have a degree in anything cannot be considered the same as regular press, their interests are not the same, they are not held responsible for the crap they produce as much as press organizations, their funding is often shady, they often don't reveal sources or verify the information they use, some of them have no ethics or morals to speak of.
Algorithms will never be non-biased. The creation of an AI system, a machine learning algorithm, or whatever will always be biased from it's creation to all steps of development. Because all of those have humans behind it. When changes are not dictated by themselves, they will be dictated by costumers, all who will have their own biases. An unbiased system does not exist when it has to deal with ever changing, ever evolving information.
We also have to find better ways out of these monopolies. There is nothing these monopolies will solve by themselves. This is a matter of forcing competition so they have to fight among themselves over reliability, verification of information, and betterment of quality of content they produce or they allow through their own systems.
Advertisers have to better monitor where their pieces are appearing, and corporations have to take better responsibility on where their ad money is going.
People should not expect any of these corporations to solve the problems by themselves, as they didn't create them by themselves too. This is a societal responsibility.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
The worst part of following trends like that just for the sake of following is that past a certain threshold, it forces everyone else to also do it because it breaks mass production.
It's probably what ended up happening with removable batteries both for laptops and smartphones. When they started becoming non-removable, both R&D and mass production of removable batteries slowed or stopped altogether for those categories of batteries, to the point that even if a current laptop or smartphone manufacturer wanted to launch a model with modern removable batteries in mind, they'd probably have to either assume by themselves R&D and costly manufacturing for that model alone, or use batteries that could be fairly outdated and stuck in time.
Weirdly enough, I'm seeing this in other types of electronics, like a cheap-o portable keyboard I got sometime ago. It has a rechargeable and removable battery inside. You know what type? One of those that came in Nokia dumbphones bricks from 20 years ago.
For some reason, mass production of that type of battery endured somehow. It's an unofficial standard for all sorts of cheap-o electronics. I've also seen them in portable LED lights for photos and videos. You can look it up, it's Nokia BL-5C. I think even Amazon still sells it.
It works for this one not because it's the latest battery tech, but because it's probably super cheap to mass produce despite being extremely outdated. It's meh, good enough for some stuff. Which is something that doesn't work for flagship lines or products that have to be constantly evolving and a step above the rest.
Probably not Thinkpad's case since laptops haven't been changing a whole lot in terms of chassis and form factor recently, plus like Louis already put it, the battery specs itself didn't change. But yeah.. it becomes that much harder to be the only company keeping one particular spec alive. Perhaps they made the change because moving forward, if they plan on putting a more modern battery inside, it'll have to be non removable one way or another?
Or it was really just a cost cutting measure. It was cheaper to use some standard 90whr internal battery instead of their removable model. Which is of course still bad for costumers, but perhaps that was the logic behind it.
1
-
1
-
Complex issue, and I don't mean to poo poo on top of a jailer's good intentions, but money corrupts, so the questions are:
Is his' the only company authorized, provided that the eCigs are safe for jail environment, to sell them there? If so, what are the justifications?
If it's because there are no other alternatives, then sure. If not, then things gets shadier.
The economy side of things might sound exploitive to some, but it's just how it is inside the prisional system unfortunately... everything is way more expensive there, from phone calls, to Internet, to almost all other products that are sold to inmates through official channels.
Some of it is justified, some not, but there are extra expenses that goes with vetting processes, control, intermediaries and whatnot.
But the question still remains: how did they come up with the 10-15 price per eCig? How much of it is going to improve the conditions in prison, and how much is pure profit?
Are there any regulations estabilishing the practice, so that they can be done in a fair non exploitive manner?
Hard questions, but they have to be answered or else that business can end up finished with the sucessful entrepeneur ending up in jail together with his clients....
And I know the life of people working in jail is no joke. I definitely empathyze with what the guy is saying there... while forbidding cigarettes in jail might sound reasonable due to enclosed spaces and second hand smoking, it is an addictive drug with a full spectrum of withdrawal symptons and whatnot. It has bad consequences, as any other drug.
Friend of the family who has worked in the prisional system has PTSD and fights against bouts of depression yearly. But if there is a system like that to be had, it needs to be estabilished properly so it doesn't backfire.
1
-
We're just marching towards our end, and recent changes in technology just proves it.
Let me put things in a different angle than John put there.
Right around the time I was attending Journalism classes, most of my teachers were from the old traditional news days, they were saying that a change was happening with the Internet that if not stopped, would cause an unmitigated disaster of global consequences.
That disaster was people consuming uncredited and speculative news from the then nascent social media landscape.
People would replace their sources of information with social networks because it was more convenient, it was coming from people that they knew personally or acquaintances of friends, and it seemed to be more under their control in comparison to what journalists write on newspapers and what TV news has to say.
Because most people consuming news don't understand the entire treatment information gets behind the scenes (stuff like source checking, vetting of interviewees, etc), it all looks to have a similar weight.
So, what it all ends up summing to is the power of convincing. The problem is, the power of convincing people, without all the restraints that journalism as a profession has, without compromising for balance, source checking, taking in views of scientists, specialists and people who have studied the matter all their lives, without needing to go through all these filters and having ethical guidelines with bringing up and uncovering the truth behind the information you are putting out - without any of that the power of convincing people leans far more towards scammers, grifters, cults, and people in general who are willing to bend the truth for their own benefit, rather than the benefit of whoever is listening.
The idea back then is that we should never let social networks be a source for news, a source for information, a source for anything other than looking at cat pictures, family photos and whatnot. Because anything of real consequence would be at the risk of being exploited for profit or power.
Coming back to the present, that's exactly what happened, and the pain that it is causing all around the world is self evident. We are in a more radicalized world, more prone to abuses, violence and wars, and we followed exactly what my teachers have predicted in the past.
This speaks not only for human gullibility, the power of confirmation bias, Dunning Kruger effect, and how tech has been exploiting all of our psychological weaknesses for the privilege of those willing to exploit all of those for their own benefit, it also speaks about the incompatible speed of tech evolution vs our legal systems, our regulatory systems, our societal abilities to take control back of those tools to make ethical usage of them, our cultures more broadly speaking. It only made us worse off. The wealth gap widened, misinformation is out of control, extremism and tribalism in politics surged back up again, and we're on the verge of a global war.
I'm writing all of this so that people understand that the AI problem of today is the Internet and social network problem of the past, but exacerbated because of it's power and reach.
Every single evolutionary step tech takes, because of how society works today, ends up amplifying all of it's bad trajectories - and this can be historically proven.
What AI presents here is not a potential for AI apocalypse, robots taking over and crap like that - it's ill intended exploitive criminals leveraging AI to further their scams, grifts, frauds, exploits and whatnot. Not only in terms of power, but also similarly to stuff like crypto, NFTs and all this bullshit of the past decade. In politics radicalism has taken over, and in finance gambling like speculation also took over, with giant monopolies at the top of economies dictating blindly what the entire population gets. Late stage capitalism is reaching a point where it's starting to look like all the practical applications of socialism and communism - meaning dictatorships and authoritarianism.
And now we have yet another step in tech evolution being mandated, controlled and having it's workings restricted by monopolies uncaring about the well being of it's users, and more interested about the opinion of hedge funds and investment groups.
Much like the mass private data collection schemes, who do you think AI will ultimately be shaped to benefit?
1
-
1
-
ROFL, sure... for people to understand this better, solving Climate Change is absolutely trivial in comparison to even a single step in the entire video. Like any single one of them, no matter how simple it may have sounded. In fact, every single step has potential problems and side effects that are larger than Climate Change.
The video is a strong candidate for extreme oversimplification of things... xD Not trying to take a dig against Kurzgesagt, I still love the content and I understand what they are trying to do with this one to incentivize scientific exploration and enthusiasm, but it is what it is.
This is fundamentally the whole issue with terraforming propositions... the thing humanity has come closest to Terraforming is exactly that - Climate Change. Planet scale change in weather patterns at an incredibly fast pace.
With a planet as resilient to change as Earth is, that has evolved to the point of sustaining life after billions of years of constant changes and evolution, our lack of control on something as conceptually simple as Climate Change is already threatening our existence today...
Every single step on the proposition to terraform Mars is way bigger and more complex than Climate Change itself, it'll have it's own set of complex side effects and problems to deal with, most of them larger than Climate Change.
But hey, dreaming is the food for scientific experimentation I guess. The video is an incredibly overly optimistic to the max idea that we wouldn't botch the whole thing and make Mars even less habitable, or end up ruining Venus and Earth with it somehow. Which is entirely possible given the scale of things needed there.
By the way, since I'm being pessimistic here, this is also why I am extremely against trying to solve Climate Change with terraform-like propositions... stuff like space shields, peppering the atmosphere with Sun blocking chemicals, and other ideas that came around. We just don't know enough about any of them to really say we won't end up accelerating our extinction event with them because of some unpredictable side effect or runaway event. If we can clean up our act without shortcuts, then perhaps there is a route for the future of terraforming other planets.
In fact, figuring out how to clean up our atmosphere, recycle everything we use, generate power without burning fossil fuels, cleaning up our oceans, stopping wars, eliminating hunger worldwide, etc etc - those should all be considered a first step towards prepping and colonizing other planets. We need to overcome all of this so that we can advance towards populating other planets in a sustainable way, or else it'll be unsustainable from start.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
This is probably an oversimplistic view not appropriate for EE, but personally, I feel the entire thing boils down to one thing - stability. Or the hope for it.
I don't really want to get overly political, so sorry if I anger people on some side of the political spectrum, but I personally think that one of the major problems with the past US administration... which some can see as not a problem but an advantage... was just the pure chaos of it.
Detaching it from candidates, parties and whatnot - let's say your politics is very aggressive, protectionist, isolationist, making sudden unpredicted turns, actively going after perceived enemies, being sometimes irreductible, offensive, with power very centered on individuals and willing to take huge risks to get what they want.
I think this reflects on the economy and on stocks, particularly on already contentious markets - products and services.
The tech sector is particularly vulnerable to this, because almost all of it is currently under investigation, laws revisions, active evolution, etc. At the same time, it's also the sector with most potential growth. We are becoming more and more dependant on tech regardless of the ills it might bring.
So, it's basically, high risk high stakes.
It doesn't come as surprise to me that a change in politics potentially going for a more moderate administration, less aggressive, with messaging of bringing sides together, and promisses of being more stable, less bold, less heat of the moment... would attract investment.
Again, politics aside, from an investor perspective, what most want is steady secure growth, right? Newer markets being already as unstable as they are, investors wants as little external influence as possible. Sure, heavy betters will be there to put money on high risk high stakes, but it's like a gamble.
It seems like the general perception on countries other than the US around US elections is that Biden's administration is posed to be, in general, more stable and predictable than Trump's. Speculation based on general interviews I've seen, but still.
Looking at my own country, Brazil, which followed an extremely similar political trajectory over recent years, the effects seems pretty similar - only we're still 2 years away from the next presidential election.
Our currency has lost a whole ton of value since the current administration took over. A dollar used to be equivalent to 4.30 to 4.60 before the current president took over, it's been that way for a few years. It escalates in droves. Over 10 years ago it was closer to 2. It's been like that for years... currency exchange stays in a certain plateau for a time, and then suddenly spikes to new levels, usually after elections.
With the current administration, that is very Trump-like, with our president still not recognizing Biden's win, he said before that he wanted Trump to win, and he has a discourse that is almost an ecochamber of Trump's declarations and ideas... our currency has already hit 6 to 1 dollar, and is currently fluctuating between 5.30 up to 6. Our currency also got a bit more value after Biden's win, which is interesting because our president already butted heads with Biden once. But the hope for stability seems to be more important than that.
We also didn't handle the pandemic well, our president is aggressive and often blurting out bs on open TV and his own channels, he panders to his cult fan crowd, and lots of people feel the instability of this entire scenario to be very worrying.
So our economy is taking a nose dive. I don't think things will change much more until the next presidential election. Current administration favors the agricultural sector, Brazil is a primary goods exporter, and the heads of economic policy of this administration have always said that it's better for us to have a devalued currency to make our primary goods more attractive for exportation. In fact, primary goods inside the country - stuff like rice, beans, meat, etc etc - is becoming more expensive because the agriculture sector is favoring exports rather than the internal market, which is exactly what this administration wanted.
This is also why there is so much complaining about the burning of Amazon and other brazilian forests. As this administration favors the agricultural sectors immensely, it tends to overlook stuff like burning forests for pasture and farm. It's nothing new to be fair, these old practices have been around for decades, but the government posture plus climate change exaccerbated the burning of forests.
Anyways, went completely off tangent. But that's how I feel about it. Stability and predictability fosters growth.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
The only thing that "saved millions of lives" in recent history are the vaccines themselves, as more than proven by any scientific research or statistical data of respect, period. And perhaps a decision not to go to nuclear war whenever saner minds prevail.
This guy probably caused a ton of deaths, not the contrary. The likes of him scammed tons of people into unnecessarily exposing themselves to not only the pandemic, but to diseases we have effective vaccines and treatment to.
We shouldn't wait for divine retribution too, this guy needs to be put in jail for a very long time, and that in itself will "continue saving more lives". If social networks don't want to be responsible for even more deaths of people not taking the vaccine, they should deplatform this idiot and idiots like him permanently and forever. They don't have the mindset, maturity or preparation to be broadcasting anything anywhere.
Twitter, and I don't say this lightly, should be a completely bankrupt and non existing company today. This should've already happened as soon as Musk took leadership, if not even before that.
It far surpassed the top spot in disinformation by all main big tech platforms, not to mention outright criminal behavior, and it should not have a place to spew it's bullshit on entire populations. People who continue using this platform to this day is another form of disease that humanity has to come to terms with. There are no excuses for the type of thing this platform allows to spread, it's criminal behavior, and the platform should be shut down by force if needed. It'd be much better for the entire world if it just died off because no one wanted to use it, but at this point, since the platform somehow maintains it's insane user base, intervention is needed. People are addicted to the service and it's killing them.
This is something lots of governments and people still fail to understand - the plague of unhinged social networks is potentially even worse than the pandemic itself. The number of people dead because they fell into the psychological manipulation, radicalism and outright terrorism that has spread into these social networks are far over the millions now. It not only led to people's literal deaths, but far more into the figurative deaths which is when radicalized people and groups disconnect themselves from their own communities to form bonds only with radical cults, conspiracy theorists, and hate groups that preaches violence against everyone and anyone who disagrees with their lunacy.
If we don't take effective measures today against these hate groups, we'll be going to war against them tomorrow, and there will be many more victims then. We need to take action now. Mark my words.
1
-
1
-
ROFL nagai sugiro mo... yep. It's not the only extremely popular title to suffer from the same problem too, but the champion of them all... xD
I watched and read a good portion, but haven't kept up for the past... 8 years perhaps? No, I think it was even further back.... the last arc I think I watched was Dressrosa.
I mean, one day I might just kinda marathon it all... I already did this for all Ghost in the Shell material, Kenshin, Full Metal Alchemist, Full Metal Panic, Hunter x Hunter and a few other titles. One Piece would be one heck of months long marathon, but I don't think it'd be impossible... just that I'm not running a YouTube channel, plus taking care of kids, and all of that. xD
1
-
The ending conclusions are the most important part of this video, and I very much do agree with Dagogo....
There is something about this mixture of investment becoming like a casino, the way society and communications have become structured around social networks, and just the general state of late stage capitalism in the US, how much antitrust law is simply not working there, that is producing people with this sort of mentality, scammers that are this brazen, and who will go directly after the neck of these giant companies.
The only thing that changes is the sector, but both the general modus operandi, and how these people kinda rides their schemes using vulnerabilities that these major companies created for themselves, they don't really change.
But it's not about millenials - it's about an environment that allows only that.
And the interesting part in all of this - I don't really expect for the situation to change anytime soon.
Elizabeth Holmes used biotech fairy tale and technical mumbo jumbo, plus of course marketing skills that also put her everywhere in the media and beyond, to drive a scam into several huge investors and healthcare providers.
The FTX case is just self explanatory since Sam Bankman-Fried just used crypto to fool a whole ton of people... it's just that he targeted very high.
And then you have this case that Dagogo put up.
You know what is common between all of those cases? Greedy people with FOMO that were so desperate to get in they didn't bother even to do some extremely basic background checks. And it wasn't only the final victims, it's a chain of people like that. They were so enamored with all the possibilities of making tons of cash out of some new fangled idea, overly sold by the media marketing scheme, that they went full in with tons of money without thinking twice.
By the way, this is pretty similar to the average crowdfunding scam. It's just that instead of scamming a ton of people out of a little bit of money from each and everyone, it goes after few people with a whole ton of money.
Their downfall was as spectacular as they were predictable.
A magic box that spits out hundreds of blood results in minutes, far surpassing the latest tech from a number of long established biotech companies.
A crypto trading company based in the Bahamas that was magically pulling credit out of nowhere while the whole crypto market was in freefall.
A student loan facilitator company that somehow amassed hundreds of millions of costumers, a feat that you almost don't see happening even with well established banks and investment firms.
It's all stuff that don't even pass a basic sniff test, but because selection bias and survivorship bias is so strong in the days of social media, you get a ton of people, even in the higher echelons of society, willing to throw money at every single unbelievable implausible crap that caress their confirmation bias in some manner. And these same people will refuse to put money into anything that is more down to earth, realistic, and plausible.
Which then only feeds further the late stage capitalism spiral of despair.
There is no route to compete in the market anymore because it's completely dominated by monopolies and oligopolies. The only way to get into it is by creating some magic unicorn that will disrupt the monopolies. But you can only do that by fooling tons of rich people into giving their money. And so, you do whatever you can to accomplish that. If you have the intention to really come up with a product at some point or not, doesn't matter. Rinse repeat.
Very easy to see how this can happen so much in the US. Much like the mass murder problem, each one of those examples are just exemplary of a far bigger problem that American society has bred over the years. And it won't be solved unless a whole bunch of components of these big problems are properly identified, and then eliminated one by one. So, it's not going away anytime soon. Particularly when so many people are still trapped in the denial stage.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
The worst is yet to come... nice feeling to have. xD
Agreed with the overload of information - we might not be in the definite worst year in human history, but we're likely in the most anxiety driven one... because nowadays we know about even minor disasters happening all around the globe, political situations, wars, etc. Well, at least the information is at reach for far more people than any point in history, despite still being a privilege for the majority to get it.
We are also keenly aware of how likely global scale disasters are coming in the future, and how little we can do about it... how the systems and cultures we have in place today are actually helping us to go faster towards it.
We're also probably in the most interconnected and interdependent global situation we've ever been, built on assumptions that change wouldn't happen fast enough to break it all up, but waking to a reality that this really isn't the case, and there interconnect can be very fragile with relatively minor things risking it all... pandemic, local war, a ship getting stuck, localized Climate Change effects, panic or anxiety driven overspending...
I won't be around anymore to see it... but I'm fairly certain that in the next 100 years or so there will be some year that will trample it all. 2-3 plus extra degrees of warming, multiple amplified natural disasters displacing millions to billions of people, resource wars for survival making a huge comeback... and then we could have major eruption, earthquake and tsunami events, perhaps another pandemic and a Carrington level geomagnetic storm event, perhaps some cascading effect that comes with all the warming that we're still not sure how it'll go, like a shift in deep ocean currents, flipping of magnetic poles, cascading species extinctions... who knows, right? Heck, even nuclear war isn't out of the table anymore. We aren't even close to the breaking point devastating effects of climate change and we're already back at a cold war situation... I can't have much hope things will get better when Climate Change gets to it's worst point.
Anyways, doom and gloom with Joe. xD
Though I have to say, from a different perspective, perhaps it'd be best to say we lived though a rare if not unique century of relative peace and prosperity, right? I mean, we certainly had problems, weird to say that with the pandemic and war... but were there any centuries that were better than ours? Well, given that we're only at the beginning and it'll definitely get bad by the end of it, but still.
1
-
Brazilian here. Don't get me wrong, I think the concept is awesome and all, but I can tell you why it wouldn't catch in Brazil (for now), and surprisingly enough, it's not only because we're poor (which we are).
On the energy front, we already have big reliance on... hydroelectrical power. My hometown is where the Itaipu dam is located, it provides power for the southern and southwestern region in Brazil where most power hungry capitals are.
As some will know, it's second only to 3 Gorges Dam in China.
Of course, we also have a huge mix of other power plants including nuclear, coal, gas and whatnot, as we also have other hidroelectrical power plants, a few solar and few wind turbine based ones. Like the US, Brazil is a huge country.
Point being, government is unlikely to invest in new tech for power, given that we have far bigger problems to solve.
It also doesn't help that we've been going on decades long stints of governments that puts technology, research and education as far bellow in the priority list as they can, seemingly.
It's not only a problem of lack of government funding, it's part of culture and society too unfortunately. Brazil can't see itself as a progressive technological country. Instead of looking forwards, you still see a huge overreliance of base primary sector. Banana republic. We export cheap raw materials, and pay our asses for imported consumer goods.
It's held back by all these factors, a governmental protectionist agenda that makes everything tech from outside the country cost double or more for brazilian citizens and businesses, so it's always an uphill battle. The few people who get a chance to excell in research and tech areas often moves out of the country to further develop in their respective area, because they feel abandoned in a country that doesn't value it. Insurmountable ammount of taxes, bureaucracy, historical lack of funding and resources, all gets in the way of whoever is trying to innovate in these areas here. I've heard so many tales of people feeling defeated and giving up that it's no wonder for me anymore.
As for the other element, potable fresh water, Brazil is lying on top of some of the biggest fresh water reserves on the planet. Which as you can imagine, is both a blessing and a curse. It has developed into a culture of excess and disregard for water. With climate change, what has been happening in recent years is that several cities are facing water shortages during summer months. But it's not because we don't have enough fresh water - it's because infrastructure is limited.
Large metropolitan areas highly dependent of only a few reserves that have been intermitently drying up during hot summers leaving tons of citizens without water.
It could be solved without desalinization plants or something like this ocean thermal energy plant, just by tapping other reserves, but it's not done because infrastructure is costly and our government is too corrupt, too poor and too fucking dumb to effectively do something about it. Politicians are only thinking of how to empty our coffers for their own benefit, and how to re elect themselves to keep milking this cow. Our current president, for all the idiotic pandering to military dictatorship times he talked about, is ending up to be as corrupt and as unproductive as his predecessors.
To be fair, despite all of the military dictatorship horrors brazilians had to endure, it was in the early days of it that most big infrasctructure projects happened in Brazil. Major roads, Itaipu dam, and several major infrastructure projects happened during the dictatorship. But nowadays, politicians are mostly worried about getting their fat checks, stealing as much as they can during their term, and then trying to go for a repeat or occupy some lesser public job so they can keep sucking the blood out of public coffers... you end up having zero major infrastructural projects because they don't have immediate returns, and in rare instances they happen, it is so likely that these projects will get derailed by corruption and bad management, that it's often just not worth the hassle.
So there you go... it's a very interesting idea, but like Joe said, the location limitation is kind of a self defeating factor... well, at least in Brazil's case. We have a whole list of problems to solve before getting to that point, unfortunately. There is so much we could already be doing better..
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
It's a social construct, and a bit of semantics play perhaps, to have things that are far more encompassing than what it first appears to be.
On a purely scientific and theoretical degree, I personally understand that there is no actual complete free will, freedom of choice, among other related concepts.
Most people have the power to imagine alternate scenarios in their minds because that's also a useful biological tool for species growth and maintenance perhaps. Or just part of the chaos that defines our species, and potentially the universe.
But if you take an absolutist approach and don't think about other semantical meanings of free will, taking only the literal scientific approach - then even the criticism about violence against criminals is also a moot point. If criminals don't have free will while committing crimes, then those who punish them with violence also don't have free will to chose how they feel and act upon it.
Everything becomes justifiable, because everything is deterministic.
In the very same way that you could attribute criminal violence as deterministic, you could also determine violence against criminals as also being deterministic. There is no separation there.
Violence is also just a result of evolutionary processes, that if it's already determined to cease at some point in the history of our species, it will. You don't have to do anything about it. Or rather, you will already do something about it as it's pre-determined.
We also start making all sorts of questions around ethics, morality, religion, radicalism, and other concepts that are valid or invalid on the basis of it not actually being a choice, but just something that came up due to genetics or environmental factors. And you know, there is definitely some of that happened that people overestimate in being purely a matter of choice, but we need thresholds to define responsibility and actions to be taken as response. Interpretation is important because if you frame everything as being deterministic, then why would you take action for anything? Hedonism, ennui, emptiness or something takes over and you do whatever, or do nothing, and go with it.
See that it's contradictory to ask for a change in the system, when you are questioning the concept of free will entirely. Everything is deterministic, so why are you fighting? Is that your own determinism?
Ex. if I as a person who wishes the most gruesome punishment against those who commit crimes don't have a free will to chose whether this is right or wrong, why should I change my opinion on that? Isn't that just my genetics telling how I should feel about it? And for that matter, who chose what is right or wrong anyways?
And further, isn't wishing horrible stuff to happen to people you don't like also not a product of free will, but rather a consequence of physics, genetics, or evolution as a whole?
This also can have dire consequences in terms of hedonism and plain amoral behavior. Mostly because of semantics. Free will is like a structure or scaffolding to think about your relationship to the world that surrounds you, or rather the construct made in your brain to interpret it. That structure supports the way you think you should deal with relationships, with yourself, with communities and societies in a larger scale. It may not be a literal sense of acting freely according to your own will, just part of a deterministic event that's like an invisible hand that guides your actions, but it is still there, and you can still think about it as something that guides your actions.
The fact is, we humans have limited perception, limited capacity for reasoning, and a limited interpreted understanding of the physical world that surrounds us. We can only process and interpret so much of the "real". Allegory of the cave and all that.
We could go on and on in this discussion. For instance, how cruel and unusual punishment became a thing for our species. Does it really purely entails immoral and unethical behavior, or is it a coping mechanism for our species, plus a tool for social behavior enforcement? Is looking at it (cruel and unusual punishment) as a "wrong" thing to do purely scientific, or just another social construct? Did it make more sense on other settings and societies? Is it really evolution, or just a different way of thinking, different ideology, different politics? And how do you decide which is right and wrong? If your decision on that is not the product of free will, but rather determinism, would the choice of others to reject it also not be free will, but rather deterministic?
Anyways, it's kind of a discussion that folds into itself.
For the free will paradox, I kinda think about the simulation hypothesis. Whatever the result is, I don't think the brain is equipped to have a full understanding of it. It goes beyond our capabilities.
So I tend not to consider those for real life choices, as it's not practical to think in those terms. For the good and the bad.
1
-
1
-
Yep, because people supporting a dictator for a position of power, instead of proposals and projects, makes it all that much easier to exploit, scam and corrupt. And these days, people are so overloaded with information and tribalism, plus personal issues, that it's just convenient to choose someone to delegate all decisions to, no matter what they are - which becomes a dangerous vicious cycle.
The situation for people become worse and worse overtime, which leads them to not having time to think about politics, which leads them to elect people based not on propositions but on political propaganda and cult of personality, which leads to their situation becoming even worse, and so on.
The entire modus operandi of the far right is that of scammers and grifters - you put your blind trust in this guy who will supposedly fix everything and solve all the problems you think you have, you don't have to look at results and actions. You don't even have to think about propositions and projects, or the problems you think you have too deeply - just know that he's "there for you" and everything will solve itself up, all problems will go away. US politics have been trapped in this cycle for a while now, it arguably didn't even start with Trump. But the thing about this cycle is that it will always end in scammers, because it attracts them, because it mostly benefits them. And it turns politics as something unattractive to people who really should be there.
When electors have time to realize what they've done, it'll be already too late. It's the price paid for political apathy, voting with cult of personality in mind alone, and letting scammers control government. You delegate control to the monorail guy, the consequences are obvious.
But this is apparently one lesson the country will need to once again learn the hard way.
1
-
1
-
Lifegoals for 20+ years, that's what this is.
No, really... the very first laptop I ever bought, an Acer Ferrari 5000 series, was supposed to be a desktop replacement so I could get rid of the huge box and too many cables.
It never really worked out. Because games.
After several years, I tried once again with a Dell XPS m1330. It also didn't work out.
This time because games AND video editing.
Of course, they worked plenty well as laptops during trips, which I needed anyways, so disappointing but not useless.
I also wasted too much money on a stupid purchase thinking about this: A Dell made absolute crap Windows tablet that had a pretty sturdy but badly designed docking station... forgot the model right now, but it was bad. I only got it because back then it was the only choice for Windows tablet, Microsoft doesn't sell the surface line officially in my country, and it didn't have any dock solution back then too. This is a purchase I regret.
But when nVidia came out with the thousands series, and then the MaxQ line, at the prices they came out, it was then that I started thinking that hey, 3rd/4th time might be the charm after all.
That plus improvements regarding USB-C, Thunderbolt 3, docks and dongles, plus general power of small devices including mobiles.
I have no money for the investment right now, but that is likely the way I'm going next time I have money to invest in a new system. A beefy docking station, a Thunderbolt 3 capable laptop, single cable solution to connect to peripherals and monitor.
I actually kinda did an experimental step further for mobile, currently testing and prodding. My mom and I needed a smartphone upgrade, and so I chose, despite not being a huge fan of the brand, Samsung phones that are mirroring and DeX (desktop mode) capable.
I forcibly learned during the pandemic that I can do almost everything I need with an Android device, albeit not as fast and efficiently as with a regular Windows PC. And that my mom probably could do everything she needs with a smartphone plus a desktop mode, with a bit of adaptation.
Further, I've been trying to do a bunch of stuff for several years now using all sorts of hacks in holiday trips to relatives homes. I used wireless dongles, chromecast, Android boxes, android tablets, windows tablet, laptops, mhl cables, and a bunch of other stuff.
This year, when I was looking for a new smartphone for my mom, I found these Samsung models I didn't hear much about. The 10e and 10 Lite. It has almost all specs I need for relatively cheap right now. So I went for it.
It's gonna at the very least solve this whole holiday trip problem. Perhaps it'll solve some others.
Huge tangent aside, it's been a dream of mine for a very long time to have a setup like that. Not only for mobility mind you, but also to reduce the number of devices I have to deal with and maintain on a daily basis. It's too much time spent with updates, synchronization, transfering and whatnot when you use both a desktop and laptop daily. Even if you use cloud sync stuff, automation software to keep configurations as cloned as possible, and whatnot... it's still a painful process that takes time.
So it's getting there. Almost there. Mind you, I still need more than one complete system to separate things, but perhaps the ideal setup would be one Windows laptop with docking station, one Linux the same way, and an Android phone with desktop mode capabilities. It should cover almost any scenario.
Depending on stuff like trip length, where to, what projects I'm working on, and what I expect to use, I'd take one thing or the other.
Thanks for sharing!
1
-
I think those lasted longer here where I live... or perhaps I had some on the back of a drawer for ages until I found them. xD Because I remember seeing those like just a few years ago.
In any case, interesting idea, but ultimately Alec gets it right - It never gets used because of how people regularly treats batteries. The standard already is to get a fresh set, replace, check if goes back to work, and if it does then you know it's really the batteries. :P
I think the few times I tried using those, other than for novelty, was mostly when I had a bunch of super old batteries laying around that I didn't know if they still held a charge.
So you get the thing, shove your nails hard into it, don't know if the tester is working or not, don't know if it finished the reading and the battery is dead or if you stopped pressing hard enough, and so on. xD
But it's the problem with lack of tactile feedback. Is it working or not? Do I have to press harder than this, or is the battery just dead? How long do I have to shove my nails into this thing for it to work? etc.
Might be wrong, but I think these would be used more often if it was something like pressing a button, a regular button I mean, and it giving you a definite answer - like a red or green check.
1
-
Agreed, particularly with the closing.
I am absolutely convinced that all these sanctions will have far reaching consequences... not only against Russia, but the increasing tensions with China too. Most people are not fully aware how interdependent countries have become globally, and how much trade happens between nations that always seems to be politically at odds.
I personally thought this break would happen first with China instead of Russia, but hey, surprise surprise. And perhaps, better that way.
I also find no comfort that China could be coming next, because the consequences of a break in relations there could be far more devastating.
The thing is, sanctions and a strong response is warranted one way or another. This is an unprovoked war that is targeting innocent people and breaking all rules of engagement imaginable... Putin single handedly turned his back to progress made between nations since WWII and perhaps even before it. It's a complete disgrace. Seems to me no one, particularly presidents and leaders all around the world, wanted to believe a president of a country this big would go so low in such a short period of time.
It cannot go without an extremely strong response, even if the cost is high for us too.
Personally, I'd even accept if things went even further, because what is happening there needs to be shut down in the strongest way possible. We already have two concurrent global crisis to deal with, there is no need for a rogue dictator to be mounting over even more problems on top if we are to have a chance to deal with the other two (by which I mean the pandemic and climate change).
It's just not only about invading a sovereign nation unprovoked anymore, there are so many human rights violations, agreements between nations being ripped apart, and all sorts of international deals that have been burned to the ground that it has become totally inexcusable. For the lame excuses Putin has been producing with accusations of Nazis in Ukraine, he sure sounds like Hitler with third reich aspirations.
And please, no whataboutism replies, ok?
If it didn't happen now, it was gonna happen in the near future anyways, since this entire thing seems to be a power grab for economic and military influence over the entire Eurasian continent.
Even if it doesn't serve to stop Russia now, and provokes a global economic divide, it'll at the very least in the short term weaken Russian economy and send a message. If there is a chance these sanctions will cripple Russia to a point it can't afford the next military campaign, it's better for it to happen now than letting it pass and having to do it in a future where the global situation might be even worse.
1
-
1
-
I'll explain a bit to those who still didn't get the problem.
You have more than a few major sectors that got trapped by US or global monopolies/oligopolies and "sharing economy" traps, which are both anti-competitive, and takes money out of the regular local economy flow and puts it directly into the speculative market - stock exchange and investment.
With more and more people, particularly during and after the pandemic, buying everything online - what you actually have is a move of a portion of the money everyone spends on a daily basis going to these huge monopolies that are not local - heck, for the EU they are mostly not even national.
So, "ridesharing" companies, food delivery companies, short stay companies, all these app based companies. No matter what you think of them, and how you hated the alternative or whatever, when you kill stuff like hotels, taxi cab service, restaurants having their own hired delivery employees, and stuff like that, what you are really doing is taking away portions of the money from the local economy, and sending it off to these international companies.
And then you add that to social media, which has gobbled up the entire sector of advertisement, retail both with Amazon and Chinese giants like Alibaba and the "trash for you to buy for cheap" such as Temu, Wish and whatnot, plus a myriad of other companies like those - and what you get is weak local consumption, several companies closing down because they cannot compete with those, in a spiral of death.
This is why you are watching this video not being in the EU, and still feeling like this is also happening in your country. It's not so much that people are spending less, it's that people are spending less locally.
All of this creates a pressure towards local businesses to downsize more and more overtime, because they cannot compete with late-stage capitalism monopolies that not only dominate by unfair competition, most of them are also engaged with active anti-trust measures to stamp out all competition, including local.
And it's these very same companies who are investing massively and at the forefront of using AI and robots to also kill jobs and kill whatever chance of competition smaller businesses had against them, so this trend will only get worse overtime.
Because of the line goes up late stage capitalism mentality, they'll keep going at it until they destroy entire economies. Profit is the objective above all else after all, sometimes even above sustainability - their own sustainability.
With the direction politics is going, there are also no chances of this getting any better. Too many nations electing fake populist leaders with a pro status quo, often neoliberal economics ideals, let the market regulate itself minimal state interference discourse, which will all inevitably give even more power exactly to these trends that are already killing local economies.
1
-
Ooooh, nice purr microphone... xD
So yeah, totally agreed, among the major reasons why I don't buy any IoT crap, and that I also don't go for Internet connected appliances.
The way I see the vast majority of IoT crap is stuff that people in the tech community, blogs, channels, etc, advertise and try to sell a lot, but ultimately most really smart people who actually work with tech would never touch those with a 10 foot pole because by now the vast majority of them have already been burned by cases like this Arlo camera, or the baby camera that spied on kids, or the smart home system that stopped working, or the smart assistant that recorded voices even when it was supposed to be off, or the smart ringing bell that recorded and sent videos directly to police, or the smart hub system that was a nightmare to setup and suddenly stopped working after an update, or all the security cameras with a hard coded easy to find out admin and password account, etc etc etc to infinity and beyond.
If you tell me an oven, microwave, blender, whatever needs an app to use, I steer clear from it. Needs an account? Even worse. Needs proprietary cloud service connectivity? GTFO.
Each single step of those the thing looks more and more like eWaste to me. It feels like I'm buying disposable junk only to have an endless string of problems until I finally decide to get rid of it. One more crap to be pissed off about because of poor costumer service and abusive post sale treatment.
I don't have a particular huge need for security cameras right now even though I've been interested in testing them for a while now, perhaps not for myself but for family members, friends and whatnot. I kinda kept track about news on them and researched a bunch of stuff on it for almost the past decade or so.
I even understand how convenient some cloud stuff is with app and ready all in one packages are, but personally I'll never vouch for any solution that is proprietary, has a closed impossible to audit firmware, uses no common open standards, requires subscription payments, requires proprietary software and app to use, is tied to a single company cloud service, among other items.
Priority for something like a security camera system to me is longevity and flexibility to use. I'm not about to drill holes, pass cables and do all sorts of stuff to install crap that might stop working in less than a couple of years. Oh, which is something required because I'd never trust wireless systems for stuff like that.
The time I'd spend doing all that is more valuable than whatever convenience I'd trade, whatever deal these companies are promising. That's not even mentioning privacy and security issues, dependence on update cycles, all the headaches you get with those.
Internet of Things is really Internet of Trash. But you know, we've been saying this long before even the name came out, that it was an extremely bad idea to overcomplicate stuff and connect it to the Internet for a modicum of convenience. It's sometimes already bad enough to try shoving basic non connected electronic stuff in appliances that don't need it, making it Internet connected is several times worse that.
Anyways, back to security cameras, last time I was looking into this more than a few years ago the base idea was to get IP cameras compatible with some open standard like ONVIF and pair it with a home server or NAS for monitoring, with some open source software, locally. I remember some of the names for software... iSpy, Shinobi, Kerberos, Zoneminder.
Never got to the point of actually testing it, and I understand it's way more finnicky and complex than just getting one ready to use commercial package, plus cameras compatible with these tends to be more expensive not to mention having to bank for the local storage solution, but it's the only acceptable route for me personally.
1
-
18 yrs old being recruited, trained and then going abroad in war or defense situations have absolutely nothing to do with untrained unchecked citizens also having access to it... this is like saying everyone should have the right to drive heavy machinery or fly a plane whenever and wherever they want without a license just because those are employed in some situations. It's maliciously misleading, and offensive to your constituents' intelligence, if not indicating your inability to occupy the position you are currently in for lack of common sense, logic and personal responsibility.
Feral pigs can be hunted and killed by other means other than, again, letting anyone go into a gun shop and buy enough weapons and ammo without justification or proof of need. And even if firearms are the most optimal solution, there is no reason not to regulate it. If that's why you need it, fine, prove it and you can buy it.
Also, people aren't even asking for bans... they are asking for control. It's not that much to ask, considering a whole lot of things are already regulated to prevent death and destruction by accident or on purpose - vehicles, building sites, several types of tools and machinery, etc.
It is ridiculous that a country that has extremely strict restrictions and regulations on everything from flying a dog sized drone to crap like Kinder Eggs, magnetic toys and stuff like requiring you to pay for business licenses to blog or call yourself an interior designer cannot see logic in having restriction and regulations to handle firearms of all things.
There is absolutely no sane reason not to regulate the one tool that has the single purpose of causing as much destruction to the other living, receiving party. The narrative would make more sense if anyone could just pick a plane up and start flying around with people inside without regulations or licenses needed, if the military just took any roadside idiot and shipped them away without training or evaluation to other countries, and stuff like that. What people are asking there is for application of logic and balance, nothing more.
If things that can be dangerous for public safety but also have other purposes need regulation for protection of society and innocent lives, how can the thing that has the sole purpose of taking lives not have any regulation? It makes absolutely no sense.
It should also be mentioned that several countries that have all sorts of problems with invading species, dangerous wild animals around, and whose farmers and whatnot have to deal with them all the time can live perfectly well with gun control, if not outright bans, because they are not single minded enough to think guns are the solution to everything.
1
-
1
-
It's interesting how we can trace parallels in human experiences here on Earth... I'll pick a very specific personal example. xD
Me an a bunch of relatives went to Japan on a trip in 2008, then again in 2018. We're a japanese descendant family, with my grandparents coming to Brazil when they were kids, during or right after WWII, the biggest period of immigration from Japan to Brazil.
Back in 2008 we already had cellphones and whatnot... but it wasn't a fully developed thing. The iPhone was released back in 2007 if I'm not mistaken, but I don't think anyone in the family owned a smartphone until the early 2010s... my first one was a Nokia 1020 which was launched in 2013 - and it was Windows Phone! xD
So, instead of doing what you do today, getting a japanese Sim card or a pocket Wi-fi and proceed like normally, we did not have cellphones or smartphones on the first trip, most back to home communication was done via pay phones. But I also dragged my first huge ass laptop, an Acer Ferrari, to Japan so that we could use Skype for some voice and video chat using the hotel's wired Internet.
Also used it to plan routes, print maps, and whatnot.
Oh, most of my relatives and myself do not speak or read japanese... couple of them do understand and talk a little bit of it, but it's very outdated japanese from the WWII era, so it's pretty different.
This trip is pretty much the furthest you can go in terms of Earth traveling... xD Brazil is almost on the exact opposite side of the globe to Japan.
So, stark contrast from the trip in 2008 and the trip in 2018... in 2018 we just got there, every family member on the trip got a japanese sim card for data, and before we even left Narita Airport everyone was already back inside their digital social networks. xD News sources, social networks, chat apps, groups, etc. Multiple choices for video chat and conference, anytime of the day, plus the social networks and chat app feeds.
Perhaps this is part of the reason why the 2008 trip was more enjoyable? xD Well, a tiny part of it I guess.
But further contrast... a big part of my relatives, lots of sisters and brothers of both my mom and dad went to work in Japan back in the 80s and 90s. That was a whole different thing. International calls only, for most of them just once a week because it was expensive. Despite being pretty harsh, it's more or less what I also did here in Brazil when I moved to study in a different city back in... 1998 I think. The homesickness is kind of a big problem when you can only call once a week and lose lots of contact.
And then, going further back, when we were in Japan, my relatives tried finding the part of the family that stayed in Japan. Because back at the time of immigration, most families who sent members overseas to countries like Brazil, were poor, numerous, and often starving rural families that had no other choice.
The trip took... I think something like a month by ship. My grandfather on the father side was actually born during the trip, he's brazilian because he got registered when he got here.
It was very very hard to find relatives, and there were no surviving first degree that we could find... and most of them weren't very interested too. xD Well, you'd get suspicious too if suddenly out of nowhere a supposed distant relative from the other side of the world came calling saying he/she wanted to meet.
Let me clarify this. Some of my relatives had a relative of theirs who moved to Japan some 40 years ago during the golden age of brazilian immigration to Japan, married into a japanese family, and guided us on our trip. So we had fluent japanese guidance and all that, but even then, it was hard to find distant relatives.
That gives a pretty good idea on how very distant very hard communications ends up going.
I think the family has some evidence of letters written and sent in the very early days, but this just stopped at some point, and we're not even sure why. So it's a gap of over 50 years of non communication until we made our trip there. None of the family was living in the provinces they were originally from, and we couldn't find direct relatives, just like the daughter of a cousin, stuff like that.
I imagine Mars would be a mix of better with worse. Worse because of sheer distance, costs of communication, being basically impossible for visit in the near future, etc etc.
But better because of how interconnected society has become, and how famous and important the first Mars colonizers would be. At least records and coverage would be there.
On an individual level, this has become much easier these days too. Even if it's hard to do everyday live communication, when it comes to leaving intentionally or non intentionally records of your history, life, and whatnot, that has become far more accessible.
For instance, separate case, I know that a japanese interchange student that stayed at my home back in 2002 if I'm not mistaken has moved from her city, to Kyoto, and then to a city to the South of Japan (Fukuoka), married, had a kid that is around 2 years old... because of e-mail, and then chat app. We visited her on both trips. We have photos, and conversations during these past almost 20 years. It of course could still be lost and nothing of it left over the years, but it's more permanent than lost letters of the past, to some degree.
Anyways, interesting topic Joe, sharing some thoughts. o/
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
I think if teachers in those schools were honest and straight about it, they'd make a clear distinction between the country they came from back at the time, violently abducted and whatnot, and the North Korea they are actively talking about these days, which would do just the same to people from other countries.
As a brazilian of 4th generation japanese descendancy, I know full well how different a country can be between the years after WWII and modern day.
Japanese people and descendants also suffered some level of persecution here, though this has long not been the case anymore.
And in the same way, there were lots of japanese living in Brazil and those of japanese decendancy back decades ago that actively worshiped the japanese emperor, and took a very long time to accept that Japan had lost the war and renounced his position.
The potential problem I see in those modern North Korean schools is one of cultism and worshipping. Even if they are actively discriminated against, which is bad, there needs to be some level of understanding that for the most part they can only enjoy some priviledges and everyday life stuff because they are living in Japan.
Things that don't exist in modern North Korea, rights and priviledges, as well as whatever limited support they get in Japan.
And since they are not living inside an active tyrannical dictatorship, it truly is their teachers and peers responsibilities to not only show the current fanatical side of their country of origin, but also all the ways it's different from the culture they are participating right now.
Their origin might be north korean, but their current culture, living standards, and everyday life is fully japanese, even if flawed with prejudice. If you are living in Japan, preaching for the current north korean regime, when it's launching nuclear missiles over the country you are living in, you are a f*cking hypocrite and frankly completely ignorant, I don't care who you are or how your antecessors were treated.
If this bridge cannot be gapped, I see no reason for people to support it as it's no different from a fanatical religious cult. No one wants to put money into orgazations that will look you as enemies until the day they die. They keep saying that they could only live and prosper due to North Korea previous financial support, but that's bullshit and they know it. North Korea didn't tore a whole in the neighborhood they are living in, claimed rights to land, and are actively monitoring student routes and whatnot. It's obvious that they are only there, and the institutions they rely on are only there, because there was some level of grants and permissiveness from the japanese government and population. It's not even a demilitarized zone or some diplomatic accord. They live in Japan. Their children are japanese. They got their citizenships, and no doubt enjoyed some level of welfare and whatnot even if it was tainted with discrimination.
I don't see anything wrong with preserving part of the culture they came from, but that is different from supporting an educational scheme that might be bringing up terrorists in the future.
The entire discourse is weird anyways. As pointed out, these people are not poor and ignorant anymore. If they have an undying and unflintching love with the current North Korean regime, just go back. They can afford to pay for visits, they can afford to support all that structure, they can certainly afford to move back.
The disparity between North Korean propaganda and reality has to be made very clear in those schools, irregardless of worries about cultural preservation. Schools are places for learning first and foremost, if it's there only to spread propaganda, it's training grounds or a church.
The situation is complex and delicate, but at the very least Koreans living inside Japan have to understand the discrepancy of the entire thing. They cannot be promoting the propaganda and preaching about political figures that are actively trying to destroy the country they are currently living in. We have enough information going around to discredit the stuff Kim Jong Un preaches about the rest of the world. If you are gonna play blind on this, it's your responsibility, you cannot complain about being shunned. And does the finacial support still stands or is it a relic of previous administrations?
The key question here is: If current North Korea goes to war with Japan and targets it's cities including themselves, what is the position those students and teachers will be defending? If teachers from those schools are gonna take a position of spies and infiltrated agents, seeing the country they are currently living in as the enemy, then it's a done deal: they should not be allowed any priviledges that enemy agents don't have. It's down to the route of POWs and deportation. Culture preservation is important, but in the situation they are currently in cannot be the main flag or discourse. There needs to be options for students to assimilate the culture of the country they are currently living in, which seems to be happening regardless of teachers discourses. Those kids don't behave anything like north korean students... they are all very japanese it seems.
Believing in carefully monitored and curated visits to North Korea motivated by propaganda is just stupid. These people have far more access to information to know better than that. But being aggressive towards ignorance just leads to a recrudescence of it I guess.
Ultimately, it's also up to current generations to chose what they will go with.
And I know about the attrocities Japan commited against several asian countries during the times of war, just as well as it was certainly not the only country to do so. And I agree to some level that Japan is obliged to recognize this and have reparations steps, but it's dangerous to mix things up like that, and if you are going to use past generations ressentment to play the victim your entire life, justifying a position of violence and hatred towards the country you are currently living in, I really don't think you deserve any type of support. That should be clear in any type of situation.
1
-
If the war on drugs becomes an actual war, the results will be the same, at the cost of even more lives.
It's because the source of the problem continues being ignored and is never targeted that got US to this point - it's an equality and health issue, not a production and distribution issue.
It doesn't matter if Mexico and China disappeared tomorrow, with all the cartels and drug traffickers. Operations would resume in other nations, or rather other nations would pick up the slack, because of course drugs don't really come only from those two nations. It comes from Mexico because Mexico is a developing nation with cheap labor sitting next to the US.
People don't cultivate drugs to target mid to high class American citizens, which are the only citizens US seems to care about - they do it because we live in a global capitalist system where profit is king, and illegal drugs are basically the most profitable commodity there is.
So, wherever you have an abundancy of cheap non qualified labor, drug production will be, because those financing operations are taking profits in the 1000% or more.
I will say more - if the US was the only country in the world, illegal drug production would be happening in all states with major agricultural production.
So, why Republicans are promoting war against Mexico? It's one of two options - because they are f*cking dumbasses who cannot see the problem beyond their nationalist racist supremacist superficial interpretations on the matter, or because their voters do. It's weaponized ignorance.
And this is why if those dumbasses put Trump in power once again, the US is just plain f*cked. It is already f*cked with politics locked into criminal investigations or disputes over theocratic laws, but it'll be even more f*cked becoming yet another rogue nation such as Russia or Israel are right now, with an illegal genocidal invasion in their hands.
It is again the case that the US isn't already in ruins because it has too much unfairly accumulated money and power, but the more radical the far right becomes and the more power is given to it, the more chances the US will end up in a civil war or even end up causing a third world war.
It's because of that sort of megalomaniac belligerent arrogant warmongering attitude that the current Republican party should be extinguished to save US' democracy, and in turn the rest of the world because everything is connected these days.
And this is in part the Democrat's party fault for choosing their candidate so poorly. Biden's time is over, it's time to put a real democrat in his place, clean up the house, and start showing why your country is "the best country in the world" once again, not this sad shit it has become.
1
-
Not enough information to say either way.
But since we are making some speculation, let's expand a bit.
There are chances of fire, explosion and more smoke coming out of a lithium polymer battery that is charged up and tighly contained. They can get waaay more violent and explosive than the video Louis showed. Don't take my word for it, just search on YouTube or something.
It's like any thermal runaway effect or flammable material... the more energy mass it has and the less space it has to vent, the more violent things tend to get. It's why some electronic cigarettes have been exploding and even killing people... wreckless overcharge, very contained space = violent explosion. And remember, even the tweaked out dangerously modified electronic cigarettes tend to have smaller batteries than an iPad or iPhone.
It's one of the reasons why the Note 7 was recalled and why it was so dangerous. Besides the design flaw that allowed the battery to be breached easily, the problem was that Samsung tried to pack as big a battery as possible in a very tight water resistant casing. With no room to vent fumes, puff up, or release pressure, the phone will end up exploding.
So yeah, all this trend of making phones slimmer and water resistant do increase the danger if thermal runaway happens. Make no mistake, it's still a rare occasion considering how many lithium battery powered devices are out there and how much abuse some of them go through... but for an overabundance of caution, it'd be better for smartphones and tablets to have room or something for the lithium battery to release it's energy in a controlled manner in a thermal runaway incident.
If families of victims are suing on what is available online alone, then I'd have to agree with Louis... it's not enough evidence and not enough proof to put blame on Apple alone. But I don't know if they are grounding the lawsuit on that alone, so can't say either way. I hope this isn't a case of scapegoating or unscrupulous lawyers trying to use the family's grief for profit.
There is one other thing that is weird: pilots and flight crews have training to deal with fires inside a plane. And I imagine part of it is specifically for fires that comes from batteries and electronic devices given their ubiquity these days. So, even if a device overheated and they had a thermal runaway, it's hard to imagine that alone provoked the accident... perhaps a freak accident with the device exploding right at the worst moment, or some unlikely chain reaction with something else there.
But I do agree with Louis accessment overall... if there's only black box information to go with, and there's not a whole lot of info there, it'll be very hard for a lawsuit to pass against Apple. And in the unlikely scenario that it passed, what people should expect is for smartphones, tablets and every sort of electronic device that has a lithium battery to be banned from flights. Or at least the crew will be barred from it.
There have been cases of other planes coming down because of lithium battery fires, but they were cargo planes carrying a whole ton of batteries. There also have been cases of batteries catching fires in planes which didn't cause the entire plane to come down, but the ones I heard about where from passengers.
Again though, I don't think we have enough information to say either way.
1
-
Sorry Jayz, I'll have to disagree with you in somethings, though I mostly agree.
First of all, I'll just say I unsubscribed to all 3 Vox related channels I followed after this happened, and I don't plan on going back unless that guy who handled this extremely poorly gets fired or put into another position. He probably won't, so I'll just look for similar content in other channels.
His behaviour, his response, and specially the relation between their actions and the multiple pieces they wrote about copyright takedown abuses makes it impossible for me to support them in any way shape or form. It's quite clear to me that there is something disfunctional in the management of Vox/Verge, so I want no part in supporting it. If the supposed editor in chief (that was his title, right?) even read parts of the multiple articles they published in respect to YouTube, he'd know enough on the severety of what they did. I'm pretty sure lots of their own staff knows plenty well that it was a horrible thing to do that deserved a proper response.
But honestly, I have to disagree with you both on what you said about Vox and The Verge, and on the quip about journalists and what they said about YouTubers.
Personal opinion of course as is yours, which you have all the rights to, but personally I still think both Vox, The Verge and some Verge offshoots produce pretty good, current and well produced content. It's the reason why I was subscribed in the first place. People working there are mostly good, mostly work hard on their pieces, and mostly deserve the following - not all, but mostly.
And in fact, a whole lot of the articles and videos they wrote about the problem of DMCA and copyright takedown abuse on YouTube are pretty much on point and complete - in fact, often referenced because they kinda go down in detail that other publications don't... too bad that they don't practice what they preach - again, reason why I had to unsubscribe.
But other than that, they have some very good articles and videos which most regular YouTubers probably wouldn't be able to produce. The exceptions are exactly these cases when they put clueless people to talk about technical stuff they have zero experience with, which btw, is inexcusable. But there's plenty of content where people working there did a great and unique job that I didn't see anywhere else. Well, perhaps less on The Verge, and more on Vox. So yeah, I have to disagree with your accessment of their content.
Another point is that I think there are very good reasons to point out that Tech YouTubers are not journalists. This might have been sent as offense or some stupid high moral ground, and I know there are tons and tons of tech YouTubers that work as well when not better than the highest journalistic standards, including yourself... but in a general sense it's worth that the public knows that most tech youtubers, most tech bloggers, most bloggers and youtubers in general are not graduated in a journalism course. Not as an offense to YouTubers who work well, but as a warning that there plenty of tech Youtubers out there that have zero standards with what they do, and often cross lines that journalists know they should not (though several do while still knowing it's bad).
Why? What implications this has? Well, there are tons of bad journalists of course, but I don't think it does any good for you to generalize it as the guy did with his comment. Just as not being a journalist does not make a bad youtuber, being one also does not imply the stuff you said. And I know you said "a lot", not all, but it's still kinda bad form.
Full disclosure, I'm a non practicioning journalist. But I don't think a defense of my formation and area of expertise is improper.
The fact is that in a journalism course you will have classes about ethics, law, best practices for journalism, plus some other technical stuff that really makes a difference. Whether students really learn and apply that is a whole other story, but the qualification is there, so I'd rather not see it dismissed or vilified as if it didn't matter.
Again, it doesn't guarantee anything, as any other professional title also does not, but it is worth noting. I'm also not saying that a non-journalist cannot learn all that, and hold those standards independent of a title or graduation, but again, it's just like any other job title.
Now, of course I know people will downvote my comment hard because everyone is on the Verge hate train right now, or tons of people hate journalists, or just because I dared disagreeing with Jayz... and that's fine. But I like to voice my opinion either way.
Keep it up, and I hope the impact is enough for both The Verge and Vox to review their position properly. o/
1
-
How does it escape so many people's thought processes the similarities to what they are saying and asking for, to the beginning of the most brutal reviled regimes that ever passed human history... is just something I will never understand.
If it was only a small group of total ignorants without any education and some sort of mental disability, then perhaps it'd be understandable... but almost half of an entire nation? Half of an entire nation that doesn't realize that the discourse about heightened pride in history, anti immigration and anti foreign culture stances, a complete failure to recognize the diversity on their own country, nationalist overtones with some fake idea of unity among people making them stronger, putting everything in black and white terms, strong men cult of personality tactics and discourses, this whole entire crap of saying and doing what they mean - all of those things are exactly how Nazi Germany came to be, how China operates, how North Korea got into the situation it's currently in, how socialist and communist ideal fails in practice, how military dictatorships corrupts and destroyed entire nations, what Putin is using right now to justify his crimes against humanity, how all those things are exactly what democracies were designed to avoid?
I just don't get how so many people don't even get these very core aspects that make their supposedly oh so precious freedoms viable in the first place. Where did the US and several western societies failed to the point that so many people forgot or cannot understand what defines us in the first place, and what differentiates us from some of the worst nations to live in the world?
Make things even worse, it's not only the nationalism mixed with racism that has a blindingly obvious past in Nazism, but also mixed up with religion absolutism, trying to eliminate the secular state of nations, on Christian hands, which has also produced some of the worst atrocities, worst wars, worst totalitarian nations in human history.
All these Christians criticizing Islam and African religions conveniently forget how it was, through most of human history, Christian religions who did the most bloodshed and killed most innocent people than any other religion that humanity has ever known. Even now that we have so many cases of human rights abuses, crimes, and how these very same people keep chanting how they want to protect their kids, when they are part of the one religion that has systematically abused children, protected abusers, and swept crimes under the rug to protect it's image - how can these people not have even a bit of cognitive dissonance on what they are talking about? How can people become so convinced of such shallow discourses not seeing how incongruent their arguments are?
It's either an incomprehensible level of ignorance is completely surreal to me, or selective ignorance which just makes me lose faith in humanity altogether. People will use the discourses and see only the side that favors them because they are as corrupt with power and falling into immorality as any other privileged class that got rich by trampling others. Immorality in the correct sense, not the ill disguised homophobia and prejudice they so often display.
How can unlimited access to information, education, high life expectancy, a position of power well above that of the rest of the world, privileges that most of the world can only dream of, and so many advances in so many areas of science has led to this much ignorance and this much lack of recognition? Do we really need to throw the ignorant masses into a state where their dreams are realized so that they can understand what is wrong with their logic? I keep thinking if my own country needs to go back to a military dictatorship regime so that the ignorant portion of the population understands what the problem with it is. But we are drowning with so much evidence and so much information on the brutality of the military dictatorship that I feel these ignorants still wouldn't understand even while they were being illegally arrested, and then tortured to death... they'd still love the entire concept in their heads somehow. It's just insane.
1
-
When it comes to stuff like that, us in shithole countries are just better prepared... xD
Between it being a Google outage, a ISP Internet outage, or a Google outage... it happens so frequently here that you just kinda go... ah f*ck this shit again, take a nap, go take some coffee, smoke break, or whatever.
If it's still not back, then you start pulling the backup methods to handle it. Because it's kind of a monthly occurence... oh well.
As for me, I heard about it but didn't really notice... probably happened while I was asleep or something.
I did see some funky behaviour on YouTube and Gmail a few times I guess... it wasn't hour long though. Perhaps I picked it when it was already recovering.
Then again, while I still didn't completely cut ties with Google stuff, I've been slowly drifting away over the years...
Don't use Chrome anymore, it's Firefox for me... before Chrome it was Firefox, and a couple of years ago I jumped back. I also don't use Google's search engine much anymore, it's mostly Duckduckgo aside from very specific searches where I have to use a bunch of Google specific operators. I still use Gmail mainly, but I have accounts in several other services... just have to untangle the few stuff I used Google for OTP login. It'd be my next step away from Google if it wasn't for the Google Photos changes, now that needs to be the next step for which I already have a plan.
YouTube is irreplaceable unfortunately, but I also do have accounts on alternative video streaming places with some of the content I watch, not all.
Great that Google shot itself on the food by killing Reader... I'd still be highly dependant on that if Google hadn't just forced us out. But my self-hosted thing still isn't working properly, so for now it's Feedly.
Ultimately, it'll all end up being either controlled by a home server... which will be lots of work and actually increase chances of outages, but at least it'll be on my hands, or it'll be distributed in between several different services, so less chances of losing tons of functionalities all at once.
But man, I'm old enough to remember that not that long ago, we used to have netsplits all the time. Eh, I'm old enough to have lived without Internet. I grew up without PCs. It be quite a change in direction to lose these tech giants, but we'd adapt. And I think it's the right direction to split them up. We should never have allowed these massive mergers to happen in the first place, that's the thing. We will lose lots of integration, lots of these service will lose lots of funding, some of them will likely close down as there are parts of these massive tech companies that really can't turn a profit - they are completely dependant on the parent company.
But the problems that happened with these corporations becoming too big to fail are just too big to ignore. The industry needs to bring back competition, or we might become stagnant forever. And we need options to stave off all the scummy stuff that has been going on. It's a bad sign when opaque parallel economies, inescapable misinformation hubs, and public service using private spaces as official vehicles starts happening. Social networks becoming judge, jury and executors or at least being asked to be it, because too much is happening there. These tools were never meant to have this much influence, and we're paying the price of overreliance.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
You know what the problem with all this is? It's because people still think that churches, religious groups and whatnot still holds a moral high ground today. They don't. And they should not think of themselves that way.
Take this bullshit away, and what you have is just cases where abuse happened because criminals were involved and given power to do so.
I have nothing against religious people, as long as they understand that just because they follow a certain religion does not mean they are on a moral high ground, that they are entitled to certain things, or that they are priviledged by default.
Churches and religious institutions should be treated like any other form of community group, nothing more, nothing less.
So, I don't care what your religion is, if the leader of the group is abusing kids, he or she should be put in jail. You should not protect that sort of behaviour in any way, because you are only damaging the society you live in. An institution that protects crimes like those is complicit and criminal itself, and should be extinguished. Religious institutions that exploits and brainwashes people to enrich itself and it's leaders also should, as it's racketeering or a form of pyramid scheme. And then religions that radicalize followers to commit acts of terrorism or violence against innocent people, minorities and other groups also should be shut down and leaders arrested because that's also criminal behavior, as it falls into all sorts of gang related crimes.
Put simply, religious institutions should be seen by law, government and people as communities. There's nothing wrong in being part of a community. It's how we socialize, it's human nature. But just like any other type of community, religious ones also have to respect the law, respect the culture that let it thrive and not put itself above society or society members. The moment it breaches those limits is the moment it has to go.
We need mayors, governors, presidents and lawmakers that have an extremely clear understanding of this. Until we don't, communities and religions will keep being used as fodder to commit and hide crimes. It happens inside those because ignorant followers keep protecting criminal leaders no matter what they do.
1
-
1
-
1
-
A story as old as humanity - bullies admire other bullies while they are bullying others, but they immediately stop admiring when the bullying is directed towards themselves.
This is all that strong man politics amounts to. And it's not only not new, everyone watched it happening during Trump's first term.
Other than being several fold worse on the worst impulses of Trump, everything else is predictable in it's unpredictability. Trump will have the most erratic and unstable international policy one can think of. He will go with open arms to visit only the politicians who share his ideology and have praised him in the past, but from there on it's a question of whether that politician will keep licking his boots or not. Because if something in these meetings displeases little dick big ego, then the thing will go sour fast and in a hurry.
But because short term memory is a thing, it takes just a bit of time and some $apology$ for things to turn around. You just have to lick the boot harder.
Smart leaders of all countries should prepare the bribes beforehand, because that's the reality of it whether you like it or not. No need to disguise it that much, though some degree is necessary. Prepare the sex parties, and young girls who look like Ivanka for the king is coming.
And onwards we march towards the end of the world. If the US can last until Trump's death without him starting WWIII, perhaps the rest of the world can recover from his term.
1
-
1
-
1
-
There will never be peace while fundamentalism and dictatorships remain present out there... because those are contrary to freedom and basic human rights, so we'll forever keep fighting.
The only hope we have is that countries like Afghanistan, other middle eastern countries, North Korea, some south american countries, and even the US to a certain degree, will let go of those two key problems at some point in time.
What middle eastern countries are passing through right now, as well as some African states, isn't that much different from what Europe and developed western countries have gone through in the past. If we keep persisting, giving voice and power to the people, and enabling them to live a good life and have a voice in politics, hopefully we'll get there.
1
-
1
-
Thanks for sharing Alec, I had never watched a video on US sleeper trains, and to be honest, I think I had never heard or read anything about them too... despite visiting the US a couple of times. :P
I did watch tens of japanese sleeper train videos though, and rode the shinkansen several times on my trips there. Japan kinda convinced me that if it was at all possible, we should all be living in societies with public transportation and distance travel with trains/metro being the main thing, along with walking/biking, cars reserved more for scarce usage... problem is, it had to work like Japan. xD Not exactly easy.
But yeah, seems like a fun trip! We ended up renting a car on both trips there because well... this was back before the Internets, we didn't really have that much info beforehand. Easier to rent a car and spend half the trip lost trying to read maps than trying to plan train tickets, bus, and whatnot.... back then.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Well, sure... because Trumpism isn't founded on logic, it's founded on fanaticism. I'm sure some of these folks would still support Trump even if he showed up at their property and fucked them up in the ass, and killed half their families. Populism is one hell of a drug... it's closely related to cultism.
What's more, let me tell you, once Trump leaves politics behind, even if the US is in a completely destroyed state, these folks will still support the guy and say how he has done great for the country. They could lose their properties, go into poverty, and slowly die because they cannot afford medical treatment, but they'd still engrave "Trump supporter" in their own graves.
It's like that in my own country. We had a populist president and party that almost destroyed the entire economy through multiple terms with a mountain of corruption scandals, he's currently in jail for multiple white collar crimes, and the fanatics that once supported him are still saying he's innocent and that he should be out of jail. He went from poor worker to having an entire family that is richer than most private businesses during his term, amassing government sponsored corporations, several millionare real estate properties that he somehow bought out of nowhere, and all this extreme luxury that even rich people cannot afford.
Then, they accuse the justice system of being biased, even though multiple times he and his base of support tried bending, breaking, and distorting law to get him out.
And still, through all that, you have rallies and groups of fanatics that will say how he's innocent, how he done nothing wrong, how this is all political persecution, how the justice system is going against him unfairly, how it's the opposition's fault, how the media is bought out, how the country has never been better, etc etc.
You start noticing how easy it is, given the right rhetoric and level of population ignorance and lack of critical reasoning, for a populist to become a dictator. Super scary how we're constantly close to this reality.
1
-
What's with BBC commenters and Whataboutism? Russia invaded, is attacking and bombing civilians of another sovereign nation, and all evidences are pointing out that they are not only doing that, they are unhinged in using all sorts of dirty weapons and tactics.
The invasion by itself should be bad enough, but it's even worse.
Leave your whataboutism aside for a moment and realize that this sort of precedent points out to WWIII, which everyone will end up being a victim. Where does this unhinged and unrepetant thirst for power stops? If Russian leadership is willing to go this far with weak fake excuses, how much do you think it takes for them to continue going further after they've taken Ukraine?
Putin must be taken out of power for the sake of the world, and made an example to stop other dictators from trying the same.
If that doesn't happen, we don't have to only worry about Russia, but next will be all other dictators and proto-dictators following the example. China going over Taiwan is practically guaranteed to be next, and you can bet this will only bolster confidence in places like North Korea and Venezuela. Leaders that cares sh*t about the population of their own countries, citizens that are powerless to fight back against the warmongering lunacy of their leaders, and the world going to sh*t when it should be uniting itself against the biggest threat humanity has ever faced.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Can't avoid but wonder what would really happen in a no deal Brexit scenario at this point, since it seems it's not gonna happen one way or another and what will really happen is what most intelligent people already knew from start - a worse version of staying in the EU.
People who think a no deal Brexit would be great are delusional, but I would really like to see it happening just for laughs. At least it would've served as cautionary tale.
I can't believe anyone thinks this surreal utopia May is describing have any chance of happening. Oh, we'll finish this, everything will be ok and even better, politics will be all good and dandy MPs holding hands and dancing together, the UK will somehow have more leverage after leaving an economic block, the rest of the world will have even more respect for the UK after all this.... BWAHAHA my sides.
The restrictions will be the same, only worse for the UK in general, with an attached "we're working to make it better" vague promise. I mean, it's obvious that if politicians cannot overcome a deal to make this exit happen, and cannot even at this point discard the possibility of a second referendum, of course they cannot work out how to negotiate things better point by point. It's one country versus an union. It's taking this long only to exit EU, think how long it'll take to "negotiate better deals". Forever, that's how long. Meanwhile, take whatever you can so that the economy doesn't collapse.
You may hate the EU all you want, they will have the upper hand once UK leaves. The only function leaving has is opening an opportunity for competition to come against you, and for business deals to be closed with other countries instead of the UK. Perhaps the need to play the victim card is good enough for this entire shitshow? Oooh, we left, now the EU is ganging up on us, see how evil it is, yadda yadda. Yeah right.
It's interesting how tables are turning though... UK going to shit, US suicide solution ramping up trade wars with China... I always expected for some countries to end up falling from their positions at some point, but I didn't expect for them to be running towards the bullet themselves.
1
-
The more you learn about the world, the more you understand how common this is...
Schools will always teach mainly the history of it's own country as perceived by the lens of themselves. It's always biased, the views are very often dualist in nature (victors and losers, good and evil, right or wrong), and it always ommits or exacerbates something.
It's also always limited because like, we cannot spend 40 years in school, and we don't have enough lifetimes to learn the entire history of the world.
Further, if you stop to think about it, globalization is something relatively new. There aren't that many people who have lived a significant ammount of time in more than one country, enough to have learned the history, past and culture of those.
If you stop to think about it a bit further, it makes sense. Western and allied countries might see the Swastika as the closes symbol to absolute evil, even generations who have absolute zero direct contact with it. Because it's spread out over all forms of media - movies, series, stories, books, entertainment, games, philosophy, history, politics, etc etc etc. It's associated with negative things like racism, discrimination, totalitarism, dictatorship, war crimes, political propaganda, genocide, indiscriminate killing, horrible human experimentation and others. So the symbol was reappropriated to represent the most negative things that people in western countries can imagine.
But obviously, not all countries did the same. So the association just isn't there to start with. If you ask japanese people about the things the symbol is associated with in the west, they'd see them all individually as bad, but the correlation just isn't there.
It surprises us because most people don't realize how ingrained it is for ourselves. My last visit to Japan which happened in early 2018, an uncle of mine (it was a 7 family member trip) who's past his 70s and is japanese descendant got very surprised when he saw a Swastika in a stone lantern in some Kyoto street. I explained to him that the symbol had origins previous to WWII and employed in Japan because of Buddhism since ancient times.
Conversely, most western people do now know that the Swastika is an ancient religious symbol that was originally connected to prosperity and good luck. So, weird as it may sound for tons of people in western society, it's our idea of the symbol that got corrupted by Nazis, as Nazis were the ones who misappropriated it in the first place.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Here's what you won't hear on mainstream news, as it's inconvenient and embarrassing to Japanese politics to discuss this side of things.
I dunno what the motivation behind this attack was, but in the case of former PM Shinzo Abe, the attacker was the son of a victim of infamous cult Unification Church, aka "Moonies", which he accused the PM and LDP of having strong ties with, Abe being a promoter and financier of it.
The former PM indeed had made speeches during cult gatherings, and there are reasons to believe that portions of the party, particularly the ultra-conservative side of it, indeed had or potentially still has ties with the cult. For those who don't know much about this cult, it has a long history of forming ties with far-right and ultra-conservative side of politics in several nations all around the world, including the US itself. It originated in South Korea but has tentacles everywhere around the world, it has a base in Christianity but other than that it's a very large and radical cult that has all abuses thrown against the indoctrinated. VICE has some documentaries on them, it's all pretty awful.
In the case of Shinzo Abe attacker, he was a guy with no crimes in his file, but he claimed the cult ruined his mom's and his family's lives, because as his mom was radicalized by the church, she was basically coerced to give all her money and possessions leaving his family in shambles. So his intention was to publicly and visibly attack someone high up the chain.
After that, the Japanese government had to publicly come out and say they were cutting all ties with the cult, which I'm not entirely sure if it really happened and to what degree this was enforced. You all know how much of a grip a cult can have on people.
We'll see, if the Japanese press and police let us know, if the motivation in this case wasn't similar. Japanese society, the younger portion of the population tends to be very apolitical... they don't usually discuss politics much nor get involved with it. This is just part of the normal culture and philosophy... it puts community over individual. The nail that sticks out gets hammered. So, it's unusual for something like this to happen, but yes, it likely happened because of PM Abe case. The culture in general is about not sticking out, not taking initiative, not externalizing your personal problems, which generates all sorts of problems with mental health issues. When it happens though, it tends to be when certain limits have been breached, at least from a personal perspective - not that it justifies anything.
Another detail about Japanese politics that people might not know. The LDP, current party in power, the party of Shinzo Abe and Fumio Kishida, has been almost continuously in power since it was formed back in the mid 1950s. It's a conservative power.
If anyone ever wondered why Japan seems to have several backwards laws regarding stuff like LGBTQ issues, stringent immigration laws, some controversies regarding historical revisionism in classrooms, de facto sexism still going on in politics and businesses, and a whole bunch of these backwards thinking things despite most of the population being pretty progressive, liberal, and mindful of modern culture standards - it's because of this.
The only caveat I'd add is that the LDP became a monopoly regarding politics because it has also diversified into itself. It's a humongous party with people inside that ranges all across the ideological spectrum, but it's always always the conservative branch that is in power because it reflects the will of the people who votes in larger numbers - older Japanese people. Younger people and working adults are just not paying attention to politics for the most part. Side effects of Japan's lost decades and such, but that's a whole other discussion and I already wrote too much.
1
-
Yep... read too much like an ad piece, have to agree with everyone else, even though I do agree with the proposition.
Here's the thing all electric car proponents should know - cost, need for infrastructure and manufacturing will delay this electric car future by a whole lot.
I don't live in the US, so here's what I can say. In my country, gas cars are several times cheaper than electric cars. As in, electric cars are a super luxury here right now. If you are getting one, you probably intend to also have a backup gas car just in case, and will need to install the entire charging infrastructure at home because in the streets you are sol.
Gas car and other vehicles manufacturing is a huge source of jobs. Electric car manufactury seems to be overall adopting the massive replacement of jobs for automation. This is gonna have a big impact, perhaps not so much for countries where economies are not so dependant on this sector, but most definitely for countries that do, like mine.
Infrastructure proper to it like charging stations are still extremely paltry - to the point you cannot reliably make a trip with one. Not if you are going to smaller cities and expecting to charge your car in the way. Yes, you could use regular electricity from regular plugs, but not only those will charge way slower, most places here don't have a proper electric system that is adequate for stuff like charging cars.
Maintenance is yet another problem - they are far and few between and very expensive. The problem is having to import everything and needing specialized workers that are still in the minority. It is a new paradigm, so it'll take a while for people to adapt.
Finally, no, having to stop and wait for your car to be charged is a con in itself. Advertisements and pro electric car people need to step down their assumptions and their personal priviledged situations and understand that not every driver has the luxury of stopping in charging stations and wait for the batteries to charge. So, this is something for people to adapt to.
Further, let's add here: batteries have both an environmental cost, and a safety cost. Lithium is not an infinite resource, so it's a problematic factor. Even if modern battery technology allows for current electric cars to run for years on their original batteries, the fact is that at some point those will start failing, and become yet another source of toxic waste.
There is an obvious bias going on right now with electric car owners assuming that just because their daily routine is breezy and light enough to allow for these types of costs and cons don't affect too much their bottomline, that the same will be true for everyone else. It doesn't work like that.
Autonomous cars and the technology associated with it, even though isn't directly related with electric cars themselves, is poised to generate a whole ton of problems because of the way it's being made. First, it requires a whole ton of electronic circuitry and technology, which all have their own particular set of problems and particular industrial segmentation. Second, they are being made by technology monopolies that are highly interested in collecting your private data. Third, they are even more vulnerable to hacking and other computer related attacks in comparison to existing electronic systems of current gas cars. So, we're not only handing down the control and monitoring of cars to AIs, we are also handing it down to a very small set of tech monopolies.
Ok, now, with those in consideration. Electric cars have a way simpler construction overall. You are drawing power from batteries to drive a motor. This not only simplifies the overall build, and gives more control over things, but also reduces energy waste in general. So, it makes sense to go towards it. For gas, you need combustion chambers, the conversion of gas explosions to movement, the need to filter noxious gases and subproducts that results from this entire conversion, an extremely complex system to do all that, which weights a lot, heats a lot, wears down a lot, and needs constant replacement and repair of discardable parts. So yes, it is a more streamlined, elegant solution for cars.
The more we manage to source power from less complex and diversified sources, the easier it becomes to make it cleaner and simpler. For gas, you need transportation with ships and tank trucks, underground storages in gas stops, regulatory agencies and monitoring so this entire system isn't abused, among other stuff. Electricity goes through power lines. Ultimately, it'd be better if we had an incredibly robust eletricity generation and transmission system overall replacing both oil and gas as power sources, not only for cars, but for basically everything else.
Even though production of electricity, manufacturing of electric cars, and the battery production are all potential sources of pollution and toxic waste, gas cars are just simply worse overall. There are way more parts to break, way more disposable stuff going into trashcans, a pollution problem, noxious chemicals in several fronts, among other problems. With that, there's also the fact that gas cars haven't been significantly evolving for quite a while now. The tech is mature, and even some attempts to make them cleaner seems to be all fake and product of corrupted manufacturers alterating test results.
Now, for autonomy and use of tech, computers and AI. Unfortunately, humans have proven over and over and over again to be extremely bad drivers. The number of lives we lose every year because of drunk drivers or just plain incompetent drivers is staggering. The money and number of hours people spend on average during their lifetimes learning how to drive, fixing cars, and worrying about personal modes of transportation is just incalculable. There's definitely reason to worry about automating this entire aspect of peoples' lives, but I'd say we have to at least try considering the current costs.
I could go on and on with this, but suffice to say that yes, I do agree that we have to try to make electric cars... "the future". I do highly doubt though that it'll be smooth sailing. This is a paradigm change that will have big advantages, but also generate big problems.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Yeah... sad. I was afraid this was going to happen sooner or later.
The thing about Japanese companies is that while at the top they are late and kinda slow at the game, their role model is Big Tech and line goes up capitalism - tied to a stupid seniority based vertical structure that has the exact same mentality, if not outright copy the mentality of line goes up economics CEOs in the west.
What people should expect from Japanese companies is that they'll slowly but surely start adopting the worst practices of western companies. They only didn't so far because they are slow. Ultimately, tons of CEOs of these big Japanese multinational all wanna look cool by believing the same neo-liberal crap that CEOs of western companies do.
People familiar with other Japanese companies... like the gaming giants, car industry, finance among others, probably already noticed this. The ensh*ttification is also happening there.
Naive me who a few decades ago believed that culture would put them in a better standing stopped believing this when I started reading and listening to what CEOs of Japanese companies had to say about tech and all sorts of other stuff. It was like hearing an US Big Tech and finance echo chamber. Not to mention how one of their richest investors is behind funding a whole ton of crap that has happened in finance and tech in the west for the past decade or so.
But thanks for the heads up Louis, really appreciate it. I did throw away my HP Deskjet for a Brother Laser printer, but because I just don't trust printers to be connected to the Internet, I kept it local. While Brother still hadn't adopted that kinda anti-consumer crap just yet, the fact that their software looks like something out of Win XP with all these archaic looking crap, it just made me nervous about security in general.
I have for a while been trying to put it into the local network, but now I'll just abandon that project. It's going to remain USB only, and no updates anymore.
I also don't print much anymore, so it's not that much extra work to just go offline whenever I need to print something. Perhaps just connect it to an offline device and airgap it completely, passing files via pendrive.
1
-
@negy2570 Sure, that's the ideal. But it's very naïve to think it covers every single situation, and that it always happens this way. And further, the pandemic has proven just that - there were lots of peak situations where doctors and nurses, the hospitals in general, had to choose who to save.
Now, most doctors elected factors like age, who got in first, possibility of saving or not, severity of symptoms, response to treatment, among other neutral factors.
But it was so chaotic and hospital staff were so overworked and taken by surprise that I don't doubt some doctors made the choice to help those who tried everything not to be there in the first place, and those who were less likely to return.
And in some potential pandemic where hospitals are constantly understaffed. overworked, and overflowing with sick people. choices will have to be made. It's not always a clear option to just try to save whoever is in their care... some doctors during peak Covid times were taking care of tens of patients all at once, if not more.
This is a lesson this pandemic should leave for everyone. When people don't do their part. and leave everything at the hands of hospitals, those people cannot complain if their care is not prioritized.
You don't get a choice of a "real doctor" or whatever, you get what's available, if you want.
Ultimately, doctors will try to save those who have better chances of being saved, of recovering. They are human too, and all humans have their limits and breaking points.
If this pandemic was just a bit worse than it was, lots of doctors would either be giving up or becoming incapable of doing their jobs, which happened during this pandemic, or would start focusing their attention on those they know will follow every recommendation not to end there once again - vaccines, mask, social isolation, etc.
And I'd fully support that.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Hmm... if it's file sync alone, I've been slowly setting up a Syncthing "net" of sorts among multiple devices.
Which admittedly is not for just anyone to do as it can get a bit complicated, but also not overly so. The good thing about Syncthing is that, at least from my personal experience, once you set it up properly, there are not many surprises afterwards. It just kinda works.
You have to do a good amount of planning and understand how things work properly, but after that, it's set and forget for the most part.
Nextcloud is far harder to maintain. It's hard to set it up, and then you'll want to put all sorts of plugins on it, and that's where things go awry. Everytime there are updates and whatnot there are chances of it going poof, there are too many things to worry about, too many moving parts.
This isn't the developers fault mind you, but it's the nature of the beast. Nextcloud is probably the most comprehensive open source self hosted cloud solution out there - but because of that, it can be pretty hard to install and maintain. I tried it for a while in a TrueNas Scale build, for whatever reason it stopped working, I couldn't find out why, and it was already working so poorly that I kinda gave up. I might give it another try if I ever get a PC/server powerful enough to handle it without problems. Mind you, this is mostly because of all the plugins I shoved into it. Barebones it might not need all that much power.
But in terms of a cloud storage service complete solution that is on someone else's server like Google Drive... yeah, I also don't know. What I mostly hear about in the FOSS circle is renting server space and installing Nextcloud in them. Proton Drive I didn't use it a whole lot just yet, but seems to me it's plenty worth a try. I used it one time to open up a document file that for whatever reason I couldn't open it properly anywhere else.. go figure. It was garbled everywhere else I tried opening it - LibreOffice, Google Drive, browsers, etc.
What I used to do sometime ago was use the Synology NAS, together with the Cloud Sync app, and set everything to be encrypted. Then I had free accounts on the cloud storage services it supports, and distributed the files among those - say Dropbox, Google, Box, and a few others.
Problem with doing that is that the providers don't really like users who do this, or it's just cumbersome, so Cloud Sync often gets logged off or gets out of sync, you have to re-do the authorization process over and over again, it gets tiring after a while.
For me personally it's just that my Synology NAS is now very old, so I'm not using it anymore as a primary means of sync and home server. But I guess this can still be an option for people with newer Synology NAS that are still working nicely. Just keep in mind that the API is kinda jank that way... sometimes the services will kick you off, and you have to redo the authorization process for each and every one of them.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Heh, I'm glad this still haven't gone to violence and I hope it never will, but everything in this charade is just stupid and wrong. And the reason why all dictators must fall, in the worst most horrible way possible.
First of all the idiotic idea that a referendum, corrupt as it is but even if it wasn't, can somehow have the power to surpass International law and accords. It doesn't work this way, and never will.
As if I could just pass a referendum in my country to overtake the territory of another and justify things on that alone. Hey, let's put up a referendum if my foreign nation can steal away the fortunes of Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and whatnot to redistribute it to the entire population.
Guess what - everyone will vote yes. Does that mean it gives a justification for government to pursue it? Obviously not. A referendum for government to commit crimes shouldn't even be a thing in the first place.
Venezuela really is a failed state. Super rich in oil, with people starving on the streets. And everytime it seems things will go better with deals and whatnot, their incredibly stupid dictator needs to act like an ass to make a display of his own ignorance worldwide.
They should make a real referendum asking Venezuelans if they don't want to raid Maduro's palaces, take all his money, and redistribute it to the people, according to socialist precepts. Let's hear how that one goes.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
It's not the whole story, and we're not there to tell, but I feel this comes in highly individualistic societies that cannot come up with community based engagements that are capable of gathering kids, teens, young adults and even adults to seniors around some sort of activity that occupies the mind and gives at least a bit of sense to one's life.
Setting aside real psychological issues and problems that are both hereditary and health based in nature, when you don't have things that motivate you, clear objectives and things that you can follow regardless of level of proficiency or knowledge, specially around the years we don't really know what to with ourselves and our future, there are lots of people who don't fit the standard society sets of groups, mentalities and communities, that will feel lost, hopeless, without direction, not knowing how to move forward, or what to do with themselves.
Too much freedom can sometimes feel like a trap. It's somewhat related to the paradox of choice, for those who heard the term.
If you tie all those to a lack of attachment to life, some type of weakness, willingness to end your own life or that of others, a lack of empathy for one reason or another, and a fragile state of not having defined your role in life for yourself... it becomes dangerous. To yourself, and potentially to others.
I don't think the right strategy at least for some of those kids is to ask them what they want. It's perhaps to give concrete options, suggest several different day to day steps that they should go for, towards something that might be of their interest. It might not be to parents, families and friends liking at times, but it's a way.
I'd also highly advice parents to be wary if they are not projecting something on their kids. Religion, future prospects, fitting into certain molds, following a certain way of life... those are the usual culprits. Or just letting kids do whatever they want without any sort of direction or suggestion where to go, which is the extreme opposite of projection, might also not be the best way.
Sometimes kids, teens and young adults don't wanna take anything from you as a parent. Everything you suggest is just lame, not good enough, not in touch with his or her generation. That happens. See if you can't find someone who your kid won't listen to, and go through that route instead.
Undue anxiety, fear for the future, feelings of not being in control, undecisiveness in which way to go, lack of hope for anything... those are probably playing some role. On perhaps the opposite end, I think the extremely high expectations that a generation used to stuff like social networks, Internet information in general, and undefined but absurdly high bars have created this scenario where nothing makes much sense. Nothing you do is good enough. You can't even hope to do anything of significance because you are surrounded by unreachable ideals and goals all day everyday. We need communities and people around us to somehow ground things. The mundane, being average, giving up on dreams and goals, not achieving crazy unreachable tentposts and stuff like that... is just normal. It's just what most of us do.
I think lots of people felt at some point that they had to wear masks on a daily basis to "function" properly in society. But sometimes the solution is not to stop using those, it's just about learning how to do it without feeling bad, depressed or without a real identity.
I never had psychological problems, do not have a family history of depression, always had at least a couple of friends around, but I have also faced some of that emptyness myself. There were times in my life when I considered suicide, and there were times in my life where I took self harm as a means to fill the void, to distract myself from this inexplicable emptiness, to focus on something that was concrete and closer to me rather than an abstract feeling I couldn't pinpoint or tackle.
It's a serious thing. I don't wish it to anyone else. And I specially feel for the parents. Even if it was for a short period of time, I'm highly aware of some of the crap I put my parents through. I'm highly aware of what I still put my mom through. It's not great, I probably won't ever be able to give back what I was given to me, and it's possible that I won't give my mom some of the stuff most kids are able to give back in her or my lifetime. But it's just something you deal with. I have a lot to be thankful for, I don't wanna ask for more.
When you have crappy parenting with real problems, you can always blame them, but when you have parents who genuinelly want to help, love their kids above everything else, but just can't find a way to do it, it's a horrible situation. Because it only contributes to not knowing what to do.
I don't even wanna give any recommendations other than what I already said. Because man, there is nothing particularly in cases like those that cannot be made even worse with some crappy therapists, crappy counceling, or even worse, people who are willing to exploit these very fragile situations for profit, power or some sort of external agenda. These sort of predators and vulures are everywhere. I witnessed all sorts of things. Coleagues turning into religious fanatics, going towards the drug abuse route, and other crap.
Just hope the kids can go through this. There's light at the end of the tunnel. Life is a one time thing only, don't let it go to waste even if it's looking super crappy right now. It's hard to imagine for anyone that is in a situation like that, but it does happen, you know? Something changes in your daily life, priorities get shifted, you hear something, read something, listen to someone, and suddenly a path opens up. You might still feel shitty for a good while, things don't magically get ok, you might still have to deal with a lot of negative emotions and feelings putting you down, but if a path opens, you have a direction to go, you fight or even crawl through, and then slowly things will get better.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Just a bit of info that might be worth checking out:
There are some chinesium phones with bigger battery than your regular ol' brands that don't reach the ridiculous size of the Energizer phone... most notorious brands for that are Doogee and Blackview, upwards of 10000mAh. Unfortunately, afaik, the phones themselves are poorly optimized, so the actual extra juice you get don't actually reach 2x or 3x. Tests I heard about are more like 1.5x 1.6x.
But the size is far more manageable as long as you don't mind the chinesium generic flavor, lack of updates and warranty, and all the other stuff that comes with chinesium phones.
Removable battery with water resistance became a hard sell these days not because it's impossible to do, but because it became a trend not to... so we also have that to thank stupid shallow trends and a move towards design instead of usability.
Admitedly, the direction Samsung Galaxy S5 took back at the time wasn't perfect:
https://www.samsung.com/ca/support/mobile-devices/galaxy-s5-is-galaxy-s5-dust-resistant-and-water-resistant-ip67/
Rubber gasket based, so everytime you popped open the back plate you were probably letting dust in and reducing the effectiveness of it. So, it's also a problem with liability. It's only IP67 when you buy and never open it... from then on, the water resistance kinda goes down the drain.
It also required some ugly tabs to close open ports, and they would wear out and fail eventually. Sony Xperia up to Z3 also had those. I had one, these external rubber gaskets didn't last long.
These could have evolved overtime if they caught on, but basically it's just cheaper and easier to seal it all up with conformal coating plus glue.
But the real main issue with removable batteries is that as soon as most manufacturers moved away from it, you just don't have R&D and mass manufacturing of removable batteries for smartphones anymore. They went extinct. Chicken and egg problem. Manufacturers don't buy removable batteries anymore, so there is no development and mass production for it. There are no batteries over 3000mAh in removable form in a shape adequate for smartphone in high volume production these days, so it's not even up to consideration.
And to be fair, market analysis back when they were still popular came out saying that just a very tiny percentage of smartphone users bought an extra battery or more anyways, so it just wasn't worth it - problem with developing and pricing things for a mainstream market. I was one of the smartphone users that got extra external batteries up to my Nokia Lumia 1020... from then onwards, all sealed.
If you absolutely need to have a removable battery modern smartphone though at all costs, low to mid range category is the way to go. Most people might not know this, but basically all major brands - Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola - still have removable battery phones... but in the category where they'll also have low RAM, low storage, crap camera, potentially Android Go, low end SoC and whatnot:
https://www.androidauthority.com/best-android-phones-removable-battery-697520/
One thing to notice: they are basically using the same type of battery that the last high end removable battery phones were using like 5+ years ago... because development pretty much stopped. So we're talking about 2000mAh up to 2800mAh batteries. They are only useful these days because of the pairing with low end devices which consumer less power.
Removing headphone jack is going the same way (R&D and mass production stopping), but just incredibly more stupid or anti-consumer I guess.
Putting one there does not occupy that much space, it is an extremely useful port, and one of the few truly category wide reliable standards. You couldn't trust microUSB to have all functions, you can trust even less USB Type-C, but the headphone jack is always a simple headphone jack.
It's also cheap as hell, so not really that much of a cost saving measure, perhaps a bit more for water resistance phones... dongles cost far more to manufacture in comparison to just shoving a jack there. The most likely true reason for that is to sell overpriced bluetooth headphones, which not only sound worse per price, they also have all problems around security, the entire pairing process, compatibility issues, range issues, interference, and whatnot. It's kind of a shitshow, and I have the impression that this is by design. Kinda like the USB standard - they wanna keep consumers guessing, so they have to buy extra accessories to get the functionality that was supposed to be there.
You can even be a fan and have the perfect pair of bluetooth phones - you still have to charge them, and having a backup right there is always useful.
Problem is, a ton of those smartphone brands also manufacture audio related equipment. And so, removing the option to connect cheap-o wired headphones that everyone already had from smartphones would force people to either buy dongles (official ones overpriced as heck) or buy way more expensive bluetooth headphones, so the industry as a whole profits from that. It's a win-win for them, we're the only ones losing from it.
So yeah, as smartphone evolution plateaud, manufacturers shifted from relevant useful improvements towards trends and design, plus anti-consumer cost cutting measures. Making any very significant improvement in smartphones nowadays is a high risk high cost move, so companies will likely keep adopting more anti-consumer measures to keep a positive cash flow. And the big companies will likely not risk much to give consumers what they want, because it has already reached a point that if they don't sell phones in high volumes, investors will complain or take off, and then the whole business shuts down.
Very common scenario in tech development unfortunately... Apple has several categories going that way, but you see in basically every other company with plateau'd products too.
1
-
1
-
Pretty obvious why. It's clear that even if Putin's order for a cease fire was serious, even if Ukraine had agreed to it, it still wouldn't happen.
I mean, it was just an obvious ploy, Putin's bullshit cannot be taken one way or another, he's been lying ever since this invasion started. Not a single true word has been spoken by Putin and his regime about this war so far, why would that change now?
But other than that, I highly doubt Russian soldiers would respect it anyways... Russia is sending people there that are not only violent and pre-disposed to kill everyone who is not a Russian soldier in sight, but also filling their heads with brainwashing propaganda. Russian soldiers also have been dying in droves, ill equipped, ill trained, and used more like cannon fodder than anything else. When they get to the front lines and see what is really happening there, it's either a fight for survival, or taking pleasure at killing innocent civilians. Respect for far away authority in those conditions, particularly when it's asking to risk their lives even further, just doesn't happen.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
See, the problem with all of this is not that the crazy cultist loonies exist... religious radicalism is a fact all over the world.
The problem here is that neither government nor justice is doing anything about it, despite the flagrant disregard for the state secular status, despite all the provisions made to separate state from church.
The way fundamental pillars of democracy are being systematically attacked and weakened is the problem here. Politicians, either because they don't understand what is at stake here, and/or for personal political and corrupt gains, are not doing enough to protect one of the first and most fundamental pillars of any modern democracy, which is the separation of state and church. We only changed from being autocratic theocracies to democracies once we separated state from church.
It should be reminded also that secularism has nothing to do with being anti-church or being anti-religion. It's about giving equal footing under law to all religions. It's about freedom of faith, you are not forced to take part of a single religion by force, not obliged to serve under the precepts of one religion mandated by state, you are free to chose whatever religion you want, including none.
It's obviously easy for people in the religious majority to try to force their own religion as the only one, and exploit their system to paint everything else as evil, but we've already been through that, and throughout human history, as much as the ignorant gullible zealots will deny it, people should know that there has been no greater amount of human caused bloodshed, violence, wars, suffering, unjustified torturing and insurmountable amounts of lives lost than that caused by church, specifically the Christian Church.
This is an institution that throughout human history burned people at stakes, systematically erased, subjugated or destroyed other cultures, was used to supplant and exterminate natives, started wars that destroyed entire other nations and cultures, and to this day, with it's sheen of being a "religion of peace" or some other sh*t, is still covering up crimes like child abuse in it's ranks, accumulated untold riches inside it's central power, and keeps promoting a message of hatred towards anyone who is not in their ranks.
I'm sorry if reality hurts some people, but that's simply incontestable. If you are unaware of those, you should read more and learn more about it yourself. I'm not trying to attack the faith of anyone here specifically, and it's not like religion is the source of all evil obviously, but if you know enough about the history of religion, you should understand that the separation of church and state is not about faith or religion, it's about stopping unscrupulous people from exploiting the faith of others with their own manipulative greed to trample over the rights of everyone for political and financial gains.
Law and politics cannot be mandated by church because it's non-representative, no matter how large a religion is in a country. It's not only because it has no basis in anything other than "because God said so", it's because even if it was a fact that the entirety of the country was voluntarily under the same religion, the sorts of rulings, politics and laws that a religious representative mandates for the entire population will only reflect a minority will, and not what the religion represents in general.
People don't even see how similar their own religious radicalism is as compared to that of theocratic countries. You know which countries have eroded the separation of government and church almost entirely, when not don't have it in the first place? The arab theocracies, countries like Russia, and such. When you break down the barriers between government and church, you don't have a democracy anymore, you have authoritarianism. You don't have freedom anymore, you have whatever church says you can have. And again, the problem here isn't faith or core religious concepts, the problem is that someone will take that power and use for his or her own gains. Because it's all arbitrary, it's all depending on interpretation of holy texts and scripture, it's all dependent on blind faith, and so it'll will be pushed as much as needed to satisfy the greed of individuals.
It's in the freaking Constitution for those who don't care to read it - religious freedom. This should be enough reason to prosecute all these people promoting the extermination of it under treason. Separation of government and church is religious freedom. Get it into your thick heads, and demand justice to do something about that.
1
-
1
-
A trade war that is all for local environmentally conscious production, but let's be honest here, these people are fighting about a future that is not only far, but also uncertain.
There has been a whole ton of misplaced optimism and perhaps a bit of patriotism on Biden's plans, but I don't see US's situation changing a whole ton there.
There are a few major things that made China the industry of the world, and I don't see how a governmental act would put the US in the same page no matter how much money is thrown there, for short to mid term I mean. Long term who knows what the situation will be.
Some of them: infrastructure, logistics, labor size and costs, low internal consumption, and so on.
That amount of money is crazy high, almost impossible to understand, but when you are talking about things that needs crazy high almost impossible to understand amounts of money to fix or start from scratch, then it starts feeling too little too late.
The reason why it worked for China in a period of... around 3 decades or so is that developed nations and China basically had huge empty plots of land or stuff like fishing villages and whatnot to prop up entire cities around the idea of them becoming factory hubs for the world, the government also had unlimited power to just haze down and run over whatever was in the way to build infrastructure needed, could use large portions of the population as basically slave labor to make it happen, and so on.
This is far harder to pull in a developed nation, and the US government has already proven more than enough that it's not very good at doing it.
As is, most infrastructure is already crumbling... it's kinda hard to see how it's gonna get fixed, let alone be upgraded to sustain the logistics required to compete with China.
The US already does not have the labor force to produce enough even for the crazy consumption of it's internal market, let alone export and compete with other nations at reasonable prices, even with government subsidies considered. Perhaps if government suddenly opened up doors wide open for all the immigrants trying to enter the country, but that would create it's own set of problems.
Building up an industrial hub such as Shenzhen looks almost impossible to me in a developed nation... there are so many laws, regulations, and other things that would need to be changed that it really doesn't seen feasible to me. Again, government subsidies could perhaps help overcome some of that, but not all, and I can't even imagine the long chain or side effects and repercussions those would have.
And then, you also have the fact that over recent years, a whole lot of former Chinese production has already shifted towards poorer nations. So it isn't a matter of competing directly with China anymore, it's competing with Chinese corporations with factories all around the world in countries where production is already even cheaper than in China itself.
Here's the thing I find symbolic in all of this. There is one major production move that was attempted during Trump's administration that was mostly for show and that the trade war basically forced the company's hand to do. That Foxconn factory in Wisconsin. Supposed to produce panels for TVs. If you follow it's trajectory you start seeing all the problems the US would have in taking production back into the US.
Of course, what I see in all of this is a rush to prepare for a deeply divided world... it's better for the US to have already started doing something about it if it ever happens, a complete cut off between the west and China, rather than just having nothing in place. But it'll be catastrophic either way. The solution here is diplomacy, not hunkering down for what some are deeming inevitable. More importantly for the significance of this plan, I guarantee you that a world were the west and China become completely separated won't be a greener world, not by far. Much like the war in Ukraine put a whole ton of plans for sustainability and a cleaner future in the back of some drawer, a trade division would prioritize whatever is cheaper to prop up production back to past levels, and sustainability would take another hit back in the priority list.
This all just don't look good for me... global powers focusing on becoming independent from one another trying to claw back as much of the production chain they can because they predict the world will become much more divided in the future, when what we really need for sustainability and to solve climate change is to get together to work out a solution.
I'll tell you, it'll happen either way when Climate Change effects are so severe that almost any money a country makes ends up sunk into disaster relief and whatnot, but we keep ignoring this, and keep prioritizing other stuff instead.
1
-
I'll start believing in the repentance of the Church as an institution when it starts doing something about it other than hoping victims find comfort in being heard out and other crap like this thoughts and prayers bullshit, as if it was uninvolved in all of those cases.
Until then, it's an institution that is unrepentant, it has conformed with having pedophiles and abusers amongst it's ranks, and it wants to do nothing of significance to stop the practice. It's basically a place that has accepted the fact that it fosters, protects and incentivizes the abuse of children. It's a place that not only shields and looks the other way when they see abusers and abuse cases there, it practically became the best place for criminals of that nature to seek employment in. They'll get an unlimited amount of victims at their disposal in a vulnerable situation that is perfect to exploit, unrestricted power to control and silence them, they'll be paid for it, and they'll get shielded by their superiors to keep committing crimes indefinitely. It's a perverse continuation of the power structure tradition of the old Catholic church.
Nothing is more symbolic to this than the Vatican itself being connivent with the practice. It failed to condemn and punish clear cases, it made no significant effort to change the Church structure or philosophy in any significant way to stop crimes from happening, and we keep hearing about the continuation of it's perverted policies year after year.
It's time for people to separate their faith from this corrupt institution once and for all.
1
-
1
-
1
-
@JollyJuiice You mean private companies in China required to hand over all of their collected data to the Chinese government, right?
It's not "a well known fact", it's more complicated than that and just a general assumption lazy people who don't care for researching further into the subject will spout for convenience's sake.
But since we're here, let me explain to you better at least.
Last year, the chinese government passed a law that states that companies operating in China (all companies, not only chinese companies, which includes american companies operating in China too) are obligated by law to hand data and cooperate with chinese intelligence in cases of cybersecurity threats.
There are further laws from 10 to 15 years ago that also forces private businesses operating in China to hand over relevant data in cybersecurity and criminal cases in a lawful manner.
All in all, it's not substantially different in any way from laws that exists in the US. It was purposely put through bad lenses to be used as leverage against China in the trade war, and make things look worse than they actually are.
Meanwhile, in the US, all major tech companies including Microsoft, Google, Apple and Facebook regularly send data regarding crimes or suspicious behaviour to american intelligence agencies. It is done in lawful way via the justice system, but it is done nonetheless.
And then, I don't even have to mention the multiple attempts from government agencies to go even further with this, trying to defeat safe harbor provisions, advocate for backdoors in encryption, suing companies like Apple for not complying with court orders and whatnot.
So yeah, it is definitely bad that the chinese government passed forceful laws regarding private businesses being forced to cooperate and hand data to them with pretty weak excuses. But it is NOT substantially different in comparison to actions that the US government itself is taking regarding the exact same thing.
What is different is power leverage of the government and the laws themselves, in which case yes, dissidence and criticism of government plus talking about certain topics is a crime in China, which is extremely bad.
The chinese government certainly is more overtly dictatorial and totalitarian, which should give anyone pause when thinking about chinese private businesses, so I do agree that there is reason to worry here, and I would never recommend anyone to use services from a chinese company if they are worried about stuff like freedom of speech.
But quite frankly, I find it laughable how americans feel they can stand on top of their soap boxes accusing China and chinese companies of everything while they cannot even see how their own government is not only threatening to do some of the same stuff, they actually already went ahead and done it, proven, this time really factual.
Multiple governmental agencies leaked a ton of extremely sensitive private data on it's citizens already, including medical records, american tech giants have been sending private citizen data collected without authorization to the government for a full decade now, scandals like Cambridge Analytica and the Snowden revelations have all come and gone, and americans still think they have the time to worry about and criticize a foreign government that, while having tons of problems and probably doing a good amount of spying themselves, was never actually caught red handed unlike the US government.
Catching dissidents and censoring content on social networks and whatnot is not atypical, shady, or an escalation of what China always had by the way. It is just law. Citizens know they are monitored. That is a different matter in comparison to intelligence agency spying.
I'm not trying to absolve TikTok here in any way, shape or form. Absolutely true that people should worry about putting content there... it isn't safe to put stuff online in your own country on platforms like YouTube anymore, let alone in some foreign company you have no leverage with.
But it feels highly hypocritical to keep criticizing on this surface level understanding the laws that China has regarding digital information and cybersecurity when the US is pretty much allowing similar things to happen in their own country. The reason why TikTok is getting so successful in the US is because not enough people care about privacy and security, which is evidenced in US based companies themselves, and how little has changed after all the scandals that already happened.
I should say I am not an american citizen nor a chinese citizen myself. And I do find this trend towards using TikTok extremely worrying. But if I am being fair and balanced, as a platform, I think Facebook is even worse, along with Google and Amazon in some level. Simply because of platform limitations.
The way people use TikTok, there isn't a whole ton of data, and a whole ton of manipulation to be had there. The content is pretty limited, superficial, vapid, and oriented for entertainment. Meanwhile, Facebook is being used for political polarization, spreading falsehoods, fooling voters and spreading out dangerous propaganda.
Perhaps therein lies the reason why so many people are flocking towads TikTok. So, by contrast, I think people should be way more worried about Facebook and Twitter rather than TikTok. It's offering something that people don't see anymore in these american platforms.
1
-
1
-
It's not only about divestment, it's about sending a message.
Which by the way, both protesters in Israel and victims in Gaza got loud and clear, which anyone watching the news should've noticed by now. It's a message of hope for students in Gaza, and a message of protest for Israeli people that are also against Netanyahu's government.
The Zionist propaganda in mainstream news labeling these protests as anti-Semitism really didn't stick, and people there have recognized the effort of students to send a clear message against this war.
So yeah, it's likely that, considering the completely broken late stage capitalism investment sector in the US, the divestment portion of the protest will likely not have a whole lot of effect. But it seems students are mostly looking for a sign of recognition of the massacre happening in Gaza and the West Bank, and that the Universities will at the very least drop the Zionist act and start thinking in how they can use whatever power they have to stop this war.
This still hasn't happened so far, and so the movement needs to keep pushing. Like any other protest, people aren't looking a perfect attendance of demands, they are looking for recognition and compromise.
Given how obscure the investment sector has become, it is likely that Universities won't be able to do much - I agree with that. But the state, politicians and news already made it plenty clear on whose side they are. So the protests must go on. Because we're not even at the point of recognition that what is happening in Gaza is plain genocide, orchestrated by a far right government. We're still seeing in all side of power, people with the nerve to deny what is happening there.
Yes, Hamas is a terrorist organization that attacked innocent Israeli citizens in a terrorist attack. But defense from that, or some misguided vengeance campaign, does not justify the genocide in Gaza. It cannot be labeled a Hamas hunt, or some bullsh*t like "Israel's right to self defense", when you are starving civilians, killing women and children, destroying every single essencial infrastructure in the region in a scorched earth campaign, bombing everything, and destroying any possibility for these people to recover.
There is no bigger proof of that than the families of victims themselves protesting for the end of the war, and negotiations to end it. The Zionist radicals behind this misinformation campaign better know that everyone is watching what is happening there. We have access to images of family of victims invading parliament meetings to demand the government to negotiate the end of this operation. We know about how many journalists, how many UN workers, how many people working in aid and peacekeeping missions, and even hostages that the Israeli army already killed in this so called operation. We know about the indiscriminate killings, shellings, and destruction.
Families of victims know it far better than anyone else the pain of loss and of having family members held hostage by a terrorist group, and they are still protesting against Netanyahu's genocidal dictatorship. Israeli people have been protesting against this government before this war, before Hamas' attack happened. It's because they know that Netanyahu is using Hamas' attack solely to advance his own egotistical genocidal actions, which his administration announced loud and clear before he was even elected. This government cannot be allowed to use a terrorist attack to justify a genocide of his own. It is as simple as that.
So, I'll keep my support to students. They are as right today, as the multiple student led protests were in the past. If people in other nations cannot be bothered with fully understanding what is happening there, they should just stay out of this discussion. Leave it for people who actually care.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
I think that as always, Musk is hyperbolic and full of crap. Sorry Joe. No offense intended to people who are fans of Musk and Tesla, it's just my personal position.
I do recognize that he has done wonders to advance in several fields, but much like Jobs, I just don't like the guy. We tend to put accomplishments on the spot for these kinds of geniouses, at the cost of overlooking their mistakes and their errors which sometimes are equally as big.
I just cannot vouch for CEOs and figureheads that are always coming out with hyperbolic or straight false statements while hiding or ignoring lots of things along the way because it doesn't serve their purposes.
Lidar might be ugly and redundant to a point, but that does not mean the technology cannot improve and cannot become as seamless and as important as computer vision is. And if there is something that I personally think will be extremely needed when it comes to autonomous cars, it's exactly redundancy. It is the exact sort of technology that needs multiple failsafe systems not to end in tragedy.
It is the reason why Waymo started using it, just so people know - not because CV can't fullfill that hole, but because with an autonomous system that is lugging around people in a ton heavy metal box, it's really important to have redundancy just in case one system fails. Waymo also uses CV, they have used CV from the beginning, that's not some Tesla exclusivity. In fact, Waymo's CV is extremely advanced as shown in half a decade old TED talk from an Waymo engineer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiwVMrTLUWg
Before autonomous cars even started, Google already had tons and tons of research into computer vision. It's not something new developed for autonomous driving. You can look it up, Google has tons of patents, research and projects into the tech. I know lots of people already know this, but just to point it out.
Mass production will reduce costs for that Lidar, the price is currently high because it's not exactly in high adoption - it's specialized equipment. Well, at least this was true a little bit ago, because afaik, Lidar already has new better models at cheaper prices.
The other factor to always consider is this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_self-driving_car_fatalities
Obviously, Tesla has more fatalities because it has actual cars on the road, but so far 3 fatal accidents with Autopilot on. Some people might see these as statistics or something close to civilian fatality in an autonomous car war, but for me it's just unacceptable. Waymo's more careful approach with closed test areas and limited runs with engineers on the passenger seat is still the way to go for me, even if I can't get one of the cars for myself, or that perhaps this means Waymo will take longer to get out the door worldwide. For me personally, this is something that really cannot be rushed. It is the future, sure, but rather than wanting to experiment and beta test the thing myself, it's something I look forward for the next generation.
Perhaps it takes people who have lost family and friends to car accidents to appreciate this, but that's it for me. I hate gung-ho companies pushing tech to the limits at the cost of innocent human lives and public safety just so they can advance their tech agenda. I also think Tesla response in each and every of those cases was extremely poor to say the least. Uber's was even worse, so there's that.
I don't even like Alphabet and Google as a company much. But at least for now, I know who to trust, and Tesla isn't it. Too many half truths, straight falsehoods, and hyperbolic crap for me to take in. Musk can go smoke a joint or keep provoking SEC with his tweets for all I care, but I had enough of semi sociopath leaders for the moment.
1
-
1
-
A joke of disastrous proportions, that's all this is.
Look, if UK wanted to exit EU, fine. Work out the entire deal, make sure it's benefitial to UK, spend as long a time needed to form a strong set of negotiations that would actually benefit UK in the long run, guarantee the key points, AND THEN propose the exit. Anyone with half a brain should've known this would be a long and arduous process.
But nope. Announce the exit first, rush through unrealistic proposals until the time it officially happens, and now this idiotic game of asking for extentions, being forever gridlocked in negotiations which are further stopped by inflammed egos, fear and shouting contests, and let the rest of important news get drowned out by this freakshow. Set yourself in a weakened position where all negotiating countries will find a way to exploit because you are basically cornered.
And I thought Trump's US was bad enough with the entire international relations fracas.
The UK will end up either: leaving with suicidal no deal which will destroy the livelihood of tons of workers dependant on EU relations, will pass a proposal that satisfies no one that will likely be way worse than just staying in EU, or will shamefully backtrack and somehow stay in EU making the entire thing a huge waste of time and money. I honestly don't know which is worse, but it's quite obvious there are no benefits to it.
Here's the entire problem with pro-Brexit arguments: staying in EU is most likely the best deal UK could have with other EU countries. Being outside of a cohesive group will always make negotiations worse, as the group will always leverage their combined force for benefits.
The UK probably could get better deals if the EU was entirely dissolved, then negotiations with the several different countries composing the EU could potentially, in a total sum, be benefitial. Potentially, if negotiations were done carefully with each country.
But as is, I see no reason for EU accepting proposals that would put UK at an advantage. EU interests is of getting better deals for themselves, not to benefit countries exiting with a hissy fit. If you are an outsider, you will be treated like one, and the EU is likely to ask for more concessions instead. Remaining strong economic countries that are still part of the EU and that will most likely take the reins, will rather financially support weaker countries and vouch for hard negotiations that will benefit the block rather than agreeing with UK demands.
It is always a better strategy to strenghten the block so that it can do better negotiations with the rest of the world. And dissidence is always looked upon badly, particularly when it's done with an egotistical positioning. This isn't even mentioning the territorial and hard border internal problems that will happen as soon as UK leaves, because that will be an entire other shitshow.
These tribalist tendencies will be the end of several cultures. I just hope that not every country falls into that trap.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Too much handwaving of problems and apparently trying to ignore real problems presented to put a sheen of miracle cure on this thing there, even if the video repeats several times that there are problems with it....
See, India's problem with burning stubbles has everything to do with costs. You can't present biochar as a solution if no one is offering to take all that stubble away to transform into biochar. And if you will pay for the extra cost of taking all that stubble out, it's not like biochar is the only solution to recycle it.
Furthermore, it seems to me that the very complex very self contained plant is expensive and huge for a reason... if you are going to make "portable" biochar conversion plants and it's gonna leak all the CO2 out anyways because it's not airtight and not well controlled, then it's not doing the proposed job in the first place, is it?
Is that really producing biochar, or just charcoal with some carbon capture? If those portable things are doing the job properly, why do you need a huge million dollar plant to do the same?
This is key about the tech. I'm already seeing a whole lot of people commenting that they already do this on their own, but I highly doubt it's the biochar that is shown in the piece. Like explained, for it to be actual biochar as demonstrated it needs to be burned at high temperatures in a low to no oxygen environment. Sounds to me that there are diminishing returns if you can't control temperature and take oxygen out properly.
And then, of course, in order to create and maintain a proper environment to do this correctly, it costs a lot of money.
You end up with a hydrogen as fuel conundrum. Meaning it can be done, but because of costs of doing in a "green" way, it ends up not being feasible. Most hydrogen fuel produced these days is done via a polluting process, so it ends up not counting as green energy in the long run. You have the possibility of doing it using solar panels and green energy, but it's not cost effective for now. In the sense that, if you are going to install solar panels to get hydrogen fuel from electrolysis, it's just better to take that power and put it into the grid instead.
In any case, it should be a subject of research because of possibilities of a breakthrough or something, but for now, current tech doesn't look like it can scale while keeping it's carbon negative characteristics.
It indeed is a super interesting material with lots of potential applications, but we'll have to see where research goes on this, and specially if it really will result in something that can scale up. We have tons upon tons of promising tech to address Climate Change and to replace dirty, toxic, dangerous or highly polluting industrial processes, but going from lab to scale is always a huge obstacle.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
By the same logic, Obama was also chosen by God, Nixon was chosen by God, Clinton was chosen by God. And then Hitler, Pol Pot, Pinochet, Stalin, etc etc.
What really surprises me is that after millennia of humanity's existence, people still don't seen to understand, religious or not, that we just simply cannot skirt our freedom of choice and our personal responsibilities to the will of invisible beings or out of control external factors.
And I'm pretty sure all major religions are not predicated by their respective gods or God doing everything for it's followers as long as they believe in it. There's a whole ton of people that call themselves Christians that follows almost none of the supposed teachings of Christ, almost nothing that has been passed on by the Bible, and that would make Jesus grimace in disgust by their actions, their falsehoods, and by their lack of empathy, care and love to other of God's creations. It always seems to be all about hate, about prohibiting people to behave in a certain way, about accusing others of being sinful, about trying to limit others' freedoms, about thinking of themselves as gods or apostles of God to force their own will against others.
Religion seems to never be brought into the fray when it is to talk about unfair treatment of our neighbors, about sharing the bread, about correcting your ways, about taking the name of the Lord in vain, about committing adultery, about not bearing false witness against thy neighbor.
This is the general problem of religion, and why it has to be completely separated from state matters. It is too open for interpretation, which leads to chaos. If you are going to use it to just say whatever crap you want in the name of it, it has no place in politics, lawmaking and state matters. If you cannot live by this very simple rule of secularity, you might as well just move away to a totalitarian religious country and call it a day, see how well things go for you there when the religion does not work in your favor. Preaching for a country that is led by religion and that people should be forced to submit to it is preaching for terrorism, religious extremism, and absolutism.
And to be clear, I am not anti-religion myself. I am against the way some people twist and turn it to behave in whatever way they see fit, to backup their unsubstantiated claims, to go against logic, to destroy parts of society just because they themselves judge that to be favorable for themselves.
If I can justify anything of being the "will of God", and I give no room for questioning, then everything is justifiable, and there are no societal rules to follow. You can't really complain about anything, and you cannot take any actions that leads to a better future.
1
-
As someone who lives in a country where citizens have to pay anywhere between 60 to 120% (everything included, importation taxes, airport transit taxes, the calculation of taxes over shipping and whatnot) for almost all (exceptions for books a very few other categories) products that comes from outside, I guarantee you that the last thing people should want in a country is to pay those importation taxes, or impose tariffs on other countries that will lead you to this situation.
Proven over decades and decades of living under this tiranny - industries don't come back, newer technology is not developed because it is also dependant on prices of external industrial machinery and specialized equipment, your country quickly turns into one of raw exports that become huge government lobbyists always forcing the country's economy to keep on that level, technology becomes luxury, unemployment rises and the quality of jobs drop, education also tumbles, and basically everything goes to shit.
The country doesn't implode or anything like that, but intelligence and expertise runs dry, inequality grows because the reality of raw material exports is one of automation and mechanization that further puts more money in the hands of few and generates only poor paying poor quality jobs, so the divide increases, and problems like exploitation and overburdening of natural reserves becomes even worse.
Reason is pretty simple - if you raise tariffs, this mean less trade in technology and intelligence with other countries. And if technology and intelligence becomes expensive, a luxury, less people have access to it, and less people are incentivized to work with it. As the cultivation and extration of raw materials becomes more important, government puts more attention and money to it, which in turn dries out funds for everything else.
Make things worse, if played very right, a tariff war might seen good at first for a very short period of time. Because overall, trade tends to reach a point of equilibrium and stay the same. But if you start poking and prodding it around, it becomes unstable, which affects stock markets and ability for predictions, which generates uncertainty that leads to waste, which in the medium to long run always generates massive losses.
I always see Trump supporters talking about how the US economy is soaring, jobs are coming back, and that numbers/statistics are telling them that things are getting better.
It's basically the eye of the storm. It saddens me to think all these people do not have the foresight to understand the long term consequences of current administration actions. By then, when US economy starts crashing down, it'll already be too late change your mind.
1
-
1
-
1
-
@roxarecool Glad you asked.
Let's look into this a bit further, ok?
Profit being a motivator for a company to succeed is... usually, not a problem. Particularly for industries, commerce and whatnot.
But when it comes to essencial services, which are often public and tied to government, it can become a bigger problem than most people seem to think.... particularly in the US apparently.
Believe it or not, it's the whole reason why governments were set up in the first place.
To pick out services and general functions that are essencial for the entire population, collect money from the entire society in the form of taxes, and then using it to guarantee it reaches everyone independent of current social, economic and personal status. And then guaranteeing they are working under a certain set of rules, having oversight over it, guaranteeing the focus isn't profit, but the service itself, attending the needs of people.
Essencial services are often not very profitable. Or, at the very least, not very stable. When done right.
In the case of these firefighters, they'll get hired during fire season, and that's pretty much it.
But in order for the service to be functional, it needs to be there for longer than that.
It's a more complicated math for stuff like police, justice, health, education and others, but it boils down to none of these services being very profitable or stable when they are executed well with good budgeting and purpose.
The other component that gets through public governmental processes is oversight, regulation, control on how it works, how hiring processes goes, how coordination between agencies gets standardized. Private firefighting forces, militias, vigilantism, among others often get outside closer purview.
Now, that is of course all dependant on how government manages private service and businesses of course. But it's often the case that, as you'll know, when it comes to for profit businesses being handled by governments, things tend to go wrong plenty fast and hard. Particularly in countries with stuff like lobbying and private business influence inside governments being the norm, not the exception.
So, how can a situation like that go wrong?
You gotta think about the fail mode. What happens when profit isn't there, given that profit is the motivator.
When a company is public, most of the times the result is poor service and strikes. Underfunded public schools will result in poor education for students. Teachers on strike, services paralyzed. Underfunded police, crimes will be on the rise. Not enough cops or staff to take care of everything, organized crime getting better equipped and prepared, stuff like that. Underfunded firefighters, same thing. Not enough people to combat fires, particularly on fire season when cases starts exploding out of control.
Now, turn that to private and think like a business person. What does a private company does when profit is the motivator? You start cutting corners, thinking about different strategies, and getting creative with it... at the risk of competition running over you. This may sound like a good thing, and it is up to a point... but the dangerous mix here is that we're talking about essencial services. It's not a commodity product you are offering to clients, it's not a luxury that only some wants and can afford, it's something that everyone needs, that people's lives depend on, and that for this reason alone, is rife for exploitation.
Ultimately, what happens when private businesses are not profitable? They close down, and you deal with the problem yourself. There is no guarantee of continuity, no rule saying it needs to keep going. When profit is the only driving force, if there is no profit, there's no service.
The following chain of events that happens in such situations is part of the history of most countries, happened or is happening.
Public service is poor because of some reason - corrupt government, bad economy, lax regulations, poor wage schemes, bad training, etc. Individual or a group of good hard working citizens decide to take matters in their own hands, and pay for private groups, companies or businesses to fill in the gap or even replace public service entirely.
At first, it sounds like a good deal. But then, profit logic takes over.
With it comes interesting stuff like competition, modernization, optimization and other stuff that might or might not help. But also, comes stuff like predatory behaviour, underhanded tactics, exploitation of costumers, businesses creating the problem so they have a justification to be there, cutting corners, stamping competition using underhanded tactics and whatnot. Or just the entire thing closing down and leaving people to fend off for themselves.
And then, "costumers" get trapped into the situation. Because again, we're talking about essencial services. The cost of not paying up and not putting up with services is often death, so you'll put up with whatever comes because you wanna live.
A big part of what differentiates a developed nation from a developing or poor one is just this. The level of access the poorest people in your nation gets to those essencial services.
So, looking into what happened to some essencial services in the US, for instance. You have a privatized health sector. Prices of services and medicine are rampant. Private businesses sets up the price, and you find a way of paying if you wanna keep on living. The more essencial a medicine is, the more the price goes up - it's a profit maker, because there's nothing more profitable than ramping up prices of medicine essencial for a costumer's life. And so, you have an indebted nation, slaves to corporate service.
Private schooling. The US now has a culture of putting people in debt early on so private schools have a steady income for the rest of their existence. It has nothing to do with how much it costs, it's profit driven.
So you have students that are entering the market with a debt they need to work half their lives to pay. In my books, that a modern equivalent of slavery. What freedom people have in that situation?
ISPs and mobile networks. Access to the Internet has become an essencial service over the years, but it stayed private. So what you have is some of the shadiest tactics to exploit costumers out of their money, with aging infrastructure, minimal investment on betterment of service, and corporations putting former CEOs in political positions to flex the law and extinguish regulations... for their own profit, with anti-consumer measures, and underhanded tactics.
They have been the champions of consumers complaints for almost their entire existence, but nothing ever changes for the better, it only gets worse. Because it's an essencial service people depend on. So they are gonna accept everything, and put up with anything in order to get that service, no matter the cost for themselves.
In countries that are poorer or still in development, things get worse, and you can really start seeing the bottom of the barrel there. Militias taking control over an entire neighborhood or even city. Private enterprises initially offering to cover essencial services and then subsequently taking over the entire thing with excuses of lack of payment and whatnot. Militias taking over crime they were supposed to combat, and assuming the role for profit.
Think realistically about it. If profit is the motivator, how far a private firefighting group is from creating the fire themselves when finances are not going as well as they thought it would? Pay up or we're not working anymore. Pay more or next time your property goes in flames. Pay up or things will happen.
I'm not saying public service is perfect or anything like that, but it's a matter of risk accessment and public oversight. Once people start going private, people are taking more things under their personal responsibility than they realize. And unless you are extremely rich and powerful to handle everything, the weakest link always break, particularly when profit is the motivator. And it's gonna be on your side, the chump who thought paying up for private groups was a good idea.
Government regulations, oversight, auditing, monitoring, standardization, guarantees that it's not profit driven... those can often not work well enough, be imperfect and whatever. But ultimately, it's a bigger power, a bigger "group", that can and often goes after all sorts of irregular for profit business behaviour. So, if you are willing to go outside the system, are you sure you can do all that by yourself? The power of the state is gone there. Outside justice, which you'll have to pay for yourself, you are on your own.
That's pretty much it.
And look, I understand how the proposal might seem interesting at first. But when you look at cases where private for profit businesses took over roles of essencial service, no matter how well intentioned people were at first, what we mostly see is things going down hard. Because humans will human.
1
-
1
-
I'm not trying to offend her or anything like that, but from her short description, and this is all pure speculation since we only have this interview to go for, it kinda sounds like a case in the spectrum of body dysmorphic disorder.
It's also often valid for people who do extreme body modifications, most notorious cases people probably heard of - Stalking Cat, The Lizardman, and the living Barbie and Ken dolls.
Not very common but also not extremely rare... it's just that most people in the disorder spectrum don't have the money or courage to go through so many surgeries.
Also, when it's not a disorder, I guess it's pretty common for people to think they are ugly or that they have some ugly body part at some point in their lives, if not all throughout their lives. But if it's not a disorder you just let go of it at some point.
It sounds like she's doing well, and the disorder aside, has put a lot of thought into it. I just hope she's able to keep this more sane side of hers well as time passes... beauty is as fleeting, as it is superficial. At some point in your life you are gonna have to switch gears, accept your looks for what they are, and move on. Placenta or whatnot won't do it for you. Time tramples all.
1
-
1
-
The vending machine vs shark thing is a bit lopsided.... sure, more people are injuried and even killed by vending machine accidents, but think about how many people interact with a vending machine on a daily basis versus how many interact with a shark. I guarantee you if we interacted with as many sharks as vending machines everyday, those numbers would be veeeery different.
Same thing for the cars vs planes, among other comparisons. I understand the purpose of putting things like that, because yes, planes are safer than most people think, and sharks are mostly afraid of people and just want you to leave them alone, not deserving the stigma it carries in any way, shape or form due to Hollywood sensationalization.
Just... it's still ok to respect them. Same thing for most wildlife, specially in national parks. Keep your distance and hold the selfie no one will care about for your non wildlife pets and friends.
1
-
I think it's about time policy makers and people who do these types of calculations to add up if not the general environmental costs, at the very least the costs associated with health and medical costs for a country related to the type of power generation that is adopted...
It just simply can't be ignored anymore, and it'd probably be very surprising.
And sidelining the entire thing, it would've been great if China wasn't so opaque about what happened there in the past decades or so... I'm really hoping... in fact, I've been hoping for decades for a change in government more towards cooperative and open rather than totalitarian and more closed off, which arguably is the direction it's currently going unfortunately.
But right there, you have a country that was very rural, became extremely industrial with the help of very dirty energy generation, and is now in the process of becoming urbanized, rich and adopting clean energy solutions.
You have an entire country with like 3 or 4 decades that condense the entire transformation of the modern era.
It'd be great to look into changes that happened regarding health and environment there... as a microcosm of what's happening in the world, and what would happen in countries that are still developing.
Anyways, back to my argument, I still feel that health is a huge blindspot that keeps being ignored both intentionally and unintentionally. People who are super scared about nuclear power, major incidents related to it, and whatnot... they often don't or avoid making the comparison with lives lost because of all sorts of accidents or even regular operations on coal mines, fracking, oil extraction, and whatnot.
Because if it this was done on equal to equal standards, people would quickly realize how similar it is to something like airplane catastrophes. Yes, those are ugly and scary to look at, but evaluating those as a whole in comparison to others in the industry... they are almost insignificant.
First, I don't think many people realize how much we already rely on nuclear. Some people seem to think Fukushima was the only nuclear power plant in Japan. Or Three Mile Island was the only one in the US. Or Chernobyl the only one in USSR back then.
Japan has 54 nuclear power plants. Back when the Fukushima disaster happened, Japan's power was 30% nuclear and they had plans to rise this up o 40%.
Now, because of the huge backlash and subsequent policy, of all those power plants, only something like 5 are in operation... and they are all being decomissioned towards a no nuclear power future.
Might sound great for anti nuclear power people, but this power needs to come from somewhere, and it's mostly imported at very high costs. Extreme high costs. It's a huge chunk of taxpayer and government money that is being spent there, and not on other things.
And it's all because a mix of corruption, mismanagement, and an unprecedented earthquake hit the Fukushima Daiichi plant all at once. Yes, corruption. For those who don't know the full story, one of the major reasons why the meltdown happened in the first place is because both japanese government and the Daiichi plant ignored a full decade worth of warnings that those backup generators should not be at ground level. Tsunami hitting the plant was inevitable, but the meltdown wasn't. It wasn't an accident, it was preventable.
The US has 95 nuclear power plants. In a very similar way, the Three Mile Island accident put a stop on planned expansion to almost double that number. Now, the US has a much more fraught history with nuclear accidents in general, but the vast majority of it are not on nuclear power generation, but rather on nuclear weapons research and works. People tend to put it all into a single FUD pit, but that's a very naive approach.
USSR... well, I dunno much. I think they are less in numbers, but huge in power generation. And of course, back when the Chernobyl disaster happened it wasn't the only nuclear power plant in generation... in fact, several plants of the same era continue generating power to this day, even after multiple questions about the safety of the type of plant came about. Yeah... I repeat, there are still multiple nuclear power plants in operation in Russia that uses the exact same technology that Chernobyl did.
Now, the other part of the equation is what we don't see about the health and lives costs of other types of power generation. Perhaps because it happens over a longer period of time, people don't realize that coal mining, oil rig work and whatnot all have their very costly health consequences overtime. You can add up all people who died in nuclear power plant accidents over the history of nuclear power, it wouldn't come ever close for comparison to people who died because of health complications on dirty power generation.
It's almost like comparing the number of people killed in plane crashes to the number of people who died in car crashes. The difference is in order of magnitude.
But you know, this short sightedness of people, governments, politics and whatnot is hard to overcome. And it's a problem that never goes away.
It affects taking action of a creepying steady problem like climate change, it makes politicians avoid taking any unpopular measure that is better for the country in the long term, it causes the whole NIMBY problem, and it makes the future of the planet increasingly more dire.
If we don't find a way of overcoming this overall barrier, sooner or later we'll condemn our survivability in this planet.
1
-
1
-
As a Brazilian, I wish we could put all of those assholes in jail because the most likely scenario is that these weapons are all gonna end up at the hands of criminals eventually, when not the owners themselves becoming criminals, which is just happening in an almost weekly basis now with feminicide cases, road rage cases that ends with people shooting each other, and incredibly stupid accidents such as the recent accident with a MRI machine.
I see the gun lobby is at force in the comment sections, or at least their stupid cultists and bots.
Crime rates have indeed fallen during Bolsonaro's term, but it obviously has absolutely nothing to do with guns or the change in laws, it has to do with the pandemic, truce between gangs, and the economical shifts that have been happening.
It's f*cking ridiculous and a display of complete ignorance to say crime rates lowered just because of Bolsonaro or some change in law, particularly considering you hear absolutely nothing about gun owners protecting anything down here other than their own self congratulatory, self entitled, inflated egos - which is always a horrible combination to be had, giving tools which sole purpose is to take the lives of other to a throng of ignorant, self-entitled, privileged, egotistical, often already violent assholes.
You think about that because you are looking at the statistics superficially and trying to fit it to your own agenda, but it just ends up being bullshit. This sort of ignorance only serves to show how we need to restrict guns even more.
When you look at the types of civilian incidents, hate related crimes, and disputes that ends up with someone dead ,shot by some hot headed guy, it's always Bolsonaro supporters, always.
These people don't want to buy guns to defend their families, defend themselves against government or some other bullshit they talk about. They want them to power trip, to impose their will on others, to feel powerful with their small dicks, and to stave off their personal insecurities. It's a bunch of man babies and yahoos who are willing to make the country more dangerous for everyone just so they can have their toys.
Poor people living in dangerous neighborhoods don't have the money to buy guns, not legally anyways, and it would pay them no favors having one anyways because they eventually lose in numbers. Organized crime will always find ways to be more violent and more cruel. And they are always armed to their teeth, with army level guns and firearms, because Brazil continues being a country that cannot stop the flood of illegal weapons trafficked from countries like the US. The entire Central and Latin America has this same problem. It's because of the gun industry in the US that several other nations in the Americas suffer.
The solution for gun violence in Brazil is not bringing in more weapons to kill each other, it's to stop both legal an illegal guns from entering the market. You cannot stop a fire by throwing fuel into it.
1
-
Oofff.. that's just too much sweet icy treats. xD Of course, I imagine you guys distributed those through several days, but still. I don't see a single thing there that I'd personally not like taste wise, thought I know a huge part of it I'd simply not be able to eat at all (lactose intolerant).
Still, I gotta say... I think japanese people are very spoiled for food. xD I don't mean this in a bad way, it's just that everywhere you go and everything you have there to eat is just all high grade stuff in comparison to what I see here in my own country. The cheap stuff generally either tastes horribly artificial and medicine-like, or like totally flavorless with some grease aftertaste. :P When it isn't stuff with hints of being rotten or past due.
In both my 20 day trips to Japan, I think the only thing I ate that I didn't particularly liked, and it was kind of a dare, was shrimp sashimi, horse meat sashimi, uni... and these little fishes you eat while they are still moving.... oh, and natto. My mom likes it, I just can't.
Kinako I kinda empathize with Aiko... I like it, but only at certain times, because of the weird fine powder texture.
But other than natto, and stuff with milk when I don't have lactaid with me, I actually don't think there's anything inside a combini that I can't eat... and enjoy.
As a single guy who is always ordering food because it's kinda wasteful to cook for myself, I'd love to have a combini nearby. Man... specially those easy to get single serving salads and fruit packages from Lawson.
Swear I had the hardest time chosing what to eat on the multiple times I went to the closest Lawson to our hotel, because of how many stuff there was to choose from. 20 days isn't enough.
Oh, I remember one other thing I bought that really didn't go down well. I mistook it with dried squid. Actually, I think it was still dried squid, but some part of it that was extremely leathery. I love regular dried squid, but that one was kinda bad, Family Mart brand. xD
The one thing I can say I love about the japanese sweets in general compared to brazilian stuff is that they are not too sweet. Here in Brazil deserts are generally too sweet, perhaps because of our sugar cane heritage... sweet to a point it always seems they are hiding other flavors that get overpowered by it, you know? Or more likely, hiding other bad flavors. Cakes are specially bad around that, they throw in a bunch of sugar to hide the taste of that vegetable fat thing.
In relation particularly to ice cream, you'd think that Brazil being a tropical country that is generally hotter would have tons and tons of different choices, but most of the diversity we have is actually imported.
For instance, one of the stuff I like the most which is ice cream sandwitches.... we have no local options, believe it or not. There are no brazilian made ice cream sandwitches. I see some import shops selling a couple different choices from a korean brand, but it's expensive and not always available. Popsicles and regular tubs of ice cream are available in every market, lots of flavors. I also often buy a local brand of zero lactose ice cream which I like a lot.
We had a big trend of mexican style natural frozen fruit popsicles (known worldwide as paleteros), but still, it was a mexican thing, not brazilian. The internal market is pretty stale, people have been buying the same pops and cream flavors since I was kid.
Anyways, great video! Both times I went to Japan was during sakura blossoming season, so I actually didn't eat ice cream much as the climate was still pretty cold. I tasted a bunch of them though, very nice after a dip in onsens. xD
1
-
1
-
Wow... I didn't know replies went that far. Kinda glad I've been out of Twitter for almost a decade now, what a cesspool.
Hopefully, Linus also didn't take those to heart... well, I'm pretty sure he had worse. Kids and their PC part brands can become very... unstable I guess.
Last WAN show he commented briefly on the case, not of Twitter comments, but on the looney who went to his face to talk shit.
Thing is, some of these people are parasites... perhaps they don't even realize, but they are. It's a sort of mentality that goes specially well with extreme activists - they aim to be offended by the weakest things, as long as the target is popular enough. Doesn't matter if they don't know shit about the person they are both attacking and playing the victim of, doesn't matter if the indignation is sort of an incoherent blabber (when there's any), doesn't matter if they sound like lunatics... it's some sort of mass cult-like behaviour that just spread like some sort of localized pandemic. Sometimes the feel vindicated, sometimes they feel they need to do this to be part of the club, sometimes they just take pleasure humiliating others. Which is all sorts of twisted.
And I'm saying this as someone who actually defends some reasonable feminists flags, complaints and fight for rights.
But attacks like the ones against Linus isn't feminism. It's just mass hysteria. Fanatism. Extremism. With a vague misguided sense of being part of a "group" there to replace religion.
It's worrying how much this sort of behaviour is out there and how much time is being wasted on things like that... I dunno, I've seen enough displays of that sort of behaviour to think this era, if we survive it, will be labeled the age of lack of empathy. Of sociopathy. Of thinking only about yourself.
There are lots of cultural phenomena and trends that points out to that. Isolated, some trends might look harmless or even kinda fun, but when you take the overview of it all, it's kinda scary.
I know there's this real distancing effect that particularly the Internet and social network creates, which makes some people think it's alright to say the worst things imaginable, that he/she would never say to someone's face - because they don't feel the connection, don't see a human on the other side.
But this is wrong, and if people don't start connecting the dots soon enough, it might end up being too late one day.
I mean, really, we all have people we know that might make some inappropriate jokes at times, or that uncle of yours that's kinda racist, or your cousins that are kinda religious fanatic... do you jump at them with a knife to their throats everytime you see them? Start treating others on the Internet how you'd treat them in real life.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Great interview!
I agree with basically everything on the video... there's just one thing that I've also been going back and forth, sometimes agreeing sometimes disagreeing not only with several Youtubers, but also even with myself. It's about the conspiracy groups and misinformation in general, as one might expect.
And I get some of the argument. That psychological and historical comparisons tells us that if we push too hard, the effort often backfires.
But at the same time, I also understand that this, this information age we're living in, it's not comparable to historical cases, and perhaps psychological tests and ideas are also not up to speed with what is really happening out there.
You see, information today does not flow the same way it did in past pandemics. It doesn't act like a immune system. I don't think there is a proper analogy that gets close enough to describe the whole thing.
These groups of conspiracy theorists that are becoming increasingly radicalized seems to have no boundaries... I'm not an US citizen so I dunno how bad it really is out there, but here in Brazil, I've been seeing (because our current president follows the same "news" sources that Trump did), people from poor, uneducated, ignorant backgrounds all the way up to extremely well educated and well off people falling to the same lies, the same conspiracy theories, the same crazyness.
And it's scary af. Because hearing statistics, it seems it's not a small number of people. It might not be the majority, but it's in numbers significant enough to be extremely worrying. It spreads out in these ecochambers where people can hear nothing else. They get firehosed everyday with loads and loads of false stories, lies, biased content, and you can't take them away from it.
I'm not saying you should go to your conspiracy theorist uncle and bang his head until he starts believing in science and sanity, I also can see how this doesn't work well enough and we're all tired of doing it, but I think major changes and revisions are gonna come, like it or not, if we're ever going to solve this problem. And it's gonna be ugly for some, if not all.
The thing is, the misinformation problem has always been around... but the way it's spreading, consolidating, growing, funding itself, becoming a force to be reckoned with - it's not really stopping is it? I think lots of people see Biden's election as a victory, but is it really? I'm not totally sure.
And I think this has to do with ideals taken to the extremes, to the point they are being abused for selfish reasons, rather than being to the benefit of society. It's almost like late stage capitalism, liberalism taken to the extremes, perhaps we're also pushing the core concepts of democracy to it's breaking points when it comes to a healthy society. And no, I'm not advocating for socialism, communism, fascism, totalitarianism, or anything like that. But perhaps the ideals that pushes democracy towards insane levels of individual freedoms, to the point it's individual freedoms over collective protections and rights, are being pushed too hard in the wrong way.
For instance, often mistaken concepts like Freedom of Speech, Liberty in general, egalitarianism, personal standings like always being open to any discussion, platforms that refuse to censor anything, general idea of not shooting the messenger and safe harbor provisions.... it seems that to some degree, several of these concepts that we hold dear and close as democratic principles, have been abused to turn the tables on us. And they were all created to protect democracies, to fight against tyranny.
You are free to talk whatever you want, so you talk about conspiracy theories and false information. There won't be consequences for what you share, so you share whatever you see fit without any hint of responsibility.
Your platform won't be punished for what your users post, so you let them post violent, racist, authoritarian crap tied to false information, because it appeals to more people, generates more revenue, gets you more clicks to report to your advertisement partners. You are allowed to vote on any candidate, so you vote for the populist moron that will put his own interests above the interests of everyone else, but has a discourse that comes out as easy to understand and direct, nevermind how loaded with prejudices and misconceptions it is - as long as it confirms my bias.
I dunno, I'm just rambling now. But it feels to me that we're reaching some sort of turning point.
I discussed this idea when it still wasn't quite a feeling... among journalism and comp sci students, both courses I took, back when it seemed traditional media was being overtaken by Internet portals and then social networks. There were discussions about how we were losing journalistic processes of verification of information, authenticity, ethics and morals, the daily battle of grounding everything on fact checking and hearing both sides, relying on expert sources, treating subjects with the complexity that they have.
And back then I knew it was gonna be a major societal change. That people would have to learn to do much of the work journalists did for traditional media by themselves. If you can't trust the information you are getting, you are gonna have to learn how to fact check, seek further, and compare between different sources.
But back then, I didn't know how much people wouldn't be able to do it by themselves, how reliant societies were on someone else doing this for them, how many gullible people would be fooled by bad actors, and how far reaching these misinformation networks would become.
I am admitedly a very negative person, but I have to admit that I really didn't predict nor imagined the scenario the US is facing or has faced now.
I kinda thought things would be better or worse depending on education level of each society, but it doesn't seem to follow that as much as I thought it would.
The crap people believed coming from "celebrities"... the entire celebrity culture thing back then already gave me pause. People following fad diets and crazy stuff just because a celebrity said so. It never occured to me it would reach these proportions though.
If anything, it's almost like the fact that the US is a rich powerful country worked against it, rather than in favor.
Anyways, I don't have and can't see a solution, nor if and what we'll have to sacrifice for it. But major changes are coming, that I have no doubt. We are still not saying the biggest impact the Internet era is gonna bring us. Some of it will likely be good, but some of it will also be very bad. I just hope we emerge on the other side better, rather than drowning in the transition...
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
As a whole? Definitely yes! The dedication, tons of work, and well researched subjects you put into plus humor and great animation always show... it's somewhat of a miracle these days to find something as good as Kurzgesagt on the Internets. Thanks guys, we really appreciate it!
As a single source? Nope, because you should never ever trust single sources for information, no matter how good they are. The most important basic thing anyone should develop in the age of getting information directly from the Internet is critical reasoning and related stuff like checking sources, multiplying them, and building your web of trusted channels, like Kurzgesagt.
The days when you could only get information from traditional press where there was a relative trustworthy degree of research and sourcing is over. It has entirely finished quite unfortunately, even though it might it still didn't.
The Internet is littered with fake news and bad information, poorly sourced and poorly based, poorly researched and extremely biased, and traditional press and media have mostly degraded with this progress. There remains few exceptions, but even those at times gets taken by fake news publishing stuff that's just plain wrong.
The ball is in our court now, and we have a responsibility to take care of it ourselves - it is the challenge of the century, a really really important one that might have the survival of our species as wager. If we can't, as societies, reach a position where the majority of people knows how to fact check and have good critical reasoning with the information they receive and generate, I fear the future will be pretty grimm... if there is even a future like that.
So yeah, I think this channel deserves trust. But more than that, if anyone is thinking of creating a similar channel with the intention to educate and spread information, it is also an example to follow. It is no doubt very hard to produce content with this degree of work and research, but it is what the world needs right now. Tip the scales to avoid going further towards Idiocracy.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Power failure not leading to a meltdown is huge by itself already, so kudos to the team in China! But the thing that immediately strikes me when I see the design is containment breach and leak of radioactive materials into the atmosphere.
Just because we're talking about a gas pressure chamber. Then again, current reactors already have that problem, right? If containment is breached, most nuclear reactor designs would end up leaking radioactive gas or vapor into the atmosphere, quite explosively.
With water or without water, you are still dealing with either gas or water vapor inside a pressurized chamber to move the generator, with a radioactive material thrown in the mix, is that right?
Seems that this design is better in that sense because water never comes in direct contact with radioactive material though, not sure how much of a difference this makes.
So the risk of a huge explosion if the vessel fails is still there, but without the self sustaining reaction.
What I'd worry about a design like this is the same as a spicy gatcha. xD Clogging. And what Kyle mentioned - constant refueling. Particularly because it's a pressured chamber. If you'll have to be emptying and refilling content more frequently, considerations need to be made about that, because it means more wear and tear, moving parts, and whatnot.
1
-
I don't get why this is so hard to understand: contact tracing does not work for the exact same reasons why a recommendation to stay at home and self isolate do not work - it is too late for that.
The way it worked in other countries is because it was done very early, and tied up with a massive effort for testing and cleaning things up. Further, it either needs a huge degree of confidence in government policy, or a totalitarian surveillance state tied to huge police and military effort so that citizens feel obliged, by faith or fear, that they have to stay at home or the consequences for getting out will be incredibly dire.
Those are the key components, and the strategy does not work if the settings are tweaked. They cannot, because all those components are key factors. You can not implement the thing without one of them and hope for the best, it's a waste of money and time.
If it's done early, as in the week when the first cases were detected in the entire country, when you only have a handful of people to go after, you can employ all sorts of methods to make it work. Including, if necessary, force, or paying, funding, monitoring and incentivizing those specific handful of people to oblige, putting one officer per person for monitoring if necessary.
Outside that, it gets out of control fast and easy. There is no monitoring hundreds to hundreds of thousands of people a day. And asking is not enough. It has the same effect of giving a broad generalized recommendation for people to stay at home if theh think they are infected, or if they think they got in close contact with infected people.
But the real reason why governments are even considering this route is for show only, and political purposes. It's just for "Look, we did everythinf we could, you gotta give use some brownie points for that".
Ignorance coming from representatives and politicians have killed more people than anything else during this pandemic, more than individual ignorance. Regardless of yout position in power, at least in so called democratic countries, politicians are supposed to be working for the people, not for their own interests. And several have failed just that. Several of them ignored the warnings given by their own specialists, mocked the severity of the situation early on, and then started moving their asses when the water was already hitting above their necks.
It is fruitless to start taking spreadshots in the dark now that it's already too late. The damage is done. What government should be doing is paying out of their pockets to fund as many people to stay home until numbers are truly hitting single digits. It's a low price to pay for the initial recklessness.
1
-
@mnomadvfx While I do agree with what you are saying, the problem is that surveillance in western societies have been propped up not as a method of social control, but rather as a shady method for persecution and individual targetting, plus profitting with shady ad schemes.
It sounds like the same thing, but it's fundamentally different as in how infrastructure is propped up to support it. It also has consequences on how the population accepts handing over information voluntarily. And for something like contact tracing, why it was done, how it's done, and how government and citizens expect it to be used are all key elements of it.
The following are generalizations based partially on opinion, but take them as you will.
So lets pick two different cases apart here. China has a totalitarian regime where there is no privacy, information is collected openly, brazenly and without recourse, so the state operates on fear. Further, the government has weaponized the lack of privacy against it's own citizens, creating a aystem that uses private information to publicly shame citizens into submission, impose penalties, limit their movement and access to information.
It is a very effective form of social control, albeit one that is not democratic and has no respect for individual human rights.
Their database of citizen information is centralized, open and under government control. It is relatively easy, under those conditions, to add a field for every citizen with information regarding the pandemic. Tested, not tested, infected, presenting symptons, under quarantine, last seen in public in a given date, has family in another city, etc etc.
South Korea on the other hand, acted early and fast, transparently and with government coordination. Afaik, the reason why it worked there has less to do with government imposed fear and oppression, and more to do with trust.
As the country already had a past problem with Mers, the public already had a level of understanding about the seriousness of the problem, which also contributes to a general understanting from citizens that critical out of ordinary actions are required to fight it off. I'm not super familiar with how contact tracing was done there, but afaik it was voluntary and transparent. It was out of the ordinary but with a direct purpose, for which it seems the public was already partially ready to accept.
The latter is extremely hard to accomplish in countries like US and UK, because you already have a history of mistrust and justified paranoia when it comes to the government, as well as several past cases where the government was caught red handed mishandling private citizen information, leaking it out to hackers, trying to cover everything up, and all that.
Further, the lack of previous contact with similar epidemics results in a lack of awareness and lack of understanding that the case is serious enough that you should consider exceptionally putting it above your privacy needs. The high degree of individuality, or to put it in a negative light, selfishness and lack of collectivism, also puts these strategies to failure. People don't want to voluntarily hand anything, even if it's for the benefit of everyone in the country.
And then final nail to the coffin, the strategy was all but coordinated. It was a total mess. Early dismissal of the seriousness of the disease, constant messages of mistrust against organizations like the WHO, messy prioritizations, false dychotomies between economy and health, local leadership going against state or federal, an incredible ammount of baseless speculation being considered in the highest levels by people who don't have the expertise or knowledge to say so, and an endless list of other problems - including a high degree of misunserstanding how some countries managed to fight off the pandemic successfully.
The best way the UK could probably have put the fight against the pandemic was like New Zealand. Act fast, close borders completely, and do the basic contact tracing while number of infected is low. The way to act now should he different, as the timeline also is. No country that is still fighting off the pandemic should be considering at this point to adopt strategies that successful countries used early on, as they are operating in another scenario altogether.
Kinda like trying to save a sinking ship with a bucket when it's already half full of water... it might have worked to plug the hole and use a bucket to empty the ship early on, but now it's too late for that, a different, more drastic and comprehensive strategy is needed.
And personally, I think at this point contact tracing is the bucket. It's unrealistic to think you have enough buckets and people to make a difference. It's time, money and effort lost that should be used somewhere else. Some may disagree.
1
-
1
-
A Kessler Syndrome kinda disaster would be very very bad, but we'd probably recover...
Satellite communications is important for a whole ton of things, but we could likely replace it overtime... it's not like the entire communications infrastructure is solely dependant on it. Amazingly enough, Internet is still mostly done via fiber optics transatlantic cables, so some level of communication would still be there.
GPS is a far more complex problem, along with stuff like accurate timing and whatnot that comes with it. Society is highly dependant on that in several levels, and we don't really have immediate replacements for those that work with similar precision.
Of course, the biggest bummer in all of that is that we'd be a very very long time or potentially forever enclosed in the planet... end of space race, end of humanity hopes for spreading outside the planet, at least until some technology arised to clean up the mess. At least perhaps we'd take better care of our planet. Or not, die trapped inside.
Solar flare/solar storm hitting Earth, Carrington event level or more, that would really f*ck us up royally... because that would not only kill satellites, it'd potentially burn up most of electronics, take down power grids, and depending on how exactly it happened, it'd stay that way for a while plus have several other side effects.
And it almost happened back in 2012 too... :P We missed it by 9 days.
Preppers would have a good ol' time though. xD
1
-
So... it's not about tourism, it's about short-stay and AirBnb.
See, here's the thing - everyone with half a brain knew this would happen as soon as AirBnb became a thing. And the entire "economy of sharing" bullsh*t is poised to go the same route. I've been saying this from the early days of Uber.
The problem with all of those app middleman based services is obvious - they showed up to dance around and avoid regulatory burdens that their predecessors had - for a reason. Have been there for decades or centuries for a reason. People complain and talk crap about it, but they don't consider why it's there.
I don't care if you like economy of sharing stuff or not, but this is a very simple truth.
The more people turn a blind eye to this, the more these problems will be exacerbated until the point they eventually explode.
Yes, I know people hate taxis, I know people like the convenience of making their own hours, I know people think Uber and others are cheaper and better than taxi, I know AirBnb can not only be cheaper, more convenient and better fit for certain types of tourism and tourist groups, yadda yadda yadda. I'm not saying they don't have advantages. I'm saying that the way they were implemented, the downsides of it were so downplayed or just ignored that it feels kinda idiotic to complain about it now. Of course it's ending up this way, because it was always going to end up this way.
Why oh why are we in the sh*t we're in today sinking in faster and faster than before? Because we have all this economy, all this crap, all this bullsh*t that is letting rich people use their money solely to produce more profit and nothing else, at the cost of everything else. Doesn't matter if it ruins communities, ruins entire cities, ruins the experience for the majority, ruins tourism, ruins hard earned rights such as workers rights, welfare, and whatnot... as long as rich people can make more money, with some guise of a few conveniences for people, that's fine. But it's not. And it's even more stupid to blame it on something like tourism. It's not. It's about the policies and people behind disregarding everything that was put in place to make this a good way to earn money in a fair way, just so they can eek out more profit out of it.
And the real truth of the matter is, that it's not about law, regulations and government not being able to "catch up" with the pace of evolving tech. Not really. It's all about the people responsible for regulating and legislating this, being the ones poised to lose the most from it. If you have a bunch of politicians and justices that so happens to be real estate proprietors who are getting a whole ton of money on the short stay scheme, of course they won't do anything about it until people start protesting.
And by that point, it's already too late. This economy of sharing crap will have already done the damage to what was traditionally available before, convincing people not to outright kill it but instead limit or impose some small regulations in place, which ends up not solving the problem at all.
I had a personal experience pretty recently that is reflective of the problem in general. My apartment building, in which I have lived since it's inauguration right around the time people started using AirBnb and short-stay, had a meeting to solve once and for all the question if proprietors should or should not be allowed to use those services for their units.
We're very very lucky that this is left to condominium rules, and not the law itself. And very lucky that we had very few units that were operating under AirBnb and short-stay.
Because people who actually live in the building with their families took over and voted no. This is a residential building, not a hotel. The amount of issues we had with AirBnb units is entirely disproportional to regular renters and proprietors who live here. Those two things are fundamentally incompatible. This is the entire reason why hotels are a thing. It's just sad that people need to make this entire roundabout learn the hard way route to understand this once again. It should never have been allowed in the first place, which is something I had already said, but instead people let some proprietors do it because it was the shiny new thing, because the law wasn't clear about it, because people were curious about it, because we have to keep up with times, yadda yadda yadda. I knew exactly the problem that would happen, and I said so. But nope, let's see how it goes.
Then comes the police calls, the dog shit and piss all over public spaces, the fights, the loud music late at night, the complete disrespect of tourists, all the disturbances, all the complaints, all the lawsuit threats.
And a whole ton of residential buildings and going through the exact same thing in my country. Just because people cannot understand that there is a reason why hotels were created, have strict regulations and rules, and are separated from residential buildings, for a reason. Just like there is a reason for all the stuff around taxis, about delivery systems, about workplaces, about a whole bunch of other stuff. What sharing economy crap and all of this apps have effectively done is eliminate regulations with the guise of convenience when it's really throwing economies to a pre workers' rights state. And all of this will eventually have apparent consequences, if they are not already happening. You'll see.
1
-
Brazilian here. I dunno why the piece is saying this is unique or impressive in any way. Well, it's probably the biggest heist of this year, but extremely similar to several other news brazilians are tired of hearing about at this point. It happens once a month at the very least, sometimes once a week.
Bank heists like this one with similar modus operandi have been happening in Brazil for the best part of the entire last decade now, and it's growing in scale because they are mostly left unsolved, plus organized crime is quickly becoming a huge deal here, specially in the biggest brazilian capitals, where the planning, recruitment and everything else is probably happening.
With militias and groups with links to organized crime even financing electoral campaigns and attempting to put people in influential positions, plus a flurry of elected politicians being straight bought out and receiving money from organized crime, it's no wonder things only keep escalating.
And the logic of bank heist in the middle of the night on small to medium sized cities also makes a ton of sense.
First of all, police and military in these cities are often underfunded, ill equipped, and badly prepared for heists like those. They can easily get overwhelmed and neutralized by attacking and blocking choke points, and no sane policeman or service man on minimum wage would dare going against these criminals who are more numerous, are better equipped, better paid, and often even better trained.
It's not only petty criminals participating in stuff like that... you can bet there must be ex policemen, ex military and whatnot among those groups.
We have watched over the years this exact type of heist becoming more and more well planned and organized with nothing to stop it. Amateur hour mistakes used to happen in the early days, but it's obvious that this sort of crime is becoming more serious and organized.
These days, it's happening that way. The group invades in the middle of the night, with all stolen cars, so it's not really weeks of preparation, but rather months of perhaps even a full year.
Part of the group goes directly at choke points of these cities. They use burning vehicles, barricades, tire traps and whatnot to block police departments, military instalations and everywhere else opposition might come from.
They use human shields and other tactics to get into the bank, and the bank itself might get either blown up with whatever money available taken, or they have an insider lots of time in advance giving all the intel necessary to break in and take the most valueable stuff.
They do a lot of noise and cause a lot of confusion so that people don't get out, and to be honest, I think they kinda wanna show off too, because they know nothing will come out of it.
Finally, they escape the city also burning off choke points, bridges and whatnot to delay a chase, abandon and burn the vehicles used in escape, and do all sorts of other stuff to erase traces.
The few times heists like these gets solved are mostly because of incredibly moronic actions from criminals post crime. Like showing off on social networks, spending big time when they weren't supposed to have that sort of money, and the sort of thing you come to expect from idiots who came about a huge sum of money so much that they don't know what to do with it.
But they get smarter with every case, and police is impotent to stop this trend. Every now and then the police dismantles a group specialized in bank heist, but it's like, they dismantle one, in a year, during which 100+ heists happened by different groups.
I don't personally see an end to this. Because really, it's exploiting failure in multiple levels. Banks in small cities won't get the funds to protect themselves, because it doesn't make sense for banks to spend absurd ammounts of money to heavily protect each and every single one of it's agencies spread through the entirety of brazilian soil. This is also true for police and military response in these cities, not only because it doesn't make much sense on public spending, but also because politicians are more worried with schemes to enrich themselves rather than protecting people or even banks. When you have a political system that elects people who will go incredible lengths to protect themselves and family members from investigation and prossecution, when the system is as corrupt as it currently is, crime always prevail, particularly white collar and organized crime. And finally, this is just a symptom of rampant crime in large urban centers spilling over to smaller cities. It was only a matter of time really.
Our biggest capitals have entire neighborhoods taken over by criminal factions. Inside those neighborhoods you often have incredible mansions built with crime money. You eventually get smart unscrupulous people cooperating with these factions, which will exploit each and every weakness of a country for profit.
It's a mirror image of our politics and culture. With people not only electing, but also becoming fanatical and forming groups around political figures that are so obviously corrupt you could smell the dirt from miles away, and the country only reinforcing over and over again a structurally corrupt political system that has no chances of straightening up, things like bank heists, organized crime and whatnot will take it's roots and never go away, only becoming worse over the years, particularly when the economy is already down the dumps.
1
-
1
-
1
-
I think it's an idea worth putting to practice to see how it goes.
My country had several similar debates over the past decade or so. It wasn't full UBI, but it was about governmental plans to give basic assistance to families in the worst conditions.
The arguments in both sides sound very similar to the arguments around UBI.
General conclusion these days is that it was worth it, and no matter what political party a candidate is from, they usually call for keeping and expanding the program in general. Because even though some ill intended people do try to abuse and warp the system, the general good effects can be seen in several parts of society.
But of course, just because it is true in a small experience, in other countries and cultures, and in cases that were not straight UBI, doesn't mean it'll work for the US.
Ultimately though, I think UBI isn't enough to have a great impact. The results of policies like those are usually in between the pro crowd and the against crowd. You will definitely have good and bad examples all through it, so the question becomes - can it be more benefitial than harmful in our society? And likely, the only way to definitively answering that is by putting it in practice.
But what the US really needs, imho, is a deep look into all sorts of systems and industries that are being highly warped by extreme capitalism, extreme individualism and extreme libertarianism. It's far more difficult than even implementing a new system, because like said, messing with old systems is a hard thing to do. UBI itself, if implemented will have to go for the long run one way or another, so this has to be taken into account. It's impossible to know how well a system like that works if it's not run for at least some years.
$1000 bucks is a lot for someone who has nothing, and it can help tons for the basic stuff, but if you are immersed in a situation where a health problem could cost you far more than that, or education can take all that money away, you can see how the extra money only solves a problem that should not have been there in the first place. It cannot be seen as a shortcut to solve existing issues, because that leads to a whole host of other problems along the way.
1
-
1
-
ROFL, now this is something I didn't think Chris would be able to find... but there you go. xD Probably unacceptable at more populated areas of the country.
Even the cheap, cramped, pretty bad, business Appa Hotel we stayed back in 2018 looked great by comparison. xD And I stayed at the smoker section, no less... the chair in the room had these deep cigarrete burn marks, and the building was pretty old, but no way it was this filthy. xD The smell wasn't great, but not super bad also. We started the trip in a fairly new RIchmond hotel, which was awesome for the price, but because of scheduling and busy season we had to stay half the trip duration at an Appa hotel closeby. Night and day experience, for Japan that is...
Worst thing about it has to be the weird books and magazines that are in the room... if you stayed at an Appa hotel you know what I'm talking about.
But I have thick skin. I spent an entire year studying in a post graduation course that had one class every other Saturday cross state, so I stayed in some of the cheapest hotels in the city... some were as moldy and dirty as that. Buildings probably older than that one.
Luckly, bed bugs are not a huge thing in Brazil, but still... spiders, cochroaches, mosquitoes...
I remember one hotel I stayed at for only a weekend - because for whatever reason the one I was used to didn't "get" my reservation.
Busy tourism/event season, quite obvious they cancelled my reservation without warning me from their side because they got some large group in last minute.
Anyways, I had to hunt for one when I got to the city already late at night. I ended up in a place... can't even call it a hotel despite somehow the place getting the license for it. The whole thing was obviously some ancient commercial building that absolutely should not have a license to operate as a hotel.
Picture this - it was obvious the floor was just one big room or something like that. What they did to get several tiny apartments was dividing the floor with what I can only describe as patched office partitions. You know? The ones that have either some thick cardboard or very thin particle board material with aluminum frame? In that classic beige color? That, only it went from floor to ceiling, which was unusually low - I could reach the ceiling if I stretched my arm.
The room had a restroom with shower somehow, but I've never seen anything like it before... imagine a regular cramped shower booth, cut it in half - kinda like that. It was in a super narrow weird shape. But you know, single night and I was pooped, so whatever. After a full day of post graduation classes I just needed a place to crash.
I remember another one that was very traditional, very clean, good service overall... but man, the rooms looked like they were made back when Brazil was a colony. I'm serious, the restroom tiles, the restroom hardware, showed handles and head... those all belonged to a museum. Those thick brass handles, tiny octogonal non glossy tiles... it was just so weird.
In terms of mold though, the one that takes the cake for my entire life has to be one I stayed when I was only a teen on a family trip to Manaus, the capital city of the state of Amazonas. To be fair, the city is in the middle of the Amazon jungle, it's all year long hot and humid, so it's really no surprise. It was a fully planned trip, so hotel and all pre paid... for whatever reason we got some room bellow street level if I remember correctly, old hotel building all full with carpets and whatnot, which should not be a thing in the city at all. You just shouldn't have carpeted floors and rooms in a hotel in a city that is that hot and humid.
The moment we opened the door to the room... how do I put it. You know when you feel a pressure differential when you open a door? Like that... woosh. I immediately started sneezing with my rhinitis, which isn't all that strong, and my mom who was raised in a farm and almost never complains about anything stopped halfway into the entrance of the room, stepped back, and said - we're asking for another room. xD
She could smell the mold right there, and this is something she isn't all that sensitive about. Both her and my dad started coughing up, and they didn't have any allergy or respiratory problems.
The one we ended up getting wasn't a huge improvement, but at least it was some floors up, so that we could open windows up and catch a breeze.
Same trip a stomach flu that became an intestinal infection almost killed me, even though we took real good care having lunch inside the biggest shopping mall in the city for fear of food poisoning with street food and all that... but that's a whole other story. o/
1
-
1
-
War cabinet about to collapse, yes. Civil war? US is as close, or perhaps closer to Civil War as Israel is, if that's the position you're going to adopt.
Which is very unlikely, though tensions are coming to it's peak. But there are far too many potential changes and blockages that politicians are holding on stubbornly to, that they'll let go before a Civil War scenario. There people either are stupid or play stupid to the ignorant crowds, but all in all they are not suicidal. Much to the contrary, if push comes to shove, they are the most coward type of politicians. They always step back when it looks like real consequences are coming. All of their aggressive remarks are just barking. They are spineless cowards pretending to be "strong man". They only go on the attack when they know there will be no consequences, or that the other side is at a disadvantage.
Ultimately, with the exception of a radical minority, most people living in affluent nations will just try everything before a Civil War, because in a Civil War scenario, there is no control, and you can only have losses. These spineless cowards are not interested in that.
Netanyahu's government itself only went on the offensive because they had no chances of losing there, and the far-right rhetoric and boot licking was the route Netanyahu had to power. It's all about him, not about ideological positions or politics. This is the basis of the far right movement.
And the guy is a psycho power hungry asshole. He'll do anything if it means he gets power. Close deals with far-right extremists, start a war, and keep the war going for as long as possible if ending it means he'll lose power.
But if Israel comes anywhere close to a Civil War, he'll just drop it, because it would mean that not only he would never have a chance to go back to power ever again, chances are he'd either end up detailed and dragged to an International court while trying to flee the country, or killed/lynched at home.
For power hungry politicians who are willing to do everything to get and stay in power, there is basically no worse option than a Civil War. Because a Civil War would set things in stone. An election loss might still have chances of reversal in the future. If you cause a Civil War to happen in your nation, even if your side wins, you'll eventually fall because of the responsibility of causing death and destruction in your own nation.
This of course is different for some countries still today, particularly poor nations already destroyed by corruption, where Civil Wars often look like the only sane option so bad the situation already is, plus in past histories of democracies worldwide.
But for a modern democracy? People would never forgive it.
1
-
1
-
To be fair with YouTubers, something that Dave said on his video... lots of people rely on these sponsorships for their livelihood. Particularly for tech YouTubers and science channels, or for specific Internet related content, there isn't much else out there unfortunately. Which is why I don't go too hard on them, nor trust their sponsors too much. xD
Which does not excuse them when cases like this one happens, obviously, but it's kind of a harsh outlook on things.
VPNs are a particularly bad problem to go around. There isn't a set amount of scrutiny that will ever be able to tell you how reliable the service is. Not for NordVPN or any VPN out there.
You could demand all sorts of things to happen before you accept sponsoring it, it still wouldn't tell you much. Not even if you were specifically a security expert with intimate knowledge on how VPNs works, much less if you are not.
Go to their headquarters, talk with staff, ask how they do their operations, talk about server and algorithm stuff, how is the situation of their servers in other countries, visit some of them by making several trips to other countries, check what sort of encryption they use, ask for testimonials from other non-sponsored users, personally audit everything you possibly can for weeks or months on end, check how every single bit of thing is running from encryption, entry points, exit points, etc etc etc.
They could be a-ok all top notch approved now, a week later it all falls apart. And the reasons as to why it all fell apart could be numerous, because there are just too many things involved, and thus too many potential points of failure.
This is a general problem in evaluating VPNs in general, not just for sponsorship. Linus knows this on the entire TunnelBear case. xD It's outside peoples' control.
And here's the thing - afaik, NordVPN was fairly well regarded among security experts. TunnelBear also was. Technically, I think they were on the up and up. Another one that is fairly well regarded in technical terms is the one Linus is being sponsored by these days, PIA. But being technically well regarded does not prevent it from having all sorts of problems.
If I understood the whole thing correctly on the NordVPN case, it was a hack where someone got access to a 3rd party server located in Finland and used it to extract keys and data. It was one server among some 5000.
So, if I'm being fair with them... I think this is something most VPN services are vulnerable to, which is a thing people should know about VPNs. I don't think most VPN services, if any at all, really owns all their servers spread throughout the world, and have total 100% 24/7 control over them. It probably doesn't make much economical sense to have it that way, perhaps aside from some VPN service by a huge corporation that already has servers and presence in all countries they offer exit points. Not sure if any exist available for common lowly end users. A company that only offers VPN services wouldn't be able to afford all that just by itself, unless it charged an absurd ammount of money for the service... which no one would pay for.
It's kinda similar to how most big services do not host all of their content on the company's own servers. Netflix I think uses a whole lot of Google or Amazon servers, Google also uses Amazon servers, etc etc. Depending on geographical location and some other factors, services that need local servers in a bunch of different countries will be forced to use whatever is available there.
NordVPN's response to it all was pretty bad though. Choosing not to disclose the breach the moment they learned about it is considered bad practice in the security community, and it's what they are getting most of the flak from. A breach or leak is almost an inevitability, but hiding it from users for whatever reason they gave such as checking all of their servers to see if and where it happened is not an acceptable excuse.
There are also some doubts as to how exactly the whole thing happened. NordVPN is blaming the 3rd party who provided the servers, the 3rd party is blaming NordVPN for not securing them properly, and there's even a separate theory saying this was done by a disgruntled employee due to the nature of the breach and the data that was exfiltrated. All in all, a mess.
And that right there is the whole problem with VPNs. They are supposed to protect user privacy, but they are all still solely based on trust. Which to be fair, often times is still a better proposition than trusting people's own sense of how to operate privately in general, or trusting your own ISP which is very much likely collecting data and selling it for advertisement networks for profit, plus spying on the name of intelligence agencies and police. There's no perfect solution.
This whole deal also points out to something else about service and software recommendations, which affects any form of active sponsorship and even regular reviews. As far as I know, apart from this case, NordVPN wasn't a bad service. TunnelBear before breaking up and being sold to another company (McAfee) also wasn't. Well, perhaps it still isn't despite being sold. The problem is that any service or brand is subject to breaches, hacks, ownership and staff changes overtime. But the active on-video sponsorships are forever, unless you are willing to take down all the content, re-edit everything, and re-upload it. And then it goes into ethical quandaries... would editing and re-uploading videos be seen as correcting a recommendation that is now bad, or seen as surreptitiously hiding a sponsorship that went sour?
Say for you Louis, if one of the products you recommended, thoroughly examined, actively use on repairs and all that, suddenly the company that makes it starts cheaping out on internal components, construction or something else and releases an entire batch of defective stuff, which some of your viewers get and then become pissed about... what to do? I think you'd put up a video absolutely slamming it the moment you knew about it, and you'd perhaps take the video with the recommendation down. But you see how messy it'd be.
Products still have the benefit of perhaps even being able to refund people (Dave touched on this), but services, particularly services that when it fails expose private content of costumers is far worse, because there's no turning back. But at the same time, advocating for privacy focused products and services needs to be more of a thing. This is a real conundrum. If it was possible, I wanted to see more and more and more people shilling from companies like Fairphone, Purism, software like Signal and ProtonMail, Linux distros like Qubes and Tails, among several others. But it's kinda rare for successful commercial companies with enough money to put on heavy advertisement to coincide with privacy focusing and worries.
Anyways, sorry for making a too big tortuous writeup... just to put thoughts out there.
1
-
Thoughts on it... former Windows Phone user here.
I honestly still think that replacing a physical keyboard with virtual one is not revolutionary in itself, it's more like a compromise that worked, because smartphones became largely a consumption device.
Wouldn't advocate for a return to T9 or Blackberry style keyboards though... but I also still don't like virtual keyboards much.
Not that I have a better idea though, so I'll just shut up about it. xD
So... when I finally decided to go for a smartphone, which took me quite a while, I really went from Nokia 909 to 1020. Had nothing to do with OS though, it was about the camera. Just so happens that the 909 was Symbian, and 1020 was Windows Phone. After that I went straight to Android with Sony Xperia Z3, this time it was because I wanted smartphone features.
I also liked the Windows Phone tile view, but wouldn't give it that much credit... I think for me what I really liked was the potential in it's usage, and it ended up being a potential never fully realized.
Which again for me, is the entire story of why it failed as a product for my usage. It was all potential, and no realization.
The OS was really solid and smooth, but that was at the cost of locking it up so much that it was at points even more restrictive that iOS itself. Like, you'd think that Windows Phone as an OS would be closer to Android, being open and customizable, but Windows Phone in some aspects was even more restrictive than iOS... cross app communication for instance was very limited, account management was mandated platform wide instead of per-app, and it had all these odd quirks and things that locked it up in a kind of walled garden situation.
The ad that Dagogo included is particularly funny to me, and I bet it's also for lots of other Windows Phone users, because if there is one fanbase that was ever more toxic and horrible than iOS' and Android's back at that time, it was definitely the Microsoft fanbase.
Despite being tiny by comparison, I followed a few blogs and participated in a few forums that talked more about Windows Phone apps, Windows Phones in general, and developments. Dude, it was a shitshow. You couldn't criticize the company in any way, shape or form, people had a cult-like mentality that Windows Phones were just a few months from trampling over the competition, every single platform failure had a scripted justification for it, most publications about the platform were on the pockets of Microsoft, and people vilified the competition as much as they could even when they were clearly far ahead.
No room for dissent, at some point several blogs and forums even started banning and censoring any comments that were negative, valid criticism, or even questions that were hammered over and over again without response from Microsoft.
Microsoft wasn't only late to the game, it used all the wrong strategies to attract devs to it. The problem isn't that they didn't try, because they did and very hard. The problem is that they were just throwing everything at the wall to see if something sticked, but never committed to a single solid strategy.
Worse yet, all these apps that Dagogo talked about that finally eventually made to the platform, they were all left in an abandoned state of disrepair less than a year after release. All of them, no exceptions.
You know how the expectation is that apps will come out first on iPhone, than on Android. Windows Phones were not only last in the list, but also last to receive updates if ever, last to be maintained, last in the mind of devs. Most if not all major apps were running several versions late if not completely stopped working, to a point that it got to a point where a whole ton of major mobile apps became dependent on a single dev that made what came to be known as "replacement apps" that had the basic functionality of the originals.
It was this one guy that was making Windows Phone versions of all major popular apps on Android and iPhone. I think he eventually became a Microsoft employee, not totally sure, but you see how ridiculous it is for an entire multi million platform to be dependent on one dev making copies of apps of other platforms just to barely function as a smartphone at all?
Anyways, back to Microsoft strategies. Other than the issue with attracting devs, everything else was also very scattershot and noncommittal.
For instance, at some point Microsoft thought it was a good idea to launch both an Android skin that looked exactly like Windows Phone to make the transition from Android to Windows Phone easier, and in parallel launch skins to make Windows Phone look more like Android, plus this whole strategy and idea to run Android apps on Windows Phones...
While some fanboys may paint this as a way to include more people into the platform, what it actually looks like is a lack of confidence in it's own platform, and mixed messaging on what exactly the company expects it's users to like.
The shift to making cheaper phones for markets like India and other developing nations might not sound too bad a strategy, in fact to me it sounds like a necessary one, until you realize this includes not having flagship level phones anymore. That was the mistake - it wasn't about targetting emerging markets, it was about abandoning all others in favor of it.
Nokia basically abandoned development of the one big feature that made me buy my Windows Phone - the Lumia line. Even though the 1020 model came out pretty early, it stood as the Windows Phone smartphone with the best camera for just too long - years and years. So right there Microsoft lost the entire crowd that was more interested in the development of camera tech. I mean, other Lumia phones came out after it, but none of them claimed to have camera tech improvements over the 1020... it was all a bunch of mixed messaging and unclear reasoning.
It eventually got to a point that even if I still preferred Windows Phone over Android as an OS, which I didn't anymore, I'd still jump towards Sony Xperia Z3 because the camera tech was just overall better, usability wise, not spec wise.
See, if I had bought into the evangelism ecochamber fanboy crap that was being constantly enforced on the Microsoft paid for blogs and forums back then, I might just have become like the guy in the last snippet of video that Dagogo shared.
Fortunately enough, I saw the signs of failure for myself midway. And again, in my personal opinion, all of those are extreme exaggerations of the platform highlighting only good points while being blind to the multiple problems both Windows Phone had, and that Microsoft only made worse because of the entire atmosphere surrounding the platform.
Put simply, as it happens with lots of other Microsoft apps and services, the company is living in a bubble that does not pay attention to what the general market is asking for, and only sees that their own ecochamber of fan users are talking, which leads to all these puzzling scattershot strategies with no commitment that ends up in failure because it lacks understanding as to what people are really asking for.
It's kinda like Windows Store, which is a legacy of Windows Phone, and stuff like weird Windows versions, attempts on copying the app store model, Surface Duo, Surface RT, Windows 11, ARM on Windows and a whole bunch of other Microsoft creations. You always have to ask who this was made for, what they were thinking when they did this, what is the product competing with, etc. There are lots of successful Microsoft products, just to be clear, but there's also a whole bunch of them that you, as a regular consumer in the market for electronics, ends up with a puzzled look thinking what they were thinking when they decided to release this thing that seems to be worse in the most important aspects that the market is demanding in comparison to the competition - or just something that makes no sense at all, with restrictions or barriers for entry that hugely limits their potential userbase.
And fair enough, this isn't a problem of Microsoft exclusively. It's a problem of a huge portion of Silicon Valley tech giants. It's like the CEOs, devs and general development teams live in such a state of isolation in relation to it's market they don't seem to understand the stuff that really matters for the people they are selling their products for.
Like some of the crowdfunding projects that comes out from former Google employees (like that Bodega machine thing, or the frozen fruit pulp overengineered presser... Juicero).
You know? What world these people live in that these things matter at all, and makes any sort of sense as a product?
That's the whole mentality that is ultimately at fault for these huge product failures. These companies needs to be broken down and reestructured getting closer to their userbase for their own sake, setting aside anti-trust for a moment.
Anyways, good video... it's an interesting subject matter for discussion, for me it encapsulates a lot of problems I see in tech giant culure these days. And just reinforcing, this is still just my personal opinion, God forbid me from provoking the rage of raving fans, specially from Microsoft.
1
-
1
-
1
-
To be fair, he said all those as a premise to elect him because he was supposedly going to make America not a 3rd world country again. Put enough fear in the people, and then claim he's going to be your saviour. Works more than you'd think - specially in cults.
And yet, here we are. Discussing about a president with white nationalist and populist tendencies. The country is going to hell even faster, most of the stuff he said he was going to solve are several times worse now, the infratructure stays going to hell, still nothing works in the country, lots of things stopped working even further including politics, schools, roads, bridges, tunnels are the same they were before, the state of division and tribalism only got worse, and all the attention got focused around extreme politics and political scandals instead of said problems. There are no compromises, no talk, no accords, no resolutions, and it was in this government that 2 historical shutdowns happened, which is the epitome of doing nothing.
But of course, all this FUD can be very appealing to some. Apparently, lots of people just need a guy with a megaphone talking about what's wrong in the country all day long. Trump is a master complainer. The top armchair warrior. Very weird to elect someone like that as a president though... you'd think the place for people like that would be on top of soapboxes in public spaces, everyone ignoring because of questions about sanity.
1
-
I mean, if rich people are gonna play their fantasy circlejerk lala-lands, better it be far away... right? I'm sorry for Mexicans having to take that much immaturity coming from developed nations altogether, I hope it at least pays some off.
They can all go the route of 80s communes for all I care... it's just funny how it seems nothing has been learned from history at all, in rich developed nations at that. It's almost like privilege gone too far...
I can get misinformation or lack of information at all in poor nations, with tons upon tons of people grifted from their livelihoods and money because of some smartasses exploiting gullibility and faith of ignorant people, but this right there? No excuses for it.
These people usually learn from quick to slow how valuable life in society really is, even if it has it's own rules and restrictions to follow... it's just that some people need a figurative direct blow to the face for it. Wasting all your finances into commune fantasy is one way of doing it I guess.... wouldn't recommend, but you know.
Even pieces of well intended communes that are not mixed with misinformation and anti-science sentiment usually have visible problems in them... I've seen docs on a few of communes where people are just trying to get away from modern, usually urban society and restart off the grid with more environmentally conscious ideals, but the absolute vast majority of them have one of multiple major connections and failure points that they conveniently ignore. Like being funded by some venture capital investor, selling off their stuff in cities in fancy rich neighborhood supported markets or restaurants, depending on high tech commodities that can only be provided by private capitalist businesses, etc.
I guess cases like these will become the fodder of morbid curiosity for future generations... like doomsday cults are for us. Well, added up, because doomsday cults is just another thing that seemingly will never go away.
It's just a bit funny how all these people are so disconnected with reality seeing themselves as saviors, as the downtrodden, as the victims of some major conspiracy, they don't even realize how privileged they really are being able to play their conspiracy theory fantasies, how much freedom they have in comparison to the vast majority of the rest of the world. They'll realize it soon enough though.
1
-
That's just how dumb people are, nothing really new.
Conservatives and proto fascists always start that way... most politicians in fact do, particularly ones occupying the position for the first time. Nothing rallies a crowd more than a manipulative sociopath.
It's the effect of political propaganda. Whoever is elected invested a ton on propaganda, and these days it's usually about FUD, "defeating the enemy", magical solutions for imaginary problems, promising to solve all the issues past administrations had, appealing to fanatics, "being bold" enough to run their mouths off uncontrollably, "breaking the mold", yadda yadda.
It seems that also people have a morbid fascination for figure who won't admit mistakes, always shove responsibility for problems on the enemy, and then use victimization as a tool claiming political persecution, witch hunt and whatnot when they get defeated somehow. It's necessary to keep the image of an infallible being that simply does not exist among us.
The more confused and anxious people are about the future, the more they'll blindly listen and follow sweet talkers. And these days you have tons upon tons of anxious, confused and ignorant people around to work with. Perhaps ignorant has always been the case, but anxiety might be on a whole other level these days.
This is, btw, how Hitler came to power, in case some people don't know. Mussolini too.
Culture has vilified those politicians to a point people think about them as pure evil, some supernatural power who took things over by force, not actual politicians who also rose to power with plenty of popular support. Romanticization and fictionalization of them also did a disservice for history and cultures to the point they forget how much support these politicians had to amass the power they ended up with. It's not about a single figure, a party, or a movement that happened far in the past and will never happen again. It's people. The collective actions of people led to events like mass killings, genocide, concentration camps, and some of the worst atrocities humanity ever committed against itself. We are oh so very quick to forget the share of responsibility people had over all of these, because we don't want to think we are capable of it. But we are.
Problem is, politics shouldn't be a popularity contest, even though it totally is, has been, and will likely remain being for a very long time.
It's analogous to clickbait effect. People value that over content, people value popularity of politicians over what their government produced, and so we keep repeating the same old mistakes. Sometimes we are lucky and things coincide with good government, sometimes we are not so lucky and popular figures remain popular despite effectively destroying the country.
People in general are just extremely bad judges for systems... and they think they are good judges for character, but they aren't. We're just not built to absorb the multitude of information needed to make a neutral assessment of something as large as a government body and accomplishments. Most of us aren't even equipped to think about what politicians say beyond primitive feelings, beyond personal prejudices, beyond superficial consequences.
To be clear, it's still far better than autocracies, dictatorships, totalitarian regimes or anarchy, but democracies are not perfect, they will always live together with the tragedy of the commons. A decision by majority does not always make it right, or even elects what is best for all or even most, because a decision by majority is not always a decision by rationality, or decision by reasoning, or by good information. At best it's a decision of what most people think they want or against what the collective fears, sometimes it's a decision of least worst, at worst it can be a decision made by a dominant type of misinformation, hatred, prejudice or ill informed preconceptions.
So, in the end, popularity doesn't mean much. You can see it in the list presented in the beginning of the video... there are politicians covering the entire spectrum of politics there.
1
-
This fingerprint attack left me very pissed off... I'll explain why.
Several years ago... I think more than half a decade ago when fingerprint scanners were becoming standard on tablets, smartphones and whatnot, there was this wave of articles and people saying how those were going to eliminate the need for passwords yadda yadda.
Not only fingerprint scanners - biometrics in general.
People will know the tendency for press to call anything a "killer" of something else. Fingerprint scanners are the killer of passwords! Physical keys are the killer of passwords! Face scanners will kill fingerprint scanners! blablaba is a password killer! You know the drill. Tech press has a hard on for killing passwords that persists to this day, it's a misconception that keeps going on, and it's just bad for security in general.
So, I made several times, over and over again in several posts like those, the statement that most of the security community already knows - a password cannot be replaced by biometric scanners because biometrics is something you have, not something you know. There is a fundamental difference between those, one cannot replace the other because of that. I got several times into heated discussions to explain why this matters.
And repeated several times too that if a time comes when someone is able to "steal" your fingerprint or copy it perfectly in some way - that's it. You can't change your fingerprint, so the tech is done for you. It's like having a password that has leaked and you can't change it. It's fixed, it's part of you, you cannot replace it - much like DNA, veins, iris, etc. But you always have a whole crowd to dismiss those concerns. Even when you put considerations like convenience and threat modeling upfront. Like, I'm not saying you can't use it, I'm saying those are different on a fundamental level in a way that one cannot replace the other.
There were some blogs and publications where people who apparently knew more than myself on how biometric scanners work, came to attack me saying how you can change firmware and software in ways to reset the system easily or stop something like this from happening, that fingerprint scanners were super secure, they used encryption to stop others from looking into how it works, they collected random markers, etc etc.
It got pretty technical, I didn't understand most of it, so since I also personally don't know much about the nitty gritty on how markers are stored, how they are collected, and how exactly it's done in code... I just kinda accepted it.
But the gist of their argument was that a man in the middle attack would be useless, because you could only get useless gibberish by analyzing what information the sensor is collecting. Markers were scrambled, encryption was used, correlation was unique depending on brand of fingerprint reader, yadda yadda.
Yeah so... turns out, THAT WAS A FUCKING LIE.
A whole bunch of those phones are reading markers with the fingerprint scanner at deterministic positions, and then storing and transmitting it all with no encryption and no security scheme to obfuscate the data. Which allows for a man in the middle attack to collect, store and then inject fingerprint data directly into the code for validation. That's how most of those Android devices were broken.
And in the end, even when the data is encrypted, there is always the possibility for cracking or finding out keys somehow, or using some other method to inject the data at some other point of the transaction.
Which is exactly what I was talking about years ago. If someone finds a way to reproduce your fingerprint data, that's it - you'll have to stuff a password in front of it because you cannot change your fingerprint, so the security step is effectively defeated. A hacker will already have the information, so what is left is to find an effective injection method.
And this is true for the entirety of biometric authentication. It's not a magic bullet, it's a more convenient way to add a layer of protection. It doesn't replace passwords, it doesn't replace ToTP, not a whole bunch of other factors, because of it's fundamental nature. A password is always stronger because not only you can easily replace it, you can also store in your head only. Until comes a time when we have a mind reading device, it's practically impossible to extract.
Of course, this news is also not reason for panic. It requires physical access, several hours to work in, specialized gear... just so people understand, most of those attacks were made in labs with wires connected to the fingerprint scanner hardware and a bunch of very complex analysis going on - it's technical forensics level. It's not easy to pull off and it takes a lot of time.
But it's possible, and has been proven.
Now that we established that, I think what is left to learn from this specific case is: if updates to OS can mitigate the attack, and how it's gonna progress from here on.
See, it's not as simple as dismissing the study just because these phones are older models... if the analysis is going directly into hardware component parts, and those parts are not changing over the years and you cannot fix it via firmware or OS updates, then it's going to be there until the hardware component parts gets replaced. I dunno how much of it is on proprietary chips inside the finger print reader component itself, and how much of it is on how the OS treats data collected by the component.
In any case, depending on how this goes, my guess is that at worst this could become a way for forensics to gain access to stuff inside a phone... intelligence agencies, police, etc.
There are already multiple methods they use to get to it, ranging from zero days to all sorts of other side channel attacks, but it could also be opening a branch of exploit evolution there.
1
-
Ok guys, we're gonna protect your art, as long as you pay your taxes locally, can also be entirely prossecuted for sweat shops, child labor, unfair employment in foreign countries, abusive treatment of models, artificial price inflation with clothing production being only a fraction of price of products and being outsourced to countries without labor laws, among some other stuff. What? Wasn't this abour fairness in society?
Oooh, you make most of your stuff in countries where part of the costs of labor is low because they don't have a strong labor law, art protection, and copyright laws. Then we can't do anything for you. You get the law standards of places you make your stuff.
1
-
Yep, good food, cheap price. xD
Even to me, it should be expensive since my country's currency is worth jacksh*t, close to 6 to a dollar... but comparing to local restaurants, 60 bucks for good quality food like that is still plenty cheap.
Thing is, if I looked hard enough, I could likely get the most staple everyday meal in small restaurants here for... around half that price. But then I'd be a bit worried with bad quality ingredients, if not food poisoning... :P
For Japanese food, the problem is finding a restaurant that gets it right. No chains, because all chains get it wrong. But I found a local restaurant that gets pretty close to it... after some like 10 years of failures. :P It's also cheap, but not the same value. Like, it's less than 1000 yen, but you get the one dish only - like, ramen only, or gyudon bowl only. If you also want something to drink, misoshiro, a salad, or something else, that's going to be extra and likely to pass the 1000 yen limit. Soba everywhere I found is hella expensive, not sure why. So I prepare at home.
Considering my country is a developing nation, and a primary goods exporter, extrativist nation, it's pretty impressive that Japan has prices for food that are comparable like that.
This does show up in the price of fruits there though... xD I know you can get relatively cheap fruits on supermarkets and whatnot, it's not the crazy price of premium fruits like square watermelons and whatnot... but even the cheaper supermarket fruit prices are very very expensive in comparison to fruits here. xD
But you know, this is mostly because of the currency exchange value, so not exactly a fair comparison.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Yep, agreed with all, same opinion.
I went a bit fancier with mine, got one with a deeper basket and made with more metal parts... but no extra electronics, the two dial setup. It was a priority for me for it to have as few electronic components as possible. I hate touch buttons with a passion, physical controls are the best.
After testing it for a while, also bought it for my mom, and I think she basically stopped using her regular sized oven. Same as induction cooktops, once you get used to it and port your recipes to work with it, it's just faster, more practical, and uses less power overall.
As for me, I had already been living without an oven at home for some 5 years up to the point I got an air fryer, so the addition of it was just that - an addition. xD
It's almost like if these companies didn't rely on trying to obscure what the product does and just gave us the control, it'd just make things simpler. You gotta understand the basics of how they work, and then you can adapt to it far easier.
The biggest variable I can see in all these options other than fan control and temperature, would be size of the vessel and perhaps some influence in how much air gets recirculated. A good tip on this is related to that - if you think your Air Fryer isn't working the way it should, check if you are not accidentally blocking air inlets and outlets.
There is a balance to hit in those too, because if you contain air too much inside, it gets too humid fast, and perhaps you'll end up cooking the food more and letting it get soggy instead of crispy. If it exchanges too much air with the outside, it could dry things too much and take longer to get to temperature.
Oh, the one nasty thing I'd share about air fryers... take the basket out and check what the situation is on the heating element and fan. This is of course also true for ovens... but sometimes you'll need to clean that, and it's pretty horrible. xD I cleaned mine recently after a few years of occasional use... it's a burnt oil greasy mess.
1
-
1
-
1
-
It'll never happen in the US, and I can point out why without having to grasp straws to explain it as the problem is way more fundamental and basic than what these people are trying to put.
It's about collectivism. High speed efficient rail networks only happens in countries, specially large ones, where the interests of the collective goes over the interests of individuals, culturally and politically.
The majority of problems that the interviewees listed as major roadblocks have all to do with the individualist aspect of american culture that has only become even more exacerbated over the recent few years. It goes way down the line with NIMBY types and bad care and valuement of the existing few slow trains that are already there, all the way up to tons of money wasted on stupid ideas like Hyperloop.
No one is trying to make reasonable changes to offer better public transportation for all, what gets money and interest from the public are unecessary moonshots, individualistic ideas like self driving cars, and just stuff to power individuals, high society types, celebrities, rich people inside rich neighborhoods, the priviledged and whatnot.
There's a rather visible agenda where people with money and power wanna set themselves even further apart from "commoners". It's why ideas like private aero taxi services, hyperloop, underground tunnels and others don't get ridiculed to oblivion. Because from start, it's obvious that those will be reserved for a very rich, very priviledged few people, and yet it's the sort of crap that gets the most attention.
It is patently obvious how none of those could ever solve problems around public transportation, because they are not public, they are expensive alternatives of transportation for the rich. And yet, they are the ones getting the most attention for no obvious reason.
Huge infrastructural projects with a more general purpose to better the ability to move, the health, the education among other general areas of human rights for all only pass in countries that have a vision for general public service that will move the collective foward. The concessions and the understanding that some sacrifices are needed to make projects like those happen are only possible in countries where the society sees itself as a collective.
The things government do and government cares about are to make the average better, not to put more priviledge, more power, and more money in the pockets of the 1%.
It cannot happen when you have an elite of people running politics actively trying to clamp down on any project that does not benefit themselves or at the very least their own class.
Countries like US and a few others don't have the culture or vision for that anymore. Parties can't even agree on broader general concepts like those. In the rare occasions they agree, instead of acting on it they archive those in the back of some drawer because those don't get the votes in a divided society. Political administration will act first on the stuff that's exclusive to the party. The prioritization of spending for taxpayer money is all wrong from start.
US would effectively have to be divided into smaller countries for that to happen. You wanna make high speed trains happen in the US faster? Easy. Give the power to states who are already commited to it. This will have bad side effects, but it's potentially the only way to make it possible. Putting it on private hands means it will only attend the needs of the private corporations who want it to happen. It'll not be public transportation, it'll be private transportation for people who works on those companies, and expensive transportation for those who don't. It'll never be comparable to the service of countries like Japan or China, because the objective is different.
1
-
1
-
The answer is no, and this is not a slight against China - it would be the exact same thing if this was about British, US, or other five eye country citizens getting away to China, Russia or whatever.
We live in digital warfare days. All major nations have state sponsored hacking, spying, and surveillance systems in place. They all have government operations, agencies and people that use whatever surveillance and hacking tech at hand to have a leg up in the game. Private companies are one court order away at most (usually not even that) to not only disclose information, but also hide the fact from the public with a gag order. It doesn't matter what they say or what their history is, when the choice gets between releasing the info and getting arrested, having your entire business shut down, and potentially even worse sanctions, you will comply. All big tech companies already comply with court orders and gag orders to release information on private citizens, why the heck would anyone trust one in this tenuous of a situation to defy government requests?
It's not only about yourself as an owner of a company or something like that, it's about the livelihood of all employees, their families, etc. It's the same problem of people leaving the country for fear of government reprisal, only they are not leaving.
This sort of information should be handled by the least people possible, and those people have to be as hard to reach and hard to influence as possible. And this is still not a guarantee at all.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Here's the real truth behind all this: we really don't know a whole lot about gut flora, there is no single baseline true diet that everyone should follow because our needs and our organisms all work in subtle different ways, a deficiency in vitamins or nutrients is not a hardline thing and may come in levels, and tests we currently have don't show everything nor gives a clear picture of what people should use to supplement deviations.
Take it from someone who went through a few different licensed doctors specialized in nutricion. It's an extremely complex area of science. You should think about it less like mechanical engineering, and more like weather prediction. Doctors will take some variables and try to come up with solutions based on it. The more specific your needs are, the more intrusive and invasive treatment and diagnostics will become, and the more expensive it'll be because it needs to be individualized to the highest degree.
People should also know that not every condition, deficiency and other stuff can be controlled with diet changes alone. There are some stuff that is far more influenced by your genes, for instance. This is the main reason why celebrity crap won't work for anyone. If you don't have the organism of a specific celebrity, you won't get the same results by just using the stuff they claim to be using - when that's even true I mean, for the most part it's all bullshit.
With that in mind, you should of course still be wary of snake oil crap and advertisement that promises to solve all your problems. They most likely won't. Because organisms are extremely complex borderline chaotic environments with tons of unpredictable variables, so there's no way to guarantee stuff with generic chemicals.
But really, science isn't as clear cut as saying stuff like multivitamins won't help anyone, just as much as it isn't as clear cut as saying it will.
There are of course lots of studies around, ranging from good ones with good application of scientific method, all the way to obviously skewed ones financed by interested parties to make it look like their products are needed in some way.
The better way to approach this is to be aware of scammers, avoid crap that promises you an unrealistic solution as long as you pay for it, keep a diversified diet, and an awareness of what seems to work for you and what doesn't.
And this should be obvious to anyone, but following the recommendations of someone without a direct financial interest and that has studied nutrition for years is a far better option that listening to ignorant idiots spewing crap out of their mouths based on annedoctal evidence who are trying to sell you expensive crap. This is just critical reasoning.
1
-
I love what GoPro did for video in general, I love a whole ton of the content they published and enabled, and I still like what they have put out over the years.... but I'm gonna share my opinion why I think things got rough and will keep getting rough over the years for them.
The main thing about GoPro, like Woodman says and knows, is community and content - plus marketing. GoPro was not the first action camera... there were plenty of action cameras before it, mostly lipstick style cameras. But the marketing, ease of use, and accessory kits to put it everywhere were real innovations.
What really sold the concept was how anyone could use it. But also, the community build around and great videos promoted gave a feeling for lots of people that they too could make videos like those, and that they too could put this simple cheap camera to good use.
Problem is, a huge part of the initial hype and fever around it was because it was cheaper than the average camera, and tons of people who are not into sports, not into surfing, not into skiing, not into extreme sports, and not into anything like that were buying the camera for it's simplicity and good price.
And for a while, that was goodenough. I personally own a GoPro Hero 2 despite not doing any sports. Back then, videographers and filmmakers used it to do all sorts of stuff. B-roll, crazy rigs for bullet time, backup, for personal projects, etc etc. It was a camera that was there in case your main rig failed and you needed something. The quality was better than smartphone cameras at the time, so that portion of the market was also captured.
But the fad passed, competition grew up not only in the action camera market, but also for cameras that are cheap, easy to use, and easy to experiment with. Smartphones and direct competitors like Sony Action Cam and the Xiaomi Yi cameras are only part of the story.
Really cheap with goodenough quality can be found at a fraction of the price these days, at the 100 bucks level. All those experimental stuff that people used GoPro for... there are just better, more flexible alternatives these days. GoPro became way more expensive than it originally was, and other brands replaced it as the to go cheap camera just because. The drone thing was a very expensive mistake... I guess they had to try because it is aiming for the same market, but just didn't work out.
On the other hand, DJI is sucessfully getting another portion of the GoPro market - live streamers. It just launched a tiny gimbal that is being directly compared to GoPro 7's digital stabilization capabilities plus image. It's not a rugged solution, so it's not aiming for sports, but it's another chunk of GoPro's market that might go away.
And the danger is that DJI is already pretty good in the camera quality department, while also being the top brand for drones.
It is pretty awesome that GoPro has evolved this much and managed to keep going this long with some pretty unfair competition and all... problem is, I don't see how they are going to ressurge at the top. They kinda gave up on the line I actually thought would work in the long run - Session cameras. Because those are smaller than most other solutions out there.
But going back to IPO times is close to impossible at this point. They could, and I guess this is what they are aiming for, become a very successful niche brand for extreme sports and whatnot. The community, contacts, following and branding are already there, so it's a smart move to refocus and slim down. But that initial casual mixed bag of costumers they had when they exploded during the IPO... that crowd went into several different ways today. It's not only action camera nowadays anymore... it's drones, it's gimbals, it's high res prossumer cameras, it's cameras that are specialized in low light, etc.
360 video... well, that might make some sense for that niche crowd. For me personally and for lots of regular videographers, it's kind of a dead trend already. But for that crowd, perhaps a decent bet?
It's just super hard to compete in this environment... smartphone cameras are getting very good, and it's hard to beat the low low prices for sensors and other hardware components that are as mass produced as the ones for smartphone. So at some point a brand might put those together and make an ever smaller sports camera for cheap that is as good as if not better than GoPro and other action cams. Hard deal.
1
-
My headphones of choice are in the Sony NWZ series... it's pretty much the only solution I could find that stays in place while running, which is the only time I really need headphones.
I had 4 out of the 7 or 8 models they have so far, it's a line of product that has centered development and evolution on costumers needs.
But it's a completely different situation. Running sessions goes at most for a couple of hours, so that's all the battery life I need. It works as an independent mp3 player or a bluetooth headset.
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to pair it with my smartwatch, so I'm just using it as an mp3 player.... it works with my smartphone and tablet though, so for travel there's that.
And the last model has a pass-through mode for awareness, which was another thing costumers have been asking (bluetooth was another - it was a mp3 player only up 'till the last 2 models)... still didn't get it, but might go for it soon - if it works with my smartwatch. It also is water and dust resistant, you can swim with them, and it seems the latest model is even salt water proof, which I think is a first.
I never opened one, but given how much I sweat and how many times I used the damn things, which never failed me, it probably also has a plenty solid construction. No malfunctions at all after years of usage.
Comes at a premium, but for people who are used to it's form factor, there's nothing quite like it. It's specially good for people who can't find a pair of in ear headphones that stays in place, since it has that pressure band - which might be uncomfortable or unecessary for most.
I always talk about them because they are pretty much underrated.
1
-
Very sorry for India and indian people, but prospects are not looking good.
The macro reality of it is this: China has grown too much over the past decades, it's feeling empowered to become imperialist yet again, their communist/dictatorship strategy is coming out of a global health crisis on top, and the strategy of encroaching in foreign land and exercing power by either money or force has been happening for quite a while now.
In parallel, the US elected an incompetent that outright wrecked several US institutions, it's coming out amongst the worst countries from the pandemic, it's hostile and racist leadership have severed trust and destroyed diplomacy with several other countries, and it has now a self centered egotistical policy that can only look at it's own bellybutton at the detraction of others.
It really doesn't help that India still didn't reach and probably isn't reaching soon what China achieved. In just a few decades China turned from the factory and dumpster of the world, to becoming a society with substantial middle and upper classes with big metropolitan areas indistinguishable from developed countries areas. Yes, it still has lots of poverty, but so do several developed countries.
These role reversals and the changing images of countries have potential dire consequences for the future. Totalitarism is winning once again as a concept. History is not serving as a buffer as we march on to yet another cycle of violence and destruction. Cultures and civilizations have to finally learn a lesson from all this. If we can't, humanity's big filter is probably right around the corner.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Pretty much.
Something for non-Brazilians to understand - it's not only yesterday's insurrection... it's pretty much the entire 4 years that Bolsonaro was in power. Yesterday was only the culmination of all of it, and we knew it'd happen at some point.
Fake news, firehosing of bs conspiracy theories, incensing his cult followers, using his base to flood social networks with bullshit conspiracy theories of his opposition, blaming the "leftist media" of political witch hunt on all of his obvious corruption schemes, taking a position against "woke culture" which is basically everything he doesn't agree with, selling out majorly to corrupt politics after saying he was going to "drain the swamp" of Brazilian politics of predecessors, using his entire family as partners in schemes and frauds... the shameless blatant copy of Trump's tactics is so ill disguised that some stuff they used don't even translate well into Brazilian culture, but this never stopped them from using similar narratives and similar bullsh*t coming straight from Fox News, Breitbart, Alex Jones and whatnot. The most self defeating thing of all this is that there is a huge portion of the Brazilian population that is so ignorant that they cannot see the obvious structure of this hate template machine. It's like they are following a script step by step, but because the idiots who fall into it don't know enough to understand this, you end up with extremists like the ones in Brasilia yesterday.
Several of Bolsonaro partisans even started using crap like neo-nazi gesturing and other fascist symbology like that, demanding a return to military dictatorship, and getting armed like we were going to face some sort of communist apocalypse that never happened during the 8 years of Lula in power, and 12 years of PT in power, so for whatever imaginary reason it was gonna happen now, PT was going to paint the Brazilian flag red, yadda yadda the bullsh*t never ends.
There will likely be some brainwashed sop replying to my comment with these idiotic fantasies because he or she stopped watching actual news years ago and only listens and watch the ridiculous deranged crap that Bolsonaro, his followers and propaganda machine are letting out in chat apps and whatnot.
If you told me it was fiction I'd have said to you that suspension of disbelief had been broken long ago, and yet enough people believe in all of the sh*t he's putting out to this day enough to cause the damages they did yesterday in our capital.
I hope everyone gets arrested, put in jails separated from each other in all corners of the country, and the true conspirators and financiers behind all of this gets arrested, their property taken, sold out, and then the money gets used to repair all the damage they've done to our public property. I'm for much worse than that, but democracy has to act within it's limits.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
@johnnysupreme5718
I never said that hatred was telling people that transitioning is a bad idea, which is just an opinion, which you are entitled to have, but not to force upon others. It's ultimately not your choice to make, it should be theirs.
Hatred is discriminating against people for wanting to go through the process, for choosing to transition, to the point you think it's right for government to interfere in those choices. It also comes from a point of people thinking they know better than the people who are in the process. Leave it to them and to trained medical professionals, like you already do for all sorts of other procedures. They don't need constant interference coming from uninformed people.
The whole reason why it should be legal and open without being constant subject of political and ideological fights is to leave it to the hands of qualified people. Transitioning and gender affirming care should not come without psychological evaluation, follow up, and discussion. The only way to do this properly is to keep it legal and keep it open.
It's also hatred that makes it impossible for people to openly discuss transitioning and de-transitioning, because instead of being just a matter of personal choice, it becomes weaponized by political sides to superficially prove points. Ignorance around the subject only makes it worse, it does not solve anything.
Like I already mentioned, we don't have all this negative charge and constant bickering when it comes to other types of procedures, even cosmetic procedures. And gender is a far deeper self identity point in comparison to having a big nose or a flabby belly.
As for suicide rates, you are obviously conflating a whole ton of stuff and making broad strokes generalization there for your convenience. It's exactly hatred and weaponization of the subject, prejudice and lack of places to discuss these things in society, that has an impact on mental health. You wanna work on that, first we need to stop prejudice, then we can discuss the effects of transitioning. You can't use high suicide rates in trans people for a specific agenda.
Of course given how stigmatized subjects like transitioning, gender affirming care, and even teaching people about the subject already are, that minorities involved will have worse mental health. They don't feel represented, they don't have communities to support them, and they are constantly targeted by prejudice and hatred. Forcing someone to be something they don't identify with for no good reason can make things drastically worse, and it is in fact one of the main reasons for suicide in general.
So, if you are worried about mental health, about suicide rates, and you want people to live happy lives, you give them choice, support and guidance. Proper, not just opinion based I mean. That's all.
1
-
Dude, how is that even possible?
Let's say the farmer didn't do it because of insurance fraud - he really saw something, let's say James did it with malicious intent, let's say the engineer from the army has the right assumption but it wasn't what actually happened... still, given the situation, how can someone be imprisoned for life for something like that? The whole case is ass backwards.
He didn't cause the flood, the rains combined with improper and insufficient infrastructure did. Or let's assume that because it was a once in 500 year flood, lack of prediction and basically what law defines as "act of God" is the obvious cause here.
Throwing away all the evidence to the contrary, let's presume James did damage to the levee on purpose, which seems unlikely.
That's at most what he should be paying for. Public property damage, which isn't a crime that carries a life sentence not even by far. He's not some sort of magic water bending super human being.
Did they throw penalties against him for the damages the flood caused? That's just insane. I assume that the judge is already dead, but he should have went to jail instead. And that is assuming the worst case scenario here... even if James did it, the sentence makes no sense. Since there are huge chances he didn't do anything, it gets several times worse for everyone involved in accusing him for a natural disaster.
1
-
That's some weird messaging... Surviving Kuwait's heat: be a rich influencer with a duplex apartment with elevator inside and central hvac, or perhaps spend 100 bucks a month to water half a dozen trees planted in sandy desert and hope for some impossible future scenario..... what? How exactly are people gonna plant trees to cover an impossibly big area if you need that much water just for a few trees? Isn't water shortage also part of the problem?
I mean, sure I can see a forest growing on a desert if you have unlimited supply... it's not impossible, it's just extremely costly.
Let's be honest here... by the end of a century or two, if we didn't manage to extinct ourselves due to wars and whatnot, what will really happen is that we'll end up with a large equatorial belt designated unfit for all life, period. The same way humans have naturally flocked and flourished in coastal cities, we'll be moving towards the poles for survival. Particularly if nothing is done to revert climate change, but potentially even with, because tenperatures will rise one way or the other, the question now is by how much.
1
-
Spending 100 billion dollars to build a bridge between two isolated parts of no so friendly countries.... nope. But it's interesting though, that let's say if both airplanes and boats became an impossible means of transportation for some reason... that'd probably be the best way to connect the Americas to Asia, Middle East and Europe.
The other way around, no way. Through the south pole, also no way.
Island nations like Japan, New Zealand, Cuba, Madagascar and several others... plus states like Hawaii would have to live in isolation. Well, depending on how non navigable and non flyable skies and oceans were. Then again, if waters were too hostile, building bridges also wouldn't be very viable.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
The fearmongering is just objectively bad, but I have to agree with the accessment...
It would've been better for the brand to have entered the market because competition and the criticism would point out a direction for Huawei for western markets... specially like, stop it with the MIUI iOS clone thing.
But without the controversy, it'd still be a bad option. Even if MIUI wasn't as bad, the 800 price point is where phones have a stand out feature while Mate 10 Pro has none. Well, it has that thing that identifies and selects better settings for photos, but that's pretty much defeated when several smartphones in this price range just takes better photos overall.
Pixel 2, LG V30, Razer, S8, iPhone 8... pretty much all have some standout feature that puts it above the Mate 10 Pro. It's on the average of all others, but without anything extra... so the price just doesn't make any sense. Honor 9 is closer to is and half the price. Essencial, despite it's launch failure, has lots of stand out features for less.... as does HTC U11.
At that price range right now, if I had to choose I'd go with the Razer phone. But with the mish mash of pros and cons, plus my opinnion that this price hike is just bad for the market in general, the phone that I'd go for right now is Xiaomi Mi A1 Android One edition. Might not have any of the flashier stuff, but it's damn good value for money.
1
-
Good summary if not a bit overly optimistic Marques!
Well, I've been commenting and telling people to temper their expectations around 5G right from when people started talking about it. From start, it smelled like Bluetooth 5 but in a much bigger scale. Overpromisses, conflicting information, no real life tests, a bunch of promisses and expectations with no real analysis of what people were talking about, a whole lot of confusion around what the tech is really about, and tons of tech bloggers and journalists using that dream-like tone of voice when talking about it, painting a picture that just never ends up corresponding to reality. Like we're gonna live in a utopic future without wars, famine or disease because of 5G or something.
But I'm far more pessimistic about it, the reasons why it came to be, why it was being heavily marketed, and the overall propaganda tone that it took from a certain point on.
Put simply, 5G solves nothing, particularly in countries like the US or mine that are governed by effective telecom oligopolies. I can barely call it 5th generation... it's more like complimentary to 4G LTE rather than a next step.
For several years, at the rate infrastructure is built and based on how long it took for past generations to get a decent enough coverage, it'll be 5G at very specific places in very specific spots, and 4G as the default speed.
Worse, it'll mostly be public spaces. Because as noted, once there is a wall between you and the antenna, the drawbacks become plenty severe. It's as bad, if not even worse, than another very common piece of tech we are plenty used to - Wi-fi. That same wi-fi whose signal gets lost if you are on the other side of your tiny apartment or something.
Much more important though is how 4G could be plenty decent enough for most peoples' requirements... if it wasn't for stuff that has nothing to do with the core technology itself, but rather on artificial limitations imposed by the same telecoms that are advertising 5G as the solution for all things. Things like data throttling, data caps, absurd prices for extended data package plans, limited unlimited plans, super expensive plans that only rich people or businesses can afford that allows you to get full access to 4G.... etc etc.
I don't think most people in our countries even know how fast 4G LTE can be. Because it's always crippled by telecoms. It's always congested, it's always artificially limited, it's always running on old equipment that has gone past it's original specifications years ago.
But the whole marketing/scam strategy to advertise 5G to heaven and up had, in my pessimistic view again, more to do with taking out the focus from an aging, improperly maintaned, improperly scaled and upgraded, and fuck the costumer like strategy that was going on in current 4G, by putting focus on something new that is not really gonna be usable by the absolute vast majority of the country anytime soon.
Because that made tech savvy people and people interested in tech overall switch from criticizing 4G and telecom practices around 4G, to dreaming about the fake utopic 5G future that is never gonna happen.
It was also about the FCC, with it's corporate puppet Ajit Pai, trying to force the government to put money on the entire thing using false claims and false promises as justification for it.
For instance, saying 5G is gonna solve the problems of people living in rural and remote areas of the US that still doesn't have access to fast internet. Well, guess what - 5G is not gonna solve that, it's a worse tech in comparison to 4G for those purposes (because 4G just has a far longer reach and penetration power), and I highly doubt that the same telecoms who are refusing to install 4G antennas in certain places will agree to install full grids and arrays of 5G antennas there. The antennas are smaller, which helps, but in order for you to cover a similar area that a standard 4G antenna covers, we're talking an order of magniture more antennas.
Like, I've seen estimations that you'd need something like hundreds of those small 5G antennas to cover an area that a current 4G antenna tower can cover, and that's not even considering the problems of signal blockage by stuff like buildings, wooden fences, rain or whatever.
Their priority for years will be giving adequate coverage to big urban centers. Which, you know, is exactly what happened in every generation before. The places that need it the least because they already have good 4G coverage will be the places that will get first because of demand. Rural areas will be summarily ignored for the longest time.
And then, of course, there are the client side burdens. 5G consumes more power, requires new chips, and are currently found only in high end flagships that are priced around the $1000 bucks mark or more. That isn't a solution, that's just luxury. It's like saying low latency HDMI systems are a solution for people who cannot run cables through the house. Sure, the tech exists, but it's so prohibitively expensive that almost no one has access to it.
And like Marques said, the thing only works as long as you are in clear view of the antennas, without common obstructions like buildings and whatnot, which means the signal hunting phenomena is not only coming back, it'll be even worse than 4G and 3G. And this is not gonna be solved, it's a limitation inherent to the signal spectrum. You understand that as soon as you enter your home, unless you have an antenna installed inside the exact room of your home you are currently in, you'll get your signal halved or even completely dropped?
How can this replace 4G at all?
The thing that infuriates the most about all this for me is how several parallel initiatives were probably extinguished due to the high expectations 5G created in peoples' heads. I have no doubts several projects were cancelled, funding got cut down, and people just stopped trying to go for other ideas around wireless communications for those in need just because "5G is right around the corner" or some other bullshit.
Just like Bluetooth is the shit that keeps on truckin' despite being a constant nightmare to deal with for well past a decade now. The new and improved version that will solve all the problems is right around the corner, so let's just keep using this shit. On this very single instance, I'm all for whatever Apple is doing. If a decent standard won't be created to solve Bluetooth problems, Apple decided to make a proprietary one to make things work as they should.
But oh well, I could ramble and ramble all day on this... it changes nothing.
1
-
@3g0st Very much agreed, and sadly I also don't have answers...
It's like the problems are mounting, the evidence that we're gonna pay the ultimate price is getting more apparent, and the way our economic and political systems are setup are still going the wrong way.
Little bit of hope I've seen in such cases is clean energy initiatives specifically taking people working in mines and oil rigs and retraining them to work with solar panels and wind turbines... but I do understand this is the exception, not the rule, and it's not only expensive but also takes time.
It makes sense on pure logic - we'll need far more renewable projects to cover coal and oil power generation, it's a larger mass of workers needed for those - we just unfortunately don't have the time.
There should be government subsidies and incentives for initiatives like these to happen, but it seems that instead of going this way, what we really get is government spending more on military and monopolies/oligopolies.
Pressured by future catastrophes fueled by climate change, we'll slowly see a shift I guess... when it becomes obvious to the most ignorant people that we cannot survive without the shift. The question is if there will be enough time left to avoid an extinction level event, since we're already past the point of really big catastrophic events coming up.
Humanity as it is now can't even join together to avoid totalitarian regimes from a totally unnecessary war that is massacring innocent people, and electing warmongering leaders that would consciously go this way, so perhaps we've reached the limit... better enjoy life while it lasts...
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
It's just so weird how many people who wants a hard Brexit in the comments, I'm supposing they are all UK residents or something, seems to imagine a hard Brexit is either like the end of EU, or a total cut in relationships with the EU.
It couldn't be further from the truth. The EU won't cease to exist just because the UK decided to leave it, at this point I don't think any member country would try something like that, and negotiations between the economic block and UK will not end because of it, as UKs economy is totally dependent on EU countries, like it or not.
Pro Brexit politicians are always talking about "our friends at EU" blahblah, probably in the hopes that after Brexit, negotiations don't go too badly for the UK.
The best you guys can hope for is a reset on negotiations, which can go both ways, and will probably take decades at this rhythm.
And if you cannot trust your government, economy, corporations and markets, or don't like the fact that it took this long for the whole deal to happen, plus some conspiratorial accusations of politicians being corrupt or being paid by EU leaders... which way do you guys think these negotiations will go in the end?
If I was a politician pushing for a hard Brexit and made it happen, I'd just gather the family and move away for another country, selling it out or something. That'd be the easier route. Move back someday if negotiations ever gets sorted out. Because one way or another, I imagine a whole bunch of industries will be badly affected, and then protests on the streets, and the blame game begins.
I guarantee that all the reactionary people who are calling for a hard Brexit today will be the first to go to the streets saying UK government fooled them into a shitty situation where EU took all the advantages possible out of Brexit to enforce deals through the entire economy that are worse than what they had as an EU member. Because of course these people won't be quiet, humble down, and admit that what they asked for ended up being worse for large parts of UK economy. And of course the government will respond by saying they gave you exactly what you asked for.
Watching all of this from a foreign perspective, you start thinking that perhaps the UK should go for a hard Brexit, and the US should just re-elect Trump, just so the respective countries really learn the hard lessons needed. It'd be incredibly bad for the respective countries, and bad for the world... but perhaps better than wars.
Perhaps this is what all these global changes are about, innit? We don't have wars anymore, not in developed modern western democracies that is, so we're lacking our reminder to calm the f*ck down and cooperate because the alternative is worse. So societies are choosing on their own to elect separatists, populists, proto-dictators, warmongers and borderline sociopaths so that they remind us how bad things can truly get. Only then, people can get a bit humble, ask for cooperation, don't think too highly of themselves and their own opinion, and start rebuilding from what's left. It'll all just coincide with the worst effects of climate change too.
1
-
@TheCoomer Well, if that's a sacrifice you are willing to make, then I don't feel I have the rights to question it... I don't really know how negotiations would go in a post hard Brexit scenario which doesn't seem to be happening anyways, but if it did, my pessimist self tends to look more towards the worst possible scenarios.
Economic blocks like the EU tends to form as leverage against strong economies, which is to say the UK would be put in kind of a bad positioning for negotiations not only with the EU, but also with other countries that the UK would be competing against the EU.
But anyways, if Sovereignty is the focus, then it doesn't really matter. It's really the case that if a country wants to make it's own laws and not be subject to economic block rules at least in part (because some will be enforced via trade deals), the only way is getting out.
It's just... a bit of a weird hill to die on, if you don't mind my "globalist agenda" judgement. I still feel like the world works better when we are trying to cooperate with each other as best as possible on a single table I guess... naive as it may sound.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Few things to add on the subject...
Perhaps Brazil shares a bit of blame on the bad fame of those plugs.
You see, until fairly recently... and I am talking some 5 to 10 years ago, Brazil didn't have it's own standard. Now it has, and of course it needed to be different to all other countries, but let's save that to another rant.
So, what we used was a mix of the american to prong flat standard with cilindrical ground, or european two cilindrical prong standard. The country is also a weird mix of 110V and-or 220V depending on what region you live.
Problem is, we never had strong quality control and standards to guarantee a good connection between male and female plugs.
So, thinking back to my childhood to early adulthood... lose sockets that couldn't hold to heavier plug transformer combos was a pretty common thing. I vividly remember having to put stuff under plugs to support the weight of things, particularly for video game plug transformers.
And sure, pehaps some of those wall plugs were just too old, used crap materials, or became too lose over the years... but I kinda remember this happening in brand new installations too - again, because quality control is crap here.
There was a huge push in recent years to use the newer standard that is safer and better thought out, but again, instead of adopting an existing standard, it had to come up with it's own thing cause huge headaches to this day for just about everyone.
One big reason why we had mixed standards in the first place is because in Brazil tons of people use directly imported products. The reasons range all the way between contraband and grey market, all the way to the product simply not existing at all in Brazil requiring importation one way or another.
So, government tried to forbid even standard convention plugs (travel plugs) from being sold in hardware stores and whatnot, which of course failed hard.
Another point that I found kinda funny and Alec didn't mention on the video - the other kinda meme kinda stupid explanation that those holes are there so that you can put a small lock on it so that the device cannot be powered on. xD I mean, it's not the actual reason they are there, and it's actually kinda dangerous, but interesting in a last resort kinda scenario. xD
1
-
1
-
Flying cars will not be a thing in this century, at least not in the way past futurists predicted, and it has nothing to do with technology... and if it won't be a thing in that way, I'd ask if it really matters for most people. Might as well be fiction for me.
Here, let me tell you the problem with the flying concept car that people imagine - it's logistics, culture, infrastructure and costs.
To clarify - by flying car concept that past futurists predicted, I mean individual commoditized flying cars that people living in suburban areas just get in and drive to work.
Those are not alternatives to small planes, private jets, helicopters, or current mono and biplanes. The idea is to replace the mass majority of what people use today - cars, motorcycles, passenger planes, metro, buses, etc.
Protypes are fine, I don't doubt we'd have fully working small scale flying cars by the end of the decade or so... but that really doesn't matter when you put it against the emissions and fuel costs of commercial airlines because none of the shown examples will be replacing those anytime soon.
It's simple math and economics. We currently have huge airplanes capable of flying hundreds of passengers all at once in extremely busy and packed routes. It's an insane number of airplanes on air (normal conditions, pandemic aside) all day everyday which makes it economically feasible.
Also, the way airports work today, it's already highly stressful and highly complicated to deal with massive planes taking off and landing one after another. It doesn't translate well for an even more insane number of planes carrying less passengers.
Ok, so, let's take this theoretical small scale electric plane into the equation.
Sure, the simplification of mechanics can help quite a lot on matters of maintenance... this will have to be proven down a longer period of time, because it always has pros and cons. The optimistic drivel of companies working on prototypes tire me to no end, they know full well that these things always have pros and cons. And it's not even about standards... standards can be taken care of, given enough time. That is a really minor concern, most emerging technologies had the problem at some point.
But airports were designed and made for big planes. So, this would mean retrofitting an insane ammount of infrastructure and logistics on airports right from start. This doesn't happen in the course of a few decades or so, we're talking about generations here, because of the size of the endeavour.
Yes, autonomous flying helps, but it's not a solution to everything - it's a solution between take off and landing, for some of the stuff.
Think about other types of technology and you might understand the problem better, it puts things in perspective. It'd be comparatively easy for several countries to adopt, a public transportation system that looks closer to Japan - with a mix of high speed rail, urban commuters and older trains criss crossing the country with a big part of the population not owning cars, but instead using a mix of bikes, metro and walking in their daily lives. How many decades did we have to work towards something like that? Why didn't we? Are we anywhere near that?
Now, think about redesigning and creating all the necessary regulations, laws, business types, intercommunication standards, retrofitting everything to accomodate for, building up trust, estabilishing everything needed for a new category of vehicles. Something like electric cars, but much much muuuch harder - because it's not a pre-estabilished thing that is just replacing propulsion method. You know, we don't currently have highways and airports fit to run hybrid vehicles (hybrid I mean, that can both fly and drive). And if we don't have that, why would we want flying cars at all? Wouldn't it be better to just have electric planes and electric cars separatedly?
And then, since airports don't live in isolation, everything around it would have to adapt too.
Problem is, airports are made the way they are not only because of how planes work themselves, but several worries about airspace, routes, considerations about mass boarding and unboarding passengers, etc etc.
If we're going through a transitional period, then at most electric flying cars will be occupying the space of aforementioned vehicles - private jets, helicopters, small planes.
Why? Because airspace is already primed for a combination of those plus commercial flights. It's highly regulated, which is why it's usually focused at specific points like airports.
The question comes up again - why flying cars instead of just focusing on electric planes?
Flying cars won't make things much cleaner too, because of that very same reason. It's a worthwhile technical effort, sure, but it's making flying/driving clean for the 1%. Back again to other efforts, clean public transportation and electric rail systems would contribute much more for a mass long transit cleanup, at least domestic.
It's all a huge pipe dream that to me, is not leading anywhere worthwhile, sorry. As climate change worsens, and as people become more aware on how big the problem is, ideas like flying cars will be left to rot.
We need clean mass transit, clean commute, clean technologies that targets the majority of people, not only the 1%.
And honestly, I personally think we are already hitting the deadline to start those projects. Before the worst effects of climate change hits, huge infrastructural reforms will have to be underway or we might not have the critical mass to execute them later on. We are quickly walking towards a future where developed countries will not have the structure to maintain it's overly capitalistic nature. It's possible for a few countries to sustain a 1% rich class that is richer than all of the rest combined, but it needs to be in a peaceful and relatively stable society. That type of society can sustain insane pipe dreams of rich people like flying cars and stupid crap like hyperloop, but you take out the peace and stability, and things start turning around pretty quickly.
Something that billionaire CEOs and whatnot seems to be missing despite their 'incredible intellect' and whatnot. The societies you live in have to be somewhat in lockstep with your riches. You keep evading taxes and whatnot, amassing riches while people are going homeless and with nothing to eat, your money and net value will soon be worth nothing, and the poor will eat your children and grandchildren.
1
-
I don't blame schools, teachers, principals and students for going this direction, and I guess it all ends up in a contract between parents and schools anyways.
And I tend to agree with some of the stuff the principal said... but there's an inherent and insidious problem with the entire philosophy and ideas behind school mandated shooting preparedness training among other things, and it has a relation as to why shootings happen in the first place - it's how it becomes ingrained in culture.
People will argue on this, as they should, and I myself wouldn't take sides because I'm not living that reality personally.
But here's the thing: if a kid is taught from an early age to think of shootings as something so common that it's necessary to have training, it just enters the agenda. It becomes part of daily thinking, and it gets ingrained as more of a cultural thing.
One could draw parallels to the earthquake training of earthquake prone countries, or the nuclear strike preparedness during cold war, but here we're talking about mainly domestic terrorism.
The message behind all this is hard to control, and it can backfire *no pun intended*. It's something that most people who lived through the cold war will probably know about, there can and will be unintended consequences - it changes the way people think their own culture and live their lives.
And I won't argue with people who are in the position of thinking that having training for the worst case scenario can be a good thing, and that it could give peace of mind for some kids who are already oppressed by current happenings. It can be true in several cases.
But in a very basic sense, you are creating a culture that goes around the normalization of gun violence, and in a way, the glorification of guns in a general sense.
Let's say a kid from the school grows up, for whatever reasons, to not be an upstanding citizen in the community. I think some people will see the message that he/she got while attending this school. With a gun, you can mobilize a whole ton of people, create a huge commotion, generate such a happening that forced kids to adapt the entire curriculum to go around it.
He or she might use the training as a way to plan his/her own attack, and then the school will have to change it to take that into account, and then it becomes a vicious cycle.
There's also the entire thing about introducing guns to kids at young ages... yes, they can be taught and see them as defensive weapons, and with the severety and seriousness that the topic needs to be approached, but people can never discard the fact that guns are basically tools for taking other peoples' lives. There is no other purpose. And then, depending how kids take it, there is potential for abuse, for misuse, and for a morbid sense of fascination that can turn out very very wrong, as we all know by now.
And I don't have the answer, nor I can say that what the school is doing is wrong - different times requires different strategies for different situations.
But it isn't great a situation where kids needs to prepare for stuff like that, or that parents, teachers and principals need to think about strategies to prevent loss of lives because of random shooters. There's a deeper problem in US culture in general, and I'm not sure if this helps.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
ROFL, that HD DVD joke. xD
So... I've been using Toslink since I got my first laptop (an Acer Ferrari 4000) and my 15 years old 5.1 home theater system - Logitech Z-5500 (DTS 5.1 with THX). That's because I got, for the laptop, a Soundblaster PCMCIA card that had the mini Toslink port.
It also doubled as a headphone jack. Pretty interesting adaptation for the form factor:
https://ksassets.timeincuk.net/wp/uploads/sites/54/2005/01/943-ports-1.jpg
And then, like I said, I never switched to another home theater system, this one is perfect for my needs and it works like a champ. And even though not many people knows about Toslink, it's always been there right? The past 3 PCs I had all came with a Toslink port for sound.
I'm not even an audiophile in anyway... but you know, despite not being anything special, these days not only can you get some super cheap toslink cables anywhere - I'm talking eBay cheap crap stuff, not fancy overpriced crap like Monster cables - but they are also pretty reliable because of how they work.
Here's one advantage of it from my personal experience: you don't have to worry about contact point corrosion. You know when you connect your speakers or headphones to a headphone jack and it gets all crackly? And then overtime the connector will get oxidized or gunky and you have to keep messing around, twisting it or flicking it to make a proper connection? With light, there's none of that.
The other advantage is more about it being a digital transmission rather than because it's fiber optics, but yeah... it either works, or you know the cable is broken. None of that crap that happens when wires are getting frayed and broken little by little and you keep jiggling it around to see if it makes things better. :P
HDMI is indeed superior, but for instance, because Toslink became the de facto standard for digital audio for a while, it's easier for me to pull a cable from my desktop to the speakers with a single, very thin, Toslink cable, rather than either 3 cables for 5.1 analog audio, or even a thicker HDMI cable. But HDMI is not an option for my set of speakers... yep, it's THIS old. xD It has input and output for Toslink, or all analog. No HDMI.
I've got these super thin Toslink cables that puts even my flat HDMI cables to shame. They are even thinner than the audio cables shown in video. When I took a look at them I thought they were gonna break or just not work at all, but I was wrong.
But indeed, they cannot go longer than 5 meters.
Another weird piece of related tech that I have here is a Toslink switcher... because the speakers only have one toslink input, and I had both a desktop and a laptop that could output toslink, I got a mechanical switcher to change between channels. This guy here:
http://www.homewired.com.au/images/ebay/toslinkSwitch.jpg
It really is totally mechanical. Either mirrors or fixed pieces of fiber optics that switches with that channel selector there. And it works, no power needed. xD It probably weakens the signal even more, but still doing the job fine.
I won't recommend it for anyone else though, specially those building new rigs... just that it works for my current setup. :P
1
-
1
-
Well... I don't think you were wrong on the last video Louis, nor I understood that you were saying he's completely innocent. Just that the punishment didn't fit the crime, which it really doesn't.
At least I never heard of a case, like ever, of someone going to jail for over a year for trademark infringement - which seems it's one thing he might be guilty of.
Heck, I'm not sure even a professional pirate selling Windows disks with a pirated key printed on the label would've gotten that much. It sounds like Microsoft tried to characterize his crime as straight piracy, but it's quite obvious that it wasn't the case.
Even in more clear cut cases when someone uses another business logo for profit, 15 months in jail seems completely absurd. 15 months in jail sounds more like someone going to Microsoft, punching the CEO or something, and making death threats - which is something I'd have done if I was an investor. Though even that would more likely result in a restraining order, lawsuit and fine.
And again, inversion of values. It's not only that the guy was actually making a favor for people who would be getting the recycled computers, it's that he was actually making something that helps solving a huge problem in the industry that Microsoft does jackshit about: eWaste. Well, like Louis and several others in this community also do. Microsoft should actually be paying this guy for his service.
But quite frankly, I expect exactly this from the current US justice system and the current administration.
Just recently, a cop shot a photographer because he thought the tripod he was carrying was a gun, and the cop got out of it without being blamed for using excessive force. It was a reasonable suspicion for the courts. Only that apart from being a long black object, there is nothing that makes a camera tripod look like a gun. Should the public expect cops to just come shooting people now because they are carrying stuff like that?
US now has a whole ton of completely ignorant, or completely biased politicians leading most major positions among regulatory bodies and secretaries through the entire spectrum.
There has been a huge inversion of values going on in recent years that baffles me.
It's not that things are great in my country... like, we have our own share of stranger than fiction stuff, but I didn't expect the US to stoop so low on certain things... I really didn't.
But I went completely off topic. This is more bad press for Microsoft, deserved bad press, that is just stupid. This news is going to cost Microsoft way more than if Eric was just selling a ton of pirated Windows 10 copies, which he wasn't. I hope the press drills people from there as much as possible, because this whole thing is f*cking shameful.
1
-
Yeah... funny enough, this is one of those cases where the automation system should be safer than the alternative as a general statistic, but only if it's designed, executed and maintained properly. The rule for all automated systems is garbage in garbage out.
This also affects autonomous cars, and even all the way up to stuff like nuclear power plants.
And it also could be argued that even with accidents, they still are safer and better than alternatives, but optics will always make them look worse. Because every single accident will be scrutinized to death, as the blame for switching to such a system lays squarely at the company's hands - you can't just brush it off as a human failure, or something like that.
Thing is, whether you are putting human drivers or operators behind, or you are using an automated system - which was built by humans too -, everything is still prone to failure. It's just that automated systems tends to be more consistent than humans - be it for doing the right thing, or doing the wrong thing... so you better get it right, or else this could mean chain catastrophic failures.
1
-
Noooo stopping pulling all these death flags Louis! xD
Seriously though, of course you can do it! We'll all be following this great move, and it'll be awesome to see the whole thing grow! Your store, your staff, your channel and yourself do deserve better, and you'll get it, because it's how it should be, period.
I really cannot think of many other types of businesses that I undeniably wanna see grow more. It makes costumers happy, it makes the world happier, it keeps electronics longer outside the trash. It really should be everywhere, and I'm happy that the movement is growing.
And this channel will also get to 1 million just in time for the move too! xD Kudos!
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Universal thing... here in Brazil there are several ridiculous stories about the equivalent of lottery winners losing all their money and dying in a ditch somewhere. There are literally cases of million dollar winners that lost all the money and are living on the streets.
And I think around here things are even worse, because every year there is one game tons and tons and tons of people play (the end of the year lottery) that is guaranteed to give you a few milions even after taxes and whatnot.
The reason why so many people destroy their entire lives with such a prize can be figured out by logic. First, the vast majority of people who plays in lotteries and whatnot don't really know how to handle money very well. The majority of them either don't understand how much money that really is, how much money it costs to keep certain lifestyles, or how to invest properly and keep the money going. A ton of them don't even have basic education, let alone knowledge around finance, administration, law, investments and whatnot.
The answers you see in most questions coming up with what you'd do with the money all show a degree of not understanding the prize very well. It's either spending all the money on partying, or to buy a home, car, business and whatnot for family. But they don't get the tendrils of those expenditures. Property tax, car tax, luxury taxes, maintenance costs, risks, etc etc. There always seems to be this idea that you pay this, and there's nothing else beyond that.
And of course, money is always a powerful agent of corruption. Even the most honest people will tremble at their bases when presented with something like millions at their faces.
But the whole idea is that you are suddenly thrown in an entire other universe that you know nothing about in a single moment. We all live day by day according to our own realities. Adding a ton of money to it is almost as disorienting and alien as suddently taking out gravity out of the equation, for instance. You gotta re-learn, re-think, re-do everything in your life... personal relationships, professional relationships, personal security, what you dedicate your time to, how you see things, what expectations you have towards everything, the expectations everyone else has towards you, etc etc etc. You become someone else overnight. You lose your personal identity.
People may say or think things like, oh no, I wouldn't change. But you would, and it wouldn't be a choice too. :P Well, unless you took all the money being able to conceal your identity from everyone, put it all in a chest, and burry it all somewhere or throw it in the Mariana Trench or something. Even then, something changed a bit for you - that itty pitty piece of knowledge there.
Paradoxically, it's the people who needs this money the least that would be better prepared to handle it - because it's a sum that is meaningless to them. A billionaire getting a couple million dollars more would just divert the sum to their multiple investments.
1
-
1
-
Thanks Vice, for sharing this piece of news. But to put it more accurately, this isn't a problem of this administration in particular, and this isn't gonna be solved by whatever form of politics and comes around in whatever shape or form people might want.
Murder rates by police action in Rio's favelas in particular tends to follow the economic trends of the state.
You can blame the current president rhetoric just as much as you can blame the severe horrible political decisions of past administrations that led the entire state to complete bankrupcy. But it's just fruitless armchair politics. You are not there to see the daily routine of those places, you cannot fully understand why it happens. By the way, some of the most brutal killings that happened in Rio happened in previous administrations. You don't have to trust me, just search in news sites.
First of all, people need to understand the geography of the city of Rio de Janeiro.
The world famous favelas or slums are illegal and irregular occupations of Rio's mountanous region, which was supposed to be unoccupied, natural reserves. They sit side by side to downtown Rio, rich neighborhoods and touristic spaces, because it's actually a pretty tight space in relation to population numbers. Pull up Google Maps and Wikipedia and check for yourself.
Yes, lots of poor honest workers live in favelas, but this does not negate the status of the place. It's lawless, labyrinthic, non regulated occupation of places that should have no people living there in the first place. As favelas are irregular occupations, it doesn't have anything regulated or official. Everything you can imagine from access to power, water, Internet, sewage, up to housing, commerce, among other stuff is all irregular. And a whole bunch of it is controlled, provided, and supported by criminal factions.
What happens is that the place not only acts as a hotbed of crime in general like drug trafficking, blackmail, extortion, with the informal economy working inside favelas having to pay criminal factions to work in there, but it's also the perfect hideout for criminals who are commiting crimes outside favelas and into the city itself. It all ends there. All criminals of all natures escape to those regions.
Yes, this is a failing of the state and government, but it is also a failing of the economy and the people. Honest working people should not be forced to live in conditions like those, but here we are. Everyone shares the responsibility of what happens in favelas.
So, there are few options for effective law and policing in conditions like those. There has been a long stance going around on police never entering favelas unless it's for a specific action and reason, because of how dangerous it is to do so. If police don't chase criminals there, then the lawlessness extends it's reach to the entire city. If all a criminal has to do to escape law is run into a favela, there's zero hope for justice.
But the economy is in such a state for such a long time that you have cases of police staff and military staff living in favelas having to hide their line of work not to be targeted. Because their wages are so low they simply cannot afford living outside favelas. This, again, has nothing to do with current administration - this is a long standing problem.
Bope and regular police or military even have terms for when they have to enter favelas to give chase to criminals - incursions, basically. They are in an out as fast as possible, with large teams, heavy protection and weapons as possible. It's not because the police is violent or that they wanna kill a bunch of people, it's because they get in already under fire. Kids hired by criminal factions will use fireworks or whatever to warn criminal factions that the police is getting in, criminal factions will respond with heavy fire against anyone they see as police or military, and it really turns into a war zone. People who have at least watched Elite Squad movie will understand it a bit better, but the reality is even more dire than the movie portrays, specially nowadays.
Mind you, the police and military are often understaffed, underpaid, underequipped and undertrained for this daily routine. You get one of your trigger happy US cops inside a favela and see how that goes. I'm willing to bet several US service members would rather be in Iraq or Afghanistan fighting ISIS cells rather than living the daily lives of cops in Rio, specially these days with the bankrupt state.
So yeah, it's good that people know that such things are happening in Rio, and accountability is always a good thing to go for. But please, do not turn this into yet another ridiculous crusade against this or that politician like the whole Amazon is burning shitshow. This is solving nothing. I'm glad to see problems about my country being shown in international news, but if it's treated and portrayed in a shallow manner, it only makes things worse.
1
-
1
-
Godamn, UK authorities can be so thick headed at times... what do you guys still don't understand about the pandemic?
It's too late. Obviously, it's too late. You can't defeat logic with tests. No chain will be broken there, you are the whole chain already.
Covid-19 can start manifesting symptons between a couple of days to a couple of weeks after infection.
You guys didn't immediately close borders once the first case showed up, which if you did, it might have already been too late because of this delay of symptoms and detection.
If a guy gets sick with the variant, it means he's been spreading it between two days to two whole weeks plus the time it took for the test to come out and the variant to be detected. It's just too long. If you have multiple cases, the potential for spread rises exponentially.
There are several almost impossible things that needs to happen if you ever hope to stop a strain like that from entering the country.
First, borders should've been closed BEFORE the first variants started showing up and being reported. Before, not after, and specially not after with a delay.
Because detection and reporting isn't immediate, so this obviously implies that when the detection and reporting happened, they were already around. Added to the fact that people usually only test after they already got symptoms, which means 2 days to 2 weeks after infection, after they became vectors.
Second, testing should've been for everyone from start, with or without symptoms, not only after shit already hit the fan. And if you limit testing areas to neighborhoods, it's just not enough, particularly for newer strains that are even more virulent than the original. You are hoping for an effect where every case gets detected and every positive result stays in lockdown, that's just not happening.
By now, if you already detected community driven variants, it's already all over. It's not the South African variant anymore, it's UK's too. Save the money, give it for people to lockdown and stay in place, or put even more on vaccines.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Blackberry really really died for me when the whole thing about a global encryption key for all non-business BBM users given to the RCMP came out, and the CEO - John Chen - gave that tone deaf blog post response to it all. That's when the company really died for me.
Aside from that part, I would've been plenty fine with the company to keep going. It would keep a niche following, and with Android running it had a chance to keep people invested in the ecossystem there. The hardware isn't flagship material, but it has a modern working OS with Android, and all the ecossystem stuff that fans like.
A whole bunch of the story is very similar to other companies like the old Nokia, and Windows Phones in general. Slowness to compete, lack of emphasis on apps, insistence of relying on old models, not having an internal structure that is able to keep up with the pace of innovation of the competition... Nokia persisted on Symbian until very late in the game, and then they went with Windows Phone. Windows Phone failed to launch early in the game, could not convince app developers to port their apps properly, refused to invest on flagship features instead going only for emerging markets, and then died. Nokia is slowly coming back with HMD Global, despite not being anywhere near flagships, I think their recent offerings with Android One behind are plenty ok. It'll likely never reach it's past status of domination, but if it can survive in the game, that's great.
I also had a Windows Phone in the past. Both the hardware and base OS was not bad, the app situation killed it. Microsoft did a whole ton of very weird questionable moves during the time I was using a Windows Phone... it was downright puzzling why they'd do several of the stuff they did. I wouldn't mind though if their phones got a sizeable enough following to keep going - but they didn't.
But the global encryption key thing completely soured Blackberry for me. I went from thinking the company should keep it's business messaging and corporate clientele, to thinking this company needs to die as soon as possible.
https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/14/11434926/blackberry-encryption-master-key-broken-canada-rcmp-surveillance
https://blogs.blackberry.com/2016/04/lawful-access-corporate-citizenship-and-doing-whats-right
And a whole lot of people forgave the company for this case, despite the CEO insisting over several years that the company's position was right, that this is about civil responsibilities, and even slammed Apple several times for it's privacy centered philosophy.
https://bgr.com/2015/12/17/blackberry-apple-iphone-encryption/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/10/25/blackberry-ceo-well-try-to-break-our-own-encryption-if-feds-demand-it/#703db53b6977
So yeah... fuck this company. It's dead to me, and it deserves to die full stop. I dunno for how long more Blackberry will keep going, but with John Chen leading it with it's idiotic messaging, it might as well not exist at all. With someone at the helm that is less dictatorial and less hard headed, perhaps the brand could be ressurected. But with him? Fuck it. It should die because that's better for everyone.
1
-
Your sacrifice notwithstanding Chris, I have to say the series is among the top best series about Japan overall that I have ever watched... I put it in the same level of importance as Japanology Plus, John's Only in Japan backpacking travel series, and few others. It is unique and did a great fun job of showing the Japan most people don't know about, which was just amazing.
I think you should really ignore people who don't understand how hard it is to work in a series like that, because most people don't know how hard the behind the scenes stuff is (specially the grueling editing hours), and together with the great people from TC, plan on other projects like that one... perhaps with less sacrifice and less of a burden put on top of a single creator. xD For that matter, I have to say you did not let me down and I'm willing to bet you didn't let down your most important viewers too, because we know it's no easy task to do what you guys did.
Because here it is - Journey Across Japan is a series that I will be recommending for a very long time to lots of friends and family. I'd want to have it on long format, with subtitles, so I can recommend it for more people. It's definitely among the series and videos that I want everyone I know to see, if it wasn't for the pesky language problem.
1
-
Parts of this video clearly explain to me, not an American citizen living in the US, the reason why these things happen - Americans have become too used to clear monopolistic schemes to understand that the root problem of cases like this one lies solely in it, and so they cease also understanding why and how important anti-trust legislation is.
Through all the impossible, tragic, inevitable, unavoidable, etc comments in this video, what I hear is creating excuses to allow for such things to continue happening. There is no real inevitability there, there are only excuses created to excuse crass monopolistic late stage capitalism behavior that should never have been allowed in the first place.
Let's analyze just a few things there and try to at least imagine solving a few problems at a time. Mind you, I'm not an expert, I don't know the case all that well, I'm making assumptions based on the video, and proper policies and ideas need far more than this to be developed... this is just an uninformed, potentially wrong and full of holes, speculative surface level analysis by a random Internet commenter. Ok, here we go.
The first and most obvious problem identified at the video itself is a single corporation owning everything there. Not only the ski resort operations, but also real estate, lodging, restaurants, businesses, private transport, commerce, and a whole ton more things in the area.
This should be extinguished via anti-trust. The company should be forced to dismantle and be broken down into separate different smaller independent companies each taking care of their own portions of the business.
Why does this need to be done when there seems to be so many advantages to having an integrated system like that? Two reasons - to allow for small competition to have a fighting chance, and to stop underhanded methods such as using finance from one side of the company to prop up unfair competition in another. This is the central main issue the needs to be solved if these ski resort towns want to have a shot at making things better. Without dismantling the monopoly, what Vail truly has there is a complete ownership of the region, period. They are the kings, the authoritarian leaders of the entire place. And for corporations like that, the only thing that matters is profit and shareholder needs, no matter how much they pretend to care. This is not a matter of one CEO or president being "evil" or being a sociopath, which sometimes is the case and sometimes isn't. This is about a system that is sometimes invisible for those working in the inside that has all these side effects that they cannot control.
That is the true problem of monopolies. People supporting it, working in it, profiting from it's operations, people who depend on it for their livelihoods, cannot understand why what these company do is bad in a given situation, because they are shielded from everything by the monopoly itself. It's the old "but I'm just supporting my family", or "at least they gave me a job" and other stuff you might have heard. Survivorship bias. It's not my fault if I'm working hard to sustain myself and my family, no matter if the results of the company as a whole is destroying an entire city/ environment/ economic area to sustain that.
The problem with people working in the resort having to live outside of it because the town itself has become unaffordable.
A few different approaches - public housing programs, regulation that limits percentage of real estate that goes towards AirBnb and whatnot schemes, regulation that enforces how long through the year houses needs to be occupied with penalties applied in fines, taxes and whatnot, which will then finance programs like public housing. I'm drawing a blank here, but there are all sorts of things that can be done to alleviate this. There are several nations around the world right now with very strong touristic destinations that are applying all sorts of measures for those places not to become touristic ghost towns. It needs to have governmental will to do it, but it can be done.
Depending on size of resort/town and expected local population, there could also be government regulations that establishes by law that for a company to operate there and exploit the land for profit, they need to house a percentage of employees locally. They cannot be all coming from outside. The town also needs to have basic infrastructure, facilities and services locally, or else it's not to be considered a town anymore, and all sorts of other rules will have to come in place to stop it from becoming half and half.
I think some will see this as an inevitability of the particular situation ski towns are in, but for me it's about allowing uncontrolled and unregulated late stage capitalism trends to take over.
Hype tourism can certainly take over and change places until they become completely different and unrecognizable from it's idyllic origins, but when well managed and controlled, it can become something better - not just a place that a huge conglomerate will exploit dry.
The problem for this case and so many others in the US is a lack of institutional intelligence, will, and ability to apply different regulations, laws and policies on companies before they start abusing their positions to destroy everything for profit.
And I'm not saying this because I am anti-capitalism, against businesses making profit, against business prosperity. It's just that it needs to be done in a controlled fashion, and the priority needs to always be about the needs of the people living in the area affected, not what shareholders want, not how much more you can squeeze that cow.
The particular problem of US and so many cases of corporate abuse that is killing a whole ton of things there, is that people have still not fully woken up to how exploited by corporations they have become. How much in control these corporations are because government either pretends they are not seeing it, or are in direct cahoots with them, with all the lobbying schemes. How unhealthy the relationship has become, and how many of benefits that US citizens have are crumbs and scraps given by huge corporations rather than something they get by right, by having a democratic government, by representative action and power.
1
-
I think the truth for most countries is that we tend to focus on our region, and sometimes in our countries alone, from all perspectives - cultural, geographical, historical.
I dunno how education is in other countries, but here in Brazil for instance, we have one long study subject that is about brazilian history alone, and another subject of the same average size that is world history.
So you see how it doesn't match? You get the same time to study 500 something years of brazilian history from the time it got colonized by Portugal (and not much before that) to study world history that is highly focused on western history - so, mostly events around WWI and WWII, I think a bit of US Civil War, French revolution, few European wars, Middle ages... not much more than that. Perhaps a bit of Greek philosophers, egyptians, silk road, Mongol invasions. Oh, not to mention that at least part of world history is also focused on South America. So locals might be able to locate countries like Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, etc... but unless they had some external contact outside school, they won't be able to locate countries like Chad, Myanmar, Libya, Thailand, Turkmenistan... perhaps even India, China, Poland, Norway. Some people might even have memorized the entire globe in school days, but you know, that's just too far back to remember.
Honestly, I don't remember learning much on Asian countries, on African countries and on middle eastern countries in world history at all. It's just these tiny snipets of information that had something to do with worldwide commerce trade routes, past wars, or something in relation with the world wars, or that somehow has a relationship with brazilian history.
I personally don't know much, and I'd probably fail a few of those questions, but whatever little I know of those countries I learned later on with the advent of Internet.
And to be honest, I don't really take fault with formal education and whatnot. Truth is, there isn't enough time to learn the culture, history and geography of all countries in all regions in the world, there aren't even teachers that would know all that. The majority of people in Brazil and I guess in most countries will never have the opportunity to visit a whole lot of other countries anyways. Not that I think it's useless information, far from that, but it's too much to know and take.
1
-
Yep, as an anime fan I knew about their situation, but I never got to see an interview like this one... very rare to get something like this partly because not many animators are willing to talk about it, partly because there's some stigmatization on talking about the topic at all which is very unfortunate.
I think it's akim to slave labor and it's quite mindblowing that this is happening in Japan. It has parts of cultural blame on it and parts of a huge exploitation scheme that is being totally ignored by both society and politics in Japan.
It doesn't take much to tell by doing the math that the entire system is extremely warped. It's a huge entertainment industry that has conquered almost the entire world despite production being almost entirely limited to a single country and a few hundreds of studios.
Individual licenses for some titles can go upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars. There is a huge market worldwide. A single market like the US alone is projected to be on the several billions of dollars. Domestic it's more towards tens of billions of dollars, all things considered (not only the animation itself, but related profits regarding merchandise and other stuff).
How in the heck animators, which are key components in the production of anime can be so close to slave labor then, and where is all that money going to?
It's basically a very extreme and very warped version of other entertainment industries.
There is an extreme oversupply of passionate workers trying to enter the craft. It is for sure an industry that requires lots of people to produce work in the very tight schedules they have. It's also a high risk industry, similar to games, in which a project failure might mean the end of a traditional company.
But it seems there are far more issues and warping in this industry that we still don't know much about, because the numbers are simply just too absurd. It's also weirdly opaque, overcomplicated, and messy. I've read and watched a whole lot of content covering the subject, still have a mild understanding of it all. But one way I find helps is thinking at least a bit like general entertainment industries that we living in western cultures usually think about.
Sports, or movie industry, or music industry for instance. For each successful player, studio, artist and whatnot there are tons and tons of people who failed and either gave up, or are living at the fringes of those industries somehow. For anime it's kinda different. As it's an industry that requires tons of labor, tons of people get recruited and share the "misery" of it throughout. Which still does not explain a wage that is lower than part time jobs, but part of how the system works comes to that.
I still think there is some hidden component of people getting extremely rich there at the cost of workers being exploited, but I have never seen a good enough investigative analysis that reaches where the biggest warp happens.
This whole thing gives me a huge pause. I've been a huge fan of anime for almost 20 years now. I certainly enjoyed much of the work coming out of this industry, it has changed me and made me the way I am, I don't wanna see it go, and I think the way I think is similar to many anime fans throughout the world. But we've certainly seem the effects of such a warped industry. As much perfectionists and hard workers that japanese people can be, when put at limits like those even the best work of best teams and people will start showing cracks and telling a story of needless extreme sacrifice.
While I know making all animators filthy rich is just plain not possible considering the numbers required to produce a single title, I absolutely think they need to paid enough not only for basic needs, but also to live plenty comfortable and feel rewarded and recognized for their work.
I don't think fans need as many titles and as many shows through a season or a year, but that doesn't seem to be the real issue. It's kinda like games... the market is flooded with them because there is a cultural consensus that this is needed for profitability.
Anyways, I already wrote too much... thanks Hiroko and Asian Boss for covering this topic. I've been hoping to see more on this, and for some sort of solution to arise to fix how the industry works since several years ago when I read an article on the topic. It really shouldn't be like that.
1
-
The allergy and diet restriction thing is hard because that's too broad a range... you gotta really get into specifics in order to think of a strategy.
Broadly speaking though, you could either learn the words and terms for it, or even make some simple graphical cards to show to staff in restaurants before going in. There are some stuff that you are going to have trouble though.
For instance, an uncle of mine developed extreme allergy for sesame pretty late in his life, this is a source of problem almost anywhere he goes unfortunately, because sesame seed oil and sesame in general is used everywhere, particularly in Asian cuisine. So he was kinda forced into an extremely restrictive diet over a decade ago when he went to Japan... but he still enjoyed the trip. xD
I think because of how tourism is booming in Japan, there are far more options these days... but you know, all these food trends that we have in the west comes kinda slow into Japan simply because there has never been a real need for it before.
Traditional Japanese cuisine already doesn't have many sources of allergens, and there isn't a long history of dietary restrictions based on ideology or religion, so it's a less common thing all around - the concept itself.
Vegan, vegetarian, and other dietary restrictions, you'll need to look around. There are restaurants, cafes and bars that do have that stuff in the menu and prepare food with that in mind in particular, but it's not everywhere. I've heard that exclusively vegetarian and vegan restaurants are popping up all around, but they are not as common as in western nations.
Lactose intolerance, years ago it wasn't common to have lactose free options readily available everywhere, I'm not sure how it is nowadays anymore... but also, milk already isn't something used everywhere in Japan, there are tons of soy based alternatives, so if you are ok with those it may not be necessary. If you really really want lactose free milk alternatives though, I think some brands in Japan do have those... perhaps you won't be able to find it in kombinis, but in specialty markets and perhaps big supermarket chains they'll be there. Perhaps Norm has a more up to date view on this, I went to Japan twice back in 2008 and then again in 2018 and I didn't look much into it because my lactose intolerance isn't 100%... I can still take few stuff with a bit of lactose without things going haywire. xD You can always take your lactaid with you though.
Oh, still more or less on this spirit - take your own medicine. See travel restrictions on that and whatnot. It's not that you won't find plenty of drugstores in Japan, it's just that names can be all different, some stuff you won't be able to buy unless you have a prescription, and it's just more convenient and fast to use what you already know goes well with you - you don't wanna waste trip time needlessly.
As for the language, I have only this to say: Japan is likely the best country all around which you can go without knowledge of the language. Things can get a bit confusing sometimes, but you just make room for it, be patient, try again.
See, I have a couple of relatives who went with me in both trips, they don't speak or read Japanese, and get this, they also don't speak nor read English. It's Portuguese only and a bit of Spanish at most because we are from Brazil.
A few times all they had were cards with addresses and information to show prepared beforehand, and gesturing, and they still managed, a few times in the trip by themselves. xD Both trips we were actually in a group of 6 people with mixed language knowledge levels.
Worse yet, we all look Japanese because we are Japanese descendent, so weird looks and questions on why we couldn't speak Japanese. xD And like I said, our first trip was back in 2008 more or less... no smartphone, we didn't even take cellphones, calling back home was still done with international phone booths, Google maps was nowhere near what it is today, Japan also wasn't as prepared to international tourists as it is today, and back on the first trip we also went into some smaller towns and neighborhoods. Still managed ok.
It's just like, don't sweat it. I'm willing to bet that if I knew nothing of Japanese nor English, only had my plane tickets and hotel or stay reservations (because you need those in order to apply for tourist Visa here), and went totally blind for the trip... I'd probably still enjoy plenty. Be respectful and patient and you'll do fine.
1
-
Yep, should be more transparent, and ideally just fined and then stopped from doing it.
I already knew this was "the catch" though... it's how most pay in advance scheme works - like banks.
Most, if not all gift cards and bonus programs that you need to pay in advance also work like that.
The way people need to think about money is that once it's not in your hands, someone else is profiting from it.
Of course, it's rarely the case you want to keep all your money in your hands all of the time, but you need to think in terms of putting your money into something that will give you some returns. Otherwise you are basically being scammed.
Tough luck though... US can't even sort it's anti-trust stuff, I highly doubt they'll be changing anything about this. Too deep into late-stage capitalism to fix these types of distortions.
But anyways, Starbucks is not a thing in my country, nor is Amazon... they exist, but are nowhere near as big as in several other nations, and I see this as a good thing. :P Starbucks will never get big here... we have better coffee pretty much anywhere else. Amazon is always a risk, but I hope it never gets more of the eCommerce market... they simply got too late here and we already had an established eCommerce environment with local companies.
1
-
Awesome video guys!
First, anime recomendation: You Don't Know about Gunma yet. xD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phKXWKRAS_4
Second, if there is anyone watching this video who still isn't subscribed to Life Where I'm From channel, Greg just made a series of videos on the city that has the biggest snowfall in Japan and the world (Aomori)... pretty awesome, you should watch it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqerKWp1kqs
This comment is sponsored by... myself, because I just love the content Greg makes. xD And also of course Chris, needless to say.
We've been to Kusatsu Onsen back in 2018... awesome place, it's such an incredible view just going around the town center there. The shops around the plaza all have good food and whatnot, wish I could've tasted more of it. There was this one sweet pastry thing there that was just great, can't remember the name.
Something that doesn't go through in the video though - the sulfur smell is pretty strong. xD A mix between the smell, me not being dressed well enough, and staying out for a bit too long... I ended up with a pretty nasty headache and fever by the end of the day, not being able to enjoy the onsen we stayed at enough... but oh well, it happens. And it wasn't even snowing... early spring. But I come from a no-snow tropical country, so just that I'm not used to it.
Made the same error on the first trip back in 2008 when we went up Mt Fuji... man, it gets colder and colder every station you go up.
Anyways, our onsen was nowhere near as fancy as Chris' room though... both trips to Japan I did was in a group of 7 people, mostly at retirement age, no one super rich or anything like that. xD So, it's the onsen deal of the day. xD Still pretty great though. Less modern and fancy, but we still had quite a view, the onsen was great, and the food too.
Happy to see it with this different face... I see that neither Chris nor Connor did the trails around Kusatsu Onsen too. xD Still a bit curious about what is around there... other than the monkees that is. We stayed just for a day, and not only most of my group is of retired people, a few of them have some mobility issues, so trails and long rolls of stairs is kind of a no-go. :P
Anyways, thanks for the virtual vacation guys!
1
-
Small correction: Pachinkos were never at any point the only place you could smoke in public.... not sure where script writers came up with that.
Pachinkos were famously thick with smoke when it was allowed, because they are usually inside closed opaque windows (or windowless) buildings that have the same effect of casinos - to obscure the passage of time for players. :P
And so, with little ventilation and tight packed space with tons of smokers, you got the smoker fog.
But smoking indoors got forbiden very very recently, being allowed only at designated spaces.
Just as an example, on my trip there back in 2018, I still found plenty of restaurants, bars, cafes and whatnot that still had enclosed smoker areas. I also went there in 2007, no smoking ban at all that I can remember of back then.
The general rule for closed spaces though was having separate areas for smokers.
But smoking outdoor was already outlawed in 2018, with designated corners and booths popping out. In some places they were fully enclosed spaces with ventilation and filtration, in others they were just signs put close to cigarette butt trashcans, open space, no boundaries. I imagine it was the transition period... not sure how it's working now. But I still spotted people disrespecting it here and there.... japanese people, not tourists.
1
-
Ooof, everyone feeling ancient already? xD
I was among the nerds who knew and anticipated this feature when it started showing up. Early adopter of CD, DVD and Blu-ray burning drives here too. I'm a digital hoarder. :P
Oh, and I also had a Diamond/Rio mp3 player in the early times... it wasn't the same as Alec's model there, rather it was a collab between Nike and Rio, a sports-y model. People will know what I'm talking about, yes, that one that looked like a weird puck/bean or something. xD
Only I think the one I bought was either counterfeit or some sort of janky prototype using crap materials.
It was also among the very first eBay purchases I've ever made, iirc. I paid full price for an original one, but it clearly was some jank crap. I was pissed at first, but other than having poor quality materials, it worked, so ended up relenting.
But for the mp3 CD player, I do recall going for a portable CD player specifically because it had a CD MP3 function, to use it in my car with a jank connection to it's K7 player. xD Few things I needed with the portable CD player - that it could play mp3 CDs, that it had a good buffer in it, and that it came with a car-kit. Plus of course not being too expensive. I got some Aiwa, probably still have it laying around somewhere. It was pretty crap, but kinda worked for what I wanted. The kit came with a physical plasticky shock absorber of sorts, anyone remember those? xD
But I do remember one major issue about the mp3 player stuff - because it wasn't a solid well defined standard, you had major issues with things just not working depending on all the variables regarding mp3 files, different types of media, encoding settings and whatnot.
In my mind, this was why it kinda failed back then. It was the whole experience of - hey, my sound system has an mp3 function, you can bring your mp3 cds to play. And then you took it there, and it wouldn't play for whatever reason. Can it read from folders or do the files have to be all on the root folder? Can it read mp3 encoded in 16-bit?128kbps only or more? Can it read CD+R? Only CD-R? I have some .ogg and other format files mixed in, will it skip it or just crash? Yadda yadda yadda
I imagine if your music experience was more centered in iTunes, you'd have your files in a more standard format with less problems on your hands... but here where I live Apple stuff has always been just too expensive. Your average middle class kid, plus budget conscious adults would never spend that much money for functionality that alternatives could do for a fraction of the price. To music file formats were even more chaotic.
This was a huge problem for mp3 players too in the beginning... I lost count on how many tutorials and step by step instructions, plus all the hours I spent testing different software and combinations, to encode music files in good quality, occupying the least amount of space, with the right settings, that my players could still read. :P
And then right after music, we had this entire thing for videos too. Images before that.
Well, we still kinda do, but it's much less noticeable these days I guess. We've come down to more fixed standards nowadays.
1
-
I never experience this... because I have no friends to recommend me what anime to watch. T_T
Okok, not to fall into the foreveralone trope, I have friends that watch anime... but most of the time I will have already read the manga or watched the anime they are recommending because I'm far more of a weeb than they are. :P
Plus, I guess I'm also a hipster/snob kinda like that. If something is super popular and I didn't catch up from start, I'll wait for the hype to go down to check it up much later on, because I hate spoilers and I love being surprised by good plots, so there's also that.
Specifically for Chainsaw Man, plus a few others like My Hero Academia, Black Clover, The Promised Neverland, To Your Eternity, Saga of Tanya the Evil, Assassination Classroom, 7 Deadly Sins, Kingdom, Knights of Sidonia, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, Tensura... plus a ton of other isekais, and survival game titles - I was already reading or had read the manga when the anime was announced. xD
This all stopped because I'm not reading manga much anymore, but the past few years of anime had a lot of titles that I already knew.
Problem is, most of the times I won't watch the anime just because I already kinda know the story. I want to, but the backlog is too extensive. xD
Chainsaw Man is an exception... I kinda forgot most of the plot, so I've been enjoying plenty, with some memory of what is coming next.
A few of those I was absolutely sure would become animes at some point... My Hero Academia, Black Clover, Kuma Kuma Bear... either the isekai appeal or being the perfect shonen mix, I was just expecting it to happen. Chainsaw Man not so much... xD Then again, after they decided to adapt Dorohedoro to anime, I guess nothing surprises me anymore. xD
1
-
1
-
Yeah, there you go! xD
Thanks guys, this is the right take on Telegram.
Also, I was excited about the Thunderbird Android client, but perhaps not so much anymore. Guess I'm still looking forward to see what they did, but it's yet again the Firefox scenario where you know they are putting opt-out crap there which like, really kills the mood.
I never bought this argument about Telemetry being necessary to understand user needs, and I never will. This bullsh*t justification to collect data on users only appeared after the parallel market for mass private data collection and selling to advertisers and other interested parties, we have an entire past history of computer software and services being able to work plenty well to attend users needs by just listening to them. In fact, it's like it was better before.
Somehow, all these companies are now getting throngs of data on their users to "understand them better" but it's like they never understood us this badly and poorly.
If we were to take this claim at face value, from the poor results we've been having, it's more like - if you are going to do telemetry to "understand" your costumers better, I'd vouch to not collect anything at all, and going with your gut feeling. Perhaps you'll be able to get at least something right, versus never getting anything right.
Man, trying to stick with Mozilla is getting super tiring, as you guys well know.
Nowadays, you get the same swill coming out from them that they'd absolutely abhor in the past.
I wonder how much the privacy and security people inside there are still holding on, if there is anyone left.
I just wanted an offline e-mail client to backup things, better yet if it'd enable me to switch away from Gmail entirely... from all my research, offline offline it's just Thunderbird. Online there's still Proton, but the whole Bitcoin thing also gave me pause. Might be leaning towards Tuta instead.
Oh well, wait a bit more to see I guess.
1
-
Great explainer! Split system anytime of the day for me... but I did have to recommend a portable AC for relatives. Very particular case though. They needed something more than a fan or humidifier, but they live in an ancient house partially very badly built by ancestors, zero insulation, tons of entry and exit points for air, creaky boards all around, rooms that are impractically big for anything to work well, and multiple rooms to cool each at different times of the day. Any AC solution would be extremely inefficient one way or another, and there are basically no walls you can really trust with drilling vents, opening up a hole for an wall AC or installing brackets to support an extermal unit for a split system. Yes, it's that bad.
But summers are killers there, so the extra cold and dryness that the portable AC creates worked miracles. The town they live in is not only hellish hot during summers, the air is also stale and humid (thus, humidifiers being useless). Basically a sauna.
1
-
1
-
Absolutely against it. Geoengineering and terraforming.
The reason is even more basic than the explanation given - Climate Change itself can be interpreted as... geoengineering. It was produced artificially by us because we didn't understand the consequences of changes done by us, even though we had the best of intentions. It's likely the biggest evidence of how wrong things can go if we embark in messing with worldwide reaching changes without knowing the consequences of it.
The absolute minimum threshold for geoengineering projects is right on our faces already - managing to solve the Climate Change crisis. That's it. If we can reverse Climate Change, that would prove that we might be able to reverse adverse consequences of geoengineering projects, and it also would give us a frame of reference for the costs.
So, we are putting the carriage in front of the horses. The chances of geoengineering projects screwing our situation even more is just far bigger than the opposite, because this has been already been proven by our past actions.
So, it's just playing dice with the future of our planet. Now, there are plenty of people willing to do it - I'm not one of them.
If you want more evidence on human attempts of messing with natural systems with a presumptuous mindset that we fully understand how it works, there are many to see out there in preservation, conservation or restoration projects. People just need to do an extra effort to learn from history.
Reality of the thing is, we have over and over and over again been put down in our theories about understanding natural systems. A good doc that I have in mind right now to think about this problem is Adam Curtis' All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace.
I always recommend everyone to watch this series.... it can be quite depressing, but it's also humbling, which is something that I feel lacking nowadays. Too many people affected by Dunning-Kruger with too much money doing stuff that affects all of us.
One of the episodes explains how once upon a time, when the term "ecosystem" was coined, we went through the illusion that we understood natural systems by making it analogous to computer systems, using logic and trying to "solve" it by gathering as much data on them and trying to find out logical patterns to explain how they worked. It was applied in strategies to recover close to extinct populations of animals in certain regions of the world, plus other initiatives
It all failed because we did not have all the data, the natural world did not work in predictable logical ways, and it was impossible to compute everything, particularly the chaotic way the entire system worked. It was folly. We made things worse with the best intentions because we didn't actually understood it. And it was not a matter of computational power or work put into it - it's just something we might never have the capability to fully predict and understand.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
It will all depend on age, and mood... and a whole lot of other stuff. But best anime of all time?
I guess I'd be between something like Ghost in the Shell, Akira or Evangelion. Though to be fair, if it's shonen titles, answers like Dragonball, One Piece, Naruto... they all kinda make sense too. Kenshin, Trigun, Fullmetal Alchemist, Cowboy Bebop... there's kinda so many. Interesting that someone mentioned Gintama. xD Gintama is kind of an anime for anime fans, you'll be able to enjoy more if you get the references.
Just to add to the conversation though, I'll give two very different answer that I haven't heard come up much lately anymore... watch suggestion perhaps? Mawaru Penguindrum and Bokurano.
1
-
1
-
Tons of ill informed idiots on the comments... about what you'd expect.
Telegram is a half-assed platform and Durov is getting arrested exactly because of that - the crimes being committed inside the platform were and are too visible, and it has all to do with the platform stance of being anti-police and anti-justice that ended up here. France is not the only country that the platform has problems with.
You ask yourself why other platforms are not having their founders and/or CEOs arrested, the answer is simple - it's because they communicate with authorities and government properly, and the privacy centric ones have setup a system where privacy and anonymity is properly secured by default. In a manner they can comply with any police or judicial request without breaching user privacy.
You can't deliver anything from users if your company doesn't have access to it. This is the core principle that works, and Telegram does not have it - probably on purpose.
The problem with Telegram is that the company itself has access to tons of things. People who thought this wasn't the case is simply ill informed, fooled by their advertisement campaigns, interviews with Durov, and whatnot empty promises.
A whole ton of the illegal stuff that was happening in the dark web years ago are now all inside Telegram. This includes active markets on all sorts of the most heinous crimes. And a lot of it can be accessed by Telegram itself.
The entire reason why Telegram is getting busted is because it's half-assed. The system does not guarantee user privacy, self evident when you have automated ways of retrieving information from Telegram's groups and pages. The app also does not have E2EE turned on by default, the only default encryption scheme it has only goes up to their servers. Which means it can comply with most police and court orders - it just chooses not to. And this refusal to comply with police and court orders forms the basis justification of it being complicit to crimes.
It's not because Durov is being blamed for crimes happening inside Telegram as some are alluding to. Crimes happen in all chat platforms all the time. The difference is on how you deal with that.
But this has been coming for a while now. I remember multiple times when people were migrating towards a new platform, having to repeat myself over and over again that it was a bad idea to go towards Telegram. Durov and staff created this entire sob story of inventing the platform because they were running away from the FSB yadda yadda, it should be alarming to anyone with half a brain that the platform got unblocked and remains active there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Telegram_in_Russia
The ban got lifted because the platform "agreed in helping with extremism investigations". Do you understand what this means in current Russia?
Telegram has been making choices of helping some authoritarian governments to the extent it can, while refusing to comply with court orders in democratic nations. It put it's headquarters in UAE for a reason. No other chat platform has as many criticism made on it being related to criminal activity as Telegram has.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(software)#Criticism
So yeah, this comes as no surprise for people that really understands privacy and security for chat apps.
1
-
I understand the fascination with such things, and thinking about the process to build these places might even help for future endeavours... say a colony in another planet or something else.
But I struggle to understand the logic of people who pays for these apartments and such.
Sure, perhaps the money is nothing for them... but a quick accessment for me personally tells me that if we get into a situation where it becomes necessary to live inside those bunkers... well, I guess I'd rather just die.
The idea of those places might work well, even great, from a structural standpoint. But you are basically shoving it full of self entitled, often with sociopathic tendencies, rich assholes in it. I'd rather take my chances outside, nothankyou.
Prolong your life enclosed into limited space with a bunch of spoiled people that will most likely be struggling for power from day one, which is most likely the way we got there in the first place... yeah... it kinda sounds like living enough time to understand why humanity ended in the first place, potentially experiencing the worst it has to offer.
1
-
Social media continues being a mistake.
It's producing a generation of sociopaths that only cares about clicks instead of the well being of the community, the people around them, culture, historical preservation and whatnot.
It reaches everywhere. These so called pranks which are actually crimes against other people and public health, the Instagrammers who are destroying national parks and public locations for their stupid photoshoots, multiple incidents that happen everytime something goes viral... this sh*t needs to stop.
I also find it curious how no matter how much I look, I cannot find where exactly this was shared, and what social media is basically empowering that sort of behavior.
People need to know what needs to be blocked in those cases.
It's not a local problem... people will remember the videos with fast food restaurant chain "pranks" with people bathing in industrial sinks, and other crap like that.
I know it's hard, but everyone looking at cases like these should consider getting out of social media and keeping your kids away from it too. I know it's hard because this has become a tragedy of the commons problem... people only socialize there, and so if you aren't there you are both harassed for it, and you can't find social circles anymore that are not using those platforms.
But I think ultimately it'll end up being the case that the only way to live without having to jump from one scandal to another, from one danger to another, from one prank to another, is to avoid social media altogether and work hard to form social circles and communities that are completely disconnected from those.
The problem with social media is that it's addictive, convenient, entertaining and it acts as a surrogate for social circles and communities. I fully understand this because I participated in one or another social media for half of my life basically.
And I know lots of people are tired of hearing this, but I have to repeat what others have already said - life is just better without them.
I don't think you need to isolate yourself fully on the Internet or nothing like that, but people need to do a better job selecting what they support and what they consume. It's an easier route to simply not participate, but if you want to do it anyways, at least make some effort to be more selective in what you promote and follow.
1
-
I think we should, and we are, stepping back a bit more these days...
Notorious examples: GDPR, social networks censorship and bans, the string of autonomous car incidents that are forcing developers to step back into closed off labs and roads, the problems with IoT devices, lack of security and botnets, shift by some companies (still too few) towards stronger privacy and security...
The thing is: technology evolves faster than societies and cultures can keep up with. There's usually a gap of understanding the power of new tools that happens in every significant evolutionary step, and it often gets abused first before being properly regulated and controlled.
We've been for some decades and probably will for some more at that transitional period where the majority of people don't quite understand those dangers, so we don't have a majority push towards control. But I think we're witnessing the beginnings of awareness.
I'm not talking about individuals... we have plenty of knowledgeable people that have been fully aware of the dangers of Internet. I'm talking about societies' level awareness. Mainstream have been unaware, complacent, or just passive about Internet corporation actions, marketing schemes, pushes towards erosion of privacy and sales of devices that dangerously directly violates or comes close to violating basic human rights. Privacy is a human right, lest people forget, and a cornerstone of democracy. It's not about your drunk photos, it's about power balance between people and state and/or private corporations.
This is a constant in human history and evolution. It happened when printed press came about, when radio became a mass news source, when TV came into play, and now on the Internet era. It happened in the industrial revolution, and the atomic power one.
The first step after awareness will probably be a heavy handed pushback. Some corporations and companies have been saying that they see GDPR as too broad, too restrictive, too overbearing... which it might be, but more exactly, it's natural that it is. Reversal of years of abuse usually requires a very symbolic, heavy handed and strong deterrent. Things will get adjusted overtime.
I have no doubt that the accidents that happened with Uber's autonomous car program and some of the Tesla accidents will put autonomous car technology in a backburner for a few more years. Specially on Uber's case, which is now evident that the death of one person and a previous accident were direct result of irresponsible corporate behavior.
On IoT space, unfortunately it seems most of the incidents so far weren't enough to make the consumer space turn against it. But sooner or later, it'll happen. Because again, a whole lot of developments involved are being irresponsibly rushed out of the door without proper care or respect for security and privacy, and it will backfire. Botnets, IoT devices being hacked to commit crimes, mass surveillance schemes, etc etc. The core reasoning as for why these devices are often insecurely connected to the Internet is weak in the first place. There are multiple cases of security systems and personal assistants being connected to the Internet and to a central server where that shouldn't be needed - it's there because of commercial interests and data harvesting schemes.
The PR marketing justification for most of that plus telemetry schemes is that this is absolutely needed for further development of AI, of modern system, of Internet related services, of OSs and whatnot. It's true that it eases development and helps companies to keep track of things... but it is not absolutely needed, it is not necessary, and it shouldn't be considered essencial at all. Because it boils down to companies asking for you to give away your privacy, personal data, and sometimes security for their development and profit. At some point people will have to realize the trade they are making, and tell businesses to step back and re-think their business practices, even if it means slowing technological progress down and losing some benefit that the tradeoff allowed up to now.
This is a very long topic to cover, but I'll just leave it here... thanks for sharing the thoughts Chris, it's important for people to consider!
1
-
Pretty disingenuous and deceptive to compare chemical dependancy and behavioral disorders with stuff people like doing as a hobby.
Yes, there are edge cases of people who are genuinelly addicted to watching shows and whatnot, but this in no way is even remotely comparable to drug addiction and other types of disorders. It's not only a huge false equivalence, it's also pretty offensive to people who are fighting these sort of addictions and disorders.
Saying that watching a couple or more TV shows releases dopamine proves nothing. Any sort of activity you take pleasure in releases dopamine, including sports, walking with your dog for some, reading a book, and several other types of activities. Dopamine is a substance which your brain releases in several pretty regular situations, it's not the only factor that defines addictions or disorders, and making it seem this way is just a high degree of ignorance on how our brains work.
And then, as always, correlation is not causation. Opinion pools and general question type research are also not enough to prove any sort of causation there. The study quoted, at least from the little that was talked about it, seems to estabilish no concrete relation between the two factors - binge watching and mental health issues. It doesn't even get to the point of questioning which one is caused by the other, let alone that one is the cause of the other to begin with.
Also, you should trust executives "marketing speech" as much as you should shallow pieces like this one.
In summary, this video is making poor use of science and scientific research to come to conclusions that were probably not even listed in the original papers, or they were poorly done in the end.
But it's because of crap like these that people come around talking about violent video games and violence, plus all sorts of other crap. And I don't really get it why there are so many videos around subjects like these... it just seems like people not wanting to take responsibility for their bad behaviour trying to find scapegoats for all the crap they do.
Sorry if this doesn't fit the narrative, but for most people, binge watching is just a decision about what to do with their free time. It's not an addiction, it's not a problem, it's not divised by some shady CEO. It's just a choice. Not a problem if it doesn't affect you negatively, but if it is, you should just consider stopping it. If you cannot, then it might be a problem. But for most people it isn't, so this in no way shape or form should be compared to drug addiction or behavioral disorders.
1
-
Ah yes, transparency about smartphone components and specs... probably one of the worst examples in today's marketing standards.
To be fair with Samsung, even though they have been long doing this shitty thing about the SoC, Samsung is a rare example of Android brand that always seem to put a full implementation of the USB-C spec plus additional features in the mid range to flagship models. By which I mean usb-c to hdmi, DeX support, fast charging and all that.
Other brands, despite always having Snapdragon with no deception, when it comes to USB-C port, it's often extremely hard to find out what they did with it, unless you go looking for specific review information with actual tests, not provided by manufacturers.
The tendency for these brands to obscure this sort of information needs to stop.
1
-
1
-
Pretty much the same... but I think I'd like P30 camera setup on the back instead. Agreed on pretty much all the rest.
Oh, and some stuff that don't exactly exist on current phones - closer to Asus ROG number of accessories and capabilities of using the ports for. More physical buttons, more ports. Potentially some stuff borrowed from the Razer phone too (remember that laptop shell powered by the phone?). Because with that kinda setup, there's a whole lot you could actually do with the phone that's kinda wasted potential.
But that would require an OS that is better fit for laptop/desktop usage, ability to switch to different modes (like a TV mode, a desktop mode, a tablet mode, a laptop mode with required accessories and apps), etc etc.
But you know, this is something I've been asking for, trying to hack phones, and testing all sorts of dongles, adaptors, half way solutions and whatnot since.... well, since I got my first smartphone back in the Xperia Z3 era. Something I came to accept we're never truly getting, not because it's impossible, but because it works against smartphone companies profit logic.
1
-
I'd be happy to get one of those ONLY to play the low tier indie titles in my over 2000 Steam game library... that's where I'm coming from. That it can play games like Elden Ring and Doom, or relatively recent triple A titles, is just kinda nuts.
Even though I will readily admit I was very surprised on what you can play on the Switch by itself, like MKBHD said, this is on another level.
Of course, most of my library won't be either verified or playable... and probably will take a long time to even be checked at all, but if just a few of them work, it'll definitely already be better than having to pay up to 20 times more for the same title on the Switch every single damn time. It at the very least eliminates the doubt I have every time if I'm wasting money there because the port could work so terribly bad, which then leads to, if I really really like the game, having to buy it on Steam instead and start all over again, because of course no cross compatibility.
Which is why if Steam takes too long to launch it in other parts of the world, I might just give up and go for one of the Chinese alternatives.... this really depends on when my next long trip will happen, or next scenario when it'd be extremely useful to have a capable portable machine around.
I guess the other thing people need to keep in perspective, even if they don't care much about it, is that the whole reason why so many Steam games don't work properly on it is because Valve decided to push Linux gaming instead of sticking to Windows. For at least some of us, this move alone is already worth the asking price.
It sure is a pain in the behind for those who just wanna play the games, but this is a game changing move for Linux, and the intention there is to have a more fair playing field overall for the future of PC gaming, which is no easy task. It's kinda though even if past Valve hardware projects were commercial failures, they were ultimately important for the Steam Deck existence... which is basically a combination of several technologies developed in these past products.
In case people are still wondering why DRM heavy games don't play well with the Deck, it's exactly because those are pretty unfair by themselves. Rootkits installed on a base assumption that every costumer is a potential pirate, cheater and whatnot, potentially harvesting data and having too much of a low level access into your property.
1
-
Problem here is a sense of scale, and perhaps some misunderstanding. Mixed with NIMBY and a bit of entitlement, but still.
It's not that people don't care about ecossystems, preservation and whatnot, quite the opposite.
The real problem is that even if people still don't realise this, an incredible number of ecossystems is already condemned. I mean really condemned, doomed to disappear in the next century, no ammmount of protest, camping, thoughtful protest signs or whatever will stop it.
Like even if we went net zero tomorrow globally, they'd still be condemned. Because you don't get the effect of climate change immediately, and you can't turn it on a dime, the ammount of CO2 we already put on the atmosphere guarantees a long term effect that we'll be living with for centuries to come.
We are effectively too late. What is being put in question right now is if we can stop emissions enough to diminish the most potentially drastic consequences, including there our own extinction, but also wars, famine, mass migrations, and more.
And it'll change most if not all current environments. In fact, it's quite likely that places like that will pretty much become unlivable, or at the very least drastically transformed. Ecossystems will get destroyed in droves as the consequences of climate change keeps going up... it's already happening.
So, preserve now and give yourself a pat on the back, but it's worthless if it gets destroyed anyways because we took too long to transition to low emission tech.
The measures we are taking now are damage control and trying to predict what is important for the future.
Then again, let's just be clear about this - the US doesn't NEED to be a major lithium producer, the same way it doesn't NEED to be a chip producer, etc.
It sure would be cheaper and safer economically if it was though, given that it is and probably will keep being the biggest consumer of the end products too...
1
-
Using Pusheen to talk about Exploding Kittens.... :P
Anyways, this only works for people who can pull off the crowd, on the project side. For people who already have a huge following, it's a no brainer.
On the backer side there's a whole bunch of stuff you have to go through to elevate chances that the project will actually deliver.
Cards and books in general are relatively simple. Stuff like Blu-ray versions for already released content is also doable. Video projects like documentaries highly depends on team. Things start becoming harder when it's stuff like games and software in general. Then comes hardware, which is an entire other beast, and the last tier would be something that is both hardware and software.
There are just too many fresh out of college teams going there for their first attempt on product release which usually ends pretty badly.
And then there's the straight out scams.
Honestly, I'm glad that crowdfunding exists. There's a whole bunch of content that came out of it that would probably never see the light of day otherwise. Then again, I wouldn't recommend spending any money on those for anyone unless you are prepared to just lose it all. You, as a backer, are assuming the role of something between an investor and a donator. Investor because you have all the risks of losing money that an investor does, donator because you are not guaranteed all the controls and transparency that an investor has. A whole lot of stuff is left to the goodwill of project leaders, like transparency, honesty, accuracy in reports and descriptions, workflow, fund administration, etc etc.
I'm nowhere near the guy who showed up on the video... 2000 projects is a whole lot of money. But I've backed some 20+ projects, very selectively. Out of those, 1 failed catastrophically - project failed, company went bankrupt, no refunds. Didn't put a whole lot of money on it anyways, but still. I think 2 of them failed but returned the money. Majority of them delivered late. And a few delivered on time or even earlier than predicted.
1
-
1
-
1
-
It's incredible how people have adopted this rhetoric of "I don't have to listen to anyone else but myself" as the standard defense for all sorts of crappy behaviour these days... you know who thinks exactly like that? Psycopaths, sociopaths.
Is it that hard to consider that perhaps, and only perhaps, if everyone else is telling you that you might be wrong, you could be? The sheer lack of empathy, the complete disregard of feelings from fellow human beings, is what will ultimately end the human race. We're inching closer everyday.
Seems that in a whole ton of countries in the world we have borderline or de facto sociopaths in power, who can never be wrong and can never listen to the opinnion of others. They always see themselves as the pinnacle of humanity apparently, and cannot be contradicted even when all evidence points against them.
As if religious fanatism wasn't enough, we now also have some sort of self fanatism and anti-social fanatism going on that is constantly pushing us towards the war to end all wars.
If the world ends tomorrow, we as a species will have deserved it. Make room for a new life form that is less disfunctional I guess.
1
-
Yep, pretty much all agreed... except that perhaps, if and when production level nuclear fusion happens, it might not be a matter of either this or that, but actually both. Centralized power will still be needed even if on regular household consumer end we could go microgrid.
It all boils down to something that people might not completely get - the problem with renewables is not only that of intermittent power and storage... it's one of scale, period.
That is, even considering optimal upper tech limits in how much solar, wind and other alternate power we can "harvest", microgrids everywhere possible, large scale plants, an ideal power storage solution, and all of that - we will still need more. Renewables are not enough, even considering predicted not-yet-ready tech, lowering of prices, higher adoption rates, mass scaling, etc etc. I know how bad this sounds, but if you look at the limits that not only current but also proposed tech in renewables have, even in the most optimal ideal scenario, you still can't get all the power we consume from them. Perhaps not even currently.
And our energy needs will continue growing along with the world's population and whatnot, because it's directly related to how we produce and generate basic necessities.
That is, if the target continues being to eliminate coal, oil and gas.
Nuclear fusion is kinda needed, along with nuclear fission along the way, and other forms of production. Here are some daunting numbers for people to keep in mind: statistics from 2019, globally coal, oil and gas still amounts to above 85% of global power generation. Renewables are bellow 12%. Solar and wind, despite all the huge hullaballoo around it, despite it's meteoric growth, widespread adoption, cheapening of the tech as a whole and everything we've been hearing about, still is slightly above 1 and 2% respectively. Again, statistics from 2019, of course this changed in the past 3 years, but not as much as some might imagine.
Some optimistic stats I've seen more recently puts "clean energy" hitting 10% of global production, but it's super confusing because they don't say exactly what clean energy is... could include nuclear, could include newer tech in gas, there is just too many different terminologies and different things considered in one camp versus another that doesn't really give you a clear picture. It's enough to know though that despite all advances and all the hype around renewables, we are probably just getting above 10% now, and a big part of it isn't actually new, but thanks to older forms of renewable power generation such as hydropower.
But in general, it points out that even hitting ideal predicted tech, ideal targets, current renewables won't be enough to completely replace our current requirements, let alone future ones.
Local grids could reach the point of being enough for residential and perhaps commercial power, but industrial scale and other applications which are the most power hungry cannot live with renewables alone.
Reason why we're still going at it, and going hard. This announcement wasn't all hype, it was an important step, but we're still super far away from production. But we have to keep going at it because at least for now, we don't have anything that gets even close to it.
1
-
Eugenics is lunacy. The biggest strength humanity has is diversity.
This is the hidden dark side of gene editing, it goes a bit further than cosmetic surgery.
You start messing with genes for cosmetic traits in societies where beauty and body traits are dictated by some industry with rigid concepts, or a culture that has very strict uniform definitions to it (which just so happens to majorly coincide with nazi ideals), soon we end up in the wolf to pug scenario, or the deformed kings resulted from generations of incestuous relationships in medieval europe.
The question remains. Are we really ready to use advanced tools like that, or once again we're playing God without knowing the consequences?
Even though I tend to agree with Joe's general accessment, that we can't just ignore this and have to keep researching and studying for the betterment of health in general, we need to keep in mind that every evolutionary step in technology so far has produced equal potential unforeseen harm, much of which we are seeing effects to this day.
Thinking we can use these things willy nilly, thinking we understand it well enough, thinking they will only benefit humanity, with all the history of technological evolution we have on hands, is hubris.
We are potentially facing extinction right now because of this sort of thinking, and half a century ago we were also facing another type of extinction from a different source but because of the same sort of hubris.
See that they also aren't going away, just accumulating overtime, which might point out that we are failing to learn from it as a species. Nuclear apocalypse, climate change apocalypse, natural resources depletion/poisoning appocalypse, genetic manipulation apocalypse, artificial intelligence apocalypse...
It feels to me more and more that our species are incompatible with it's own evolutionary speed. Cultures and societies seems to work and retain knowledge in a circular fashion, while technology is in constant progress.
Which makes me afraid that one day, an individual or collective group of people ignorant enough, will end up with a tool advanced enough to put an end in our history as a species.
I guess lots of us already understand this concept. We are already here, and statistics are working more and more against us.
Still, it also seems we can do nothing but walk the path. Perhaps preserve the knowledge and leave it to be used by a more compatible intelligent species in the future.
1
-
I'll just go ahead and add an interesting tidbit story here.... by no means a skyscraper or megaproject, but actually exists. xD
In the city I currently live in but am not currently at (thanks pandemics), there is an apartment tower with 1 apartment per floor that... can rotate 360 degrees. I think it's the first actual apartment building completed that has rotating floors. Name: Vollard Suite.
It's waaaaay less glamorous or modern in comparison to the one in the video though.
It's cilinder shapped, I think it only has like.... 11 floors or something like that, and I think it was completed back in 2001 or something.
Now, the Business Blaze side of it. xD
If memory serves me right (I wrote an essay on it several years ago), no one ever lived there. lolz. Or perhaps people did for a short period, I can't remember it.
While the building was completed alright, the initial price was insane (nowadays it's cheaper than a regular apartment downtown), and the maintenance costs were even more insane.
Seems the whole mechanism for rotating floors was built by foreign companies, it broke all the time, the costs of repairing it were insane, and the whole thing was kinda stupid from start - it's an excruciatingly slow rotation.
You'll read articles saying it's surprizingly cheap and all that, but that's current price... considering the building went through several stages of derreliction, passed through the hands of multiple companies, has several lawsuits on top, and even though there has been multiple announcements over the years that it's gonna get opened for living finally, it never happens.
The location isn't prime but also isn't exactly bad, but again, the problem is market.
It's in my state's capital, which is among the smaller capitals in Brazil... but it's not a poor city. It should have enough people with money to pay for something like it.
But the initial price was kinda insane... if I remember correctly, up the something millions. Last time I heard it was 300 thousands something of our currency, which would put it at... 60 thousand dollars. xD
It's one apartment per floor with 11 floors only, so there is the actual problem. With the aforementioned imported, flaky, very expensive rotation mechanism, plus several other things that the futuristic (at the time) building has... you are gonna pay waaaaay more monthly on condominium costs.
I pay a heck of a lot on my apartment, and it has 22 floors with 8 apartments per floor, and it doesn't rotate. xD
Back when it was innaugurated, if you were super rich, you could spend the same ammount of money to build a mansion by the side of one of several parks and lakes in the city. It really made absolutely no sense to get the rotating apartment.
Also, as part of my research for the essay, I came up with the floor plan. Man, the thing is ridiculous. The central shaft of the building houses, probably because of exhaust, wiring and whatnot limitations, half a tiny kitchen and half the restroom. Or perhaps it was all restrooms, and the kitchen had to be done in the building next to it that has the elevator and stairs. So it's like, this huge apartment with huge bedrooms and living room, but actually a tiny kitchen and tiny restrooms. :P
Perhaps it'd make a good video for one of your channels Simon, but I don't think there is a whole lot of information on it online.
1
-
1
-
1
-
He keeps going back to this shallow, baseless and frankly stupid defense... which is not so dissimilar from other governmental agencies I guess, but here for those still in doubt:
1. "We didn't have problems before 2015"
Net neutrality passed in 2015 BECAUSE we already had problems. The Internet wasn't "ok" before that, we had clear evidences of ISPs trying to break neutrality for profit, and that's the reason why Wheeler was confronted with 4 million public comments plus a bunch of emerging Internet businesses sending open letters and whatnot to explain why this was necessary.
Pai can keep lying through his teeth all he wants to, but we weren't born yesterday, we went through that.
Let's take things back a bit. In 2015, current Net Neutrality rules almost didn't pass... until Wheeler listened to nearly 4 million public comments, reflected on the issue, and went back on his decision. Here are his words, which still stands true to this day:
https://www.wired.com/2015/02/fcc-chairman-wheeler-net-neutrality/
So don't come to us with this bullshit crap saying that we didn't have problems before 2015. We don't have further problems today BECAUSE Net Neutrality passed in 2015. And we will see a rise in schemes and problems that were stopped by the Title II classification in 2015. If he's asking us to look at the facts and records "in good faith", all anyone will be able to see is that Net Neutrality has stopped a series of things that were already happening behind the scenes that pointed out to an Internet controlled by monopolies interests in profit and profit alone. There's your look back in good faith;
2. Volume and vitriol are not substitutes for arguments
Yes, there's a lot of volume and vitriol, with reason, on the Internet and outside, but you cannot afford to say there are no arguments, because if you say that you are basically admitting your incompetence on collecting the multitude of arguments that have been thrown against your actions. It's volume, vitriol and arguments that you never addressed. It's not only people on the streets and on Twitter, it's open letters, rational arguments, essays, explanations, clear headed messages coming from pretty much the entire spectrum of Internet users that you are dismissing as if it was nothing. Citizens, businesses, politicians, organizations, big and small corporations, journalists from all sides, people with all sorts of political orientations. There are even smaller ISPs that managed to survive somehow up 'till now that are against repealing Net Neutrality because it'll effectively kill them.
If you are not seeing those, you are either a liar or a total incompetent. You don't get to pick and choose what you'll read as you are deciding for all of us;
3. Freedom of speech
Regulations are as necessary for free speech as a form of governmental interferece as justice is to keep and enforce law. I'm sorry for all the people who are going for the utopic approach that less regulation is better, and let the market dictate the rest, but this is much like saying that socialism is the ideal economic/social system, among other stuff that ignores reality in favor of some utopic vision that will never happen and is not in accordance to human nature. The reality of the current system is that ISPs share a monopoly of a wide range of services, including providing an Internet connection, and they will exploit that in their favor unless a regulation is there to stop them. We won't get competition in the area, there is no viable route for that in the present or in the foreseable future, and if nothing else, bringing down Net Neutrality will only give them more power to keep the status quo;
4. Attacks against him, arguments about pluraristic discourse
No one is demanding you to read only and stay focused only on Twitter, Pai. It's weird that he defends something that he actively chooses to ignore. The only way you are going to get a plural, rational discussion is if you don't choose to bunker yourself in specific platforms, like Twitter, and see the bigger picture around you - which is something that could die in the ISP controlled Internet.
The vast majority of talks I've read on the Internet in favor of Net Neutrality have been extremely rational, moderated, and even inviting to counter arguments to a fault. Yet, Pai mischaracterizes it as if his opposition is just a bunch of raging lunatics. Get a grip on reality dude, you are just as blind as the people attacking you without understanding the whole deal.
What's worse, ISPs have already been sending signals as to what they intend to do once Net Neutrality falls, because it's guaranteed at this point.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/charter-is-using-net-neutrality-repeal-to-fight-lawsuit-over-slow-speeds/
But most important of all: what's with the dictator position? Isn't the FCC there as a regulatory body to defend the interests of the public? Let's say they public is wrong, and in the end keeping Net Neutrality does nothing. It's not your job to impose your opinion, it's your job to enforce the majority needs. The worst thing that is coming out of all this isn't even the possibility of an ISP controled Internet, which is already bad enough. The worst thing is the chairman of a supposedly independent agency reponsible for regulations designed to protect US costumers actively ignoring the multitude of voices coming from US citizens against his position.
This is a travesty of democracy and clear evidence of a shift in politics that is unprecedented and against the principles of the entire country culture and system. It's government mandated by corporations quite literally, unhindged, and badly disguised if such. We have an ongoing investigation towards actively manipulation of public opinion pools, so why is the vote being forced forward? Why are so many people being ignored on this? Why is the voice of the american people being ignored and trampled over like that, by a governmental regulatory agency?
So there you go Pai. Rational enough for you?
1
-
There is absolutely zero need to revisit this, we not only have enough proof that there is zero link between video game violence and real life violence, you don't need to recruit gamers to defend their points.
People only need to look just a bit into history and use a meager ammount of logic and critical reasoning to disagree with Trump. Nothing more. This does not need to become yet another heated discussion between partisan lines because this matter has already been settled. Trump is just an idiot who doesn't know about what he's talking, which seems to be true on several shit that comes out of his mouth.
People might have forgotten, or not know because they are from earlier generations, but the scare around violent video games has already come and passed years ago.
There is a very symbolic figure around all this, so anyone who doesn't know the story can have a pretty good summary by just reading his Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(activist)
Late 90s up until 2007 more or less there was an asshole lawyer out there named Jack Thompson who went on a moral religious crusade against violent video games, blaming all sorts of mass shootings and acts of violence on games. Before that he went against rap music, was a self proclaimed christian lawyer for God, and often did some pretty homophobic claims in court and whatnot.
Because of him, there was a total media and culture scare around violent games, religious-like persecution, unecessary censorship and thousands of studies trying to see if there was really a link between violent games and violent acts. They all came out negative. So, if you don't know about it, there is already a substancial scientific body of studies that say there is no correlation between those.
A whole ton of taxpayer money, time, and effort was wasted on this. Real causes for all these acts of violence were underlook because of all this crap. And now we keep seeing them because politicians and now even the president still has the nerve to ressurect this more than dead argument. Something that should be logical to anyone with even a superficial understanding of violent games.
By the way, that lawyer was eventually disbarred. Because he was an asshole with a God complex, so of course he eventually would. He became an activist and is probably frothing at his mouth that the president make such a stupid statement that matches his confirmation bias. If he isn't indeed the source of all this crap once again. Because he was disbarred, and not arrested which he should've been.
Obviously, this spurrious claim doesn't even pass the litmus test. If violent games turned people into terrorists, the entire world would be in ruins right now seeing as these violent games have been played by billions of people all over the world. But it is just playing the same scapegoat role as violent news, violent movies, rock music and subversive literature has played in the past. It's a way for people to skirt responsibility, avoid asking deeper questions, and feel self satisfied with the wrong answers.
But it's useless, because history repeats itself with none the wiser. If we lived in societies that learned from the past, someone would have punched Trump in the face the moment he said the shit he did. Unfortunately, the same type of assholes who elected and keep following Trump are the exact same assholes who created the video game scare in the past, and keep pulling this link out of their asses. Because they lack critical reasoning, they lack the capability of doing even the most superficial research on the subjects they elect to projectile vomit against others.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
There is a bunch of problems tied together there that if you don't untangle them and solve them individually first, you won't solve anything, and you could potentially make things worse.
When you have tangled problems like these, problems will arise because just forcing things together does not produce magical solutions and results.
There is a racism problem, a perception problem, a security issue, a societal issue, potential for abuse, potential for discriminatory behavior, an educational problem, plus others that could be easily identified.
Plus there is a rush to find magical solutions for problems that cannot be solved by taking shortcuts.
Personal opinnion, it is better to have trainned, qualified armed police on site rather than just giving guns to teachers who are not prepared to handle with an active shooter situation and has very high chances of making things worse. But it's still not a solution.
You just have to follow the implication of it. Is the next step having one cop per kid, constantly monitored, constantly followed, and constantly growing up with the idea that his or her life is at constant threat? Growing up in a school environment where there is constant police presence because there is no other way to guarantee people's safety has implications and sends a certain societal message that these kids won't be able to escape after they grow up. It might just be perpetuating and normalizing it all.
1
-
Gattai! xD
Oh boi, Chris has to stop making these "my dream comes true" videos... :P
Not that I ever dream of getting info one of those grand class shinkansen trips ever in my lifetime, but just the common class is already a drea right now...
I never went upwards of Tokyo much, we mostly went downwards, but it was such a great trip, miss it so much.
It's kinda weird how the train trips, the several times we took the express line is probably the most boring part of our trips, but it is one that invokes a sense of nostalgia the hardest. The train, the vending machines, popping into a combini.. that's the thing that stays with you the most, above every single magnificent touristic spot. xD
1
-
Eehh, I dunno about that. Feels like half truths or some sort of agenda.
Here's what I can say from experience. Just a few days ago I had two apps running in the background on my Galaxy Tab S2 that the OS itself was accusing of them consuming too much power... despite me not even using them in a good few months or so. Promptly uninstalled.
Two games, pretty famous and coming from known developers, yet they were on top of the list of apps consuming the most battery in the background. I dunno what the f* they were doing, but they were there.
So yeah, there has been several Android optimization changes and limitation on what apps can do on the background, but these changes are relatively recent (one of them was in fact announced for Android P), so the idea is not as valid for older devices or devices running older versions of Android. My Galaxy Tab S2 is running Nougat, Android 7.0, which isn't even that old.
My mom uses an admitedly old LG G4 Stylo smartphone. On her phone it's obvious and clear how much of a negative effect running multiple apps on the background can be, because you can actually see the difference.
She doesn't have the habit of force closing apps, so everytime I get her phone there's bound to be some 10 to 20 apps on the list. It's sluggish as hell and everything you try to do chokes around. But you start force closing everything and only then the device becomes usable. I know this because I've been backuping all her stuff for a device change/upgrade, which will probably solve things a bit.
Perhaps this is different on iPhones, but I have to doubt what the Android developer is saying and Hiroshi because it really does not reflect what I have seen in Android devices. Sorry.
I think it becomes neglegible once you are on Oreo (for Android), you have plenty of ram and a fancy new flagship smartphone that's close to 1000 bucks, but guys, the vast majority of smartphone users are not on that category. The vast vast majority of people are not using iPhone Xs or Samsung S9s or Pixel 2 XLs. The vast majority of Android users are not on Oreo... they are on Nougat or bellow. So, with that in mind, can they still say closing background apps still don't make a difference? Think devices with 2Gb of RAM or less, with older SoCs on the mid to low range, with very little internal storage space... it's much like Chrome. Sure, if you have a current gaming machine or editing station it only starts making a difference when you have 100+ tabs open, but for most people that's not the case.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
I wish I could feel good that this piece has aired, perhaps dollar stores would get what they deserve, and everyone working there got a better job... but I'm afraid this and other of John's pieces points out not to a specific problem, but to symptoms of a diseased society in general.
The saddest part about this is that it'd be a very long way to recovery if people started working on it in the first place, but those who can make a difference don't care, actually profits from making things worse, and of all potential futures the US has, I see none that points out to a better direction.
In fact, I see some that could lead to civil war, revolution, eat the rich style.
So I guess the best I can say is that I hope I'm wrong about the future for the US.
1
-
Brazil here. Big cities like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are half way between Manilla and a city like New York, but closer to Manilla. Major reason why I don't personally wanna live in those cities. My city has it's problems and traffic jams, but as it's population is like 6x smaller and the public transportation is still bad but fairly good in comparison to those cities, it's way more livable.
But it really depends on how much income you have... like, neither Sao Paulo nor Rio has such chaotic transit, but between bikes, throngs of people, aging cars and buses, poor infrastructure, bunch of trucks and dangerous streets altogether, it is not all that far for lots of people the routine Emiko (?) has.
I've watched the routine people living in suburban neighborhoods and even routines of people living in slums (favelas) in Rio and Sao Paulo... it's kinda similar. Wake up at 4 in the morning, go through several different types of transportation, and take a couple of hours or more with tons of stress points to get to work. Then, going back is just as bad. The chaos in the streets themselves are not as bad, but choke points with long lines can be just as bad.
I have personally never had to face something like that as I was born in a middle class family, in a way smaller city. When I moved to my current city, I spent a year going to university via public transportation, and then I brought my car from my hometown and started using it. Back in my hometown while I was in school, during sometime it was car pooling between parents, at some point my school had school buses for kids in my residential neighborhood, and then when I started university I already had a junker car to drive to it.
Oh, I did live a year... not exactly in Sao Paulo, but a neighboring city that is part of the major Sao Paulo Metropolitan area called Sao Bernardo dos Campos. Final school year before university actually. But as the school as relatively close (like some 5kms away in a straight line) to where I lived with my aunt, it wasn't so bad. I mostly used a direct public bus that stopped right in front of the apartment complex my aunt lives, some 20 minutes until the closest bus stop to the school, which was only some 3 blocks away. In good days I just walked back. Still, I must've shaved off some 10Kgs that year just because of how much more I had to walk. It had less to do with commute per se, but there I used to only sleep some 5 hours on weekdays too, so I can understand why Emiko mostly sleeps on weekends... it's pretty bad, you have no energy or disposition to do much else.
I used buses a lot back in my hometown for english classes and other types of classes downtown, but it wasn't too hard... my hometown is only around 300 thousand people, so it's smaller than my current one, and waaaay smaller than big capital cities like Sao Paulo and Rio. Like, Sao Paulo has 12 million people, my current city has 2 million, hometown, 300 thousand.
But yeah... I don't think I've been anywhere that quite beats Tokyo in terms of urban public transportation for a city that size. I've been to several countries in South America, US twice, several european countries, and Japan twice. There might be better public transportation systems in some european coutries I have not been, but not quite sure the comparison is appropriate because of population size. Tokyo has a population more or less the size of Sao Paulo (some 13 to 14 million people), in a similarly sized area (1 to 2 thousand square meters municipality, 10 to 12 thousand square meters urban/metro area). Sao Paulo also has a metro system, but it pales in comparison to Tokyo. Heck, it pales in comparison to New York. But, those living close to stations do have a better commute... avoiding cars, buses and those minivans, being able to get around with metro alone makes things waaay easier. Of course, real estate is way more expensive closer to metro, so most people just cannot afford living close to train stations, and most people can't afford having business close to it too.
But anyways, thanks for yet another awesomely interesting video Greg... it's quite eye opening. Don't think I'd be able to stand a routine like that without going crazy. Kudos to Emiko too, may she find better conditions for herself and her work in the future.
1
-
1
-
I treat this subject of determinism vs free-will, the very same way I treat simulation theory, or potential catastrophic scenarios for the end of the world with natural causes - they are interesting thought experiments, but ultimately, they don't really matter for everyday life. As it doesn't really change things, and you have no way of using the knowledge for much.
But I'm more on the deterministic side rather than free will I guess. I get the argument for emergence in the video, but it could just be that emergence is just another thing we pick from our limited perceptions that also is deterministic, it's just that we are incapable as organisms to properly understand how the relationship between smaller parts can produce outcomes on a higher level.
It's like, I don't think we as a species will ever have the ability to make certain types of predictions based on determinism one way or another. It's kinda like certain questions like, what happens to sentience after death? It's not in the scope of our condition as a species to understand that.
Further, Chaos Theory rules it all. We don't have nor will have the ability to predict most stuff far into the future. This goes down into p vs np problem, and intersects with all sorts of other stuff. Creativity, science, and other areas of human knowledge are both underestimated, but also overestimated. We have come to know far more than we did in the fairly recent past, but it's still nowhere close to "knowing it all". And given that we potentially have a limited time in existence as a species, be it not much longer given all the problems we create and cannot solve by ourselves, or a very distant catastrophic scenario that will end all life on Earth or the Universe if we spread to other planets, even if it's a very long time scale, I'm not convinced our species will be able to reach certain levels of computation necessary to make accurate predictions on certain things.
1
-
Let me reframe the discussion just a little bit, give it another perspective perhaps, because in certain ways I'm of the same mindset as Louis.
The worst thing about the pandemic is not the disease itself, even though it's incredibad by itself, but it's speed. Not the speed of contagion, not the speed it kills people, but the speed it demands people to change.
That's, macroscale, the biggest problem of most pandemics, crisis, catastrophes and whatnot. How this new reality sweeps away what a lot of people spent their entire lives building up, demanding for them to entirely change what they have constructed over a lifetime and consolidated as true or better for them, only for it to come crashing down so suddenly and without warning.
I don't want to alarm or stress anyone even further, but what Louis is talking about there might just be the so called "new normal". It's not what comes after, this is the after. And societies have a hard time changing this fast to such a drastically different situation.
I might be wrong, as I am generally very negative about things, but just listen. From all the information I gathered so far, this is the real scenario that is playing out. Vaccines are not coming as soon as most people think, and they also won't be as effective as most people seem to think it'll be.
The same way development of this vaccine is coming at an unprecedented speed and scale, distribution and logistics will also depend on an unprecedented speed and scale that goes outside the labs. Most vaccines being developed needs refrigeration and have a certain lifespam. Global distribution of them will test the absolute limits of all sorts of steps inside the logistics of the vaccine lifecycle - from production, to transport, to delivering, to scheduling everything efficiently. It has never happened before at this scale, and there are so many potential points of failure that some of them are pretty much guaranteed.
As for effectiveness, two details often left out of the discussion. Vaccines are being considered ready for the market if they have somewhere above 60% effectiveness. So understand, when vaccines come, it's not you take it and you are totally free. It'll be way more fuzzy than that, potentially as fuzzy as all other measures we are currently taking. There is no 100% effectiveness against this pandemics, just several layers of prevention until you find a balance which you find acceptable for yourself.
So, for those thinking that this pandemic "ends" this year, or next year... reality check, don't count on it.
Make things worse, a reminder, this is actually the 3rd time coronavirus has struck us. It's just that the previous 2 manifestations didn't get to pandemic scale, they were localized epidemics. SARS and MERS are from the same family. It's one of the reasons why countries like South Korea handled Covid-19 so well in the beginning - they had already experience with the previous MERS epidemics.
What I'm saying with this is that Covid-19 probably isn't the last encounter with coronavirus we will have, and no one knows how bad the next case will be.
And finally, there is this whole question, now that we have confirmed cases of reinfection, on how long a time vaccines will be effective, when they are. Most likely scenario, it's not gonna be one shot is good for a lifetime, but for how long is still up in the air.
This rounds back to the discussion itself. I don't envy policy makers right now, because they are between a rock and a hard place. At the same time, I understand and have empathy with business owners that are seeing their lifetime of work going down the drain be it because of Covid-19 policies, be it simply because costumers have disappeared due to fears of the pandemic itself.
My city is highly touristic. The number of businesses directly or indirectly related that have shut down entirely is just unprecedented. Businesses that were doing plenty great just a year ago. Families whose plans have been ruined, left in debt, with nowhere to run. People whose parents would gladly give their lives not to see what they are going through right now.
But this is the cruelty of the situation. It becomes a game of statistics. The less people do to prevent the disease from spreading, the more people will get sick and potentially die. But doing everything possible, can and often do cause financial and potentially mental ruin. There's no winning strategy, just losing choices.
And in this time, people can call me socialist or communist all they want, capitalism has worked against us.
Because people who have insane accumulations of money and power, if they are shortsighted, they could be holding to money and power out of greed or fear, but this will eventually work against them.
It may sound insane for lots of people, but I've always said this - governments and corporations who have an eye for the future should be taking all of their money today and using it to help as many people as they can. But our paradigm didn't shift enough yet for people to realize this. It doesn't matter how much money and power you hold on to, if everything around you is crumbling down it'll eventually hit you or your company, because our economies are all highly dependant on each other.
And then, with time, holding out as best as we can, societies will adapt to this new normal and find ways to keep going. The shift is so dramatic and drastic that no one can really grasp the dimention of it, but given time, we start adapting.
For instance, here in Brazil, which is a pretty similar situation to the US, the sharp eyed will see what's already happening. In comparison to the US, we are pretty late and haphazard regarding stuff like online shopping and tech in general. We were forced to make leaps in these areas in a very short time. Specific case, not many people were using online shopping for grocery up until the pandemic hit. Now, here in my hometown, there was a single supermarket chain that took it's online shopping tools and ramped it up to 11. It's currently the only supermarket chain that is not at risk of going bankrupt... well, it's actually profitting more than ever, whereas up until the pandemic it was a pretty balanced competition among 4 or 5 different supermarket brands.
This type of shock will spread out and affect all areas of economy, with some disappearing, and some getting bigger and bigger.
This all coming at a time we were all already talking a whole lot about the slow burn of climate change. Weirdly enough, the sudden shock of the pandemic might prepare us better for the changes that are coming in the future. It sure will be weird in the future to talk about a time when we were free, things didn't look so bad, people could walk around in droves with no worries about extraneous higienic worries, and entire countries worth of people weren't being forced to move around because of climate effects. 2020 might mark the definite downturn of our species history, for a long time to come.
So... back again to the topic, I get people feeling like their freedom has been stolen, I get how drastic the changes are, I get why tons and tons of people will keep fighting to keep their projects, businesses, lives going as best as they can. I can't fault them for that, it's what we're all doing. But that's how cruel this pandemic is - it doesn't care.
Ultimately, if that restaurant gets linked just a few times to a bunch of Covid cases, it's not the mayor rules that will shut it down, people will just stop going there. This will start happening in all sorts of businesses, and in all types of cases... it's already happening. And in some of those cases, owners will get directly implicated, if not feel responsible themselves, for deaths that occured. You see the problem?
On one side, you can see overzealous rules and restrictions put up by mayors or governments as extremely damaging to businesses and whatnot, but in another way, you can see those being estabilished as some sort of guideline for people to take so they don't keep all the responsbility, uncertainty and doubts about the damages that might happen.
It might be weird to think of it in this way, but say a costumer of yours get Covid in your estabilishment and ends up dying as result, it's easier to cope if you followed all the rules and it still happened, rather than if you refused to do anything. Sharing the blame because the economy needs to keep going somehow.
There, I wrote too much already. :P
1
-
I'll fully admit that I haven't really done the math myself, but I don't fret too much on the backlash of tote bags, here's why:
I have... hmmm... perhaps half a dozen tote bags of all sizes and types. Cotton, thick paper, a tarp-like material and extras. They are used depending on situation.
I didn't get them to replace plastic bags, I got them because I needed them for all sorts of things. It's not only to carry groceries, it's more like general purpose "I need to carry some heavy or large quantity of stuff around" bags. In fact, I didn't buy all of them, some just came with this or that product.
They've been with me for... half a decade now... well, most of them. I guess nowhere near the time needed, but still. The cotton bags I had to sew and reinforce the handles a few times already... they were originally a bit flimsy.
Years ago, when I really started using them more frequently, the plastic problem for myself and myself alone was getting out of hand.
I didn't want to just throw plastic bags away, saving them to use to hold trash and otther uses, but at some point I already had like 2 100l trash bags filled with disposable plastic bags, some of them already breaking down by themselves - even though I always asked for things to be delivered or packaged without them.
It's food delivery, takeout, and a bunch of other stuff that was giving me far more plastic bags than I needed. It just kinda happened.
So I started eliminating all possible sources. When I got to the point I didn't have extra disposable plastic bags to put my trash in, then I more or less guessed that was good enough... I could resume getting a few more just to avoid having to purchase plastic bags just to put my trash in.
I think you can't really overgeneralize stuff like that. It all depends on individual situation... like a straight dumb replacement from plastic bags to tote bags might be bad, but just using bags you already have and use for other stuff, I don't really see a problem there. You could use a bag made of recycled materials too. Some backpack that is just laying around useless there. Or just some other strategy to avoid throwing away a whole bunch of plastic bags altogether.
Remember, the problem with plastic bags is not that they exist, it's just how many of them ends up in landfills, ocean and whatnot. They become a problem once they become trash.
Because ultimately, instead of electing villains here, we should be looking at optimal usage of what we have, not throwing useful stuff in the trash... it's about usability and the trash we generate.
During the pandemic, the situation changed and we're getting all the grocery delivered. On one hand, it's all in cardboard boxes... they only separate fridge stuff inside plastic bags. So we basically don't get them much anymore.
At the same time, yes, delivery has it's own separate environmental cost. The thing is tthough, if I'm putting in balance the pandemic risk vs trying to eliminate that part of environmental cost, I'll just pay for the environmental cost, thank you. It'd just be far worse to risk me and my mom contracting Covid, period.
It's also kinda dangerous to get too laser focused on small stuff like that. It helps to be worried about it I guess, trying to come up with smarter ways to handle our trash, but the scale of the problem demands your time and attention to be dedicated somewhere else... I'm gonna go ahead and guess that you'll offset multiple lifetimes of dumb tote bag replacement by installing solar panels or buying an EV. :P Or just demanding action from our representatives.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Nothing new with the idea, it's just going back to tribal life as much as possible while still being supported by a capitalist society... it's at most a very limited and exclusive social experiment that cannot live by itself.
They need extremely like-minded people that are not too ambicious, power hungry, extremely docile, reasonably ignorant of certain stuff, with a very very strong mindset for cooperation, a market that is willing to pay too much for the basic products they come up with their very limited technology and scale of production, and a whole lot of physical and mental sacrifice for some unrealistic utopic extremely fragile ideal that could crumble with something as simple as key people dying or leaving the "intentional community", or just people with diverse ideas entering the community and confronting some of the stuff they believe in.
Even if they try to name it differently, make it sound more modern, and whatnot, it contains several of the same elements of past communes and cults.
I don't think people realize how many of the horrible cases regarding suicide cults and histories revealing horrible stuff that happened inside gated communities started off much like this one, some still existing to this day, and all it takes is one person with different ideas to turn this supposed dream into a complete nightmare.
Because the elements are all already there. It's basically a powder keg waiting for fire.
But we live in a democracy, so if you choose to live life that way, whatever. It's just really unconvincing to say that's a better way of living life when the entire thing is basically sustained by the society they apparently are trying to reject. I just have huge doubts that if their product selling strategy fails, things could keep going as smoothly as they do. Capitalism is far from perfect, I know, but it has gone through times of war, conflict, famine and other extremely harsh scenarios... not because it's some utopic ideal everyone achieves happiness sort of system, but because it probably fits human nature best. It's unfair, it puts people above others, and it has tons and tons of problems, but it's undeniable how much societies have prospered under it so far.
And honestly, I'm fairly open to alternatives. But I haven't seen anything that is ultimately best for an individual citizen so far. Most other historical and actual alternative systems that we have as examples for alternatives to capitalism have been worse than capitalism for the average citizen as far as I've seen it. It's usually far more opressive and unfair. The execution of other economic systems seems to end up in cases that are far more distant from it's ideals in comparison to capitalism. Because there's always the utopic vision for a system, and then what really happens when it's applied.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Nah man, I'd argue that most people are really lacking a bit of skepticism these days.
Here's the thing - when we talk about persecution against people who challenged the scientific understanding of the time... we're constantly bunching the entire known history of mankind together. It tends to be a very surface level analysis that transforms into fallacy.
Anywhere from "we chose to go to the moon" to "we thought the Earth was flat, stars circled around us" to "we thought health was a matter of balancing 4 humours" among several other.. erm... "arguments" people use against skepticism.
What those "arguments" tend to ignore is that for all things that are often used to ridicule the skepticism of some people, to learn everything we know now, and to get to the point we're currently at, we had generations upon generations of people dedicating their entire lives studying those areas. They didn't come to be out of nowhere, and they didn't come magically fully realized because some historical figure had a catch phrase in their address to the public or whatever.
And those didn't contradict scientific method so much as they followed it - and people with secondary intentions, like religious figures, politicians, among others that persecuted them. It wasn't about going against the scientific method.
Kennedy's "We chose to go to the moon" is particularly insidious and used almost everywhere to invoke some sort of almost religious cult like belief in all sorts of ridiculous projects. I saw it invoked several times in craptastic stuff like SOLAR FRIGGIN' ROADWAYS among others. Also often employed by the free energy/perpetual motion community. Also to quash down any questioning about Elon Musk's Hyperloop. Pick up a debunking video on crowdfunding projects and you'll likely see at least one comment invoking Kennedy's speech as if it was some sort of valid argumentation for believing in the impossible or for backing up ideas that have no basis in scientific research whatsoever.
What it ignores is that by the time Kennedy made that speech, by the time the Apollo program came around, it wasn't some sort of mumbo jumbo magical thinking that could be easily disproved by the most basic scientific knowledge. It was centuries of scientific progress in several areas coming together to an inflection point where, with enough money, resources and dedication, it was absolutely possible to drive a manned rocket to the moon. Hard, as well put on the speech, but far from impossible, far from being against the scientific understanding of the time.
And study of history, the way we made it, tends to compress all those centuries of studies in single liners, central figures, or moments in time. It leaves out all that lead to it, which in turn creates these legions of morons misusing history for blind faith purposes. All the modern understandings we have today tend to look like they came out of nowhere, when they really did not. People tend to look at these inflection points in technological advances as magic, as Clarke well put it - any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. But, it's not magic.
What I'm saying with this is - yes, there are tons upon tons of stuff that our best methodology for understanding didn't get to yet. There are a whole lot of questions to be answered in the very macro scale, in terms of our universe, down to the very micro scale, on the quantum level.
There are stuff in physics, mathematics, medicine, biology, psychology and pretty much all areas of knowledge to be solved.
But what people have to understand is that there are key areas of knowledge and expertise that we have centuries of accumulated work and research to back those up. And if you are gonna come out of nowhere saying you can disprove those, you will need extraordinary research and proof to be taken seriously.
Which is, imho, a good thing. It is the map and compass that skeptics use to operate, to prioritize their attention, to put their bets on, to decide whether to invest in it or not. Because without that, it's just chaos. Oh, I don't think gravity exists, I don't think I have to respect the laws of thermodynamics, I don't think medicine can tell me what to do with my health, so I'll do whatever - waste my entire life on fruitless endeavors.
I'll just conclude my comment with this - I still think it's best for people to come out from a point of skepticism, study hard to position themselves in current knowledge, and then start believing in some stuff once they dedicated some time and focus on them, rather than people coming out from a point of blind belief, and start questioning it after the fact. Because the latter carries a whole lot more danger with it. The time of our lives are precious, too precious to waste wading in garbage.
1
-
Honestly? I couldn't give two sh*ts about offending or damaging the ego of someone who is so insecure about him or herself enough to count using a "hard" Linux distro as some sort of trophy. It's like really? Grow the f*ck up, no one cares how "hard" the Linux distro you are using is. Or rather, no one worth the time. You use what works for you, period.
The preoccupation with hurting someone else's ego matters less than pointing out to beginners that this or that distro might be easier to start with if you are coming from other OSs, at least to me. The childish competition on who is using the most advanced distro, who knows more about the Linux kernel, who uses command line... none of that crap should matter to others. Not broadly speaking I mean, of course it matters if it's a requirement for a job or something.
But there really is a problem with using those terms - they are too broad, which can cause confusion. Then again, even using a terms like beginner, moderate and advanced, despite being a bit more specific, also is still broad.
Now, I have to disagree with something there. Semantics aside, people will use terms like easy and hard to describe how much time it takes to do something, not so much how much knowledge, brainpower or whatever... so if it's an easy process but requires 10 steps, it's hard... the same way a hard process that takes time to figure out with only one step can be. Know what I'm getting at? Easy and hard is used interchangeably with "how long it takes so I can do what I need to do". And even then, it's all subjective.
I'd also say that if it involves multiple steps, it'll always be harder. It's kinda funny that you say that compiling from source is easy... that's very relative. In fact, that would be too hard for the vast majority of people... compiling code from source is only easy for developers, and not even that. So is installing replacement software, configuring network, properly formatting and preparing drives, configuring audio, wireless networks, installing drivers, etc etc etc.... all of that stuff is hard for the majority of people.
This is why distros that you install with a graphical interface and you get everything you need working after a reboot is considered an easy distro, or combination of distro and hardware. If you don't need to learn any of what I mentioned in the past sentence, then it's easier than otherwise. And every new thing you need to know or learn to use the OS makes it harder, by definition. So... and "easy" distro is one that takes you faster to what you want to do with it.
The way I personally see it, what really matters when it comes to saying a distro is easy or hard is - as compared to what? If you are coming from Windows, it's one thing. If you are coming from MacOS, it's another. If you are an Android tinkerer, it's something else. If you are learning from scratch, never touched a computer before, then it might be another thing.
In here, then the classification of beginner, moderate and advanced may come in as a separate thing - but it still depends on where you are coming from and what are your needs. How much time you are expected to spend to know your way around. How much previous knowledge on Linux you are supposed to have. How familiar with how a computer works you need to be. This sort of stuff.
And then comes the other key element in all of this - what do you intend to do with it? As previously mentioned, what are your needs? Browsing the Internet and checking e-mails will be one thing, setting up a home server will be another, editing videos and photos will be yet another, playing games is yet another. As said, all distros have multiple weak and strong points, it's not just one thing. You won't recommend Qubes for someone who is just starting on Linux and trying to just edit some charts and text, right?
The answer to questions like "is this distro easy", as so many things in life, is - it depends. This sometimes angers some people because they want a fast and direct answer... but if you or they don't wanna bother getting into details, my answer would be to just use whatever they heard about, doesn't matter what it is.
Stop asking questions and try it for yourself that you'll reach your answer faster. See how things go, change to something else if it didn't work, you jump into the next option - it'll still be faster and you'll learn more than spending all your time asking around, wondering what the perfect choice is. This is part of the beauty of Linux distros - you're not paying multiple times to try things out, you can just go at it.
What they have in mind will probably be one of the more popular distros anyways, so plenty of material to help on the way.
My two cents. :)
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
The saddest part of flat Earthers is that under this whole system of belief they have, lies an extremely common problem among a whole ton of people that really restricts their ability to function as a more rational, more understanding, more able fellow human being - the inability to understand how big Earth is, how the realization of how small we are should function as motivation for us to work better as societies, and how backwards it is to spend so much time in such fruitless conspiracy theory thinking when we have a whole ton of big problems to solve if we want to be part of a significant portion of Earth's history at all as a species.
I swear that is we picked up the energy and time spent on things like conspiracies, we'd already have solved problems like world hunger, prejudice, racism, sexism, income inequality, climate change, cancer, aids and perhaps even wars.
If every single page, group or combined effort for stuff like that was put into solving real problems... just imagine. Perhaps we'd be colonizing some Earth-like planet in a neighbor galaxy or something.
Then again, I'm just a guy doing nothing but watching this video on the Internets...
1
-
Awesome content, thanks Alec! Down here in the backwater country, infrastructure and EV prices are still a bit more of an impediment for a potential switch, but I'm increasingly more into the idea of, when the time comes that I decide to replace my ancient junker of a car, it could be with an EV. Or at least a hybrid.
Few problems to solve though. Chargers in highways are still very few and far between here... particularly on the stretches I have to go through to visit relatives. In fact, it's unnerving enough with a regular ol' gas car. xD
Down here, in middle of the state rural grounds, there are stretches of 150-200+ miles that you can drive without seeing any gas or rest station at all... and then, some routes only have small gas stations that don't seem to care of have anything ready for EVs.
The other unnerving thing is the state of the roads... from potholes to full craters, things will definitely not be optimal for EVs with huge thermal runaway prone caskets of batteries. xD I know there is a whole ton of protection and mitigation that goes on with those, just that sometimes the conditions of roads down here gets closer to just being offroad. But you know, it also isn't great for running around with gallons of gas in those conditions anyways, so there's that.
And then comes the fact that both me, my mom, an some of the relatives we visit are all currently apartment dwellers.
Though I think it only takes a few EVs to convince condominiums to put something that would attend the needs there, no problems sharing and taking a bit of the cost for those who needs it too - particularly when even if this is overestimated, it'd likely still cost far less than gas anyways.
The real current nail in the coffin though are prices. I think down here you have to expect to pay at least double for an equivalent EV car in comparison to gas, if not way more depending on your needs... the bigger the car, the more range, comfort points and whatnot, the bigger that rate is. But like, comparing the most basic EV with the most basic gas guzzler, it already can be double or more. Add taxes, insurance and all the tons and tons of extra stuff you have to pay here, it becomes a pretty expensive investment.
In any case, it's still great to see a comprehensive from experience explainer/tutorial like this one... I've watched a bunch of testimonial, reviews, and short videos on the subject over the years, but nothing as comprehensive as this, which I really wanted to see.
1
-
How else would I ever have my questions about aviation answered if it wasn't for Wendover... xD
Anecdotal and perhaps a bit stupid, but here's my semi-related personal thoughts on this.
Perhaps because I'm currently only interested in a single destination that is on the exact opposite side of the globe, this probably doesn't affect me too much... well, also because we're going from the southern hemisphere to northern, so even Atlantic routes don't necessarily have to pass over Russia. But here's the thing - I traveled to Japan twice in my life, back in 2008, and again in 2018.
Memory of the trip is kinda of a blur because it's so long and so tedious you tend to erase from memory.
But interestingly enough, I've already tried both ways. The first trip back in 2008, we went through the Pacific route... Brazil to Toronto, Toronto to Tokyo. In the most recent trip in 2018, we went Atlantic from Brazil to Qatar, and Qatar to Tokyo.
It's such a long trip that hours start not mattering a whole lot... the difference goes more for what you can do to stave off boredom, and if you have time to waste a bit on connection.
I remember on the first trip we had to waste almost half a day at Toronto Airport... it's ok, but a bit too much. Considering the flight time by itself is over a day, plus the time it takes to go from our city to the main international airport hub - it's close to a day and a half without bath, mostly sitting down bored.
On the other hand, the most recent trip things were also not great because of opposite problem - we booked connections and whatnot too close to each other, to the point there were a few moments there with extreme stress, running up and down unknown airports, and fearing we had lost our flights. xD The stuff you expect to happen when in a group of 7 people mostly at retirement age.
But also, there's this critical balance that you are always trying to get at.
Worth the sacrifice though... we are always planning the next one. xD
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
If you are having fun with stuff like many worlds interpretation, simulation hypothesis, determinism, plus a bunch of other existencialist philosophies, theories and ideas... go right ahead, it's healthy to think and speculate to a point. But if you're going down a spiral, just remember... there just isn't much you can do about it anyways, practically none of it really matters in the end... well, unless you are actively studying it or something. :P
There are infinite worlds for every piece of action, choice or possibility, but we can only perceive one. So what? It's the same as if that wasn't the case. Can't perceive, can't act on it, is it really worth worrying about it?
You are living in a simulation which you can't escape from, it perfectly reproduces the world around you, perhaps from a historical standpoint. Again, you can't do anything about it, you are just a simulation, proceed your simulatin'.
There is no free will, everything is deterministic, your actions are just a result of environment affecting your brain processes plus a ton of hidden variables. Sure, why bother then? Gonna do what I'm supposed to then, I guess, no one including me can change it anyways.
:P
1
-
Saber rattling at it's stupidest. It makes the US look like a sociopath nation in a global scenario, deservedly.
I dunno how international politics in any nation can be dealt with so ignorantly, even though it frequently happens all around the world, but if the US is calling a country that basically provides huge portions of everything it consumes as part of the Axis of Evil, it's basically complaining about the food it's eating right now, but it still continues to consume more and more of it.
This is one among the things that I truly hate about Biden and it's administration. Sure, this is about a Republican speaker and several of it's stupid ilk, but Biden's international policy is just about the same on this particular matter. And it's driving the US towards a horrible global diplomatic position.
As for stupid nationalists who still believe Biden's protectionist and "bring jerbs back" moves will do anything to dent this reality - think again. It might seem bolder than Trump's, which isn't saying much, but the US will soon realize how much money they wasted on this charade, and it'll topple Biden over - that is if he even wins the next election. And Democrats will have no one to blame but themselves. Of course, if he loses, then all bets are off. I can't imagine Trump doing any better there. His erratic temperamental chaotic behavior is pretty much the worst thing that can ever happen for US international politics, as proved by his last term.
It's not multi billion dollars packages that will turn the US industry independent from supposed "Axis of Evil" nations. You don't have the manpower, the logistics, the infrastructure, the culture, the education, the knowledge base, the related capabilities, the resources, plus a whole ton of other parallel stuff needed to attend the ridiculous demands US consumerism currently has. The US will never become self sufficient without a major catastrophe or complete revolution, which includes the death of huge throngs of the population and complete cultural revolution. I don't think many Americans understand the dimension of the chasm we're talking about. And this is a huge portion of the whole problem.
China itself can only attend the insatiable demands of the US and other developed nations because it has over 4 times the population of the US, which adds up to almost 15% of the global population, and a huge portion of it working in factories. This allows for China to have a labor force that is above the total US population. You read that right. China has more people working in labor jobs than the US has people overall, even if it's "only" some 10th of the Chinese population.
The estimated labor force in China is around 400 million people, with total workforce being around 700 million (very rough estimates based on old statistics - so this number is probably higher today). The US population is 330 million. You get the problem there? Even with the US having one of the biggest workforces in the world, even if it has extremely low unemployment rates, even if you put as much people who can work behind factory jobs and whatnot - you can't win over basic math.
China exports somewhere around half a trillion dollars worth of products to the US every year. This is all fueled by the wage gap problem that US has that forces the vast majority of the population to rely on cheap imports, to the point it's a systemic problem. This is often disguised by US brands and corporations making all their stuff in China, but it should be clear by now how dependent everyone in the US is directly or indirectly of Chinese imports. And no, you buying a handcrafted tool or whatever MADE IN THE US, doesn't make a difference when almost everything else you spend money in has Chinese manufacturing or businesses involved in the mix.
If we had some magical situation where the US could make all of it's products stateside, this would immediately throw the majority of the US population into absolute poverty, because that population can't afford to pay the wages of all the people that would be working in factories to attend demand.
This is one thing that is guaranteed to happen with the chip plant stuff. Even if the US can find the labor to work on those plants, which I highly doubt it will, the wages needed to be paid in those will be so astronomically high in comparison to Taiwan or China or South Korea chip plants that it'll become an exercise in futility. So it's a Trump Foxconn charade, only with tons more money put into it.
In fact, I can't think of any nation in the world less likely to become independent of Chinese manufacturing and exports. The EU goes in second place, but a distant second place - as it imports from China just as much as a whole, but at least it exports more stuff directly to China.
So, all this saber rattling is just stupid. The US currently cannot live without China, and it's politicians have to wake the f*ck up and learn how to deal with that as adults that are representing a population whose reality is just that.
China would take a humongous hit if it lost it's main exporting nation, but much like Russia was able to go around western nation sanctions, China would likely also redirect it's trade towards other nations and keep things up somehow.
The US also tends to completely ignore continental Africa, South America, all of Asia other than China and Japan, and huge portions of those I highly doubt would side with the US in a global split.
The other three "Axis of Evil" nations might be less of a problem, but really, we're talking about nuclear weapon carrying nations here - all of them. So coming out this clear about your intentions when you don't really have any real solutions in place to solve the issues that would come from a global split is just baffling.
Honestly, I think the only thing that US politicians create when they say crap like that is reinforce the fame of being a stuck up egocentric nation filled with privileged people who don't understand the country's position in the world. It's isolationist rhetoric favors no one. And allied nations are becoming sick and tired of this.
1
-
"Garbage in garbage out"... did that guy called his own vote garbage? 🤣 Oh lord... ignorant people trying to sound smart by misusing quotes...
The only garbage in garbage out that is happening in the US is people taking the garbage Fox puts in their brains, and then spewing garbage out like they do when they defend their baseless accusations.
And look, I'm really not a huge defender of the way voting machines works in the US, honestly. There are several things that I've seen that I don't like much there.
I don't know how exactly Dominion machines works, so those might be great for all I care, but I've seen several ways that previous machines used were vulnerable to hacking. I'll say it again, PREVIOUS machines used in elections, not the current ones. DEF CON and other hacking conventions even have dedicated hackathons for those, which you may think is bad, but it's actually good because it means they are testing the security of those.
And in the end, a more transparent, more publicly auditable, simpler, offline, and open system is preferable to proprietary closed source stuff. Personal opinion. If security is a priority, those are good points for a system to have.
I'm only saying this because even though I think my country has a far shittier... almost everything, our voting system despite also being electronic is also several times better in several fronts. It's not some magic superiority though, it's just that they are far simpler and barebones than US voting machines. They are very very veeeery basic computers that run offline and use open source systems that are audited at several points in an election.
This does not mean that the US system is unreliable or that Dominion is bad, it only means that we sacrificed a lot of functionality for security in a different balance.
Then again, our elections are completely different, so we can't really make an apples to apples comparison here. We have direct elections that happen in a single day presentially, our political system is direct democracy with direct elections, not representative like in the US, and the whole thing happens with insane crazy logistics that is almost incomparable to anything else I've ever heard of. We used to vote on paper not all that long ago, but the electronic voting system made it much more agile, simpler, more trustworthy and secure... despite what our idiot ex-president said, ignore him, he's just another moron who does not understand what he's talking about (and also a Trump and MAGA fan).
But what people don't seem to understand is that the machine is only a part of the entire system, the vote doesn't start and stop there, and what makes election secure is not only that, it doesn't have a single point of failure, and people are missing the forest for the tree there. Elections are not about the machines, it's about the layers and layers of planning, logistics, tons of people working hard for a long time, and managing to do the impossible.
That is why this situation is so disheartening and incredibly frustrating for people who work on elections - no one ever cared to understand how much work it is for them to guarantee safe elections, and now a whole ton of people who does not participate, does not work, never gave a damn about it, are now attacking their work, their system, and their credibility because of lies spread by Fox News and radical people whose intent is to undermine the US electoral system because their cult leaders said so. I also hope the Dominion lawsuit is the end of Fox News. They should be put off the air for a number of things they aired.
It's extremely costly and hard to make elections run well. It's not the kinda thing you question on weak or non-existing arguments, or worse yet, with conspiracy theories.
I mean, it'd be already bad enough if people were only attacking voting machines... personal attacks and threats against election workers is just totally surreal. Each and every single person who called in to threat someone working on elections should be arrested and have their citizenship status taken away. I am not exaggerating here, it's what should've been done.
But that's the real frustrating part... people standing at the height of their ignorance feeling entitled to criticize something they don't understand, but reaps all the benefits from. A system that is the accumulation of tons of sweat, blood and tears to make the democratic system work, that these people give no value to. I wish there was a way to make them experience living under a non-democratic nation with real dysfunctional election system to see how much they are really losing. They'd quickly learn to value what they have.
I'll also tell something to people who don't know - the entire reason why we switched to electronic voting system is exactly because paper ballots were so flawed and with so many ways to exploit, it became urgent to use something else. It's also about the agility it confers to the counting process, but only this agility by itself is already a component part of security and trust. A counting process that takes too long to happen is left vulnerable and subject to manipulation. The time you are granted with simple electronic systems allows you for a better degree of auditing, verification, and re-counts only when necessary. It allows for people working in elections to shift focus from counting, to a broader view, like checking during the election if the numbers make sense, if other stats matches with what was expected, and then applying further scrutiny when it doesn't.
Now, I'd be ok with asking for a safer system, if whoever is proposing has one to offer, as long as the proposals are feasible, and the reasoning is sound. But what is happening there is not it. And replacing systems is not something that happens overnight. It's extremely stupid to replace a system that works for something new with no proof that the current one does not work, because for you to have something even close to being as proven will take years, tons of retraining, a whole ton of money, and figuring out how to put the new system under the same level of scrutiny that was developed for the current one.
It's like saying for someone - ah well, scrap all that, I want you do redo everything following these new rules in this new language just because this random guy told me not to trust it.
It's this sort of attitude that makes the democratic process weaker, because who wants to work in such shitty conditions anyways? US elections are losing their best and most dedicated workers, some whom dedicated a big part of their lives to democracy, accepting to work with almost no real recognition for efforts, for nothing.
1
-
ROFL, Alec doesn't get it but he pretty much justified it throughout the entire two videos basically...
I think that's the whole deal. Some stuff that might not look important to one person can be very important to others.
I live in a country where there is no such thing as switches for power outlets, and that's including GFCIs. You only see GFCIs here in hotel rooms, and that's because of foreign tourists... most homes won't have them. Oh, there also isn't a mechanical system to protect people from shoving metal objects in them. I think I've seen both GFCI style outlets and outlets with extra mechanical protective measures being sold in hardware stores, but not only they are several times more expensive than regular outlets, I've never been in a home that used them.
But I kinda like the concept of switches for outlets myself, even if not essential per se, for a few reasons.
The most barebones reason is just that it's part of the structural electrical system.
It's redundant, yes, but because these days you have so many electronics with on/off buttons that are not actual physical switches, the reliable way to cut power off is for the outlet to have a physical one.
The kitchen appliances cited, like rice cooker and sandwich press, if I had counter space to just leave them up, I would... also permanently connected if there was a switch to it. I just don't like the idea of plugging things that occupies a permanent space on and off all the time. You could shove a power strip in there, but that would be taking extra space, not good.
So, this also covers parasitic power, which yes doesn't amount to much, but as time goes on and more and more appliances goes towards sleeping modes instead of properly shutting down, more things will be needlessly consuming power for no good reason other than a fast start up or something like that. I don't like this, conceptually speaking - if I turn off something it's supposed to be turned off. I also don't tend to think on how much it costs today... it's more about just saving as much as you can, kinda like water. We just don't have enough to waste, and things are not looking great for the future too... xD You go on a blackout and start relying on off-grid power systems, you'll wanna save as much as you can.
As for safety, arcing is a relatively minor worry for people who don't use stuff that draws tons of power, but hey, it's not necessarily bad to want to avoid it, particularly when you are dealing with something that might be dicey, like a recently fixed heater or fan - ask me how I know. xD
Funny enough, this is the way I reset my own router... it's tucked away and hard to reach, but my breaker has a line that only goes to it, so I just shut the circuit off and on. xD I also had to do this a few times with the washer drier, because it's plugged on a socket that is behind it in a hard to reach position and it needed a hard reset to solve an error code, and the induction cooktop that is connected directly into a 220V line, same reason. This I guess is part of the convenience reason... I do have quite a few cases where the outlet or device itself is out of reach. Though for these cases, as noted, it's enough to have easy panel access. They are all in separate breaker switches for a reason.
The other consideration there is that when the outlet is kinda out of reach or you are just lazy, what people tend to do is just pull the cord, which has a potential to overtime break it, which is evidenced by old well used appliances, electronics, and particularly USB cables though those don't go directly into outlets. xD
One other thing I thought about, but this is mostly because we don't have GFCI. I'm always a bit nervous around these plugs that are a bit too close to faucets and wet areas... one would think well, they shouldn't be there in the first place, but this is almost inevitable these days if you live in a tiny apartment, with a tiny kitchen, tiny restrooms, tiny service area, tiny everything.
Mind you, none of those are essential, and of course these is the extra cost of installing all those switches, which if shoddily done can also pose all sorts of risks, plus the whole mental confusion that Alec already talked about. Living in a country where no one has those, it's pretty obvious that this is not exactly needed. But yeah, I still find it interesting. I also wish we had better designed sockets and plugs like the British.
If I were to install them myself, as someone who cares more about utility and usability over design, I'd just differentiate things by color or some easy to spot measure. Already doing this to differentiate between 10amp and 20amp outlets, all my 20amp outlets are red. The only physical difference in them is that the holes are a tiny bit larger, it's impossible to see without trying to shove the plug in.
It's the stupid Brazilian standard. We used to follow a mix between US and European standards, instead of sticking to one we made our own which is incompatible to everyone else. It just sucks, particularly considering a whole ton of electronics we use are imported. It has some nice features and is a bit more robust than what we had before, but in practice it just created a proliferation of adaptors and power strips everywhere. But that's an entire other rant.
1
-
I don't think most Americans really understand how truly f*cked they already are, so I'd just recommend enjoying the holidays, because ignorance is bliss.
There is one weirdly... I wouldn't call it redeeming but perhaps less damaging factor in Trump that kinda aligns with the supporter ideas that John showed - he thinks of himself as a businessman.
You know, kinda like a child who thinks he's superman or something, but still.
Why is this less damaging? Because he will prioritize things as a business, as in what he think is best for him as a businessman. This could be worse as in whoever got elected actually had a God complex, or an overly belligerent personality, or a real religious fanatical stance, zealotry. There are many in his future administration, and in current administration, that would likely be even worse than himself. Particularly among the MAGA crowd, but also among Democrats, surprisingly enough. But since he's the one in power, those kinds of people will be constantly trying to influence his decisions. And a lot of it will pass, much like it did in his past administration.
Here's why I'm saying the US is truly f*cked beyond belief this time. It's not just that Trump got elected once again. It's that now you have MAGA conspiracy theorists and crazy people in Congress, Senate and SCOTUS as majority, still have the biggest news channel as a government propaganda vehicle, you have several state governors and politicians plus several state and federal judges also among the MAGA crowd, among several other positions of administration and representation. It's a practical MAGA dictatorship without the extra steps to take over power. And it's being handed in a silver plate to Trump.
If you think about regular dictatorships, there is this whole extra step that they need to go through, firing tons of people, recruiting those who will obey without questioning, eliminating internal conflicts, being flagrantly anti-democratic to get power, which often generates infighting and internal struggle, etc.
People made a huge fuss about Project 2025, but in actuality the hardest parts of it are already done. It's already over. MAGA mentality already took too much of American politics. Not only politics, but all 4 branches of power - Executive, Legislative, Judicial and press. You can call it religious zealotry, racism, nationalism, conservatism, or whatever you may want to - it's already all over the place.
Not only that, but Trump will get to the presidency already with a status above the law. He can do whatever he wants, the judiciary already does not have power to prosecute him. He's immune from prosecution for any action considered to be "part of the job", and since the ones who define what is part of the job or not is a MAGA SCOTUS, everything will be part of the job. So there are no chances of him suffering an impeachment, which was already close to impossible given how many were already thrown against him in his first term, no matter what crime he commits.
So, the American people are already guaranteed to be totally at his whims. Protesting will be useless. Doesn't matter if he starts a war, if he sends the military to trample over protesters or go after immigrants, if he pardons whoever and how many people he wants to, if he basically acts as a dictator and king, because that's the power he has. He could arrange for people in his administration to find ways to get all tax money for himself and his cronies, bankrupt the nation, cut spending on everything he doesn't deem worth, and so on. He could sell the US to it's worst enemies if he wanted to. Take the obvious next step in irresponsible handling of secret US documents and this time actually sell it over to rogue nations, doesn't matter anymore.
The only real thing that stops him from doing the worst is his own ego, and the way he thinks he's the smartest businessman ever. The US handed dictator like powers to an ignorant privileged self important egotistical moron. But by himself, what I expect him to do is flunk US' economy, either by corrupt schemes, or by sheer incompetence, or both. The rest will be about what portion of his fanatical ignorant crowd he decides to please next, much like in rallies, speeches and interviews. And the worst the situation becomes, the more inclined to please those crowds he'll be, to distract from the fact that he's an incompetent moron.
Thing is - I don't think he cares enough about others to have any zeal in pursuing ideological causes. All of the most extreme ideological, religious or conspiratorial crap that he espoused in rallies and whatnot - it's just for political support. He's clearly very weakly religious or even non religious, immoral, unethical, has no strong beliefs in anything other than his self importance.
So, his administration is what will really dictate this side of things. And that's the major issue. I don't think he even has this bad of a view on immigrants the way he uses in his speeches, it's all a tactic to gain the votes. But he will do the stuff he promised if his ego, his administration, and his support base tells him he has to do it. And it doesn't matter if it'll be a social, economical, and international disaster for the US - because again, what matters is only his own ego. If his ego is left untouched, or he thinks it's the right business decision, or if he think's he'll be even more admired and look stronger for doing it - he'll do it.
What is probably genuine in some of the stuff he said in the past is probably the admiration of "strong men" politicians, alpha male pandering, because he wants so bad to also have that image, despite being an old, flabby, crappy, obese, ugly, balding, fragile man. By the way, this is why the Stormy Daniels case hurts him so much personally. Why he wants to make it go away. It's because the case reveals what he is. A sad failure that needs to pay, bribe or use force to have sex. Because otherwise, no one wants him.
I'm not saying this for the sake of election, citizen action, institutions or whatever anymore. I said this before and I'll say it again - democracy in the US is dead. It's been dying for several decades now, but this election was the final nail in the coffin, really. It's been dead for a while now, but now it's buried and gone.
I'm saying this for the sake of people, those who went against this lunacy to the extent they could. From next year onwards, you will basically be under government that can become a violent dictatorship overnight. It only takes Trump watching something he does not like on Fox News or some message reshared on X, Truth Social or whatever crap he listens to or reads, plus what his crazy administration also thinks, and he could just act on it immediately. Worse yet, he could just order his administration to act on it immediately, it's not like he has the energy or even intelligence to do that sort of stuff himself. But remember, now he's also surrounded by very corrupt, very determined, very crazy, and very prepotent and obedient people in his administration too.
Remember all the crap he told his staff to do in his past administration? Now they'll do it without questioning.
I dunno how far he will go in his retribution thing, he will likely do something, but ultimately this is so tiring that he'll likely not go too far.... unless someone gives him a reason to.
Crazy as this may sound, for those who value their lives, and that of their families, significant others and whatnot, I'd recommend against protests, against overt criticism of the government, against overt opposition, and stuff like that. There is nothing you can do but try to protect yourself as best as you can, don't call attention, and hope for the best. Yes, I'd go that far. Because that's how a dictatorship is. Be a coward, and disappear. I'm sad to say something like this, but it's already over. The hope that people can have is that he's dumb enough to not understand how much real power he currently has, that he won't try to change law and constitution to remain in power indefinitely, that he won't bother starting a war because it's too tiresome for himself, and stuff like that. Because he's been given the key to the kingdom and practically unlimited power. You better pray that he sticks to his belief that he has to Make America Great Again somehow, and just fumble over by making wrong decisions. If he lets go of that, and switches to full on sociopath dictator mode, he will already have everything needed to make it so.
1
-
1
-
Interesting technical discussion, but the fundamental error is that the Apple defenders are trying to prove a negative with shallow evidence, and then speculate based on... loyalty to the brand? Fanboyism? Contrarianism? Not even sure anymore.
I'm not an Apple user nor intend to ever own an Apple device, had an iPad in the past... but let me position myself as a neutral onlooker for security analysis there.
The test done with code analysis and using specific tools for Internet traffic monitoring are indeed more comprehensive than just saying the app is pinging back to the mothership, and there might be some logic in the rebuke there, but let's think about the claims.
The first problem in all of this is why I don't care about Apple claims about security in the first place. The code is proprietary, so you don't know what it actually does.
You can use tools to monitor traffic at a given period for one specific app or function that the phone has, but this at most will give you what it's doing at that given period of time for that specific case - not what it can do in the future, what it's doing for everyone or what it's doing at any point in time you are not monitoring or analyzing it.
Given this, it might be eliminating a subset of methods that Apple could use to look into your photos or your info, but it does not eliminate the whole. Again, the general problem of proving a negative.
There are so many different ways that Apple can accomplish taking info from you using a proprietary opaque software that is not open to analysis and auditing that this very specific very contained look into it just doesn't amount to much. The guy who did the analysis, if truthful in his discoveries, proved that Apple didn't take significant personally identifiable information for that app for those photos at that point in time in that specific case, and only that. He didn't prove Apple is private, secure, that it's trustworthy, that it cannot be using that same mechanism to collect info from other people, or at different times, etc etc.
This is a general limitation of Internet traffic analysis. What you see is specific to your case at that specific time, and that's that.
So, it's sending an empty message with no personally identifiable information or any information at all, at that specific moment in time for that specific app. Sure, that's fine. And I think it does serve as a limited counter to the argument Apple is collecting data via that specific process, perhaps. I think it serves as an appropriate rebuke to alarmist claims.
Assuming it's a bug seems a bit disingenuous... it could be, but I wouldn't jump to conclusions there. That's as valid as say, assuming it's evidence that Apple is trying to come up with ways to send data back, just that they didn't fully implement it yet.
In fact, from a security and privacy standpoint, that would probably be the better assumption. It doesn't make much sense for a "bug" to act like that, does it? A bug that interacts with phone data and sends and empty "ping" back to a specific Apple server?
That sounds like a pretty intentional and specific kinda function to me to be dismissed as just a bug, independent if it was taken away after the latest update or not.
And then, of course, this does not give you a guarantee that it's sending nothing back all of the time for all cases and for all phones - it's specific for the case analysis only.
The other thing is that, because you have this all integrated complex Apple OS and apps that an iPhone has, there are multiple different processes that are all in constant communication with Apple servers (or other servers) all the time sending all sorts of data back including several that are pretty much unreadable.
So, what stops Apple from taking the data from photos or other personal stuff, shoving it into a buffer, sending it at some other time, stuffed into the communications of another Apple app, process or functionality, perhaps to a third party server, for it to then be unpacked and read by the company later on?
This is the fundamental problem of opaqueness in code. There are numerous ways to collect data surreptitiously, and it's a rat's race of strategies to avoid detection by common analysis tools.
To be clear, not that a code being open source magically solves all of that, or that companies using open source apps and OSs should be trusted by default. As proven by Android and Google, a whole ton of surreptitious spying and data collection can still take place for a long time before independent auditing and analysts detect it's happening, if the detection happens at all. It's still a rat's race to understand the code and then identify potential ways it may be collecting data and sending it back to the mothership.
It's just that when code is proprietary, you don't have access to understand how the thing works. You might have some access to see what it's generating, but that doesn't give you a complete picture of it.
In any case, it was an interesting discussion. Setting aside who is right and who is wrong, I find it interesting how some people are willing to dive into the whole thing to see what is really happening. Unfortunately this whole thing is pretty out of reach for most users, but it seems it'll be more and more needed overtime.
I remember just a while back how much fanboys kept saying that Android cannot be trusted because Google's business model relied on ad revenue, whereas Apple relied on product sales. Everytime that argument came up I said that, because of walled garden and proprietary code, plus capitalism of course, nothing is stopping Apple from one day also getting into the ad revenue business too. Fanboys would always say how Apple would never do that yadda yadda. Well, guess what? That whole argument fell flat.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Intel doesn't have the monopoly of high end anymore, which is great, but I wouldn't say it's laughing stock also... well, unless you are an AMD fanboy, which is just a stupid thing to be.
Truth is, we sorely needed competition in this area. Intel was showing vices of a monopoly position for a long time, so it's great that others are really competing with it now.
Sure enough though, I'm glad that Intel is still around and going. If you only narrow down to laptops and desktop, AMD has gone some points ahead in recent gens, but it's not like they are that far off from each other. I expect and hope the competition keeps going.
And I, for one, am really interested to see where the whole Iris Graphics is going... I guess this doesn't matter much for some people because they are paying more attention to discrete graphics with nVidia vs AMD, but when I see a device the size of a Switch Lite being able to run triple A titles with an integrated graphics chip, I'm not calling the company responsible for that "laughing stock".
I'm hoping AMD also releases something like that... perhaps this year still. Integrated Radeon graphics that can do a lot with little power... I think they will, if they already didn't - I'm not super updated on this. GPD Win 3 vs Aya something something?
It's true though that despite several attempts, Intel kinda failed on mobile... for now. ARM is rising up and proving itself to be a very strong competitor, but I want competition, not another monopoly. Because truth of the matter is, whenever there is a single monopoly on the space, things starts slowing down and the hunt for innovation dies off. This isn't true only to Intel, this is a general business problem.
You'll know this if you followed the first round when AMD took over Intel... I'm old enough to remember, I actually switched from Intel to AMD back then. Back then used to build my own desktops, it all started with Pentium 3.
And to be fair, I think Intel's failure on mobile chips had less to do with the technical side, but more on partnerships, perhaps timing, and some other factors. Well, a bit on technical, they couldn't find a way to eliminate heat as efficient as CPUs on ARM architecture.
Anyone ever used an Intel Atom Cherry Trail device? Back when they were still around, I think they were pretty powerful for size. Well, for a time... overtime, chip makers using ARM's architecture ability to use little power, keep themselves cool and provide jumps in performance prevailed.
On one hand, this was great for competition, but on the other hand, if you think about it, it's one of the reasons why we had to have such a huge roundabout route for mobile systems to integrate better with desktops and laptops. If it was all under the same architecture, and at the same pace of innovation, perhaps what's happening now with M1 and Windows on ARM could've happened faster and more smoothly years ago.
Intel cancelled development of Atom and stopped going for it because it didn't get widely adopted, but I still see devices being sold with 5+ years old Intel Cherry Trail CPUs...
It could be doing ok if development continued, but I guess it just didn't make business sense at the time. The tiny Windows stick PCs, some devboards, some tiny computers like Kangaroo PC, Windows based tabletops... it's all Intel. It's just... kinda weird. Sometimes I see supposedly "new products" coming out sporting Intel Cherry Trail Z8350 CPU or something, which is freaking 6 yrs old already.
It's all very niche, so it wouldn't make sense to keep developing it... but you know, the fact it's still around is weird. Kinda like a smaller version of how nVidia's Tegra is still going despite the lack of development.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
With all due respect to president Biden, if his objective really is to defeat Trump, dropping off the races and leaving it to a new Democrat candidate is the better strategy here.
I'm not an US citizen, but from what I hear from Americans against Trump, it seems to me that people are basically willing to go full bust. They either elect a candidate that will bring progressive views to the forefront in a combative manner, or the fight isn't even worth having.
It's not even about age, despite all the talk. It's because of a weak opposing stance, lack of clarity in stance, trying to negotiate on things that should not be negotiated.
What I see with an outsider perspective is a lack of willingness to defend democracy, inside politics that is. It's not about fighting one side or another, it's about defending basic fundamental principles of democracy. People are not seeing this in Biden, and to defeat Trump you need someone that makes this defense way more clearer, spreads the message effectively, elevates the fight for democracy to it's appropriate level. You can't have only the press playing this role, this needs to be in politicians and justices speeches all of the time, particularly in a time like this.
1
-
1
-
1
-
This is at least one of the reasons why I'm very much not as enthusiastic about Biden going for re-election as some democrats who applauded and made a full fanfare about it... there are other reasons too, but this is one of the key ones - the broken election promisses.
And to be fair, I think Biden did a pretty good job in reverting some Trump stuff, but it wasn't comprehensive, and in some cases it's going so slow or even in reverse that it's kinda puzzling. I mean, he's talking about the problem of gun violence despite being locked in Congress and states on it - but the important thing is that he's talking about it. The asylum seeking problem ranges from going completely radio silent, to displaying a complete lack of understanding with unwillingness to look at the problem closer.
I am much less worried about the whole age thing than I am with stuff like this.
And the particular problem with immigrants, asylum seekers, and working on the problem, much like other topics I disagree with Biden, is that these are problems that are not only big currently, there are very high chances they'll explode in the near future.
Bad policy and/or ignoring the problem today will become extremely costly tomorrow, much like Climate Change.
The other major part I really don't like about Biden politics is the continuation of Trump era diplomacy (or lack thereof) in relation to China. And I want people to understand what I'm saying before coming at me. I'm not saying the US should be buddy buddy with China, not saying we have to accept the human rights violations of the CCP, not saying that the US shouldn't keep a close eye in spying and cyberwarfare coming from government agents and hacker groups paid off by the CCP, etc etc... those need to be done, and need to be kept at a rational level.
But not in the extremely dumb and stubborn way it's being done.
There are just too many actions taken by the Biden administration on this regard at this point that seems to be riddled with ignorance on the subject, reactionary stance, lack of communication and stuff like that.
From the whole weather balloon thing, to blocking select Chinese businesses, to this idea that the US will somehow take production from Chinese industries back into the US in no time with massive investments... there are too many actions and policies that are not only based on poor understanding about the reality of the situation, but also ends up hurting the US' own economy and population for that.
To the point, Biden's age isn't really a problem, but when old age comes with a lack of understanding on modern world concepts, then yes, that can definitely become a problem.
I see this happening in my own country. Really, for modern democracies, we absolutely need these days people who are capable of understanding at least core concepts about how the Internet works these days and how much of an influence it can have, or else we basically have people in politics and government that basically do not understand half of what is happening in their countries and all around the world.
1
-
1
-
The "deal" was being in the EU. I guess that's what people refuse to realize.
Yes, it wasn't totally benefitial to the UK, but that's what deals are all about - compromises.
What Boris and a part of the Brexit crowd was hoping for is a negotiation with more benefits and less compromisses... but that's extremely hard to get against a consolidated body with you being the only one threatening a leave. This is the stupid dumb way to go about it, specially when most things weren't thought through. Complacency gives room for raging idiots to take reactive uninformed actions that didn't take things in consideration properly and can only result in massive losses.
If UK politicians were smart about it, they would've formed a separate alliance or block of dissent against the EU first, put their demands up, and then threatened to take several countries out of EU, which could ultimately dissolve it or split in smaller blocks. That would've put more leverage into negotiations, that would force other countries to support EU reform or change the balance there - that would be the strategy that would bring the most benefits to UK.
I think UK overestimated their power and acted too soon, or just acted in a haphazard manner with local unpopular policies in mind. And this is why it is in the situation it's currently in. It is a political bloodless war, but it's still a type of war.
And the later it happens, the worse it is for the smaller party. Because by now, the EU, several participating countries, and even countries that are not part of the EU have probably already discussed and come up with strategies to exploit the most out of the UK in individual negotiations. It was basically shouting in all corners of the world that the UK was putting itself out of a consolidated strong position, and into a more fragile and less stable one, with all negotiations needing to be redone. You shoot yourself in the foot and try to negotiate it later on, you are gonna get a worse deal, it's only logical.
No deal Brexit is just putting even more faith into UK to make those deals afterwards, completely blind faith I might add, in a way that would be better than staying in EU. Or just vouching that years of chaos and a total economic downturn would ultimately be benefitial in the future, a future which is already not looking very bright right now regardless of diplomacy. It's mostly supported by idiots who don't totally understand how dependant every country is on economic deals. A total disconnect without any deals would put climate change to shame in terms of cause for economic devastation in the near future. People, cultures and countries handle sudden change very badly. At first, they don't get how much economics blocks and huge deals like those affect their daily lives, and then when it all comes crashing down, they cannot come up with strategies to combat it properly.
Most countries in the EU might not be as rich and developed as UK, but together they aren't going to take it, because together they still have the upper hand, they have the stability, the name, the security that the union created overtime. In fact, I guarantee you that several member states of the EU only sees this as an opportunity to impose even stricter rules, seeking more benefits to themselves and the block. Because now, you have a single country trying to negotiate with an union. That's just what logically happens. One of the reasons it was estabilished in the first place was to have better leverage against other economic blocks and developed countries anyways. UK is a big loss, but since no other country followed it blindly, the better strategy is to stay together to fight a common "enemy".
And since it's happening one way or another, the better strategy for EU and EU members is to wait out for UK to take the most damages possible being outside the block, and only then come to the negotiation table with the offer that benefits themselves the most, and gives the UK the worst possible offers. A few smaller private companies and corporations might even cave in to bigger demands from UK, but most of the bigger larger multinationals are pretty much in tune with EU already. They won't cross a major economic block like that to give favors to a single country. It's not in the best interest of any major international player to do so. It'll mostly always be better to lose the UK and strenghten their presence in other EU countries.
It's not only advantageous from an economic point, it also reinforces the idea that EU is needed for all participating countries. It gives more power to the idea of European Union, and it stomps away any reason for exiting or separatism, which is something that is needed to keep EU alive. There are lots of individual countries bad economic and political decisions that threaten other countries in the union, it's there to avoid all these major threats by force of an unified executive and legislative body. It's a pretty good way to keep a single extremely bad president, leader or party from ruining a member country. The EU, as an entity, will always act this way until the day it totally crashes, because it is the modus operandi of any economic block. It strives to keep the status quo, and it'll do everything it can in it's power to stay that way.
I don't care if you love, hate or is completely indifferent to economic blocks like EU, but this is how they operate on a very basic level.
But of course, this should've been known by anyone before Brexit ever came to be. The incredible stupidity of Brexit is just that - the way it was executed. And this is why it's following a very predictable path.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
These motherf*king late stage capitalist monopolies have adopted a new template to delay action and fool the major public to isolate people who actually care or work on things... just further proof that practices in late stage capitalism in US are morally bankrupt and dragging society into mud pits of despair.
At least the change in strategy signals that they are feeling the heat, but it's just so shameless it just disgusts me.
People will call me a commie and whatever crap that I've been called before, but I'll say it again because this seems to every now and then get traction and then die out right afterwards - what the US really needs is an end to corporate lobbying, a breakdown of monopolies and monopolistic practices, more regulations and regulatory bodies with teeth, and a general acceptance that even if late stage capitalism and letting it run it's course might have some attractive points to it (aka the infinitesimal chances of you getting filthy rich by being part of a tiny elite), the cost of that is that everyone else suffers from a range of abusive practices.
I've been saying this for several years how aghast I constantly am while reading about US politics, corporate practices and whatnot... there are some stuff that regular citizens have to deal with in the US that citizens in far poorer nations just don't. So we keep wondering how the heck the richest nation in the world by far can have reached such conditions. Which tends to lead to the no-no word for US liberals and conservatives, and to a point politics in general - wage gap, income inequality, power imbalance.
Macro scale, right to repair issues are a part of that.
And I've been growing increasingly more inclined to believe in some sort of coincidental or not conspiracy with news being constantly co-opted by shallow and clickbait discussions around political division and tribalism as a form of steering the discussion away and diverting attention from topics like that not to mess with the status quo.
The core issue of most US problems I hear about are imbalance of power and inequality. The loss of citizens rights, the loss of privacy, the control of every aspect of citizens' lives, government action and spending, at the hands of a tiny number of huge corporations and conglomerates, private companies basically enslaving people with debt by charging absurd sums for services and products that amounts to basic human rights... am I going insane here?
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
This video should serve as a reminder to anyone - China is not communist or socialist in regards to economy - only politics. It has strayed off the path of communist and socialist ideology long long ago, as many other self proclaimed communist regimes did.
And if we're talking about politics, China also isn't socialist nor communist - it's a dictatorship. Or an oligarchy, like Russia.
Reason why the entire talk just sounds like something out of western nations.
The graphics TLDR uses for analysis like these are often a bit misleading. They only take a handful of nations for comparison. Fact is, in most of those markers, several European nations are either close to or above China.
A pension crisis is coming for most developed and many developing nations. It's more a "problem" of people living longer, in such a way that existing policies and laws made in different times are not keeping up with that. A problem poor countries wishes they had perhaps?
While it is true that China, in comparison to developed nations, will have a harder time because it's GPD per capita isn't as high, that number can also be a bit misleading. Having a GDP per capita that is lower in comparison to other nations with currency exchange made to USD, doesn't take in consideration the cost of living there. The per capita dollar of a Chinese citizen gets them much more than the per capita dollar of an US, or European citizen on average.
Difference is still significant because of the magnitude in difference, but ultimately, it's comparable to most other developing nations anyways.
You want another relevant statistic on this, look for cost of living per country. That metric will give you in very approximate terms (because it's a fairly complex measure) the average cost of living including stuff like rent, utilities, food, hospital, etc etc - the bare minimum. With that you'll see that most developed nations have a cost of living that is 2 to 3x higher than developing nations.
So, weirdly enough, it's just not easy to really tell if China is in a worse position than say, the UK, Germany, France and others. The caste system in China that doesn't allow for someone from rural places to move fully to cities is a problem in itself, but you also need to consider that the reason why the pension is so different is because China is a country that has differences in cost of living internally that are like completely different nations. Beijing cost of living is closer to Japan, while rural areas are closer to poor nations.
So yeah... it is a very complex topic.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Yep... read too much like an ad piece, have to agree with everyone else, even though I do agree with the proposition.
Here's the thing all electric car proponents should know - cost, need for infrastructure and manufacturing will delay this electric car future by a whole lot.
I don't live in the US, so here's what I can say. In my country, gas cars are several times cheaper than electric cars. As in, electric cars are a super luxury here right now. If you are getting one, you probably intend to also have a backup gas car just in case, and will need to install the entire charging infrastructure at home because in the streets you are sol.
Gas car and other vehicles manufacturing is a huge source of jobs. Electric car manufactury seems to be overall adopting the massive replacement of jobs for automation. This is gonna have a big impact, perhaps not so much for countries where economies are not so dependant on this sector, but most definitely for countries that do, like mine.
Infrastructure proper to it like charging stations are still extremely paltry - to the point you cannot reliably make a trip with one. Not if you are going to smaller cities and expecting to charge your car in the way. Yes, you could use regular electricity from regular plugs, but not only those will charge way slower, most places here don't have a proper electric system that is adequate for stuff like charging cars.
Maintenance is yet another problem - they are far and few between and very expensive. The problem is having to import everything and needing specialized workers that are still in the minority. It is a new paradigm, so it'll take a while for people to adapt.
Finally, no, having to stop and wait for your car to be charged is a con in itself. Advertisements and pro electric car people need to step down their assumptions and their personal priviledged situations and understand that not every driver has the luxury of stopping in charging stations and wait for the batteries to charge. So, this is something for people to adapt to.
Further, let's add here: batteries have both an environmental cost, and a safety cost. Lithium is not an infinite resource, so it's a problematic factor. Even if modern battery technology allows for current electric cars to run for years on their original batteries, the fact is that at some point those will start failing, and become yet another source of toxic waste.
There is an obvious bias going on right now with electric car owners assuming that just because their daily routine is breezy and light enough to allow for these types of costs and cons don't affect too much their bottomline, that the same will be true for everyone else. It doesn't work like that.
Autonomous cars and the technology associated with it, even though isn't directly related with electric cars themselves, is poised to generate a whole ton of problems because of the way it's being made. First, it requires a whole ton of electronic circuitry and technology, which all have their own particular set of problems and particular industrial segmentation. Second, they are being made by technology monopolies that are highly interested in collecting your private data. Third, they are even more vulnerable to hacking and other computer related attacks in comparison to existing electronic systems of current gas cars. So, we're not only handing down the control and monitoring of cars to AIs, we are also handing it down to a very small set of tech monopolies.
Ok, now, with those in consideration. Electric cars have a way simpler construction overall. You are drawing power from batteries to drive a motor. This not only simplifies the overall build, and gives more control over things, but also reduces energy waste in general. So, it makes sense to go towards it. For gas, you need combustion chambers, the conversion of gas explosions to movement, the need to filter noxious gases and subproducts that results from this entire conversion, an extremely complex system to do all that, which weights a lot, heats a lot, wears down a lot, and needs constant replacement and repair of discardable parts. So yes, it is a more streamlined, elegant solution for cars.
The more we manage to source power from less complex and diversified sources, the easier it becomes to make it cleaner and simpler. For gas, you need transportation with ships and tank trucks, underground storages in gas stops, regulatory agencies and monitoring so this entire system isn't abused, among other stuff. Electricity goes through power lines. Ultimately, it'd be better if we had an incredibly robust eletricity generation and transmission system overall replacing both oil and gas as power sources, not only for cars, but for basically everything else.
Even though production of electricity, manufacturing of electric cars, and the battery production are all potential sources of pollution and toxic waste, gas cars are just simply worse overall. There are way more parts to break, way more disposable stuff going into trashcans, a pollution problem, noxious chemicals in several fronts, among other problems. With that, there's also the fact that gas cars haven't been significantly evolving for quite a while now. The tech is mature, and even some attempts to make them cleaner seems to be all fake and product of corrupted manufacturers alterating test results.
Now, for autonomy and use of tech, computers and AI. Unfortunately, humans have proven over and over and over again to be extremely bad drivers. The number of lives we lose every year because of drunk drivers or just plain incompetent drivers is staggering. The money and number of hours people spend on average during their lifetimes learning how to drive, fixing cars, and worrying about personal modes of transportation is just incalculable. There's definitely reason to worry about automating this entire aspect of peoples' lives, but I'd say we have to at least try considering the current costs.
I could go on and on with this, but suffice to say that yes, I do agree that we have to try to make electric cars... "the future". I do highly doubt though that it'll be smooth sailing. This is a paradigm change that will have big advantages, but also generate big problems.
1
-
1
-
Sharing the experience of banks in my portion of the world, I don't want to totally dump on them, in my country they actually try... or tried keeping up with the latest security practices, but it's just kind of a mess, and I'm not totally sure why.
It's a very scatterbrained, patchy, weird confluence of different strategies, as if whoever controls it is some old guy trying to read as much as possible on security, getting it only superficially or not at all, and then trying to pile up together whatever he can.
Practical example, my bank. Ever since online banking popularized, it has done a combination of things that include - just a 4 digit pin, then 8 digit passwords with alphanumeric, then they started forcing people to use at least one number and one upper case digit, then it went on to special characters and a bigger character count.
It has also employed a physical card with random numbers printed on it as a second factor, it still uses a javascript keyboard to insert the password, it has different passwords for different functions, then currently it has ToTP but their own, you need to install their app to use it and they gave it some other name. ATMs went credit or debit card plus password only for a very long time, but then the jackpotting wave came (way earlier than in the US I'll add), and now some ATMs have a wireless chip reader for cards, and my bank even has some ATMs with biometrics - but it's not fingerprint, it's wrist vein scanners. You can do some limited transactions with only the biometric authentication, you'll need a card and password for more than that.
It's just so incongruous... I'm not sure why banks absolutely refuse to use authentication methods that are readily available and widely used in the market. Oh, I dunno of any bank down here that uses hardware based auth like Yubikey, and get this - most banks and credit card companies are still using SMS. D'OH
Credit cards have also been a wide ride. You know those manual carbon copy machines? Those ceased to exist... I think more than 2 decades ago. Credit card skimmers and shimmers showed up here almost a decade before they started showing up in the US if I'm not mistaken, so we transitioned very soon to chip and pin. Very slow transition tbh, I think most PoS machines still have the magstrip reader, but I never see anyone using it anymore. Perhaps it's because of some special types of card, not exactly credit or debit though.
Currently, most new cards have contactless chips in them, both to use on ATMs and on PoS. On PoS machine it's usually contactless, and if the value of the purchase is too high you also have to insert a PIN.
PoS machines are rented, they are not bought... well, for the major banks I mean. So there is no stretched out transition period for new tech, they just update the machine with the new stuff in, so it happened pretty fast. It's a special kinda rental that people in retail replace them, at least for maintenance, after a given period of time.
I think the newest thing I found out on my bank is that it offers virtual credit cards now, and I think most major banks also do. I don't think there are third parties that offer the service in my country, and this came out way later than in the US because online shopping took longer to catch up.
It's only a virtual card though, it's not a private card that obscures private information. But the bank app does generate one card per purchase, so that if someone steals the information it's pretty much useless.
But you know, eventually, most organized crime was migrating towards online fraud and scams, so at some point banks and credit card companies probably realized they had to do something.
Paypal took to long to get here, and it didn't or couldn't close deals with most of the major eCommerce websites, so you still have lots of shops that requires Credit Card data, which is just stupid. Once that information is stolen, anyone can buy stuff on the Internet with it.
Finally, we also already have a central bank controlled digital payment system that uses QR Code plus a bunch of different optional identifiers, with all banks offering apps to use it. Must've been modeled after what Chinese chat apps uses.
This thing was introduced during the pandemic, and it caught like wildfire, as you can imagine. Online shopping also finally caught up during the pandemic, so it has become huge nowadays. And I think in the end it only boosted up the prevalence of people using something like WhatsApp, which was already widely used even for B2C communication. Wish it was Signal, but you know, at least it's not SMS or Telegram.
Guess that's more or less it.
1
-
It's pretty easy to understand why these cases are growing in frequency if you have a proper external view to it - it's just a consequence of late stage capitalism.
And no, it's not going to stop... it's only going to get worse over the years. Every new case signals that this is one very reasonable way to go if you are trying to make it.
There are several ways to approach an explanation to this, and I'm no specialist, but I'll try.
On one hand, because the US let monopolies take over entire sectors of the market, this basically means that anyone trying to start a small to medium business in practice is limited to few areas, if any.
For those who want to lead their own businesses, it's gonna be a thin margins operation because of how monopolies control price, and whoever is going at it can never expect their business to scale, because if you scale then the monopolies will come and trample all over you using some of the dirtiest anti-trust tactics. They do it because there is no real punishment for it.
If you go big enough, you might also enter this category of people where punishment is not necessarily all that bad.
So, it seems a viable alternative to killing yourself off into a business that you can never expect to grow, into the late stage capitalism scheme, to go into the whole casino that is investment and speculation side of the thing. So, you want investment money with pie in the sky promisses that your business will somehow carve a niche among the monopolies.
This is particularly true for people who think highly of themselves, which US culture always foster, you have a right to try to go big as many else did before you. You heard about all these survivorship bias stories and you want to be part of it.
Some have managed to do it in the past, perhaps your company also can.
Thing is, the model, the examples that did it... they are all crap.
You have social networks that got rich by destroying US citizen right to privacy, monopolizing the ad market, and also lying about their numbers, you have "ridesharing" apps that got rich by bypassing welfare and workers' rights and destroying a well regulated albeit infamous line of work - taxis, you have "couchsurfing" apps that got rich by bypassing regulations of the hospitality sector, inflating the real estate market, and creating all sorts of other late stage capitalism related issues.
You go back a couple of decades and it seems the majority if not all the big examples you get are all like that. The online retail giant that grew up by trampling everyone else, the electronics company that got big by using all the anti-consumer practices they could pass, the bank alternative scheme that skyrocketted by feeding on illegal markets and fooling a ton of small time investors out of their lifetime savings, the digital alternative to the fine art market that took the money out of a ton of idiots, the workspace sharing company that was really a real estate speculation company slash ponzy scheme thing...
So, with all this in mind, is it really all that surprising that people who have any sort of ambition to get rich will desperately try anything they can, reaching a point they see they need to do some sort of illegal scheme to get there?
When the market they are basing their actions in, and the model they are trying to follow, is already as corrupt as it is?
Thing is, the US grew to be comfortable with all of this.
Here's another point to munch on. Where do you think the rise in alt-right and far right politics in the US, with several representatives and the biggest figure behind it all being grifters, scammers and corrupt people, if not out right criminals, comes from?
This is just late stage capitalism reaching the cultural and structural level.
They are as unhinged as corporations are. You know the saying that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely? Is it just a coincidence that SCOTUS has now some of the most corrupt judges in US history, and it's related to billionaires buying their way into court decisions, the same way these billionaires also lobby and fund, having a whole ton of politicians in their pockets, on both sides of the aisle?
Is it just by chance that the US has people, like the Pharma bro but many many others, like the Sackler family, like so many others that are willing to do bold faced stuff like raise essencial drug prices up to 1000%, or the family that triggered the worst illegal drug addiction crisis in US history closing deals with justice to become practically immune to further lawsuits by paying a paltry sum when compared to their wealth and compared to the damages they've done?
It is all late stage capitalism. And no, the current government is not fighting against it. It's barely nibbling at the borders of the problem. It's already established that the electorate is not willing to vote for someone who will really attack the problem, and the country is divided enough that a government will never have full power to do the necessary changes, not for the next decade or so.
And so yes, cases like this one will continue happening. I can already predict that with every new trend and fad, a bunch of cases like this one will come. Arguably, AI is just part of the trend, really. The guy behind ChatGPT already behaves exactly like expected. Much like his predecessors, he goes asking for regulation he knows won't happen, he fools both people and politicians that the tech is a force for "good", while doing anything he can to ignore all the dangers and ill effects it'll have in society, the economy, and many other things.
It's actually progressively getting worse. Like, with social media I could see in the beginning the benefitial side of it until it got co-opted and corrupted to the point it currently is. It was about family and friends sharing updates on their lives with each other. But it progressively became an inflamatory and incendiary fake news machine aiming for ad revenue alone.
The sharing economy had a reasonable enough proposition that took no time to go to it's worst conclusion. In the beginning it was about sharing stuff to make optimal use of it, avoid waste. Then it became about people in between jobs making their own work hours, a quick buck to fill in the gap, yadda yadda. It became a permanent exploitive job for the poor in almost no time.
AI... well, AI doesn't even have a good proposition in the first place. It's all about algorithms ingesting a ton of stole stuff to spit up recombinations that will kill jobs, kill entire sectors, just because. It's trading convenience for whatever.
Anyways, this is how I see it... feel free to disagree I guess. :P
1
-
Migration towards Linux is my path, which I've been delaying for well over a decade now tbh...
I'll also try once again to switch my mom's laptop to Linux, but she's very used to Windows 10 and I'm not sure if she'll be able to keep using the laptop for what she needs if we switch, so paying for updates is still on the table. It'll likely be a mix of things. On one hand, if major problems ever happen, I don't think she'll be able to get any help until I go there to see. On the other, there are several things that Windows throws up on the screen out of nowhere that ends up stopping her from using the laptop already, things I expect Linux not to do. So eh...
Windows 11 isn't on the table. I don't want to have to deal with a broken OS that sh*ts the bed everytime a new update comes around, all because of anti-consumer exploitive bs coming from an untrustworthy corporation that cares only about mass private data collection, predatory payment schemes and other stuff to suck their costumers dry. I used to defend the company years ago when people were piling up jokes and memes about it because Windows Vista btw. I don't feel like defending it anymore. It's gone to the absolute dumps. Not after the Windows 7 to 10 update debacle, plus the whole telemetry stuff. And it seems the company learned nothing from that. It continues using aggressive and shady attempts to force you to upgrade, last one happened just this past week for me. My current PC is compatible with Windows 11, but that doesn't matter. It keeps pestering me to upgrade, and I'm tired of making it clear that I won't. I also don't wanna deal with any company that is going into the tech hype trends, don't care about AI, don't care about the current Microsoft business model.
Nonetheless, I've been on this path for several years already. I eliminated most Windows dependent software and apps from usage, I'm already testing Mint and Fedora on a small separate computer, moving stuff towards a home server instead of relying on per device configurations. All to make the transition as painless as possible.
My strategy will most likely be the same as when the Windows 7 shift happened. I kept and old desktop running it offline just in case I needed to do some repair and diagnostic works for myself or people who needed it, but ultimately barely used it. We'll see if my current use case even requires that anymore... probably not, but I need to be careful.
The only problems I know I'll have is regarding diagnostic tools and perhaps some other very specific stuff... not because they don't exist on Linux, there are probably even better tools on Linux, but because I'm used to stuff on Windows. Console stuff is still a bit of black magic for me personally, but I wanna learn things overtime.... after all, I started messing with computers on Basic and then DOS, there is no reason why I wouldn't be able to learn how to deal with Linux command line. xD
It's just the usual thing - online you can find plenty of resources, but if you need someone local to explain things, that's always gonna be a harder ask.
I'm with Cris though... I hope this boosts desktop Linux adoption to new highs in 2025. It solves the chicken and egg problem. The more people using Linux, the more comfortable others will be to adopt it. The more people adopt it, the more pressure there will be for developers to put their stuff in it. And we have a lot of room, and the basis necessary in Linux as an OS, to shape it to be used securely and privately for all sorts of applications. We just need more and more people from all areas getting involved. It's a very reasonable solution for a whole ton of crap that has been pilling up in the OS space for years now, but it is a solution that needs lots of work and traction to compensate for the cultural/social inertia.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Here's the big problem with Geoengineering - if there is anything that Climate Change is revealing and proving in practice, is that current human societies are incapable of fully predicting long term consequences of large scale changes, and that we are unable to act promptly in response to large scale effects that comes from those changes. It's why we're in this situation in the first place.
Climate Change is a type of geoengineering, just an accidental one. It's large scale global change caused by artificial processes that have a proven significant effect on the planet that might render it uninhabitable for us.
So, what's the problem then? Well, you can imagine that, given that we had several decades of findings on Climate Change, we have demonstrable horrible effects of it happening for years, we have all the science backing and several minds around it, and significant findings and support, we still are not able to do much about it... this is likely true to any other geoengineering project. It's effectively uncontrollable, for us.
And the thing is, any geoengineering project that is aiming for faster widespread effects, will potentially also have faster widespread unpredicted side effects, of which we will likely not be able to neutralize or remediate, given our history. It doesn't matter if we put the most brilliant minds to it, just as much putting the most brilliant minds to climate change isn't solving it.
The thing is, all these proposed geoengineering projects might look mostly good in a bigger picture, or at least manageable and applicable in last case scenarios, but really - we don't know. What is being presented is an extremely optimistic and biased view, because we want to believe so much there is a simple shortcut to solving the climate crisis. So we overlook enormous logical gaps like trying to say anything we do would be anywhere close to a volcanic eruption. You know it wouldn't be. We don't even understand volcanic eruptions properly, how can people think aerosolizing chemicals into the atmostphere would have the exact same effects? Of course it won't. We don't get the entire process, and we are already taking shortcuts to say one is equal to another.
Much like it took us too long to understand the implications of pumping too much CO2, methane and other gases into the atmostphere, we don't really know, don't have the tools to accurately predict, and won't have enough time to really know every single effect that geoengineering projects can have - because the number of variables and number of potential effects are essencially infinite.
And the faster those unpredicted effects come, the less we're able to respond. Climate Change might not lead to a humanity extinction event, we're not totally sure, but geoengineering projects to counter it has several times more chances of doing it for us, because it's supposed to act faster, it's supposed to be a fast counter act to climate change. And as some people will know, the problem isn't the change, the problem is speed. What life is generally vulnerable to is fast change that surpasses it's ability to adapt.
You know how we can't even, as humans, create software that is bug and vulnerability free? Geoengineering is a problem orders of magnitude more complex. And the consequences for errors are deadly, up to mass extinction.
What would we need to do Geoengineering more safely? We'd need a perfect Earth simulation, with as many variables as possible included, if not all. If we had anything close to that, here's other stuff that we'd already be able to predict at this point - volcanic activity, weather systems, natural disasters.... climate change effects.
So, in essence, we let unqualified people mess with the Earth's atmosphere, and now we're expecting unqualified people to do a quick fix for it. I'm not trying to offend any scientist who is thinking of and working on geoengineering projects, this is just a fact. No one today is qualified enough to tell the full breadth of consequences that any proposed geoengineering project may cause. It's outside our species capabilities to do it currently. Planet Earth, if looked as a system, is so massively complex and interconnected that we'd really need something like a Matrioshka brain to predict consequences of changes in the near to far future.
So, ultimately, it's a high stakes high risk gamble. Geoengineering would be humanity's biggest gamble with least chances of winning. If there is any opportunity for us to do something else, we should avoid it. But as a last hurrah, why not? Do or die, sure. But I'd still prefer a Mad Max future to it, at least it's a future.
1
-
Yep, pretty crazy. I don't think I'd ever pay 25 grant a month for whatever apartment out there even if I had the means to, but then again, this is probably for the billionaires for whom 25 grant is pocket change, they have their own entourage of people that are better options than luxury hotel staff, and so it'd make more sense...
Still, why not purchase or build an entire thing for yourself? xD
I mean, if I was a billionaire, I'd be dreaming higher. I'd definitely have my own real estate there instead of renting, plus the private jet and helicopter to get there whenever I wanted to... hoo boy. :P
But outside that state of mind, current me... I'm not sure I'd even wanna live in the middle of Shibuya. Say someone gave me a place to live up to 25 thousand bucks a month, I'd probably stay a bit away from Tokyo central, quieter neighborhood, probably even bigger penthouse... if you can even find 25 thousand buck apartments a month outside Tokyo central that is.
1
-
Good value for money it seems... I'm seeing many bluetooth headphone on eBay and chinese websites that have a similar style, but they probably are not sweat resistant.
I've been personally using for... I think 5 different models up to now the Sony NWZ series. The last two models are bluetooth (previously they were standalone mp3 players), and IP68 - water resistant to immersion up to 1m. I went swimming with it, no problems. I mean, it's weird to swim with them anyways - sound gets muffled and all, but it works.
Then again, it's a 200 bucks mp3 player/bluetooth headset, and it has the pressure bands that goes around the back of the neck which some people don't like, but for me personally it's the only thing that really stays in place while I'm running. I've tried phones with the over the ear things, and that flap thing that gets lodged, among several other solutions... either sweat or movement will always move the earpiece and require adjustments while running. It's like, they don't completely fall off, but they get loose.
Oh, the latest model also has an isolation bypass mode for those worried about not being able to listen to ambient sounds. It works relatively well. You can pause music and have a conversation without having to take the earpiece out, and you can listen to loud sounds over the music without worries.
I'll always recommend it for people who tried everything and couldn't find something that stays put in ear... but it's just cheaper if you can find something else. These days you can find some pretty good stuff without paying a whole lot of money. I just buy the Sonys because I know it works for me, and I already lost too much money on other phones that ended up not working for me.
1
-
1
-
Curious to know if every country has something like Macau or Las Vegas.
Gambling is an addiction and a problem, but it seems no countries are able to fully get rid of some form of it.
I know, for instance, that while in Japan gambling is illegal, the actual reality of it is that pachinkos are everywhere and that you will see lines forming an hour or so before them opening. Saw it myself. They get prizes instead of money, but crossing the street you'll always find a place that buys back those prizes. It's a way of evading gambling laws and it's been working that way for a while in the country. Horse racing still exists there too. There's also a very interesting history on it regarding yakuza.
Here in Brazil (HUEHUE) gambling is also illegal. But it doesn't matter because there are plenty of places to do it, from poker games to bingo and other types like "jogo do bicho". All in all, for people who have a gambling addiction there are plenty of places to go for, and if someone really wants to go for traditional Las Vegas style gambling you just have to cross the border to Argentina and do it there. I used to live close to the border, and I've seen the places. I also have a cousin that is pretty much addicted to high stakes competitive poker... even though it's illegal, he's always talking about private competitions he was in, full blown conventions, and stuff like that.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Man, I'd love to be part of the EV revolution.... or just plainly get a car that is more straightforward and energy source independent or something like that.
In fact, I've been holding on to my 1998 junker that consumes a ton of blinker fluid in the hopes my next car would be electric, or at least hybrid.
The unfortunate reality here though is - you can't get an EV because there is no infrastructure to it. Plus, of course, here an electric car is luxury, not up for consideration for average middle class peasants like myself.
I'm not even asking for a whole lot... if it gets to a point that it's feasible to get a low range EV at a price point I can afford, I can live with a car that I won't be able to put on the road, just to urban commute and limits. Unfortunately, we're just not even there yet. We're at a stage a single US city will likely have more EV stations that my entire state has, perhaps even entire country...
1
-
1
-
1
-
That's a pretty bad, unfair title... sorry. I understand the conclusion of the video fixes it, but it's not right for it to be there in the first place, particularly with the current political climate.
Matter of perspective I guess.
Like said, China didn't so much break the world's recycling as it's forcing it to be changed so responsabilities and management is distributed more fairly. It's fixing what was broken from start.
Not that it was done purely out of China's altruistic heart or anything like that... it's just that with China's growth, economic rise, and modernization processes, as well as, ironically, pressures from the international community for China to "clean up it's act", both recycling industries became less attractive as a way for profit, and China itself started generating as much plastic as developed countries, so it's overburdened with it's own trash already.
Want proof of that? Simple. Do you see a lowering of chinese exports due to lack of raw materials? Nope. China generates more than enough plastic to be recycled by itself already. It doesn't need trash from other countries. And it doesn't need to rely on cheap labor and cheap unregulated recycling processes that ends up with tons of people dying from diseases related to it.
Because the fair way of looking at such things is, each country should deal with their own trash, period.
US, as the global biggest producer of trash should clean up it's act and stop thinking that trash magically disappears into thin air when it's actually being exported to pollute and cause disease to citizens of poorer countries.
I feel that there should be some sort of action for this to become clearer to US citizens.
You know one way to make people quickly realize how bad the trash problem is? Stop trash collection for a month. You'll see how quickly people start adapting and changing how they face the problem.
Alas, it's obvious that countries, particularly developed ones, don't want to deal with that. Evidenced by the shift that is happening.
You'd think with China blocking up trash imports that countries would get more responsible, but now the trash is simply going to poorer more vulnerable asian countries instead. It's just getting redistributed to countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philipines and others, often via illegal criminal trade.
Something that the video didn't go through a lot, but I've seen in other docs. There's a lot of developed nations trash getting illegaly into unsanctioned criminal recycling centers... or rather, illegal trash dumps in poor asian countries. Weak port regulations and criminal factions are being used to illegaly bring in developed nations trash into countries that don't want it. That's how bad the situation is. Developed nations are not only dumping their crap onto others, they are also giving money to organized crime and knowingly violating local laws. Several developed nations should be facing sanctions for the stuff they've been doing, but you know how these things go.
And then comes a bunch of uneducated people from these countries criticizing the pollution and the unregulated dumping ground practices of poor countries. It's as insulting as it can get.
There are more than a few ways of solving it, and given the scope of the problem and it's consequences, it shouldn't be seen as completely unviable... hard to achieve, yes, but not unviable.
And honestly, they've been proposed and around for the best part of the past half millenia or so.
It should be easier to do than cleaning up power generation, if only there was a will to do it properly by people in power.
Consumers shifting it's purchases for products that use recycled or truly biodegradable plastics is one way, yes, but it's not a very effective one, particularly in nations that are currently divided in tribalistic political stances. People remain too uninformed or uninterested to do much about it en masse.
Regulation is a major one that should've been done from start. Companies making products with virgin plastic should be responsible for taking care of the end result of it too.
They can solve it by using less plastics, and/or using recycled plastics. Taxation can be calculated in such a way, either adding more or releaving tax burdens depending on the performance of these corporations, not on arbitrary stupid utopic ideals like "they will potentially create more jobs" and other crap like that. Do it first, receive the benefits later on.
It also optimizes the processes as they'll be more interested in making products that can be recycled or discarded safely.
It's not really a new thing. There are countries that standardized the production of pet bottles and the way they get recycled in order to optimize the process. It's not a matter of whether it can be done, it's a matter of forcing them to do it with methods that are already working elsewhere.
And the other option that was also shown in the video is to fund better and accelerate research on breaking down plastics and making them safer for the environment. We don't know what sorts of results these will give, but we likely need all potential alternatives at hand.
Also, it's not like we didn't have any progress... we did have some wins in recent years. But it's not enough. We need political will and mass movement towards this. Enough is enough.
1
-
1
-
1. This happened yesterday. Or rather, the decision came in effect yesterday, the vote was last year. Vice's video is late on YouTube, as usual... or rather, it seems it's a repost;
2. None of the examples given really calibrated their scales with the International Prototype. The change only really potentially affects labs and manufacturers of extremely precise scales and whatnot. It's still significant, to be clear, a decision that had to happen for the betterment of science - but the video is overselling it a bit;
3. The standard for measurement of the Kilogram has changed, but the value for the kilogram itself did not. And I'm not sure if this came out clear enough. Planck's constant was used in such a way to coincide with what we consider the Kg today. So it's not like something that weighted 1Kg last week weights something different today - it's the same thing, the only thing that changed is how exactly we define that.
The general problem of having a physical object defining what is supposed to be a constant is that even if you use extremely inert materials and keep it at ideal conditions, it's still gonna change overtime - which makes it NOT a constant.
So, the Kg has deviated over the years... an imperceptible ammount, but it did. Micrograms. Which is impressive in itself given it's history.
People talking about it not mattering because in the US you guys use pounds. Well, a pound is defined as a fractional value of a Kg, officially. So it still matters.
About the meter, it's another example of unit of measurement that was changed to fit a true constant - the speed of light. A meter is nowadays defined as the length light travels for an extremely small ammount of time... it's a teeny tiny fraction of a second. But the change happened back in 1983.
Back to the Planck constant... that goes waaay over my head. It's quantum mechanics. I've seen it described as the smallest action and electron can take, if that helps. But more importantly, it estabilishes a relationship between the kilogram, meters and seconds. Since the last two are already true constants, that makes the kilogram also a constant that can be calculated using a mathematical formula.
Hope this helps.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
The worst thing about this isn't even the government, which we already know is evil enough. It's because it empowers people filled with prejudice and hatred. It incentivizes the worst types of behavior and worst instincts in citizens. People with the predisposition for violence and hatred use laws like that as an excuse to abuse others, get into extremist groups, justify vigilante action and whatnot. And then people who are not predisposed to it finds the perfect excuse to look away and do nothing when they see abuse happening. People start seeing human right abuses as "they were asking for it" and stuff like that. It contaminates all sorts of institutions that were supposed to protect the people, turning them into machines for repression.
When the state choses to treat it's citizens differently based on some arbitrary idea, what it often results in is genocide, particularly when the targeted portion is a minority.
Russia is well under way of becoming something like a modern Nazi state. It's killing, oppressing or forcing anyone who disagrees with government views to go into exile, it's radicalizing the base and putting only staunch supporters in position of power, and then shoving everyone else in expendable positions. It already killed free press and continues marching further into totalitarianism.
The parallels to Nazi Germany are chilling, particularly for those who don't fall into the Hollywood myth and have learned more closely how Germany got there.
It's the same sort of ramp up all over again, with few adaptations to modern times.
Given how Putin, in position of authoritarian dictator, already has no qualms in committing every possible war crime to a neighboring nation, directly targeting civilians and giving zero value to human lives, and how his ideology is based on a distorted religion, his next step will be rounding up people he doesn't see fit for his reich in gulags, concentration camps or "re-education facilities" and doing whatever his regime wants with people, including mass killings. The difference is that now this all is happening at the hands of a country with the power to end humanity, allied with other nations that also have the power to end humanity, multiple times over, at an inflection point in time we should be working together to stop a potential mass extinction event no less.
Einstein might have been wrong on his prediction. There might not be a WWIV to fight in the end, or even WWIII will have to be fought with sticks and stones already depending on timing.
1
-
1
-
You wouldn't need an apprenticeship, lots of patience, or any real training to replace those parts... IF manufacturers and brands didn't make it specifically hard to repair the phones just to force people to either buy a new device or have to go through their authorized repair programs which mostly do not fix anything, they just directly tell you for a vast majority of cases that it's "unfixable", and that you need to pay for a new one if you want your phone back, even if it's actually plenty fixable with anyone with a little training and the right parts.
This is more than proven by brands that actually make phones that are fixable, like Fairphone. Well, it's proof enough how older smartphones were just easier to fix some 10 years ago or so. Smartphone companies purposefully killed the development and mass production of replaceable batteries so you are left with no option but to get these devices that are glued up together carrying batteries that are glued to the chassis of the phone just so it'd hard to replace them.
Not only that, both Apple and Samsung, the biggest smartphone brands for western nations, are continuing to implement a myriad of policies, components and designs that makes it harder for phones to be fixed, on purpose. Their bullshit claims of environmentalism falls flat to anyone who understands what they are doing. Apple has already moved towards locking hardware components via firmware... you can't replace broken components anymore because there is an authentication process between parts that if they don't match, even if components are from the exact same model, they simply will refuse to work together.
Samsung on the other side is applying for country wide bans of specific components such as smartphone screens based on bullshit claims of copyright ownership. They mean to stifle independent repair as a whole by stopping the free trade of component parts.
What we need is government action to stop these predatory actions, crushing up eWaste to recover rare minerals is the worst possible way to make use of old devices - it's more costly than mining new minerals, it's damaging for the environment because it requires toxic chemicals to do so, and it's mostly something done for show alone - there have been multiple reports that eWaste is majorly exported to poor countries with no regulations or environmental protection, where this waste ends up in poor regions of the country where people will use these chemicals to extract rare minerals at huge costs on their health and their environments.
So there you go. If you are interested in this industry, don't trust me, do your own research. I didn't even touch the surface on the bad practices of smartphone makers.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
I've nothing against any sports as you know, fun physical activities, but as for competitions, both on a national and global level, we just need to start from scratch. FIFA and Olympics, I don't care to attack the stuff that everyone loves about these, but the organizations are just rotten to the core, and much like John, I don't see how any of them are changing for the better, and quite frankly I'm tired of waiting for things to get even a little bit better overtime. It just gets worse. It's a race to the bottom. Profit above everything, and corruption all the way.
And mind you, I'm saying this as a Brazilian. We've seen first hand how bad things can get with these organizations. No matter how important you personally feel those games are in your life, it simply isn't worth what we are trading for it.
1
-
Great to see Vice covering this very important... thing that's been growing in brazilian politics which is close to going out of control.
To be clear, the evangelical take over of brazilian politics didn't happen overnight, nor it started after the current series of corruption scandals and deposition of the populist left.
It's been slowly but surely advancing for a while now.
In a way, it's to be expected in a country that has been building the biggest, most absurd temples of worship in the most prime real estate for years.
To be clear, I have no problems with religion myself, even if I'm non-religious.
But as with anything that touches human hands, power corrupts. And in the case of several evangelical temples, there is no doubt that corruption is involved.
You basically have some very charismatic people using everything from simple oratory to total and complete propaganda and brainwashing techniques to harvest whatever money they can get from the poorest, only in numbers. Some churches have a fixed charging rate of 10% of wages from it's followers. They might be getting even bellow the minimum wage, but when you add up hundreds of thousands of people, it doesn't take much time for some of those priests to become millionaires.
And then, of course they'll get power hungry and overtake politics so they can not only force their own beliefs on an entire population, but also find a way to get even more money from even more people.
It's widely known that some of these evangelical churches basically have a whole bunch of real estate in some of the more expensive locations throughout Brazil. Unoccupied apartments and mansions that are there as investments, to launder the money collected from some of the poorest brazilian citizens.
I'm not saying all evangelical churches operate this way, but several do.
And just a reminder: Brazil is a secular state. Or at least it's supposed to be, like many other countries in the world.
Catholicism and evangelism might be the majority, but Brazil is an extremely diverse country when it comes to religion - as it is with immigrants.
The root problem here though is, as with many other countries, just a poor educational system, ignorance, and a certain glamourization of it. It's partially what led us to the current political situation, it's what puts the country in jeopardy of dropping out of secularism, and it's what makes Brazil a big potential target to schemes like the Russian interference.
There is simply too many people lacking critical reasoning and blindly believing religious leaders and whatnot to make their own decisions. Either that or TV/soap opera celebrities, dunno which is worse.
People wouldn't believe the sorts of bills and some of the ignorant crap I have to hear coming out from politicians mouths at times... to the point of questioning if whoever wrote that even had primary education in the first place. It's baffling.
1
-
1
-
Sometimes I wonder how much Lego profits from a kids version of FOMO... xD
I understand Lego has super fans, that lots of kids have fun with it, that it stimulates creativity, that it's often used as an educational tool, etc etc all the stuff you hear about from fans.
But at the same time, paradoxically, I really don't see it as something most kids really enjoy. Like really get into. I see it more like a staple. Something most kids go to when they are out of choices, or if they are actively stimulated to go after.
The video itself has the biggest examples spread throughout of what I generally see kids doing with Legos. It's kinda like drawings and paintings. Yes, there are kids that are super into it spending entire afternoons drawing and painting, and it is part of education and a creative process. But again, not all kids gets super into it, they'll mostly do it at some point of their lives because of school activities of parents trying to keep them occupied with something. Draw a father's day card or something. Art class. Etc.
Most of the kids I've seen play with Legos just slap some stuff together, they get tired of it some minutes in, and then they take it to their parents, cousins and whatnot. Hold it, don't mess with it. xD
It's not that I'm trying to belittle Lego or anything like that, I had a few sets when I was a kid and prices weren't batshit crazy where I live, and I also drawed and painted as a kid.
I'm just not entirely sure if I buy the whole spiel about how much it stimulates creativity, how universal it is, how etc etc it is. Sometimes this entire idea feels like a crutch, in a way. It has less to do with how kids see it, and more to do with aiming for the lowest common denominator. Legos are simple, easy, clean, genderless and like a sandbox of sorts, so it became a staple. But from that point on to overstretching it's characteristics, I hesitate to agree.
It also certainly is not the simplest toy. It's extremely far from being the cheapest, most reachable and available too. A stick is a simpler toy.
Particularly where I live, Legos are basically unreachable for the absolute vast majority of kids, because their prices are insane. You can buy a gaming console plus a few games with prices put on the bigger sets.
Partnering with big franchises was a genious move because that's what sells them. So this is probably another dig into the whole spiel.
But I don't wanna rain in any fan's parade... there is nothing inherently wrong with the toy, and out of all options among toys, Lego bricks are certainly on the right side of things.
1
-
1
-
1
-
The thing I have been seeing the most in recent videos on politics is far-right people denying that a party is far right.
I think it'd be useful for news networks to give a clear definition to stop this charade. I know for most of us the definition is pretty clear, but perhaps TLDR and some other news networks should really define it better so that we don't have this discussion every single f*ing time.
Just so people questioning the nomenclature knows.
Parties with conservative, neo-liberal, traditional and defensive of status quo are generally right.
Far right is when you pick those stances and takes it to extremes. It's in the name.
Now, for things that may or may not show in far right parties, but usually have a good combination of these:
- party with former associations with nazis, neo-nazis, violent separatist groups, violent sectarian groups, authoritarianism or fascists. Whenever politicians fails to condemn, or even have and give support of extreme ideologies, be it because they agree with it, or because their political project is about power alone and doesn't care about extreme viewpoints of it's electorate, it tends towards the extremes;
- parties that uses populism, historical revisionism, nationalism, jingoism, disguised or direct racism, general alarmism, FUD, general prejudice, conspiracy theories, fake news, lies, psychological warfare, among other types of strategies to defend their own ideology and attack that of others, always trying to paint every single issue as a black and white issue - you are either with us, or against us - there is no middleground;
- parties that overpromise and underdeliver, particularly on sensitive complex topics that they say they are worried or even paint it a country ending thing, but treat it as superficially as possible, and than proceed to blame it for everything that is wrong in a given nation, promising shortcut solutions that are either not viable, not permitted by law or constitution - which of course never gets done because it was only meant to incense their base;
- parties that ignore or even attack what scientific data, consensus, or statistics shows, just to inflame their base against a government or opposition, or minority groups, for the sole purpose of gaining power and traction among the electorate;
- parties that constantly attack several pillars of democracy as if this was part of the democratic process itself, like attacking elections as a whole or portions of it, attacking the separation of church and state, trying to impose religious precepts as rule, using the state to impose personal opinions and will, attacking regulatory bodies particularly when it comes to decisions regarding public safety and health, attacking minority groups or persecuted groups as cause of all the problems of the country;
- parties with a ton of criminals, figures that have been constantly accused of or even condemned for crimes regarding hate crimes and corruption crimes, with a base that constantly ignore those, looking less like a political party and more like a radical cult of brainwashed people;
- parties that appeal to violence, hatred, that indirectly or directly calls for attacks and violence against opposition, minority groups, persecuted groups, and whatnot. They also tend to be pro hard on crime stances - that is, when it's about poor people drug addicts and whatnot. When it's about themselves, it's all "political persecution" or "fake news" accusations;
- parties that constantly try to label the opposition, or even anyone who disagrees with their ideas, in simplistic terms that even they don't know how to define, but that tries to pass a sort of "evil" labeling to it's followers - such as "woke", "communists", "far left", "woke left", "socialists" etc. Red scare tactics and demonization is a pretty common strategy, but they themselves don't wanna be labeled for actions that defines themselves;
- conspiracy theorists galore. They are coming for us, the billionaire figures of families, big something something, shadow government, new world order, globalists, vaccine mongers, lizard people, blood drinking pedophile cabal, yadda yadda yadda;
- project for power that usually ignores everything in a democratic regime, with plans that includes finding breaches in democracy, law, and government structures to attack it to gain more power. This is just another aspect of fascism, but I think it's worth pointing out in isolation. So stuff like Project 2025 is a clear sign of a far right strategy in a project for power;
- much like nazis, fascist governments in the past, military dictatorships, among other radical groups, they want to label themselves as a "superior race" of sorts, creating divides in the population, trying to dehumanize minority groups, using terms like it being "unnatural" or stuff like against God's will, sinners, aberrations, criminals, pedophiles, child abusers, and stuff like that broadly applied, while they call themselves good Samaritans, traditional families, real **insert nationality here**, honest hard working people, and other terms you might've seen or heard out there;
Is there a far left that uses similar tactics like those for power? Yes, there is. But it has been so muted and small these days that it just doesn't show up in politics anymore. Eco terrorists could be considered far left, where and if they have a political party. People willing to break laws and persecute others to advance their will. There used to be more people in this group in the past, but it usually doesn't work well in politics because far left is generally anti-government in most capitalist nations. So you are more likely to find far-left people just going away to live in isolation from the rest of society because it's capitalist democratic societies that ruined everything in their opinion, there is no point in joining politics when politics is part of the problem.
The major far left experiment failed a long time ago, you just know it by other names. Communes. Hippies. etc.
Yes, it is confusing. Yes, there are left and center parties that uses some or has some of the characteristics I listed. And yes, you can disagree all you want.
1
-
1
-
Not american here. I mean, north american.
Even though I don't really think my country should serve as example to any other, given how screwed up things are here regarding corruption, not to mention how our current politics are basically trying to badly mirror the worst of Trump's politics with heavy far right fake news, FUD and conspiracy theory undertones, as well as playing the victim of a leftist media blah blah, there are a few things I still think we are doing relatively better in comparison to the US in some areas, perhaps.
Oh, it's Brazil btw. Yes, we are also being completely screwed up by the pandemic, and for similar reasons. Yes, the Amazon is burning.
What we have down here is what some call socio-capitalism, or social democracy. If it's right or wrong, I won't judge... semantics. But like Joe said, it's still a democracy... veering badly to authoritarism thanks to our current president, but still a democracy.
Direct democracy, slightly different from US' representative democracy - direct votes, which are obligatory, cast by the population, elects the body of politics.
We have a public health system, living along with private.
It's trashed, overcrowded, heavily criticized with reason, and the poorest the state is, the worse it gets.
So it definitely has caused a division between public health for the poor, and expensive private health for those who can afford it. But it's there, you know? No matter how bad it is, how undefunded, how involved with government corruption schemes and whatnot, the simple fact it exists at all has helped saving numerous lives that can't afford paying private hospital bills. The complaint is that it needs to be better, not that it needs to be extinct.
This also helps controlling the private sector. We have private health plans from middle class and up, prices don't seem to be as explotive as what I heard in the US.
We also have laws for drugs and medicine that basically allows for life saving drugs to be produced as generic unbranded erm... copies. It is heavily regulated, and arguably it could desincentivize investment in R&D and whatnot, but it has been working well for years now, the drop in prices is very significant, and it has saved money for tons of people and saved lives too for a long time now.
It created competition, pricing drugs down to more fair values. I personally use a few generic drugs, no problems.
This goes along with a whole bunch of stuff, with mixrd results I guess. Our highways used to be public, but large extents of it became privatized (read better roads with tolls). It's heavily regulated, by which I mean there are strict limits as to how private companies can profit from operations, but it was badly needed as the state of complete disrepair of public roads was a major cause of accidents and fatalities yearly. It's a constant fight regarding fare prices and expected investments for improvement, but in general, it has worked well.
Education likewise is part private and part public. Some of the best universities we have in the country are public, and there are strict limitations on what private schools and universities can do to attract new students. Despite also having a big class division there, particularly on schools and pre schools, and despite the country having a huge scholarity problem and in past several administrations we having a huge problem of governments constantly undefunding the entire public school and university system... again, it's there. And in a general sense, I have a feeling it's better than a system that indebts students for a very long time after they graduate.
I have personally attended both sides during University. Public state university, then private.... bachelor's degree in CompSci and then Journalism (yeah, I know). Can't really say one was definitely better than the other, though of course as they are on completely different areas of knowledge, it'd be hard to compare anyways.
The major problem I see with total privatization leaving no public options around is that despite the constant complaints and potential exploitation of the public system for corruption schemes, underfunding problems, rich-poor division and whatnot, is that if you don't have the alternative, totally private systems tend to quickly become monopolies in the way our current capitalism is set up. There needs to be some sort of counterbalance, flawed as it may be, or things starts spiraling out of control.
I also tend to think several of the overly libertarian overly capitalist arguments to be either disingenuous, short sighted, or purposedly misdirective. I don't wanna pay taxes to fund the poor, for instance.
See, we live in societies. Individual freedoms certainly are important, but not at the cost of the society you live in. You end up paying one way or the other anyways, because if you are rich and everyone else around you, or your close nit community, is poor... things start happening. Humans living in communities have innate traits for balancing things overtime. It goes from simple feelings of jealousy, up to total civil unrest. Eat the rich.
The ideal would be having fully public well funded and well regulated systems without private interference, at least for all services considered essencial, regarding basic human rights. And it exists in some countries. But it's very very hard to get this right, and very very hard to keep and monitor.
Make no mistake, I am highly critical of currently operating socialist or communist systems. For my understanding, the general problem is power balance, and idealism. As these systems puts an overreliance on government to balance and take care of everything, it's very easily corrupted, which ends up in totalitarianism.
You seek a perfectly well balanced equalitarian society when humans are not made and don't really, consciously or subconsciouslly, want it to be that way, concentrating too much power and money on the hands of a few, the tendency is for those in power to abuse it and keep it all to themselves.
This not only explains why totalitarism often happens in socialist systems, but also why monopolies are often built in extreme libertarian capitalist societies. There's always a tendency for concentration and abuse of power and money wherever humans are involved, if left unchecked. It explains why Brazil's political system is also so overly corrupt - weak laws, low education, low active public participation, high bureaucracy, a political system that has been historically changing itself to allow for opaqueness, scams, schemes and exploitation. Corruption in Brazil comes from the times it was a colony. People are always fooled that this or that party, this or that president, this or that system is gonna fix things, but that's just not the way it works. We'd need profound political, societal and cultural reforms. Corruption doesn't end magically when you have an entire structural problem like we have. It's not only about people anymore, it's about the laws, the system, the wages, the way it's all enshrined.
But you gotta always analyze critically and seriously the alternatives. There are sects and mad followers of our current president that are absurdly vouching for a military dictatorship. Can you believe that? A fucking military dictatorship, in a country that was wrecked not that long ago by one, in a world filled with countries that were destroyed by military dictatorships left and right, with some of the worst horrendous examples of crimes against humanity commited in them. With an ill informed, power hungry, corrupt, liar on command, no less.
Thankfully, they are a minority. Anyways, back in topic, and again... from our past history and current times, personal opinion, I still think the best option is a balanced one. Capitalism seems to match better with how societies currently work, as flawed as it may be. But it needs a series of adjustments, checks and balances to work well. Idealism alone sounds like a problem, independent of what side it takes. Pure libertarian capitalism, as in let the market decide with no checks and bounds, to me sounds as bad as pure communism/socialism, with total sacrifice of individual freedoms for state sponsored forced equalitarianism. At the extremes, neither work, because people don't work that way.
Centralizing power, as in electing representatives, works better than some eternal leader, or all powerful party that invades personal space controlling all aspects of life. But it has to be well monitored and kept in check. The advantage of having representatives is enacting real change. If you spread decision power too thin, it ends up in stalemate. Instead of some getting what they want, no one gets anything.
Anyways, these are my thoughts on the matter... kinda scattered, but as I am not a US citizen just thought of sharing an outsider's perspective. I have faith in US recovering some balance and doing better in the future, science, education and economic power tends to work well as a buffer. But significant changes will have to come. And it needs to happen because the alternatives aren't great.
1
-
Cute.
Explain me this then. How? How exactly is Biden over Trump "the way out"?
Of course, Trump is only going to make things worse, but how exactly Biden is the way out?
Because he's been super effective in being the way out these past 4 years?
Can he force quit any of the criticized judges? If so, why haven't he done so already?
Can he change the minds of Congress so these investigations and accusations turns into a conviction?
Has he done anything to stop the actions of this rogue SCOTUS since their clear actions to dismantle justice in the US started?
Isn't it the case that those very judges will just doing whatever they want until they decide to get out, or retire of old age, or something like that?
I swear to God, Democrats in the US are becoming even more delusional than MAGA itself. Biden ends up being a good representative because he behaves exactly like Democrats - in a comatose like state, thinking he can do something, when in fact it's him that is already done.
It's been 4 years that you are saying Trump would be arrested, that he'd never make it to the election.
It's been more than 4 years that you've been saying Republicans would get their act together and turn their backs to Trump.
It's been 4 years of talk and talk and talk. It's all you can do. Get indignant, talk or write opinions, and keep watching as democracy ends.
You let both Congress and SCOTUS be dominated by radicals, scammers, extremists, proto terrorists, saboteurs, criminals and lunatics after they took over the Republican party.
More importantly, most Constitutional and democratic principles have been violated if not outright trampled so far. One by one, they are falling to the extremism of the far right. And you can only look mouth agape. It's all happening right in front of everyone's faces, and there are no consequences to it.
No one has been able to change anything inside SCOTUS ever since they went ahead and trampled over Roe v Wade, which was supposed to be the last straw.
Now they are advancing in several key issues to clean the room for a new supreme dictator. Immunity and being above the law is halfway there, they took over the power to rule on anything independent on expertise, and no one can question it. Separation of power is becoming meaningless for what it was created, just as much as separation of church and state, and most amendments have already been warped to mean privilege and power to a select few.
In election matters, it was the Democratic party that chose a weak candidate to go against Trump. Biden didn't do anything to stop this madness, he was picked because he represented some sort of a "middleground" instead of someone with better chances of doing something effective against this terrorist movement that is taking over the US, and now the risk is very real that he won't get a 2nd term because he's like the incapable guy that keeps saying he can do it.
I've said this before and I'll say again. The US is marching straight towards it's worst political and judicial situation in the history of the nation, and it's not only Republicans, MAGA and whatnot that you have to blame for it. It's all about the complacency of the opposition. The paralysis. The complete and total lack of attitude and action.
I'm fully convinced the only "way out" you have now will be a civil war. And I'm sorry for this, but it's just as clear as it can get. It's been clear for quite a while now.
Trump, SCOTUS and Republicans are not only testing the waters anymore. They are going broad strokes as fast as possible to make the most damage before the final blow. And people are still going "if we elect Biden, we win" or some crap like that. Bro, you've been losing since Trump got his first term, continually. US democracy lost the most in the past 4 years. It could be said that Trump's first term was when he was testing the waters and solidifying the strategy.
Now it's just over. Too many steps taken in preparation for a fascist regime for it not to happen. In fact, it's already happening all over. It'll only accelerate further after the election, and it doesn't even really matter who wins anymore.
When you fail to punish traitors and criminals attempting a coup, they'll just succeed the next time over. In fact, one could say they already succeeded. It didn't happen officially, but it did happen behind the scenes. And now it's over. Press and public figures better prepare for what's coming, and I say this as an advice from a friend. If Trump wins, his plan is pretty transparent by now and you all know it. If he loses, given what happened when he lost last time, what exactly you think is gonna happen this time? His mob of rabid dogs and himself are just gonna say ok, and turn tail?
Time's up people.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Good luck with the new router Chris!
I have this moment of contemplation every Xmas in my annual trip back to my mom's hometown... a town with a bit over 5 thousand inhabitants.
They now have faster broadband (as in, it's super slow, but at least they have it), but it wasn't the case for a very long time. Life is different there.
I also had a shock late last year when I had to go without a smartphone for almost 2 months.
Anyways, as fiber is still pretty uncommon in Brazil and I have an ISP ceded modem/router/access point, your case just made me worried.... I can't find fiber routers to buy on the local market here, and I've been thinking of replacing mine with something more robust. It's a Huawei branded modem that is kinda locked down to basic functions, and just a few months ago one of the ethernet ports just decided to stop working without any warning or signal.
It prompted me to work for almost a full month on finding out what the heck was going on. It's the port my FreeNAS is connected to.
I got ethernet cable testers, moved a bunch of hardware around to see if it wasn't the ethernet cards, re-crimped connectors, and I was almost to the point of ripping out ethernet cables and buying new ones to see if it would solve the problem... but fortunately I decided to change connections around on the router an voila! That was the problem. Ethernet port number one on the router stopped working.
Got myself a cheap hub because I didn't have any spare ports on the router anymore.
Anyways, true enough. First modem I had contact with was an external modem that was, if I'm not mistaken, a 600 baud rate modem that had an all metal case and was almost the size and actually heavier than a current desktop PC. Then I went with cards... US Robotics 5600, Zoltrix 14400, and then back to US Robotics 56kbps. BBSs, IRC, BananaCom, teleconference, Tsunami, and all that. Internet? Nah... we dialed up to local BBSs to download mod music and shareware games and software after midnight to get the lowest phone rates. One of the BBSs of my hometown had a connection to the Internet... which was an IRC service that connected to some US university channel. :P
Good ol' days...
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
The way I personally see this topic, and everyone feel free to disagree with me, is that we should strive for equality here more because of the humanitarian and social consequences, with economic, cultural and physical differences being compensated by other means, which is what governments should be there for anyways. It's because of the basic rights, not because of the consequences.
Particularly when we're talking about a base thing - base wage, base treatment, base opportunity for promotion, etc.
It is too complex a topic with too many ramifications and contributing effects to fully analyze, but just to give an overall look.
The whole reason why this topic is so complex is that it encompasses a ton of different other topics. Let me give people some examples - if we're talking about women carrying a heavier burden on child bearing and care, this is not a factual component - it's a cultural one. If we're talking about differences in physical strength and stuff like assertiveness and leadership props, again, those are not inherent to gender, it became attached to gender because of cultural norms, and it can be compensated by other means or changed eventually.
So, while I can understand the rationale of giving women lower pay because they are expected at some point in their lives to become mothers which will have negative consequences for the job, this rationale assumes that women have to carry the burden of raising kids mostly by themselves, or carry the burden of domestic work, etc etc.... but those are cultural components, it's not a rule set in stone. So you end up justifying unfairness in wage, because of another level of unfairness in culture.
It's also, at this day and age, kind of an assumption. It's not all that uncommon anymore to have these traditional gender based roles reversed in households. Heck, I have retired relatives in their 70s where the husband takes care of all the house chores, he always did, and both worked their entire lives.
That is to say, something like policies to force equality status in society cannot be analyzed in isolation as to what effects it'll have on this one thing, because what people are generally trying to change is not this one simple thing, but an entire set of effects that the abnormal condition has on society overall.
So, say a change like that has an immediate negative effect overall, for the category that it's trying to help. In this example, less women getting hired, less being promoted, or this resulting in more strict rules regarding women specific needs. I think the route in this case is not reversing equal pay rules, but rather continue addressing these unfair points one by one until we achieve a status of equal opportunity. Because these equality policies are not about thinking both sides are physically and mentally equal, it's about fairness in treatment, in value, in respect, in the base floor that a society gives to every individual component of it.
Let me repeat and put this clearly here: I'm not in favor of equality culture and policies because I think men and women are physically equal or equivalent in any way - far from that, I think diversity is humanity's strongest point and why we endured so far. I'm in favor of equality culture because we're usually talking here about basic human rights and basic policies that affects every single individual in a society, and so it sounds fair to me to have a base floor that strives to give these basic human rights to everyone independent of gender, skin color, nationality, religion, ability status, potential contribution to society and other assumptions. Differences and distortions might emerge because of historical and cultural biases, but the way I see it, that's an opportunity to then address those too, not use them to justify doing nothing and keeping the status quo.
And I think things should be like this, because on every front we as a collective species failed to act this way, by which I mean constantly striving for fairness in all fronts, it all came back to bite us. Then again, if I'm being honest, I think we're already on the way for our global extinction event anyways, because we let things go too much out of balance already... so perhaps something to be left for the next species that populate the planet. :P Until then, in my mind, the only option is to keep trying.
1
-
1
-
What went wrong in Brazil is what has always been going wrong in Brazil, only severely amplified by the pandemic: huge economic inequality, a history of institutionally corrupt politics which left several states and basic services in a trashed state, an economy that is majorly based on primary sector (by which I mean basic goods like agriculture and mining) instead of technology and culture, a majority of the working population doing informal work, high unemployment rates, a public health system that was already trashed waaay before the pandemic, poor education rates, and so on.
Bolsonaro following Trump's and US' far right politics definitely makes it worse. But we cannot pretend that this is the only reason, or even a main reason for what is happening.
You only have to see how the pandemic evolved in the country to understand this better. The worst hit states and capitals are also some of the poorest, least equipped, that already had huge problems regarding poverty and corruption, among other stuff.
Sao Paulo is an exception but for a similar reason why New York was hit so hard: extremely dense urban population where the poor part of the population lives right next to city center, packed in between middle class and rich neighborhoods.
There were comprehensive measures following WHO guidelines for most of the country - like said in the video, governors and mayors are the ones who have the final say. They are inconsistent to one another, but the absolute majority of the country is doing the right thing, to varying degrees. Most of the worst hit cities are currently in lockdown, mask usage is obligatory in public for most of the country, doctors are constantly recommending for people to stay home, police and military for some cities are working hard to keep policies in plave and busting people who go against it.
But in poor cities or cities where you have dense urban settings, it's just not possible to isolate part of the population while essencial workers do their job - be it because they are too poor to stop working and self isolate, be it because transit and public transportation had always been super packed, so if you go out it's plain innevitable to come in close contact with infected people, even if you are only going out to shop for food. The infrastructure required to implement a "new normal" just isn't there.
Another aspect of it all is that because tech is so far behind here, which becomes part of the culture, there is comparatively only a tiny fraction of the population who knows and/or have the ability to use stuff like online shopping, food delivery apps, online banking, online learning, digital payment systems and whatnot.
So what has happened multiple times during lockdowns is that a whole ton of the poor population was gathering up for hours at end on long lines formed outside banks to get government handled financial aid, apply to loans, and stuff like that. Most of the population also do grocery shopping and shopping for basic necessities presentially. While we do have digital stores for most things, the majority of the population simply does not have the know-how or even the technical capability (smartphone with decent Internet connection, desktop and internet at home) to use them. Tons of brazilians don't even have a credit card and bank account to start with, which eliminates the possibility of online shopping.
So yeah, Brazil was kinda doomed from start. It could've done better, but not by a whole lot.
And unfortunately, this is only the beginning of the infinite loop of hell. Because when the economy goes bad and international investors start running away, our currency devalues, and money for stuff like education, technology, scientific research and other areas runs dry even faster. The government will prioritize primary sector even further, because the country cannot let it's primary money makers to go broke. Our currency is almost reaching half the value it had some 4 to 5 years ago, and this affects everything. A smartphone, computer, electronics and other imported goods now costs 2 to 4 times, because importation taxes already doubled their values before.
So if on one hand people are predicting that the pandemic will further accelerate reliance on Internet based tech, Brazil will be left even further behind because we have been on a several decades system of politics that undervalues tech, research and education. The protectionist tax system we have basically makes worldwide tech cost brazilian consumers, businesses, industries and enterprise double of what it is for other countries, and with our failing currency value it only gets worse. So something that is relatively simple for someone in a developed country, like moving your small business online, becomes outright impractical here, because even simple things like getting a computer and a smartphone capable of doing basic tasks is prohibitively expensive. Likewise, investing in automation, machines and general technology also comes with all these extra costs that people cannot handle.
And then the final nail in the coffin is that corruption never moved away, it continues at the same pace as past administrations, and the promises of eliminating corruption that pretty much all presidents and all administrations repeat in every election season ended up in the mud once again, like several of us predicted.
There are several ongoing scams that happened during the pandemic regarding medical equipment, overpriced PPE gear, several campaign hospitals that were never delivered, and the like. I fully expect that the vast majority of government aid money that is being handed out with less scrutiny will end up in politicians pockets, as it always does. And so, the pandemic will be allowed to cause the most damage possible, so that politicians can buy their yatches and summer villas next year.
This is what goes wrong in Brazil, it still remains a banana republic, with or without pandemic.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Can empathize with this sentiment... it's been only a few years since me and my mom threw out the cheap HP Deskjet printers because of their increasingly aggravating behavior, and spent a bit more for Brother Laser (actually led) printers. The experience on using them when you need to is just night and day.... even if Brother's software looks like something out of Windows XP, the thing is - it works, with no annoying pop ups, and no digital sh*tty salesman living in your devices rent free.
I was just tired of having nervous breakdowns everytime I had to deal with the printer. I noticed that everytime I had to do something with the printer, I tended to procrastinate as much as possible because I knew what was coming. And that's just no way to live with anything you paid for.
Every single time we had to use it not only you could already expect the same old problems, chances are, they were going to threw out some new ones for you to spend a week figuring out and trying to solve.
It's not only the predatory anti-consumer crap, which is more than enough for the switch, but also these Deskjets are being built more and more with cost savings and corner cutting in mind. You figure out this if you ever are in an unlucky position to disassemble one of those beasts.
You know why the printer will tell you to exchange cartridges even when those comes out dripping full of ink? It's because the printers actually have no expensive electronics components to measure stuff like ink level and whatnot. Inkjet printers have all been reduced to the bare minimum component parts to function.
All they have is number counters. After a set number of prints with a given cartridge, it'll tell you there is no ink anymore whether that's true or not. Depending on model and what type of printer you have, almost all of it's functions are done via such shortcuts. You can't trust anything that the software tells you.
I watched a video recently explaining how HP managed to crap out on even more expensive tank based inkjets. The tanks work as promised, but then they inserted a bogus failure that the refuse ink tank is full. One guy disassembled the entire thing to see that this "refuse ink tank" was nothing more than a sponge, which you cannot exchange for a new one because the problem isn't really that it's full or something like that, but actually that another number counter reached a limit that locks the printer down and there is no option other than buying a whole new printer.
I mean, how are you going to trust a brand that shamelessly promote crap like that?
1
-
I mean, honestly? I've always been 100% pro fast rail based travel. And I know it's way harder to do something like that in huge landmass countries with bad ragged geography, but you know, probably better than losing entire coastlines and cooking up inside the planet. :P
My country in particular, it's just ridiculous that we don't already have a huge network of trains... because corruption and broken promisses of course, but nothing makes more sense infrasctructure wise than it.
We are an economy based on raw materials exports. Plus millions and millions of people are traveling by car through mostly badly maintained highways everyday to visit family and do business.
We only have poorly maintained metros in dense urban centers and horribly outdated trains between port cities and a few hubs... too few to count for something.
A well built well kept rail network in the country would save billions in logistics, reduce deaths in highway accidents significantly, and interconnect states and regions of the country like it never happened before.
If Brazil remains a primary goods exporter, which I see no signs of this changing anytime soon, the boost it'd get from having well maintained rail networks would be pretty much unprecedented...
Problem is, of course, we have centuries of plannings and proposals and innaugurations and projects and promisses that never went anywhere, in large part because of bad administrations and corruption.
On the environment side, it's even better than what most people would think. You see, Brazil already has a network of power generation that is way cleaner than most other countries. Of course electrification of logistics would tax the grid a lot, so I dunno if this status would be kept, but you know.
I know recent news about Brazil on the international press has been very bad with the Amazon and other nature reserves burning up, with our Trump sympathizer president, and other bad things.... but if you dive deeper, Brazil is actually pretty good on the whole environmentalism thing.
I think our clean energy production is somewhere around 40% whereas most developed countries are on the 15 to 20% mark. That's mostly because Brazil has some very large hydroelectric power plants.
It's also always good to note that the Paris Agreement is a sequel of a sequel of a sequel of accords that started right here in Brazil, even though this isn't talked about much. I think it goes back to the early 90s, with a convention known as Eco Rio.
Anyways, I'm deviating from the topic. I think electric planes might be something possible in the future, as Joe said, with further development in battery technology that so many other technologies are dependant of... but there is a lot that can be done before it, it will force a change of habits, but I think it might not be as bad as it may sound.
Planes have it's place, and it's for overseas travel. You can't really compete on speed with anything else.
But short haul local travel, that should be done by train. And like I already recognized, it's very very hard for these things to happen in countries with large landmass, but it's not impossible. And the benefits of doing it far surpasses environmental benefits alone.
We'll just have to see about timing. It's likely that we'll just miss the timing of it. See, because of the scale of such projects, you need a very tight combination of popular pressure, governmental will, money from whatever sources willing to bet on it, and a huge mass of workers to implement. Our current democracies and societies are pretty badly set up to do something like that. But the different changes, struggles and pressures climate change puts on top of countries might be enough to force the thing, as long as it doesn't come too late.
1
-
An industry that starts mostly on lies, deception, pseudo-science, and exploitation of the good will of people eventually collapses whatever good intentions it has towards it's core reasoning for existing - the grift. This is all but guaranteed because of the way this entire thing works.
It's no surprise that when it gets to industrial levels, that's what you end up getting. Louder voices and unscrupulous leaders will prevail, trample over any other small businesses that could've had some good intentions there, and the worst types of practices will take over everything else, because there is no moral anchor, no regulation, no standard, no monitoring and no policing.
This is the major problem not only on the case of frankincense, but pretty much everything else in wellness, and other pseudo-science areas that gets explosively popular.
It's also the problem with celebrities promoting crap on social networks - yet another unregulated, unmonitored area that lacks any moral standards or official code of ethics.
If it happens even with legit businesses, of course it'll also happen in snake oil selling.
This is why I'm against those things as industries. The products, as long as they don't do any harm, if people are willing to believe whatever crap and tell themselves that this do good for them, whatever - the placebo effect is real, and I don't really care how individuals make it work for them as long as it's not actively harming them.
The problem is that because the entire thing has become industrialized and globalized, in a late stage capitalism manner, it all ends up in MLM schemes, cult-like fandom, and for the people on the other end, unpaid work, modern slavery, child labor and all sorts of malpractices because it's happening far away enough for consumers to simply not care.
There's a lot of experience in developed nations of businesses and people who knows exactly how to fool rich white people and groups of people into thinking they are spending money that will be applied in charitable spending in poor nations. The slum tourism, ghetto tourism, misery tourism, poverty tourism, or porn if you like, have become profitable and systematic enough that it becomes yet another target for unscrupulous businessmen. Consumers should be highly aware of this, and separate things better. Buy your crap locally and from origins you know, and then set charity and donations apart so you can also verify claims and the work that is being done separately, this way there is no mix up and no exploitation of your own goodwill.
But in the end I guarantee you that the vast majority of consumers of the brand in this video will absolutely not care about all of the report, all the work that Vice is doing. Most don't care about how mistreated the providers are, as long as they get their drug of choice. It's all about status and showing off to their like minded friends anyways, supporting their celebrities, whatever - the conditions on how their stuff is sourced never mattered much as long as the product itself is seen as high quality, and some of the money is kicked back to their favorite creators - the human cost of it never seems to matter much, or at least not enough to take down these criminal enterprises.
1
-
1
-
Bit of a pessimist here, so I think in the end greed will win until we are set back to the stone age or end up destroying ourselves.
The robot revolution is only a component part of the ever encroaching and increasing problem with wage gap and income inequality.
Arguably, it can be said that it's only a small part of it too. Other major components are things like the increasingly speculative nature of the economy, new trends like gig economy, the monopolization of entire sectors that moves the economy, privacy erosion, power accumulation, parallel hidden markets like the mass private data wholesale market, devaluement of things like well researched information and relevant content, the overall destruction of well estabilished systems that were in place to protect and give power to regular people and citizens like welfare, workers' protection, privacy, education, and in a larger scale immigration, among others.
Arguably, we are crawling back to a time of tyranny and dictatorships, only with a new modern look to it. Powerless people dominated by oligarchs. It is unstable and poised to produce lots of misery, pain and injustices.
On the half positive side, at some point it becomes unsustainable for big corporations to pay for, maintain, and keep going with robots if there are no people to pay for the products and services they are producing. So they either have to lower prices or just go back to human labor. The problem with this type of cycle is that it's a balance that can go very deep into enriching and empowering few people at the cost of others.
Globalized capitalism is reaching it's point of unbalance, with people who gets more in a day than others could ever get in 1000 or more lifetimes. I'm not enough of a simpleton to think that one or another political or economical system to be absolutely superior to another, but I do think that each and every system has a point of balance that can have severe consequences when it gets toppled too much one way or the other.
I think we're getting very close to a global scale revolution once again, it is signaled by changes in political stances all over the world, but I just don't know how things will go forward.
Robots might be a trigger for major changes... but most likely, it isn't that much of a big deal in comparison to several other factors happening right now.
The general problem of robots currently is on what they are being developed for, and the intentions behind such high degree of automation. Because save few exceptions, it's not for the benefit of mankind, it's majorly for military purposes and to reduce labor costs by giving more power and money to less and less people. They are developed, maintained, and kept by a structure of imbalance. They are excluding and sometimes harmful by design. Powerful tools employed for nefarious reasons.
The thing is, we keep creating more powerful tools and more advanced technology, but the basis of it, cultures, philosophies, reasoning behind them, continue frozen or not keeping up. Humans are too slow to adapt to the ever increasing pace of technology, which creates a very dangerous situation in itself. Our history is peppered with problems that happen from this type of disconnection. Industrial revolution, great depression, development of nuclear weapons, the rise of terrorism, climate change. Problem is, with ever increasing power and technology in the hands of a few, the more possibilities we create for a big filter event happening.
This is why I weirdly feel like robots are just a symptom of the whole. It will create enormous disruption, and if we are extremely dumb about it, it could create global scale catastrophes and overall misery... but I don't really see it as threatening as tons of other problems we are facing today. In fact, at the very least, it is a technological change that could potentially be turned to help us in a time we have already screwed up things majorly.
In fact, for some countries automation is already becoming an essencial part of daily life, because there's not enough human power to sustain things. Particularly developed countries with negative birth rate and an aging population.
1
-
Yeah, the problem there is that the woman in question, Eva Kaili, has been involved with an entire laundry list of EU Comittees, intergroups and delegations. She was vice president of the European Parliament, not some minor figure. She had her hands on stuff like EU-Russia relations, US relations, and a bunch of other stuff. If corruption is taking part of those things, you can imagine how severe consequences can be.
And she can lie all she wants, her father was caught red handed with a briefcase full of cash, her place was raided and bags of cash were also found, and she's been immediately expelled from everywhere that she had any political affiliation with to avoid the spill - likely an indication that this story goes far deeper.
The World Cup situation is bad enough, make no mistake, but this could end up being even more serious. It also shows how coordinated and intricate the farce that Qatar is painting itself as really is. They bought the World Cup host position, bought people inside EU parliament, all to paint themselves as a good country or something when they clearly aren't, as they proceeded to commit every single human rights violation on the books while building up to the event.
It is a disgrace. Kaili now has immigrant blood on her hands. Thousands of them killed during World Cup related constructions. I hope she ends up in jail. A cleanup and enhanced scrutiny in EU is the only possible good result of all of this.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Seasons are opposite here (something sometimes people don't realize), so we have a hot and humid xmas, yuck, there's almost no snow in the entirety of Brazil (exception for the southernmost tip, but even then it's at most and rarely few inches), Brazil also has almost no inland earthquakes because we're smack in the middle of a tectonic plate, but we have tons of flooding events due to poor city planning and infrastructure.
Also, something that people might not know due to recent string of bad press, bad government, and just lack of information - yes, the Amazon is burning, we have tons and tons of fire events in the country, and despite the government not contributing much to solve it, this has majorly NOT to do with Bolsonaro, our current president, but a lot to do with both climate change, and the bad practice of burning forests and grasslands to turn those into pasture, both because the practice is ancient here, but also because it's cheaper than any other alternative.
Climate change is increasingly creating a phenomena in Brazil where low pressure hot zones park on top of the country and don't get out, effectively creating a barrier for colder fronts to come in and turn into rainclouds.
Several cities in Brazil, particularly in states where lots of fires happened and are happening right now, are experiencing desert like weather conditions never seen before.
Water reservoirs, lakes and rivers dried up in a way we haven't seen in decades, or ever, year after year in the past half decade or so.
This tied to the practice of burning forests and grasslands is what the current inferno here is really about.
And like RLL explained, this is a huge, enormous, insanely big country, which also happens to be majorly poor.
Therein lies the problem of thinking political pressure and balking would somehow magically solve the issue.
Not even if the next president was a self proclaimed eco-terrorist. You know why? Because we'd need a regulation and law enforcement team dedicated to this task and this task alone multiple times bigger than our own military.
It's hundreds of thousands of farmland and pasture spread all over national territory, plus national parks, and other protected hard to reach areas that would need to be presentially monitored 24/7/365, because like I already said, we have almost no real winter here, and the rainy season is also disappearing.
And no, Biden giving us a bunch of money and threatening to sanction us if we don't change things won't have a major effect. Nor Macron and the EU with their offensive rhetoric.
Another problem is that Brazil economy majorly relies on primary resources exports, as at least a few people will know, we majorly export meat, plus a bunch of other stuff like sugarcane, soy, wheat, oranges and others. US is a big costumer, but more and more, China is becoming a huge costumer too, as you know, they have lots of mouths to feed. So the real global economic incentive here is actually to ramp up production, not slow it down. Market demand dictates it, and it's currently at the hands not of US, not of EU, but developing countries with large populations like China, Russia, India and whatnot.
Shouldn't need to say this, but no, I am not a Bolsonaro supporter. I hate the guy, and I warned people things would go this way if he was elected. But I'm just tired of oversimplifications and misinformation being spread out by international media coverage.
And also, get this. Brazil, despite the current bad fame, actually has a power grid that consists of 40+% renewables.
Do people know about this? The US, France and other developed countries, some of which are balking at us, are bellow the 20% threshold, despite thinking of themselves as being super eco friendly.
And the Paris Agreement? That whole thing started here, in the Earth Summit of 1992, aka ECO92, aka Rio Summit. It then went through Kyoto Protocol, Rio+20, and only then Paris Agreement.
Aside from the Paris Agreement when the US had a very short stint of adhering to it (thanks Obama), the US has always been against the whole thing, from start. Bush didn't show up, Clinton didn't want to make a commitment... Obama was an exception.
So yeah, it pisses me off when I have to hear people saying the US is on the forefront of this. It couldn't be further from the truth, Trump or no Trump, vocal democrats or not, US was never kn the forefront of the climate change fight, and it still isn't, not on a country wide, diplomatic level.
So yeah, there you go... my rant for the day. I hope you guys elect Biden... he's not great, but at least he isn't the absolute worst, there I said it. We unfortunately still have at least 2 more years with Bolsonaro, wish us luck.
1
-
Kind of a risk still, I have to say... problem here is increased risk of harsh impacts, joint failure, all sorts of small scratches and bruises, up to more serious stuff like a head bump or cracked and broken bones, etc.
The problem with exercises for the elderly has much less to do with what they are capable of, but way more to do with recovery capability because of age related conditions like osteoporosis, arthritis and others. As well as balance, vision, reflexes, etc.
If it's well monitored, well controlled, and guided, any sort of activity is great. I can see this group working well because these seniors are relatively fit, Nancy seems to really understand and care about the group, and put things in a way that goes well. Also, obviously, a group activity is way better than total sedentarism.
Problem is when it goes to scale. This is why stuff like hydrogymnastics, regular physiotherapy or light exercises like walking are often more recomended. Because they have well understood limits and effects, impact is controled by nature of exercise and environment, rules can be passed on to new trainers easily enough. Hydrogymnastics is all about low impact exercise with a widely variable strength requirement... you can push it as hard as you can. Physiotherapy you basically have medical staff on hand, and well defined set of movements for people with all sorts of conditions.
But again, I'm not trying to condemn it here... just, be very careful. Any sort of new method of exercise that takes someone out of a sedentary life and incentivizes some exercise is great, as long as not done at the cost of health, puts people too much at risk, and is fruitful and enjoyable.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
So... the exact same reason why I've been saying so called "economists" are being fed a lie and eating it whole this entire time.
See, I'm getting tired of hearing analysts, economists, financial sector and other buffoons singing praise about Milei's strategy, pulling statistics and charts our of their asses to make it appear like so, while completely ignoring the devastating social effects his policies have been having on the grounds with Milei politics, because this is an extremely well understood with several historical counterparts, effect of basically cutting everything on social spending and selling out the nation to make an appearance of having an economic boom while the core is actually rotten.
I find it even funny that some economists even go as far as denouncing line goes up economics, and right after doing it are praising Milei's brand of it.
And of course all neo liberal right wing supporters of Milei are going to come here to complain about TLDR being leftist, left leaning, and "you don't understand" Milei at any sign of there being a criticism of results of his politics, because that's how political fanaticism and populism works. You're not allowed to talk about strikes, protests, the sectors that are being affected by Milei's measures, or anything like that, or you are against them.
But I said this was going to happen right after he was elected. The economy will seem to be booming, because of course it will when you start selling state assets, cutting down social programs, cutting down government roles, and leaving it all up "to the market". Anyone's numbers and money on the bank goes up if you just stop eating, sell everything you have, stop doing anything that costs money and is productive, stop taking care of your family, skirt all responsibilities, and leave it to private initiative or others to "take care of itself".
Everytime you have a government coming in with extreme neo liberal ideas like that, you are going to have a boom in economy because you are effectively cutting spending at the detriment of everything else.
But what this actually represents is that you are losing control. You are being paid to effectively let others dictate your life to you. The result of neo liberal minimal state economics is that the market will give, but the market will also take, and you have no say on it anymore. Because your sold that control to others.
The problems starts showing up later because all the people who depended on social programs and all the support that government used to give will eventually start not being able to fend for themselves, and then what you have is a delayed crash. The market will solve itself and minimal state interference, in a world that is trending towards line goes up late-stage capitalism can only end one way.
But people will continue being delusional that Milei is going to do some sort of miraculous recovery of the nation because they keep buying the same populist rhetoric over and over, no one wants to confront reality. This isn't based on what is happening, neither on statistics nor on reality grounds, because it's about fanaticism and cult of personality.
Live miserably and die happy, whilst dreaming with the capitalist utopia that never comes, because they don't understand this is a fixed status quo society. This sort of ideology feeds itself on the confirmation bias and positive reinforcement of the privileged few, whilst ignoring the whole. Who cares if there are throngs of people living in misery or permanent food insecurity status, if the wealth divide is getting bigger, if retirees are getting f*ck all, if essential services are going down the drain, and privatized industries and services are abusing their monopoly positions to exploit everyone, when you are high and above that situation anyways?
Supporters will keep repeating the mantra. Oh, it's not his fault. You don't get him. It was worse before. You don't get the plan. There's no way he could've predicted it. It's because of opposition interference. Yadda yadda yadda. It's ridiculous how people nowadays have been falling in the same trap that other nations have fallen in the past, no lessons learned.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Taking a step back from all the details, what this entire charade shows, which we already know, is that we have a SCOTUS with a majority that is political and corrupted, they can't even bring valid arguments without getting in direct contradiction with themselves or with precedents, which leads to the final conclusion that we're already in, that the public opinion on this SCOTUS is right, and it is the worst most corrupt in US history. Nothing less than that.
This was a political decision through and through, it has nothing to do with justice or the constitution, be it to maintain Trump in ballots on all states, be it to defend the status quo and federalism in general, but it cannot be taken seriously as a measured evaluation of Constitutional clauses, and it cannot be seen as justice.
US democracy is already dead, and it's corpse is being eliminated by a thousand cuts, in preparation for a full replacement to a dictatorship. And it is a sad spectacle, a decadent freak show.
1
-
Give it enough time, you'll see what happens.
Here's my bet: She will go back to her base, say it was all lies, that she only did it to keep her job, to stay as an insider, that she still believes in all conspiracies blah blah... and then she'll get caught red handed and expelled from her position, period. Hopefully from the party, from the family, from society.
Calling it. You heard here first. These people are so dumb they shoot themselves on the foot. Mark my words, keep watching it.
It's sad that they are so slow and americans are so fixated in their precious constitution, freedom of speech, liberty and whatnot to the point of getting their hands tied, but the logic is quite simple - if you are dumb enough to believe in these ridiculous conspiracy brainfarts, you are obviously not smart enough to hide your ignorance. These people run their mouthes like nothing else, mouth diarrhea is an addiction to them.
And public figures, politicians will eventually be pressured to spill the beans.
They were elected by morons that believe the same horse shit they feed on, so they either keep promoting it, or the votes disappear, if their electorate doesn't immediately turn and accuse them of being traitors.
If she listens to someone smart enough, she'll shut her ignorant trap and keep getting her free taxpayer money funds 'till the end of her term, but often these people are just surrounded by likeminded idiots. Talk to your base, no one will notice!
Oh, here's another prediction. If some Ucranian bot or some drone who believes in their shit reads my comment, you'll see replies with ignorant crap right here. Perhaps a Marjorie supporter.
They usually stay away in pieces that blatantly show how morally and ethically corrupt their heroes are, but sometimes an idiot slip through the cracks.
1
-
1
-
Two politicians who think so highly of themselves to the point they are above the law and when they are caught red handed lying with clear evidence for it, they are quick to invoke the witch hunt card and then proceed to talk about a list of things they did great as some sort of alternative reality that does not exist and is easily disproven by just looking at current and past facts.
The fall into disgrace didn't come at the same time, but the wake up call is happening pretty close together. I'm hoping the same happens in my nation, which tends to mirror everything that happens in US and UK, the sooner the better. We're also just recently waking up from this nightmare, but perhaps we had less damaging changes down here. What Trump did to US politics, and what Boris brought to UK, those will have decades long effects. The extreme right wasn't as damaging for my country, though it's still not great, and it lingers like skunk juice, through it's cult members and people who have become taken by hate speech and all the lies.
The wounds are permanent, and they were torn wide open by the combination with the pandemic. The past administration in my country will be permanently marked by the loss of family members and friends who got caught up by the misinformation campaigns of the extreme right. I will only rest and feel comfortable with justice the day I see all politicians involved in this macabre obscurantist scamming movement behind bars, or dead. And these past years of my life will forever be remembered as the time people allowed themselves to go back to a mentality that should've been extinct over a century ago.
These were the years civilization walked backwards. What is left for us is to see if we learned enough from it or not.
1
-
1
-
The way Israel diplomacy and what Israel government is saying tells it all... and the posture is undeserving of support.
There is all this obvious deflection and selective hearing happening that shows dishonesty and playing the victim to justify heinous crimes, which will likely extend as things become more and more obvious.
Facts are simple and they are being repeated endlessly by most UN nations:
1. Hamas' terrorist attack against Israel civilians is inexcusable, it was a crime against humanity, one of the worst and most evil crimes in history, with the indiscriminate killing, massacre, torture and kidnapping that got to the hundreds if not thousands, and it is not to be justified by any means. There is no excuse for any group to do something like that, ever;
2. There is no question that Israel has the right to expel, persecute and bring justice TO HAMAS, and has, always had, and will always have the right to defend it's territory and it's citizens. This was never in question, and it should never be;
3. Indiscriminate bombing and attack on civilian targets SHOULD remain being a war crime, a human rights crime, a humanitarian crisis and crime, and it should also never be allowed regardless of what side you are, because that's the core of the issue there. No matter how bad Hamas' terrorist attack was, this should never give the right to the victims to commit genocide against civilians. If Israel's government is going to use Hamas terrorist attack as an excuse for supports towards Palestinian ethnic cleansing in Gaza Strip, then this takes Israel government to a level of opportunism that is potentially even worse than Hamas itself. Because it's using an attack against it's own people to advance a hatred filled interest in killing tons of people based on their religion, ethnicity or origin.
The base issue in this entire matter is that a whole ton of Israel supporters don't have the moral high ground to make this clear. Countries like the US never came to terms that practicing extermination of civilian population because the country is at war with it's leadership or politicians is the wrong move to make.
Indiscriminate killings have always been part of warfare for several western nations, the strategy to justify it continues being this half deflection half posturing save face fakery, and people still accept this as passable somehow.
I applaud Antonio Guterres and the UN for taking a firm stance for de-escalation, peace, and condemning the parts that are wrong in all of this clearly, but it's quite obvious to me how there is still an imbalance in coverage, in making this extremely clear, and in the complete understanding of things here.
Press, people, and politicians often oversimplify the whole case because they want to see it in black or white, but that's not what it really is.
Or rather, it can be, as long as everything is taken in consideration. Yes, terrorist attack against a civilian population is clearly wrong. And it is also clearly wrong to bomb civilian targets in retaliation. Because we are supposed to be defending innocent lives here, independent of religion, status, ethnicity, socio-economic conditions, and place of origin.
And so, we don't want to put things in statistics and numbers because those are lives, and it is hard to deal with such things in such a cold manner, but it is needed so that people understand this better. The Hamas terrorist attack produced 1400 deaths among Israelis and foreigners that were in Israel at the time of the attack, plus 5132 wounded. Around 400 of the deaths were soldiers and police forces.
That is absolutely appalling, no doubt about it.
But now, let's consider the estimations of the casualties and wounded inside Gaza Strip due to Israel's response. Of course, estimation and numbers still climbing. It's 7000 dead, including 2900 children, and 18000 injured. No way of knowing how many were Hamas radicals, but obviously, it's not even close to all of those. In fact, an estimated 1000 Palestinian bodies, potentially all linked to Hamas terrorist attack, were already found in Israel, and there are estimations going around that from some 4000 deaths inside Gaza Strip that happened early in the conflict, some 13 were Hamas officials, and part of the leadership also fell.
And yes, I understand that talks about proportionality when it comes to body count in a war that was started by a terrorist group is a harsh thing to consider, but we should, because not doing it means enabling ill intended people to use a terrorist attack for a scorched Earth campaign that some politicians with speeches filled with hatred and prejudice have been doing for sometime now.
Let's also remember that several of the victims of Hamas' attack were actually in favor of peace, understanding between the two sides, and some Israelis killed actually worked in humanitarian causes inside Gaza Strip. So, a genocide of the civilian Gaza Strip population there is not avenging them, it's actually soiling their memory and what they cared about, after they were murdered unfairly and indiscriminately.
I don't think anyone actually accepts a concept of killing tens to hundreds of innocent people to get one terrorist group leader, commander or whatnot to be fair or even sane. It's like, you don't drop a bomb on a school just because and active shooter might still be there.
But somehow, Israel military, government, and supporters are saying it is fair to drop a bomb on a school, on a residential building, or on other places, because it's supposed to be "a gathering place for Hamas" and other excuses we are tired of hearing.
This incompatibility of coverage, this unfairness, this way we see one side through one lens while treating the other totally differently, without cognitive dissonance, can only happen when there are active campaigns to dehumanize groups of people because they don't share our worldviews, our religions, our origins, our principles or whatever.
But this is a mistake. We are all humans. It's human rights. And we should be emphasizing the rights of the more vulnerable, not a bloodthirsty vengeance sentiment that might be justified if it's going against a terrorist group, but cannot take over the priority of saving and protecting innocent lives.
And so, even though I really feel for the family, friends, and citizens of a country that suffered one of the worst terrorist attacks in world history, I cannot give support to what Israel government and diplomats are trying to pass. What they are doing is not right, they know it, they put up this indignant victim posture on the world stage, but it does not convince me, nor scares me. You are not seeking justice anymore, you are using injustice to justify an atrocity of your own. I'm sure lots of Israel citizens are fully aware of this and should understand what their government is doing, in their name. You just cannot win over terror with terror.
1
-
Yep... I've heard all those retorts from the usual fanboys from Twit, my comment on it was basically the same as Rossman's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgWhtACYcKA
It's not only commenters that are saying those things... Apple specific publications and blogs are putting out the same thing. This is the sad part of it all... there are definite fanboy ecochambers that may or may not be paid by Apple that have this tendency to play down all sorts of stuff that comes out against Apple. This is probably the main reason why Apple can keep doing whatever they want... all these news websites and blogs that are completely focused on Apple related stuff are more about marketing and Apple PR rather than investigative journalism or just simply doing some criticism pieces every now and then. And Apple fans and costumers all follow those... because they seem like a convenient information source.
And I'm not saying this is Apple exclusive... Windows Phones had one of the worst ecochambers I've ever seen in Windows Central forums and posts - I swear those guys were even worse than your usual sheeple, and Twit also has an Android focused series that often gives Google a pass for lots of eggregious things - but they are still WAAAAAY more critical of Google whenever problems arise. On the Apple side of things though, there are only a couple of guests that will often be a bit more critic and in depth about Apple's actions, but the main guys not only don't understand most of what they are talking about, they are always defensive about what Apple does, and always try to use strawmen, non sequiturs and whatnot to justify Apple's actions.
It's just... self defeating. Apple only pulls this sort of crap because their costumers are so misinformed and so cult-minded that they don't even think they have the right to criticise the company they are costumers of. At the very least, I personally know how crap Android can be in several areas, so I thread carefully. Even people who are not into tech and not tech-savvy knows that Android is kinda piece of shit OS that can be horrible specially for low end devices, so they are aware and at least look into stuff like backing up phones and whatnot. The problem with Apple is the ecochamber and the false sense that it's somehow different and superior - which, to be clear, is true in some areas, and was more true in the past. But nowadays? Eh...
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
So, here's something a bit against my own sense that has been happening due to recent situation and purchases.
I've been a proponent of foldable screen phones for a while now, before they started actually coming out, because of the portability factor.
The thinking goes, it's gonna be far easier to travel with a smartphone sized device alone instead of having to carry a tablet, sometimes a laptop, perhaps a portable gaming system, and the smartphone itself.
I'm of course exaggerating a bit, but like, it's what you sometimes want to do if it's a long trip and you plan to keep doing all the stuff you do at home.
I'm also constantly nagging about a proper desktop mode for all devices, so that if you feel more comfortable and you have access to say a big screen TV, a keyboard and mouse, you can always turn the device you have in hand into a desktop computer setup of sorts.
Given all that, recently more of this stuff is becoming true. I'm typing this comment from a tablet, it's connected to a portable keyboard that is almost perfect in size and portability to me, and my current phone is not foldable, but it has a desktop mode, made even more practical now that Samsung's DeX also has wireless connectivity via Miracast.
I think my overall predictions were right, this is becoming better for a travel/ extended holiday situation, but one of the key things that I have been thinking about for over 10 years now - that part I might be wrong.
I had this idea that it'd be just perfect if I could shove all functionalities in a single device.
So, crazy fantastic talk here, but just imagine. A rollable phone (closer to that recent Oppo phone, but going more crazy), that is the size of a thick pen perhaps to take calls and extremely basic functions, but can roll out a screen going from smartphone size all the way to tablet and then laptop screen size.
It can also connect to a bigger screen for desktop mode usage, presentations, and even a cinema session, covering all the range.
It's one device only, so you don't have to worry with synchronizing and organizing your spread out data... which is always kind of a hassle. And ideally, we'd switch to a single OS instead of having to constantly wrap your head around going from Windows to Android to a game system to something else all the time. It's a single all encompassing system that re-skins itself accordingly, but underneath it's the same file structure, same general operational characteristics, so you don't have to re-learn how to deal with that side all the time.
Ok, given all that, sorry to ramble to much - more recently I came to the realization that a single device already isn't the ideal for me anymore. Perhaps it could still be, but only when we reach yet another step in evolution where a single small device can power multiple screens and interfaces all at once.
But forced in the current situation (I've been out of home since late last year), what I'm noticing is that I'm always using two devices at once, at minimum.
Tablet for watching something, smartphone to read related information. Tablet to write a long comment like this one, smartphone to search for a link, a word in english I forgot, some technical term that I'm not sure if it's correct or not, a link to another YouTube video or channel I want to mention. Playing a game on the Switch, smartphone to search for some tip. Chatting with friends on the smartphone, checking e-mails on the tablet.
On another hand, there are these time waster games that I play on the smartphone that I always reach to if I'm only just listening to a long news style video, or I'm using the smartphone to play music, among other stuff where I want the smartphone to be there by itself, so it can't be used for another thing.
I know this probably sounds kinda dumb for people who are already highly used to doing stuff this way, but I only fully realized this is how I use my different computing devices this year... perhaps because I needed changing and reorganizing how it's done, as I've been so long away from home.
Imagine that, I've been on Android only for almost a year now... my Windows desktop back at home.
I think I'm still more comfortable with that sort of configuration, but you kinda learn to adapt overtime.
And I really wanted to see if going Android only would ease up my mom's personal experience... she only use basic stuff, but there are some stuff that she's so used to doing in a Windows desktop that I'm still not sure if she can really make a full transition.
Anyways, what does this have to do with the folding screen tablet? I'm thinking that perhaps I'm less enthusiastic about it now, because I'm not sure about my idealized scenario anymore.
If I expect myself to be always using two devices at once, and it'll often be at minimum a combination of a bigger device - like a tablet, laptop or a desktop -, and a portable/at hand device like a smartphone.... then the utility of having a single device that can perform like both categories just doesn't make a whole lot of sense anymore. :P
Portability aspect of it is still very interesting, don't get me wrong... but it's still so early days and there are so many limitations with the entire tech that I don't see myself paying extra for and adopting the tech for a long long time. Particularly because the software development side is just so disappointing.
Android needed first to solve it's problems with convincing devs to make proper tablet mode. Foldables were off for a bad start from that alone. Tablet apps, despite passing through a hot commodity phase, several of them still sucks. It's just crazy how some extremely popular apps still acts all wonky on Android tablets.
Windows, I'm not sure how the experience is nowadays, but back when I had a Windows tablet, it was just as bad if not worse. Microsoft insisted too much on crap like S mode and Windows Store, they should've set those things apart and done a core Windows optional tablet mode without trying to force it a la Windows 8, but more organically integrated.
So it ends up that currently, I don't want a Samsung Fold, a Moto Flip, a Oppo Roll, a Surface Duo or this Lenovo folding screen tablet.... and it'll take several generations for it to be attractive to me, not only because of hardware, but mainly because of software.
It's fine to botch cosmetic stuff like notches, bezel less screens, among some other stuff... but if you are messing with something that directly affects usability, it either works as well as stuff works today, or it's immediately a let down. The glitches reviewers were seeing on the Surface Duo? Even though they are understandable, they are also straight out unacceptable. Because you gotta have stability on the device you are using several hours everyday. Glitches, no matter how minor and how solvable they are, will add up stress, anger and straight out rage over a single day. No can do.
So, my approach can be too boring, too utilitarian, too oriented towards reliability... but you know, personal opinion. I'm not overly interested in the devices reviewers... review. I'm more interested in the stuff they are willing to use personally on a daily basis. And most that I follow are more often than not, with one to two year old devices, because recent flagships are introducing more problems than solving old ones...
1
-
1
-
The video is nice, but the title does not match.
Guys, you have a sample size of ONE restaurant, and even in that singular case you did not compare to staff of a regular fast food restaurant, limiting yourselves to give an excuse as if it was an innevitable fact that cities will get so expensive that people will move out to the suburbs, stop working in the city because commuting will get too hard, so there`s some sort of logical conclusion that we should just give up, marginalize everyone, and just make robot to work in restaurants?
Don`t get me wrong, the concept is cool, but it doesn't justify the title in any meaninful way. Robot restaurants can and probably will take the jobs of lots of people. Broaden your scope outside this fancy gimmicky burger restaurant. For instance, in Japan you have restaurants that are basically vending machine spaces without, or the conveyor belt sushi places. They use machines to pack rice to the right size and shape, and conveyor belts with tablets and some other machinery to take orders, add up bills, and sometimes even ease up washing.
These restaurants could reduce floor staff from half a dozen or more serving over 30 tables down to 2 people that are just there to teach people how to use the system.
Now, in Japan, stuff like that is happening because they really do have less and less people to work in such jobs. It's a rapidly aging country, with jobs deficit, not a whole lot of people to work in jobs like those, and a currently changing immigration police that has been quite strict in the past because they just need more workers in.
US has a very different reality. There is a need for jobs and job positions. People who are watching this video shouldn't be fooled into thinking robot restaurants will all be like this one, nor that there are only positives only, even to this one.
So, it's not taking the jobs of anyone because no one can afford to live in the city, being forced to live far away, and cannot bother to work there because the wages are so low that it's not enough? If that's the case, then robot restaurants are not only taking people's jobs, they areeffectively helping create a class bubble and will be yet another thing to widen the wage gap and income inequality. The rich being served by robots and maintenance crew, the poor and unemployed isolated outside cities. Cool.
1
-
1
-
1
-
No need to sugarcoat it, characteristics cults have in common:
1. Anti or pseudo-science stance;
2. An authoritative leadership that demands often extreme belief without proof or concrete reason as to why;
3. An anti government, anti "normal" "regular" society stance;
4. Us vs them mentality. We are the enlightened people, they are heretics, we will brings salvation in a world of destruction, only we will get saved, only we have the rights, what we believe in is true and pure, if you are not with us, you are the enemy;
5. Playing the victim of an unsubstantial, organized, untouchable entity - men in black, government, rich people organization, corporations, aliens, lizard people, other religious or non-religious groups, false prpphets, etc;
6. Promisses of a variety of general benefits, bounty or ailment cures or problem solving by playing as extreme as possible practice or part of the cult, which will happen because of faith, no logic or reason involved, no steps explained, no plan, no explanation how it gets accomplished;
7. Total opaqueness, specially among higher ranks. You don't need to know, are not authorized to, haven't shown enough faith, isn't pure enough, is not a conduit for a higher being yet, or some other excuse to know the inner workings of it.
With this, the main target is on ignorance, positive reinforcement, belief systems, minorities, people in fragile positions, and oppressed.
What you see as result of this hits all ranges in societies. From get rich schemes like ponzi, pyramid schemes, passing throught fake news groups, legitimate political views and even stuff like addiction, gambling, lottery, state sanctioned or not, and then religious cults, churches, and lobbying groups, up to terrorist groups.
And just know that people affected by these sorts of strategies are not only on the bad side too. There are good people in good organizations doing good stuff that has a similar mentality. And this is the biggest conundrum of it all. Some of the worst attrocities our species commited were in the name of faith of a belief system, but also some of the biggest accomplishments and progress also were.
So, be particularly aware when the tool, a belief system, is being employed for the favor of individuals or a few, at the cost and detraction of all the rest. This is always a reasonable pointer.
As a species, we just can't get rid of belief systems. Because objective truth is hard, science is everchanging, and we are limited in how much we can know collectively. We are not a hivemind, and communication is imperfect.
But cults, and some other groups being addressed by Joe in this video, are on the fringes. It's the effects on the extremes of belief systems. And we need to keep working to spread awareness of it, as well as finding ways to combat it's worst effects.
1
-
1
-
1
-
This concept does make a whole ton of sense for countries that don't have much of a charging station infrastructure it sounds, nor are expected to have in the near future - case of my country.
You can charge overnight for daily commute, but on trips you are basically sol. For the most part I mean, outside major urban centers.
Very few gas stations actually have fast charging stations, if any charging at all, and there doesn't seem to be a strong plan in place to put them there. It's not only about fast charging too... the electrical infrastructure build on roadstops mostly don't support charging a car in any way. You pull too much power from regular power outlets in these places and risk the place going up in flames.
It'll take a very very long time for EVs to become a thing here, so you can bet that not only the incentives to put charging stations everywhere will be less, but also that gas stations will still be around for some decades still. This also has to do with the current prices of EVs here, which are basically a super luxury. Everything from purchasing a car to regular maintenance.
And people here still travel a lot by car, even though road conditions are just crap.
Thing is, even though traveling by plane became much cheaper, it's still way too expensive for most people. And you know how traveling by bus goes. Well, I know since I do it every year.
Also, the country is BIG (Brazil), much like the US. So lots and lots of people are traveling long distances everyday.
As battery technology evolves, we get more power in less space and weight, and charging them becomes ultra fast, eventually the Chevy Volt concept would stop making sense, yes. But right now? It's kind of a waste dropping it like that. There is likely still a market for it. Not sure if Chevy is dropping it only in the US, or the entire technology altogether worldwide though.
1
-
1
-
Thanks for sharing this, answered a lot of questions I had, I was hoping to see the vulnerability demonstrated.
Crazy too. I knew session tokens could be exploited, but I didn't know it was this easy.
Silly of me, I just assumed there there was something about cookies and session tokens that tied it to the machine itself so it couldn't be stolen and used elsewhere like that....
Need to rethink some stuff and take this in context now...
Let me put a question up here, if anyone knows the answer and cares to share, just put it up. I'm kinda anxiously waiting for Thunderbird's redesign launch to try again to switch away from webmail.
Would switching to it have interfered in any way for the Linus attack? Say if everyone there used a client like Thunderbird instead of webmail, would that have changed the scenario? Or doesn't matter at all? I dunno if Thunderbird uses something like session tokens to remain connected...
There also isn't a good way to prevent this without losing the convenience of not having to login every single time, right? Like, you can block all cookies, but then you have to login everytime. Does the session token gets created anyways when you login and then you remain vulnerable to the attack as long as you are still logged in the same session?
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
So... I'm brazilian, my native language is portuguese, but when I'm on foreign countries I'll usually ask people if they understand english... because it's just that much more likely that they'll have studied english at some point instead of portuguese or even spanish. xD
I dunno how it goes for most other countries, but at least in Brazil the vast majority of people who went through high school will at least have been taught some english clases. Far from enough to be fluent, but perhaps enough to understand the basics.
First time I went to Japan 12 years ago I simply didn't know enough japanese to speak anything. So "english, ok?" everywhere. My relatives had to do all the talking because some of them knew at least a bit of japanese.
Lots of people understood english to some degree... speaking it well was a bit more difficult. xD
This time (I just returned from Japan last weekend) I could at least go "eigo daijobu desu ka?" xD
Not much of an improvement, but at least I tried speaking and understanding a bit more.
Oh well. It's even worse because I am japanese descendant so there's an even bigger expectation that I should know the language (you look japanese but you don't speak japanese, what the heck?), but I'm actually 3rd generation brazilian. So I never learned it as a kid, my parents had very little japanese (pre-WWII japanese to make things worse) at home when they were kids, so almost nothing.
I do have the intention of one day staying in Japan for longer though, so I have to find a way to learn it better somehow. I'm on a very basic level right now... lose words I can catch at times, but building sentences becomes a problem. And I can't read anything - katakana, hiragana, kanji... I've tried multiple times since I was a kid learning it, but it just never worked. I need something to force me to practice.
That's basically the way I practiced (and still practice) english - music, games, books, and eventually the Internets. And I do have japanese magazines, some manga, among other stuff to force it, but you know... as you get older, things gets more complicated. :P
1
-
1
-
Agreed that the stock market is not as important in China as it is in the US... well, almost no country put as much emphasis on the stock market as the US.
But I'll have to disagree with the accessment of innovative companies in Shenzhen... perhaps for the western world it didn't have a huge direct effect as Sillicon Valley companies, particularly if you consider the entire history of both places. But the thing is, Shenzhen innovated a lot.... only it's internal facing.
Let me remind people that a whole bunch of Silicon Valley big tech companies have little to no presence inside China because of the big firewall, and so chinese companies had to build replacement for all those services that couldn't or wouldn't get into the country. You don't hear about them much because they are chinese almost exclusively, but they were developed in parallel to Silicon Valley, and several of them are as big as Silicon Valley companies.
So, yes, we associate Silicon Valley companies with broad categories like social networks, video streaming, chat messengers, mobile phones, eCommerce, ridesharing and a whole bunch of other stuff... but that's not the case for China. In China they have their own synonimous names to services.... like Baidu, QQ, WeChat, Tencent, Alibaba, etc etc. Techies will have at least heard about them, lots of them are, funny enough, huge investors of american companies.
Sure, people will say that China copied everything yadda yadda, which is no different to what Sillicon Valley companies do these days, but the real difference there is that China has almost 5x the population of the US in all ranges of wealth, so they actually have a pretty big market, pretty comparable to the western market as a whole in a single country.
Language barrier, diplomatic, governmental, and I guess ideological creates the divide, but even then, stuff still crosses the line at times. Give you an example, can we really say that there is an up to par competitor in Sillicon Valley to DJI mass market drones? In the electronics category, I personally see drones as one of the latest more relevant categories of innovation.
For smartphones, perhaps the average american doesn't see China as being a competitor to Silicon Valley companies, but worldwide, the top 10 list of smartphone industries is more than half populated by chinese companies. And they even, after years and years of trying, are finally getting some traction inside the US... OnePlus, Motorola now owned by Lenovo, and lots of names on the budget category.
Arguably, some chinese brands are pushing the boundaries and really innovating currently in several spaces.
Mobile payment system is one of those things that China transitioned way faster and with far more reach, people who visited China at some point in the last decade will know.
And then, of course, on the business and industrial side, there's really no comparison. People tend to think, particularly those of western countries, that industries in China are still populated with cheap uneducated labor to produce all the stuff that they do. This could have been true a couple of decades ago or more, but today's reality is that several of the specialized industries that Shenzhen has, uses tech that western countries simply don't have, developed by themselves.
See, it's an ever evolving situation. If you outsource all industries to a given country, overtime they will master the craft, innovate and take over, because they have the people who knows how to handle it now. There are technologies on several sectors that chinese companies kinda dominate, because they needed to advance on it and are actively working on constantly... stuff like logistics, mining, processing of raw materials, recycling, mass manufacturing of almost every product category ranging from cheap and shoddy to highly advanced and bleeding edge.
It's kinda like how Japan went from cheap products to highly advanced stuff, but without the international coverage, particularly from the west.
You hear in passing and small mentions about China's own space program, about chinese chip manufactury, about chinese GPS and sattelites, but we kinda don't aggregate into a bigger picture, because all that international coverage feeds you is the Uighur problem, the CCP antics, and whatnot.
By the same measure, you can guess what the image of several western countries look like for China and the average chinese...
Again, reminder, they are almost a quarter of the world. Keep that in mind.
1
-
Lipstick on a pig. Not the women, Beauty Pageant contests themselves.
The reason why the stigma of old fashioned won't go away, whether people realize it or not, is because the entire concept of beauty pageants was created and fomented by men, with extremely puritanical and sexist views, for men to gawk at, and do a whole ton worse things. I will remind that in the past this institution had a category for teens. And that the entire concept of such a contest has spread out way beyond their roots, created a whole ton of different offshoots that are still around, and continue to have similar problematic ramifications.
It was designed to force a single standard of beauty, which has a long entrenched history of being racist, and different organizations had different problems in them.
It's likely the strongest symbol of old fashioned Mad Men era objectification of women still alive.
No matter how much you polish that turd, it won't shine.
And then, fundamentally, it has the problem of trying to quantify, classify, judge what is called "beauty". I think that's the most self evident problem in all of this. Even if you ignore all the problematic history and consider that changes made are enough to separate the contest from it, there is a central issue incompatible with modernity that makes these sorts of competitions completely dead - a contest does not get to chose what beauty is for no one anymore. And most people these days don't give a sh*t about judges opinions. So the whole thing ends up not mattering, even more when these competitions are infamously brutal to competitors.
I guess the only reason these things are still alive are on the fascination of reality shows that somehow got into the mix of Beauty Pageants these days. The competition itself matters little, what people wanna see are the scandals and the brutality of it. What competitors have to go through to qualify, the grotesque nature of the spectacle behind the scenes.
In the end, the sharp decline of Beauty Pageants have such a long tail these days that people have to wonder how it's still a thing. And this attempt to disguise it with current themes is also very old at this point... oh it's not about objectification, we are judging on intelligence too! World Peace! We're including diversity! We're doing it for the planet!
Don't you get it? The problem is in the title itself. Some things cannot be fixed no matter how much you try. Funny enough I guess, the Beauty Pageant concept is one of those things that cannot be recycled, upcycled or whatever... it belongs to history.
In order for a contest like that to become something worth the attention nowadays, it needs to change in such a fundamental level that it might as well die, and the time and money invested in something else completely separate and different.
Not trying to offend anyone, sorry if there are still fans out there, but this is my personal view. Just to be clear, I have nothing against contestants, and I know the competition has produced some positive output in the lives of some of them... but this is not what my criticism is about. It's about the system itself.
1
-
1
-
It should be quite simple if the objective isn't ideological: neither that woman nor anyone else gets to be the grand judge, jury and executioner of what a "vulgar" book is, particularly based on arbitrary points like language, individual morality, religious preceits, and overall individual notions. And censorship based on arbitrary justifications including "protecting the children" is the stuff you often see happening in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.
A book, a story's function isn't there only to portray non vulgar stories, and singling out a specific way they should be written is a disservice for education and an individual outlook of the world, it gives tunnel vision and limits the horizons of individuals.
If there is something that bothers you inside a book or any other medium for that matter, it is arguably doing it's job. Teenagers and students are not mindless drones, and you don't wanna educate them with that presumption. They have the ability to judge content by themselves, or need to develop the ability to do so, unless you are wilfully hoping for a future of brainwashed idiots who takes action because some politician said so.
It is sad that ignorance and partidarism has gotten to such levels that these people don't even realize how backwards their actions are anymore. They justify their cruzades on moral high grounds they don't even have. They didn't even read the history and fictional books that should've warned them about actions like the ones they are doing, yet they think they can pass judgement affecting entire swaths of society with their incredibly limited knowledge and personal experiences.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
I don't even wanna see when this all goes tits up, it's gonna be ugly.
Here's something people don't seem to get - as replacement of currency for a relatively poor economy, this is playing dice with the devil.
Not because it's a crypto currency, not because people don't quite get it, not because it skips the banking system and all those things that are relevant to the discussion but not the core of it here. It's plain because of volatility.
And yes, people can throw all arguments against fiat currency, the current system based on banks, how the stock market is just the same, etc etc.
But step down a bit and just think. Yes, we have bubbles, crashes, instability and whatnot in current systems, but it's nowhere near as bad as what bitcoin already went through and realistically will go through for the foreseeable future. And adopting it as a national currency is one nightmare experiment I don't wanna see the results of, particularly if it goes very very bad.
If you have money to spare and put into bitcoin as an investment, I mean, fuck it, you win some you lose some. High risk high returns.
But if you are poor and only get enough money to pay the bills and put food on the table, one bad day, one bad tweet from Musk, one decision from a foreign government, one more trader taken down or scamming people, and that's people who will have their lives absolutely fucked with no recourse.
I think people are being fooled on this, and when they realize the trouble they got into, things will get very ugly.
But hey, perhaps it's the pessimist in me. It's just that no matter how corrupt banks are, how unstable markets can be, and how crashes and crisis always seems to happen... it's not like crypto had no problems. They just lie elsewhere. And cold analysis, sorry, but crypto is nowhere as stable as most other options, even more if the currency used is USD. And half the advantages being talked about there have nothing to do with crypto, you could get the same advantages with a digital payment system, electronic currency and whatnot.
Perhaps a country with hyperinflation where it just doesn't make sense to print money anymore, but betting with something like that? I imagine some people are getting lots of bitcoins to use citizens' stability and livelihoods as casino chips like that.
1
-
I personally don't like to mix that stuff... too many avenues to make people feel even worse about themselves, while having to pay more than they can, or workout more than they need or want.
But if they are happy with it, sure, why not? It is their own money, their own choice to spend, and at least it is a form of community in a society where it's not exactly easy to form communities. Looked upon in the best possible lenses, it's people forming bonds around a hobby.
But I'll list what I see as problems one by one. You don't have to read it, I just wanna organize my ideas.
- It's based on image, and some people just look better in the eyes of a judge panel. There is a competition/judgement based on looks and hard limits like body fat percentage - this is bad because it's not simply a matter of exercising and whatnot, some people just cannot go bellow a certain threshold without it becoming unhealthy. The line is very tenuous there, and it can go kinda wrong. And in the end, if judges don't like you, cannot see you as being part of some closed off exclusive club, you won't be it no matter what. So, it's a competition based on personal opinions.
- Exclusivity clubs are quite often tied to cults, pyramid schemes, or just a way to make people think they have to spend more and more money on something to be accepted. Not saying that this is a case, but even when it isn't, you are kinda walking on a tight rope there.
It's dangerous for certain types of people - be them the clients, or the ones running the place. Specially clients who feel lonely, in a fragile mental state, etc. As for people running, it doesn't seem to be the case there, but you gotta imagine it's not impossible for an owner to take over the place and think profit above well being, specially when the pursuit is being fashionable or looks.
- Fashion can easily become a way to exploit money from people... again, not saying it always is, but it happens. If this wasn't from Japan a whole ton of red flags would have risen for me from the video alone.... taking a client to a designated shop which probably has a deal with the image gym, needing to dress a certain way or look this or that way to be accepted, constant showering of sincere or insincere flattering, etc etc.
People become too materialistic, and judge others plus themselves too superficially. Some get pressured to pay for brands and clothing they not only cannot afford, going in debt for that, but also that they barely make use of too. This kinda goes strictly against what I think is needed to find friends, form a community and even a family to a point - the more open you are to people of all types, the more likely you are to experience new things and form real bonds.
- This is a personal opinion that no one has to agree with, but I friggin hate celebrity culture. Like, in general. I have nothing against artists and people who have the talent to entertain and enrich other peoples' lives, but celebrity culture specifically, I just hate it. Putting people in pedestals when we're all just sacks of flesh with an expiry date.
I have zero interest in hanging out with other people just because they are celebrities... paying for it is even worse. And to be honest, I also don't care for stuff like "high society" and other such crap. It creates from start an unsustainable imbalance.
Again, I'm not saying no one should try this, that this is evil, or stuff like that... I'm not there to judge, the culture is different from mine, and there are definitely benefits to something like that. And there doesn't seem to be bad intentions from the little shown in the video. Just... people should be careful with stuff like that.
I'm close to my 40s, so obviously the place really doesn't fit me. I'm not into the Instagram culture, 10% body fat percentage won't happen for me, I have never been and probably will never be fashionable as I wear what I find comfortable and don't care about the rest, I got over long time ago worrying about what others think about my image, and I am a bit anti-social myself... so if you wanna improve your social stats, you probably can just forget everything I wrote because I'm the exact opposite of Colors Lounge. xD You follow what I say and you'll probably become unfashionable, untrendy, lazy, unhealthy, have zero connections, etc. xD
It's just that I know a few people who kinda ruined themselves because of stuff like that. Going into debt because of a constant need to look fashionable, wasting money on gyms because of looks alone, wasting too much time into vapid celebrity culture... don't want that to anyone else. Then again, who am I to give advice to others, right?
1
-
I dunno if there's something new that makes the specific researches quoted in the video relevant, but afaik, turning plastic waste into fuel has been a thing for I dunno how many decades now, it's a recurrent news piece, but it never scales simply because it's either too expensive when compared to alternatives, or it just doesn't work as well as promisses put up by researchers.
It's just one of those things that might look great in a research paper or a short news piece, but in which the realities of the market always ends up trampling it down, not unlike other stories most people probably already heard of, like fuel made from algae, several alternate clean energy sources, different types of technologies applied to store energy (batteries I mean), among others.
It's getting to the point that the emergency around these sorts of things directly imply that if we're only getting research news today, instead of a full comprehensive plan of launching it, making it economically feasible in large scale, with a proper schedule for implementation, it's just already too late.
Of course, I'm not saying we should stop looking into it. The way we are going, there will come a time when usage of those technologies will become an absolute necessity. It already is, if politicians stopped to make calculations about overall global costs and all that, but I mean as an immediate emergency issue which seems to be the only thing politicians these days can put their attentions to. Kinda like climate change, it seems some politicians will only take notice of it when their summer homes are underwater and insurance companies plus disaster relief services are all going bankrupt and failing to do anything because the emergency it too big or something like that.
I mean, much like the next guy, I'd love to live in a future, and still have hopes of, where every apartment building is expected to have a machine of sorts where you drop all your plastic waste into, and it all gets cleanly processed into something for immediate use. Something that could already be happening for organic waste with compost bins and whatnot, but doesn't.
Or at the very least recycling facilities and processing plants that could really handle it all, and not just export it to other countries.
Developed countries should all at least be at a point where manufacturing of several products should've been all standardized to accomodate for better recycling practices. But we're not even there yet.
But we keep hearing and hearing about it, and stuff apparently don't change much.
Even drastic stuff like China rejecting waste instead of spurring innovation or accelerating some programs instead just caused countries to just change shipping routes to other asian countries instead which are now only getting overburdened by all the illegal export waste dumping and whatnot.
And I think things will keep going that way for a very long time until we get a big enough crisis that eliminates enough of a percentage of the global population that we either do it or die off as a species. That's the biggest worry.
1
-
To be expected when you have a change in power of the country that is giving asylum, and the new government is probably way more accepting of US demands... and specially expected when Wikileaks revelations and revelations like the ones from Snowden resulted in less than a slap on the wrist, instead of a deserved full blown revolution.
The problem here is that the public failed to understand and take actions on the crimes revealed by these whistleblower leaks, we are continuing towards a future of no privacy and total surveillance, a future of continued injustices commited in war torn countries, and people are actively trading their privacy and rights towards more totalitarian states and more dirty tactics of population control.
There was no awakening moment, societies are already too dull and too complacent, or convinced by government spread paranoia turning the tables against themselves.
Ultimately, there will be a point in time when we look back, if we're still there, and realize that we missed the opportunity to prevent a whole lot of pain and problems that will becoming from all this.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Discarding redundant technologies for something that will have human lives at stake when it's in use is a fool's errand... something that anyone would expect from Musk I guess. The guy has an extremely bad habit of talking crap that makes he seem like a prepotent idiot.
Just so people know, Lidar is still evolving and in development, the latest units in development are preditect to go down the single digit thousand dollars per unit, and they are also small.
The prediction is that two or four of them could be stuck close to blinkers.
Which is a very reasonable price for something that can improve visibility in all sorts of scenarios.
Of course, neural networks with regular cameras, radars and whatnot are all good. No one questions that, including Uber and Waymo. Arguably, Waymo and Google have been working on that sort of tech far longer than Tesla is.... a whole ton of papers related to image recognition, AI and neural networks have been produced and released by Google a long time before Tesla even existed.
I've recently seen a whole bunch of tech videos and tech publications saying how Tesla came up with all these crazy image recognition tech which was presented on Autonomy Day... bullshit. Most of it was presented on a TED talk 4 years ago by a Google engineer. Weird how people just forgot about that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiwVMrTLUWg
I've said once and I'll say it again. I really don't like all the bravado and strong man talk that Musk sometimes come out with. I respect his accomplishments, yes, specially on the SpaceX side. But sometimes the guy can be a dick. Which I think is just sad.
It's not the sort of attitude I wanna see for the development of vehicles that will be driving around in the hundreds or thousands everywhere I go.
Uber is even worse, just to be clear, but if I had to pick a company that I feel is doing right, at the proper pace, and proper care... it's Waymo, even though I very much don't like Google or Alphabet a whole lot too. At the very least, it's the only company so far without a fatality. Uber had that very tragic one, but Tesla had 3 already... only counting the ones where autopilot was confirmed to be on.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
ROFL, there's a 4D chess level on this, which would be all the Japanese descendant folks in Brazil who learned pre-WWII Japanese from their parents and relatives who learned from their parents etc.... it sounds very little like modern Japanese. :P
I'm not a case like that because despite being Japanese descendant, my parents never taught me Japanese... the tradition kinda stopped on their generation, my mom knows a bunch of pre WWII Japanese, my dad knew almost nothing.
Basically, no English loan words, old terms that are not in use anymore, and to make things worse, I think both my dad and my mom side basically came from poor inaka farming families that didn't have proper formal education or anything like that... so it's kinda heavily accented or just bad. :P
On our first trip to Japan back in 2008, we had a few hilarious incidents when I could understand a few words here and there (I knew even less Japanese than I do now, which still isn't much, but I already knew English plenty), but my relatives couldn't... because they were all loan words. xD
So, common stuff like toilet, milk, kombini, etc... they never learned those words from their parents, but I could more or less identify some stuff because it came from English.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Yeah, this practically doesn't exist anymore where I live... not that I would know much since I don't drink, but this type of small or family business with a family-like environment.
It kinda reminds me of two types of business where I kinda had a closer relationship with owners and staff. One was a video rental store, which you know where it went, and another was a book shop in my hometown which also closed.
Two phases in my life that I invested so much time and money back then in my... medium sized hometown that the businesses I went to knew me because I visited once or more a week.
Unfortunately, it seems more and more the businesses you get have staff on high rotation and they are so burdened with tasks that they really don't have time or patience to talk with costumers anymore. And I don't blame them... it's just how things are these days.
Sad part is that I kinda would like to have a business like this when I'm older, but unfortunately, it's just not safe in my country, and I don't expect others fostering a community culture like that. It is great to see the atmosphere it creates though, and how regulars flock and helps maintain these businesses in Japan. Small restaurants, bars, bakeries, public bath houses, candy stores, small farms... I've seen a bunch of different videos showing the community driven small businesses that are just a joy to see.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Something that people should understand from the Meloni case in the video is that this is basically what happens to ALL populist, far right, conservative, and anti-immigration politics in all nations where immigration became a hot button issue. And yes, this includes UK, Germany, US and other nations.
This isn't because immigration is not an issue, which it is, but because basically, what these parties and politicians are doing is using the problem in a superficial and sensationalist manner, because they don't have better plans, they don't have better ideas, they just have a project for power that has absolutely nothing to do with ideology or stance. It's from the mouth out that they will solve all the major worries people have, and nothing of substance.
The immigration crisis is not something that one politician or party in one single nation will be able to solve with superficial, boneheaded or simply inexistent plans. This will require a ton of diplomacy, very strong international relations, and a lot of negotiation. Plus a ton of internal investment too, because you cannot just close borders and start shooting everyone that is trying to come in, unless you want to live in North Korea. Not even North Korea, being as isolated as it is from the rest of the world, really can stop transit in borders - let alone countries that still want to keep democratic rule going.
What these politicians say they'll do isn't a measure of what they can do. In fact, it should be obvious to anyone who looked minimally at the issue that any idiot that comes out saying they have the solution should raise all the red flags from start. It should be more obvious than me coming to you to say I have a cure for cancer or I have a free energy machine.
Ultimately, the problem here is that we're living in societies with huge portions of the population stupid enough to believe empty promises and scapegoating like that. Oh, everything is to blame on immigrants, so we're gonna solve the issue for you bud. No one stops to question whether those affirmations are true or not, whether their plans will work or not, why this is happening, what is the perspective from the immigrants' side, what is required for effective measures to happen, what is the origin of the issue, and so on.
If all voters want is to elect people who promises a piece of land on the moon, a bridge to sell, or pie in the sky stupidity, this is all you are going to get in the end. At the cost of giving power to scammers and grifters. You will be left with nothing in exchange other than a hole in your pocket.
People that are this ignorant and stupid about things are easy targets for scams and exploitation. Easy to brainwash and sell a piece of land on the moon. Which turns politics in a game of who shouts the loudest. The parties who are trying to do the responsible thing and treat the subject with the care and attention that it needs rather than raw emotion loses. And so, the issue comes to a stalemate. It's because people cannot stop shouting about this issue while doing nothing about it that it cannot go away.
Here is the harsh truth for the anti-immigrant folks: no one is gonna solve the immigrant crisis. No one. No one politician, no one party, no one government.
It is a global issue that is currently as intractable as famine, disease, Climate Change, war and conflicts, corruption, income gap, and others - because it is directly related to those. If YOU don't want to deal with immigrants, I suggest you move to some isolated portion of the world and live there the rest of your life by yourself. If that's truly what you want, this is the rational way of doing it.
Because the immigrant crisis is directly related to us living in a world where some nations have people who have enough money to straight buy out entire nations with cash to spare, while we have nations with people living with so little they can't even dream of having a life of poor citizens of developed nations. It's the economic disparity, in all levels, that led to this.
We have countries where people are throwing and trashing so much food and things in general, while other countries are trying to make some living out of the trash of these developed nations because they have nothing else to go for. It's better to live the life of the lower strata of society in rich nations rather than living an average life in poor nations. The more this equation gets unbalanced, the worse the immigrant crisis will become. And with Climate Change already rearing it's ugly head all over the world, this will only exacerbate the situation further.
And from yet another perspective, like TLDR put it well enough, it's not a matter of stopping immigration and everything will be fine. Particularly for developed nations where no one wants to work in several types of jobs that only immigrants will work in. We have been talking for decades now how entire sectors of the economy are filled with poor and immigrant workers because no one else wants to do hard labor jobs that pay paltry sums of money at conditions that looks like modern slavery. All of the nations I've mentioned have become completely dependent on those sectors of the economy, and thus, immigrant work. Every single citizen in these developed economies have their livelihoods dependent on this exploitive system, and now they wanna complain about it without even understanding how it works.
If you want to get an example that is clear for everyone, think about how Dubai was built. Dubai is an extreme case of a city that was built on top of the corpses of immigrants worked to exhaustion, but all developed nations share this sort of system to varying degrees.
You know what happens to all these anti-immigration politicians when they get elected? When they don't already know all the bullsh*t they've been spewing for their personal project for power, when they do get in power they start understanding what is truly happening. Then they have to produce a fake image of them doing "something" about it, while having to content with the status quo, rich people pressure of not doing anything about it.
Because of course, when they get to that level, all the sectors of the economy who relies heavily on immigrant work will stop them from doing anything about it. For entire sectors of the economy, particularly the ones that directly hits against monopolies bottom lines, immigrants are not a problem - they are the source of their revenues.
And this isn't only small farmers who recruit immigrant labor, small industries who give them jobs, service sector that requires people who will accept to work at very low wages and whatnot. It's huge entire sectors of the economy. Entire industries. Huge portions of agribusiness. Huge portions of logistics. Huge portions of the service sector.
They are building your homes and general infrastructure, they are serving you in restaurants and shops, they are transporting your crap from one side of the country to another, they are collecting your garbage, they are harvesting and transporting your food, they are mining your resources to feed the industries they are also working at, and so forth and so on. At prices your monopolies are willing to pay.
So, stop and think about what you are asking for a moment. Oh, they are coming to get our jobs, get our cultures, get our traditions, get our way of living, blablabla. I'm sorry if you haven't realized this so far, but this has all already given and built on top with foreign labor. Actually, I'm not sorry, it's your own fault for being this blind for this long. People who voluntarily become this ignorant and blind to their own surroundings don't deserve pity. They'll get what they deserve.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Dafuq is this Vail Resorts, some North Korean or Chinese government branch of operations? They put minders around to handle the press and not talk about the controversial stuff, and threatened partners, probably the mayor and local government itself to shut up about it or else... xD How spineless.
You can see in peoples' eyes the same sort of hard thinking before you say something that could anger dear Leader or something.
But of course it's this way... the more you approach the upper crust bubble of society the more totalitarian things starts to look.
It's the problem of late-stage capitalism. I'll just go ahead and say it for Americans that needs to listen to this - the rich people spending money in places like that, the big businesses financing infrastructure there, the entire economy that sustain such rich paradises... they don't give two shits about nature, the locals, and any of their rights.
They'd raze the place down, expel the entire local population and replace it with immigrants for cheap modern slave labor, and reduce it all into an amusement park to serve their own interests if they could. Which is pretty much what they already did in several places all around the world. It's their playground and you can do f*ck all about it.
The only way this is going to change someday is when we eliminate these extremely privileged classes from existence. There shouldn't be people around with this level of influence, power or money. It's not that they are all evil, it's simply that they cannot understand what they are doing. They live in a bubble, they are shielded from such matter by people working for them, or bellow them.
That's the system we are currently living in. This isn't to say I'm against capitalism or for some other economical system, but it's just out of control, particularly in places like Vail.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
I saw that, it's so f*cking stupid... I dunno who is behind that sh*t, but it's gonna be hilarious following this story. It will end up at the hands of someone who will gut it for parts, hack it up, and then make a video to show how to disable everything.
The thing I'm curious about is exactly how are they gonna enforce their policy. Seems if you want to convert it to a non privacy killing TV, you need to pay 500 bucks for it.
But I'm interested in how exactly they are gonna react when most of those devices ends up in the hands of people who will throw a towel in front of cameras, block the advertisement, dismantle it for parts, put it into some part of the house that has nothing on it, scalpers, etc.
Because I'd love to pick one of those up, dismantle it, remove all cameras, sensors and microphones, and just use whatever is left. Perhaps they put some smart hardware block so you can't use the TV if the privacy invading stuff isn't there, but you know, for free I could just pick one of those up for parts.
I hope all units end up trashed.
Then again, I wouldn't get this either way... because the privacy invading stuff comes upfront. I'm not even willing to fill up a survey for that.
I do agree with Louis though. There must be at least some portion of people who are really willing to make this deal and stick to it. But I guess I came to this realization a bit earlier... right around the time IoT was reaching peak fad status. People paying to get Internet connected smart assistant devices, baby monitors, and crap like that. Or the whole cloud services and storage thing. Or when I went to buy my TV and I could not find any option that didn't came with smart TV crap.
Less offensive I guess... I just taped the camera, and never connected it to the network. Good to note, even after all the news came out that these Smart TVs are spying on people, things didn't change. They are all still coming with all the smart TV crap.
Earlier yet, Snowden revelations and Wikileaks stuff.
But still, it shows a willingness of people to treat privacy as something with no value, not worth protecting.
The other thing that this product signals is how much money is being spent on startups like those... touches another thing that we all know, that the startup and investment system in US is completely broken. The entire era of "sharing economy" crap is also all about privacy invading mass data collection crap nowadays. It's like Silicon Valley and whatnot can't think of anything else anymore, there is no money to be made other than getting into the parallel economy of mass data collection.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
So, I kinda still don't get this.
Wasn't it already illegal to sell cigarettes to minors in New Zealand? Or this is about a full prohibition for life to people born after 2008?
Let me put things this way - there is no way to conciliate this New Zealand ban on smokes with decriminalization of illegal drugs.
The war on drugs problem, plus the prohibition era, are just proof enough that the government passing laws to ban adults from buying stuff simply does not work, is not effective, and sometimes even has the reverse effect of making the prospect even more attractive for minors.
In both war on drugs and prohibition era bans, the only thing that a government ban caused was creating illegal markets which funds criminals and organized crime operations. This is a fundamental misunderstand on how citizens see government mandated bans, and how the market works in general.
Because the problem with those is not whether people will be able to buy it or not, it's addiction. Addiction means guaranteed demand, which means the market will find a way to provide. The market always finds a way to provide.
When it's illegal, that means organized crime will provide and enrich themselves with it, which also means no regulation on what is being sold, no government participation, and a harder time with awareness and health campaigns. In fact, a smoke prohibition is a great way for the illegal market to jack the price up, mix other drugs with it, and then start selling stuff that is even more addictive.
You can hate the tobacco industry all you want, and I'll give you plenty of extra reasons for that, but today it's just an industry that is heavily regulated. Smoking still kills people, but this industry could be much much worse if it wasn't heavily regulated - which is exactly what a ban on sales will end up causing.
You can always find "experts" to give dumbass unqualified opinions based on superficial assumptions, but it's kinda obvious how neither Jacinda's government, no matter how much I personally liked it, nor this BBC piece really thought about the full breadth of consequences on a law like this one.
I also dunno if the new government is really looking into this because of the bad consequences, or just wanted to walk back on a proposal of an opposition party, but it always sounded like a bad stance to me anyways.
Let me break the hearts of those overly optimistic simpletons - there will be no smoke free generation in the near future. Sorry to hit you in the face with reality like this, but this is just utopic fantasy from people living inside a bubble of privilege, who cannot understand that it's exactly a government ban that will create the ideal situation for the non privileged to exploit and be exploited. And the more you insist on passing boneheaded laws with this fantasy in mind, the less likely it'll be for it to actually happen.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Nice look into the culture... man, shotengai in Japan is something I hope never goes away, and further, I hope franchises never become the majority, much less take over.
There is an intangible value into these associations in Japan that I truly admire and respect, being from a culture where this sort of thing pretty much died off.
I grew up in what could be described as a gated community. Residential neighborhood that back then was exclusive to the employees of a specific company, all residential, but it had a club with pools, bar, some sports venues and whatnot smack in the middle of it for community gathering.
It was still nowhere near the closeness and tight nit planning that some Japanese neighborhoods and shotengais have, but it gave me freedom to go around friends houses and just have a relatively safe space to be stress free I guess.
From that time on, it has mostly been apartment buildings, and these days you don't even know your neighbors anymore.... not even in gated communities like that, majority of people tend to keep it to themselves, and the turnover is pretty high.
This sort of isolation comes with crime rates and how unsafe it is to just walk around these days anymore, which is kind of a sad reality.
I still somewhat make the effort to walk around a few blocks and buy locally, but it's becoming an increasingly rare occurrence to meet independent shop owners who weren't swallowed by big franchises and whatnot... so you end up with shops with high turn over rates and people who are less worried about forming relationships, and more worried about all the pressures that comes with franchises, chain shops and whatnot, until they can get away from it because it's not theirs and not their name in business anyways.
I've been curious and kinda vicariously looking at Japanese shotengai culture in anime of all places... xD I didn't quite understand the concept the first time I watched something with them, but as I watched more and read more about it, heard about it more from relatives who lived or worked in Japan for a while, and finally after visiting Japan and wondering around in a few of them.... I came to appreciate it more and more.
There is something about them that cannot be replicated by other models.
For the curious, I still remember when the concept came to my attention the first time - Abenobashi Mahou Shotengai. Anime fans, give it a watch, it's quite fun. xD Kinda similar to School Rumble or Galaxy Angel in referential humor and crazyness, but with all the nuts story having the titular shotengai as a background.
I first watched it having no idea what a shotengai was, and then later I re-watched it knowing a bit more about the whole concept inside the culture... several things made much more sense then. xD
o/
1
-
1
-
I can't tell properly because all I have to watch is a tablet on hand, which I dunno how well is showing me the video, but like Rossman said in the comments, they look kinda similar... DJI pushing towards warmer tones.
I don't think that this is a solution because they have other kinds of problems, but depending on how much you want to shoot better low light videos, I heard that the Sony action cams are (slightly) better on that area Louis... problem is, they are worse in several others. Much like all Sony cameras, there are some nerve pintching quirks... Sony has the regular action camera line, looks like a tiny white camcorder, and then a weird black one that looks closer to a GoPro that has an 1 inch sensor, same size of their RX line of prossumer point and shoot cameras, but it's also very pricey.
Unfortunately low light is an area that action cameras are really not that good at... kinda weird considering there's lots of action in low light. xD
Anyways, the no bars and no expenses hold option, which would be hard to handle and very prone to attention, would be a Sony A7 S3 on a gimbal to the handlebar. Probably the best (soon to be reviewed) performing low light camera, best full frame mirrorless camera for video, but also several times more expensive than action cameras....
I'd be extremely nervous carrying it around as an action/vlogging camera, but hey, it's an option. xD
o/
1
-
I'm avoiding US politics as much as possible these days because I just can't stand watching this gruesome collision course that is coming anymore, but as I watched several of the MSNBC reports today, I'll just have to write once more what I've been commenting for a while now:
Democracy in the US has already been defeated. It's been defeated for more than a few years now.
Harris winning this year's election, if she does, will be the thread that refused to break - at most.
Let's be real here for a moment, so that people have the opportunity to wake up.
Currently, the US already lost 2 out of the 3 branches to radicals, fascists, and/or corruption.
It is as simple as that. Might be a punch to the face for some, but that's brass tacks real talk. 2 out of 3 branches have been politically radicalized, if not religiously and ideologically radicalized.
You have the Justice branch with the lowest approval ratings ever, with corrupt political judges being paid off by radical billionaires, you have Congress filled with people who wants basic pillars of democracy demolished (such as separation of church and state), you have a significant portion of lower courts and federal administrations being controlled by people with the same mentality.
This is nothing super new, but it has been elevated to a new level when there is blatant and brash admission for this being the case without consequences.
Even if Harris get's elected, it's just going to be a continuation of Biden's situation. It's gonna be her administration fighting against all of that.
Trump is only the tip of the iceberg there. There are so so sooo many things that already went wrong that his radical messages and threats pale in comparison to the whole.
And it is a given that he'll turn to violence if he's defeated. He's done it when there were doubts if he would get away with it, and if he'd have any support in doing so. Now, those things are pretty much a given. He has 2 out of 3 branches on his side, he has a radical mob that has proven to be with him no matter what crime he commits and how low scum of the Earth of a human being he's proven to be, if he loses he's sure to end up in jail, and his support is not dropping even when he's threatening to install the 4th reich in power.
As much as some journalists have been working hard to denounce all of this to the American electorate, I think it's also fair to say that, because of the entire information spectrum, blogosphere, Internet based communications, Fox News, and others... the 4th branch of power is also lost in a way. Disinformation, conspiracy theories, failure to regulate, how strategies that resemble radicalization by terrorist groups or radical cults dominates the information environment these days at large scale... neutral and balanced news coverage has been defeated.
So, what I really feel these days that American citizen should so is to prepare for what is coming. Because I think it's coming regardless of election results. And it is sad and unfortunate to say something like this, but too many lines have been crossed already. I hope I'm proven wrong somehow, but I don't think democracy in the US is salvageable anymore.
1
-
1
-
1
-
I think deep down in that whole university scandal plus the interviews and how the system is set up lies several of the problems the US is facing about education these days...
I don't have the right to judge nor am in a position to give any advice how an educational system should run because the system in my own country is pretty crap by itself.
We have tons upon tons of problems with education in Brazil.
But at least to a certain point it just feels more fair in a general sense.
Students for public universities are not chosen by a board, financial contributions officially don't matter, and all students have to basically go through a standardized test in a set day or week and the only thing that matters is how you score.
Of course, there are fraud schemes, there's corruption in the mix, there are very involved methods of cheating and all that. You'd of course expect that in a country that has politics and partially society as corrupt as Brazil has.
But this is pretty much it. Most of the rest of problems in our public school system stems from a lack of funding, lack of infrastructure, and problems around outdated content plus the usual stuff about effort not always translating to better scores.
We also have introduced not that long ago similar standard pre-tests that public school kids can take which could reserve a seat for them in public universities, we have reservation of seats in both public and private schools for kids under certain categories (minorities, poor families, etc)... but the advantage I see in our system is on eliminating potential points of corruption.
I feel giving too much power to a board of individuals who will obviously have biases and preferences is kinda bad in itself.
Of course we could have an argument on whether standardized tests are or not a good measurement of how well a student will do once they get into the institutions, there are lots of problems with evaluating kids with tests alone, and I am far from saying this is a perfect scenario. But I always found it super weird how things happen in the US, since way back when I was still a kid and learned that US education and specially university entrance worked in a completely different way than ours. It always seemed so ripe for elitism, corruption and bad biases for me...
1
-
1
-
It's just sad that portions of the US became theocracies led by ignorant people, but it is the reality of it. A radical Christian theocracy, there is no other way of seeing it.
There is zero basis in science, zero basis in research, zero basis in anything logical most of the times to have these abortion bans. It doesn't even make statistical or just plain logical sense, it's just based on religious extremism and ignorance. Worse of all, it actually does the opposite of these so called good Samaritans think they are doing, so dumb the whole thing is. Yes, the reality of abortion bans is that it ends up in more infant and women deaths. People could've checked the science of it before making such retarded decisions, but nope, let's just go with instinctual and ignorant feelings instead.
But we've been warning about this for decades now, and for whatever reason the US decided to reverse itself into centuries old ignorance back into dark ages times.
Not only no babies lives will be saved with those medieval measures, lots of women will end up needlessly losing their health, potentially their ability to give birth, when not their lives, because of pure ignorance.
The thing people living in the real world needs to understand is that the only thing abortion bans do is take abortion from a legal, well regulated, and well controlled status, into illegal black market territory. That's the reality of it. There are multiple reasons for this, but let's just enumerate some so that people use their critical reasoning to get to it.
First, there is absolutely no pregnant women in this world that will take the decision to terminate a pregnancy lightly. It just doesn't happen, because even the safest abortion procedure comes with potential issues. So you can bet all you want that the fact that the state considers it legal or not has zero weight on this decision. It never did. Not even back at times and countries where the church basically ruled the state. If you read enough books on history you will know that intentional abortions have been happening through the entire history of humanity independent on how society saw it, crime or not, moral or not.
Second, there are numerous ways to cause an abortion. It could be done safely in a clinic with all the medical support possible, or it could be done with the infamous but real coat hanger method. And in between those two you have all sorts of substances, teas, chemicals and whatnot that will terminate a pregnancy forcefully, putting the woman's health at varying degrees of risk. It makes no sense to think an abortion ban have any effect on how prevalent abortion is.
And so, by having a state put up abortion bans, what really happens is that the states ends up feeding illegal abortion clinics, putting the entire burden against families and pregnant women, directly causing more deaths, trampling over women's reproductive rights, and even worse stuff like putting women in abusive relationships to not have anyone to appeal to if she doesn't want to go through abortion.
It might sound counter sense, but that's reality. If abortion is an illegal procedure, illegal clinics will only be interested in money, there is no regulation there to stop procedures against the will of pregnant women, and so this actually facilitates an abusive boyfriend or abusive family to force an abortion procedure there.
You get the problem? Making it illegal stops the possibility of regulating the practice, it enables the state to be absent from the whole thing, and so it ends up in a worse situation than it already is.
But you elect dumb people to pass dumb laws, and now blood is in your hands. That's the way it is. Not only abortion bans does not lead to this fantastical scenario these stupid politicians and stupid radical religious people think it does, it actually makes things worse. So called "pro life" people, if they weren't so fucking ignorant, they'd be asking for more access to abortion and for the area to be regulated further.
It's because people blinded by ignorant rage and hatred ends up only advocating against themselves. And it is sad to see America becoming a dumb theocracy like that. With all the money and power you have, it's just plain unacceptable.
1
-
"woke" is the conservative's boogieman, because conservatives have basically become grown up spoiled children with not enough maturity to confront a world outside their personal bubbles. In other words, the embodiment of FUD. I don't understand it, therefore I'm violent towards it.
It's also a strawman for anything they don't personally like, which is why it has become so fractured and fuzzy. Somehow, it needs to define conflicting things at times.
It sometimes takes racist overtones, but it cannot do that when the conservative person using it is part of a racial minority, so perhaps it'll take a homophobic significance instead. Or it's about non-nationalism, anti-patriotic posturing, then it can encompass everyone who feels strong patriotic sentiments, no matter the color of skin or gender.
When everything else fails they'll say it's like communism or socialism somehow (taking a jingoistic significance), which is just completely absurd both in a practical and theoretical stance. But it works as much as "stranger danger" works for kids.
Practical because most communist and socialist states are practical dictatorships, where being woke would be suppressed by the state with prejudice, and in theory it has no meaning since those ideologies are about self-governance and power of the collective, where woke-ism wouldn't be needed - woke is an idea that only works in capitalist democratic societies with inherent inequalities.
But of course, the term only works in conservative groups these days because it does not have a fixed meaning, or any meaning at all. It's just Emmanuel Goldstein for their Two Minutes Hate.
1
-
I have a real problem with those, which is in how to organize them... xD
I've got some 2 boxes filled with them. Because I've been doing all sorts of jerry rigged stuff over the years, these sorts of connector A to connector B cables and adapters, I probably have them all.
Including some evil stuff like USB to Ethernet that I ended up never using... it was made so that you can pass USB signal via Ethernet cables to route those together with your internal LAN, but turns out my apartment can't handle more Ethernet cables in the ducting, so it's just there without usage.
I also have a whole bunch of them that don't work properly, or only work for specific devices which is a curse of the category. xD
But I keep a selection of them separate in a travel bag... perhaps those are the favorites? Let me list some here.
- Elbow male to female HDMI adapter... for those TVs stuck too close to the wall;
- Retractable Ethernet cable. This thing must be Cat5 at most, but you know, just in case;
- Retractable USB extension cable.
- Good thick USB A to micro USB, USB-C and USB-C to USB-C braided cables;
- Micro SD to regular SD size card adapter... not used much anymore;
- An SD card and microSD reader that has USB-A male port that can turn into micro USB, and a USB-C male port on the other side. Probably sh*t speeds, but could work in a pintch;
It's not in the bag right now, but I usually also carry a small laser projector, a small 1080p video recorder, and a small audio recorder in there too, plus a small battery bank.
And I used to have way more crap there, but it was becoming unmanageable, so I did some cleanup. I guess I need to do it once again because I don't think I really need to carry all of this on trips anymore.
Other notables carried separately:
- Small portable smartphone holder with a 1/4inch thread. For the family photos;
- Small USB hub with an Ethernet port;
- Bluetooth camera trigger;
- USB to m.2 adapter. This one is actually an external m.2 SATA enclosure, but I stripped it open and mostly use it to test m.2 SATA SSDs;
- Miracast dongle. I think this one burnt and broke at some point... need to test it again, brand ScreenBeanMini2;
- USB-C to P2 audio connector (don't even know why I have this, my current smartphone still has an audio jack, and I use a Bluetooth Shokz bone conduction thing to listen to stuff);
- P2 audio to Bluetooth dongle;
- USB A to HDMI generic video capture device;
- Small one hand gamepad/trackball sorta thing;
- USB all types electric tester;
- USB cable tester;
- generic MP3 player filled with audiobooks;
- All the adapters you can imagine... USB-A to mini USB, to micro USB, to USB-C, mini HDMI to HDMI, USB-C cable extenders, mini USB to micro USB, headphone jack splitters, lightning to microUSB for whatever reason;
- Some super old deprecated crap like a huge USB to Wi-fi dongle, a huge USB to Bluetooth dongle... those are all too old to be functional.
- And then I have a few USB RF nubs which I'm not sure for what keyboard, mouse, gamepad, presenter or whatever it goes with. xD
Oh, I also have a bunch of those SATA to USB 3 adapters, but at some point I got so frustrated with them sometimes working and sometimes not, that I ended up buying those external dock style kinda things. I have them for SATA, for IDE, and for m.2. Just figured that for the money I was already spending on the cables it was just better to get something with it's own power supply to get the job done. It seems a lot of the times they won't work is because they don't supply enough power, so...
Anyways, thanks for sharing Chris! Makes me feel a bit less crazy with all this stuff I have laying around. :P
1
-
Yup, the sort of sick sociopathic behavior that social networks are shamelessly profiting from these days, who thinks it's right to pose as badass while he's being arrested. The guy clearly only cares about his own image, everything else is a stepping stone to that.
I'm glad that this asshole is getting arrested, but truth be told, he's a single guy in an ever growing crowd of sociopaths, scammers, grifters, criminals and people generally responsible for the rot and putridness of current western cultures that are amassing power and money on the Internet because social networks and streaming platforms are completely out of control.
By disconnecting brands and advertisers from exactly where their ads are popping up in, you get a total lack of sense of responsibility for the content and behavior that gets financed on streaming platforms.
There's no sense of social or cultural responsibility anymore from businesses in relation to what they are helping finance with advertisement money. You put ads online via a third party advertisement agency because everyone is doing it and you can't survive on the market if you also don't do it, nevermind what the money is really paying for.
The middlemen gets protected by safe harbor laws, the filthy rich CEOs of tech giants protect their status quo with empty promises of doing better, the filthy rich CEOs behind the companies paying advertising money to those tech giants feign ignorance about where their money is going, and things continue racing towards the bottom of the barrel with a cultural rot, a complete destruction on reliability of information, the triumph of sociopaths and their sycophant fans, and the rest of us watching powerless in despair how the world burns to a crisp.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
True story: Power Rangers was all the rage back when I was a teen, but despite being a fan of other super sentai shows when I was a kid, I really didn't like it. :P
I was a fan of shows like Jaspion, Changeman, Flashmen, Super Cop, Black Kamen Rider and a bunch of others, but Power Rangers always felt a bit cheap and weird to me. It was the acting and the mix with teen college years stuff that I just couldn't take.
But it was a huge hit here in Brazil much like it was in the US, so reruns were on all the freaking time.
One day I was channel surfing, got right in this scene when the green ranger was giving this rallying speech not to give up or something, he got into this inspirational macho pose where he got his sword and shoved into the ground... it was only a few frames but you could clearly see the sword bending like a piece of cardboard before the scene quickly cut off to something else. Back then I didn't even know the show was made out of recycled japanese super sentai stuff, but you could clearly see how much the production quality lowered whenever the american actors were on scene, no offence. xD Later when I found out about all that, I went... oooh, this explains a whole lot. :P
1
-
Medallion system was a huge scam operated by the government, and you can bet they are not owning it.
The worst part of this is that no one is happy with what is happening there. Obviously, taxi drivers who paid a million and are now deep in debt got the brunt of this entire scam, but what is even worse in all this is that their situation is being replaced by just another scam with those ridesharing services.
People tend to see their side only. It's cheaper, their experiences with taxis was crappy, so everything is justifiable.
Only tons of ridesharing drivers are in similar situations. Deep in debt, getting peanuts to work as close to 24/7 as they can, no protections, for a company that is spending horrors not on them, but on technology that is supposed to replace them.
People may vociferate as much as they want against taxi drivers, in the end of the day most of them are hard working people who are high in debt, working shitty hours on an ungrateful and literally backbreaking job that most here wouldn't want to. And for all that they keep getting petty complaints, generalization, prejudice and this situation.
If that's how sympathetic people are going to be, don't come crying when something similar happens to you.
1
-
1
-
Follow this if you don't wanna dig the endless blackhole of information, for modern smartphones. Simple, to the point, and what most people need.
If you do want to go down the rabbit hole though, it's complicated... most smartphones, chargers, batteries and even single cells sometimes have protection circuits that will stop you from either overcharging or fully discharging individual cells. Because both scenarios can damage a battery, can reduce it's lifespan, and can potentially end up in thermal runaway (when they go explody).
Those circuits are so cheap nowadays due to mass production that I can't imagine any smartphone manufacturer skimping on this, including cheap chinese generic brands. BUT, if you get some really cheap crappy phone/battery charger, you may end up with a dud - because they are already so cheap that it makes sense to cut cents on a dollar of costs. So you better just stick with official chargers or at least ones with a good brand - also valid for external batteries.
What those circuits basically do (they do more than this, but this is the basis) is stopping chargers at pre-determined levels so that your battery don't degrade and potentially go explody, and they will also mark a battery as dead if their charge goes under a certain threshold - because that's also dangerous.
All in all, people don't have to worry much about overcharge, discharge, and other problems - because there are circuits already doing that for you, and there's a fairly good security buffer for nothing bad to happen. It also means the 0 to 100% charge isn't exactly related to the full capacity of batteries... it already includes the safety margins there. So the actual cells of your battery never really gets down to 0% or up to 100%.
Most of the confusion, apparent myths, and weird contradicting tips comes because it wasn't always this way. In the past we had different types of cells and rechargeable batteries, with different chemical compositions even (they still exist but limited to other applications), their optimal operation worked in different ways, protection circuits were not always present or equal/standard, so recommendations highly depended on which type of battery you were talking about. Nowadays it's kinda uniform, which made things way simpler for the end consumer.
Anyways, if you really wanna dig deep into the whole technology, how it works and whatnot, this website is a great source:
http://batteryuniversity.com/
1
-
Yep, the biggest and most damaging lie of the far right movement is claiming to be anti-establishment when most of them are extremely pro establishment, generally neo liberal, and very much for the protection of the status quo, a widening of the income gap, and reinforcing all sorts of prejudices and cultural divisions.
But behind the anti-establishment and what commenters are talking about immigration, the biggest thing in my opinion is at the end of the video - it's about where they are present. It's all about social media. Far right movements are successfully exploiting the worst problem that social media generates, which is to empower a discourse of hatred and false information specifically shaped to create FUD, paranoia, and general hatred based on prejudice and nationalism.
This also explain the gender division, if you look at what sort of content people consume.
To be clear, it's not that women in younger generations don't also excessively consume social media content - it's about what they tend to consume, vs young men. Or rather, what the algorithms will show them. Politics get shoved way more in your face by algorithms if you are a young man rather than woman. Violent rhetoric too.
You can see this not only analyzing the platforms in question and how their algorithms shape the recommendations, but also how far right parties engineer their propaganda to target what young men are looking for. It is no coincidence that far right parties will often use language and graphics that looks right out of some shooter game such as CoD, Battlefield, or some other war game.
And it should also be noted that this is exactly the tactics that terrorist group recruitment have used in the past and still use. The violent rhetoric, using some empowerment and entitlement language, painting others are villains, criminals or evil, creating some religious-like or directly religious extremist justification for actions, blame shifting, painting immigrants as the cause of all problems, oversimplifying subjects as they see fit - none of it is coincidence, it's all strategy.
The often undisguised admiration some of these parties have with brutal dictators, cult of personality stuff, savior, martyr or messiah complex, and then pretending to be anti-establishment by labeling the establishment as corrupt and wrong, oversimplifying it as evil and cause of all problems, and all of this crap everyone probably heard at this point already, this is all part of history, present, and probably future. It has happened before and it's happening again. It's because of how distant we are on historical events that led us to war that young men don't know better anymore, even though there is a case of that happening right there closeby.
I just wish more people read about the history of tyrannical dictatorships in the past, without the embellishment and distortions of Hollywood movies and series plus games, so that they better understood that we're just repeating history in some form. The propaganda and discourses of fascist movements of the past, how countries adopted abhorrent positions to justify aggression towards others, what are the mechanisms used in terms of politics, ideology, religion and human psychology.
I don't want to think we're gonna have to learn the hard way once again, but it looks like we're rushing towards that.
1
-
Extremely disappointed, but the key question: would you still vote for him knowing this? I can guess the answer: probably.
Because here's what people like this guy don't get - Trump is a con businessman through and through. He is that factory boss. He would do exactly the same as his boss is doing right now. This has been far more than proven in several of his bankrupt businesses, in all of his inflamatory and denialist discourses, in his strategy of "saying how it is" that is exactly how many con businessmen and leaders operate, in the entire shady history of the guy which you sympathize with because he frames his cases like just "one of the guys", "a victim of conspiracies" or something.
His rhetoric is shaped to fool, much like those factory CEOs did, people like you.
The empty promises, the second intentions, the fake empathy, the pretense. It's all there. Trump might even sit with some CEOs to publicly shame them, but behind your backs he will be complimenting them for what they are doing because they are just following his model. Because putting up a show - bread and circus - is what he does.
And workers like this guy will keep giving him credit and vote while getting as little as possible from this because they are trapped in this ideology, in the discourse, in the charismatic speeches.
Make complex issues simple by lying to people and making promisses that cannot be delivered while feigning ignorance in the process because that's a highly effective strategy for voters who don't know better.
And if workers revolt, to a point Trump gets pissed, you can bet he will call you a commie, a dem, an ungrateful bastard, and whatever else more because he is just that kind of guy. He'll turn against your interests as if it was nothing. And the rest of radical republicans and radical Trump supporters will turn on you too, because that's how polarization works. The entire thing is set to shut minorities and underpriviledged categories up.
Trump is the exact perfect model for all the top chain of command in all of those industries that are always keeping all the money while giving workers scrap.
It's just sad how so many people were fooled by his rhetoric, and apparently still are.
Hopefully, lots of people take this lesson back home and teach their kids about it for the future. Do not vote for the guy who obviously has a life that does not reflect anything in his discourse. Your boss that you hate so much for keeping all the profits? That's Trump. You can't blame him for it, you voted for exactly that. It's a consequence of your own decisions. Make better ones in the future.
1
-
Kinda crazy how late stage capitalism destroyed America.... as a citizen of a backwater 3rd world developing nation that some US ex-president might mock, living in an apartment complex which is the only thing down here that has something similar to an HOA, there are mountains of limitations as to what the HOA can fine and do.
I know this because I kinda help them, no pay. Voluntary kinda consultant helper position. "Them" being one single resident that was the only person to volunteer for the job, she gets a minimum wage to do what she does, and the work she does I wouldn't accept even if I got paid 10 times what she gets.
Not only she gets all the sh*t from residents who have nothing better to do in their lives, plus a few residents that clearly have some mental issues, she has to deal with all sorts of problems that happens independent of time of day.
Regarding the limited amount of fines she can apply for abusive behavior, she can't even charge legal fees, it's forbidden by law. So there is always a balance between applying fines and hiring lawyers to do it, only happens in extreme cases and in cases when it's required by law. Of course, she won't pay directly for it, but instead it's the whole building that pays for it, and she being one of the residents, she indirectly also pays for it. Lawyers are only hired in limited fashion in cases of crimes, and fees that are over 3 months late, because it's required by law to hire legal for potential expulsion.
On one hand, I often think she should have more powers, including to expel people from the building. Because it's just impossible, unless the tenant actually commits a crime, and even then it needs to be something that justifies getting someone expelled. On the other, this power should never get to the point HOAs in the US have. There should be no loopholes there were HOAs benefit from hounding, harassing and even expelling people.
All in all, it always feels weird how unprepared or just warped the US is in such matters considering how litigious the country is, and how much older US democracy is in comparison to ours.
By the way, our superintendent... seems like a better word for HOA person... is a lawyer herself. Huge luck we had because we had so many legal problems with the construction company that it was sorely necessary to have someone with legal expertise. It's thanks to it that the entire building is about to win a lawsuit against the construction company that made all sorts of errors and broke all sorts of promises they made while selling the units. I doubt this would happen if she wasn't a lawyer.
She also knows every bit of responsibility, laws and power she actually has to do the job. I can't even imagine how dire the state of the building would be if we didn't have a lawyer in her position. Everything short of terrorism and assassination (thankfully so far) you can imagine has already happened in this building. Fist fights, harassment, people destroying common areas with rowdy parties, all the common resident complaints with noise, construction work, pets at the wrong places, people who assaulted workers, drunk residents ramming the garage gates.... man, it's so much stuff I can't even list them all. If she didn't know exactly what to do in the multitude of situations that already happened, I don't even know the sum of liabilities we'd have nowadays.
I'm saying all this to make it clear that I understand why HOAs are a thing, at least for residential buildings. There's no way my building would function in any capacity if it didn't have someone to dedicate attention to it. Even the financial side requires a separate accounting firm to put everything in order, but there are far too many everyday problems to be solved.
But because of the extreme complexity and because of how varied those problems are, several laws and regulations were created around it so that it doesn't become total chaos. HOAs in the US are total chaos.
1
-
Easy: because in order to believe in ridiculous conspiracy theories, you need to have the exact mindset of a radical religious person. Open to indoctrination, relegating responsibilities to some invisible bigger power, obeying an opaque system of authoritarian power indirectly via people "in the know", going against society, peers and social circle for what they see as a bigger cause, joining forces with likeminded people to promote, enforce and live by a central belief and faith, allowing their lives to be led by something out of their control, expecting something bigger and supernatural to be out there controlling everything instead of undeestanding that their mundane lives is all that they have, confusing statistics and probability with the invisible hand of some higher entity.... I could go on and on.
Modern conspiracy theorists and groups like Qanon are nothing more than a modern version of a cult. And much like regular ol' cults, it targets the weak and vulnerable, and religion is always a core component because if you are religious, you are half way there.
This is not to offend religious people, but it's just how these things work. It should be obvious that if you are already willing to believe in some invible, omnipotent, all seeing superior force, it should be easier for you to also believe in other invisible, unseen, hidden or opaque forces at play too, and that you are also more willing to attribute major happenings to things unseen, and that you will find justifications for things you don't understand in things that you think you do, as told by an authority figure you elected to be your information source.
1
-
1
-
Heh, I felt that addiction creep on me too... unfortunately, I don't have enough money to keep it. I mean, if I lived in the US or Japan, perhaps, but here in my country they are overly expensive and all imported, so a luxury.
We do have Thermos in Brazil, but they are very much utilitarian... the design hasn't really changed in decades, and they are almost all 1L+ bottles.
Despite being a tropical country, we are a major coffee exporter and consumer country, so that's what it's mostly for.
But you don't see many people carrying individually sized thermos bottles here... the main usage is for businesses and households to keep coffee hot for a day, half a day or so. Also, southern states have lots of people who drink something called "Chimarrão", which requires hot water... but they tend to also carry 1L+ bottles for that. I've seen people carrying 3 and 5L bottles. :P
As for myself... I have a few. Couple of novelty camera lens shapped individual thermos, generic unbranded. I have some 3 or 4 different styles of reusable water bottles, not insulated. And then I used to have a 3L electric thermos... which unfortunately broke, I never managed to find a replacement for a resonable price, so I ended up getting a non insulated electric kettle instead.
The thing is, I now use the electric kettle for tea, and coffee I've been using a fancy Nespresso machine that can also make capuccino... for almost 10 years now. As I don't have a huge need to keep things hot or cold for a very long time, thermos are not very necessary.
But I think I'll eventually splurge on a Zojirushi electric thermos at some point... a simple one that most japanese hotel rooms have. It makes sense from a power usage standpoint. Intead of boiling water all the time, just keep it hot for multiple cups of tea.
1
-
1
-
This is something that most people don't seem to understand, and no, Japan not covering history is not just because of "shame", that's just what detractors and a very biased purview usually say. This idea is not only overly simplistic, it lacks self criticism too.
History in school classes, as well as geography, and other subjects related to the nation you live in all have a patriotic foundation. The original purpose of those subjects was to place students inside the cultural context they live in, and to foster a sense of patriotism for the country they are citizens off. And it's easy to understand why - history, geography, geopolitics among other areas of study in schools all started during periods of time that the world was in between or actively during wars. Often, those were tools for military recruitment, believe it or not. Not always, but several times during our history.
Overtime, these classes have evolved to include world history, but it's usually separated between national, and then "the rest", often being a very unbalanced coverage of the rest, usually other countries that matter somehow to yours - be it because of diplomatic relationships, cultural proximity, recent events and wars, etc.
Given that, you can imagine how it becomes basically impossible to cover the entire history of all the countries in the world entirely, with the same allocation of time you have to cover the entire history of one country - yours.
Further, as those areas of studies tends to be the most contaminated by politics, you will always have a huge bias behind it all. There are big differences and gaps when it comes to history and geography when you take it from capitalist countries versus socialist countries, former allied countries vs axis countries, current standings, side of war, alignment, ideologies, religious interferrence, etc etc.
Now, to deviate from the content, but something that always comes up.
People often question why do japanese schools don't cover war crimes of japanese imperial military past in countries like Korea and China, because Japan is often an easy target for these kinds of questionings.
But you don't really see many countries recognizing and teaching kids and young adults at school of war crimes commited by their own military forces. It's either about other country's military forces, or it's treated like a passing note. If you had extensive history classes covering war crimes commited by your country against other countries, let me know - genuine proposal, I'm not being facetious here. And yes, if your country had any military war role in any other country, you can bet there were war crimes.
Which, just so people know, history books in Japan do cover the country's role, surrender, and change of political system during WWII. It's just not extensive, or at least not as extensive as victim countries would like it to be, because of course it wouldn't.
The politics adopted by post WWII Japan, agreed upon by constitution and by both sides involved, is that Japan would become a peaceful nation. An artifact of that is that in Japan, topics such as war are treated with distance, and portrayed as something people should never seek again. I'm sure anyone who has been in Japan knows this. The peace ideology is spread out in culture, museums, memorials, etc.
Something that people always puts up as counterpoint to this is that, hey, Germany teaches the evils of Nazi Germany, etc. See, it's easier to talk and teach about Nazi Germany, as a defeated axis country, paradoxically because of Nazi propaganda. You target and shame the ideology, the party, not the country as a whole. Nazists were evil, but germans don't necessarily have to feel ashamed of it, unless they are nazists themselves.
This gives enough distancing between "the evil" that was the Nazi party, Hitler, as an example of what german students should not strive for, but without eliminating the possibility of being a current Germany patriot citizen. This also applies to other axis nations, because lots of them adopted a similarly radical ideology to justify war crimes. In Italy it was Mussolini and the italian Fascist movement.
For Japan, this is a bit harder to do, because as a country, Japan still has an emperor, there are no well defined political or ideological lines to cut ties with, and many of the justified complaints of foreign nations are not easily resolved.
Give you an example, the polemic around the Rising Sun flag. I don't think most people shouting about it realizes this, but the often revilled Rising Sun flag has been in use in Japan to represent either the nation or the military or both, since the 7th century, up to today. Yes, today. It's been continuously in use for over a millenia and a half, well above any other flag in the world.
The Rising Sun flag currently represents the JSDF - Japanese Self Defense Force. Look it up, I'll wait. In fact, you'll be able to see it being used in military exercises in conjunction with several allied nations, including the US, as recently as a couple of years ago at least. The navy uses the Rising Sun Flag, ground forces and air forces uses variants of it.
It's justified for korean and chinese victims to feel offended by it because when the japanese imperial army invaded, they were holding those flags.
A large part of the outrage culture that arises everytime the flag is used in some japanese culture export - like manga, games, and anime - is misleaded and misinformed at best, manipulative and political at worse. Because the flag and symbology has never been not in use. The outrage comes both from political manneuvering, and from foreign ignorance. It became "a thing" because of how much more connected the world has become with the Internet and all that, so it might seem a new problem to the eyes of some people, but it actually isn't.
Different than the Nazy party iconography, that had flags, uniforms, insignias, and whatnot that represented the party's ideology, the japanese military forces of those times were holding flags that historically represented Japan as a nation, not a specific ideology or party. Imagine something like WWII germany using the basic German flag instead of the Nazi party's flag - only that the Rising Sun flag is about 1000 years older than the oldest German Empire flag.
And so, it becomes much harder to solve this conundrum. It's also why most japanese people still don't see a problem there - the flag is not a symbol for a specific attrocity or period of time, military action or war, it's the nation's flag, period, since forever.
It's in the name. Land of the Rising Sun was how Japan as a nation has been referred to since it's very foundations, by chinese diplomats, and thus a flag that is a very basic artistic rendition of a rising sun is what it translates to.
Similarly, western tourists often have the cultural shock of seeing the Manji symbol used to represent buddhist temples everywhere in Japan, looking exactly like a reversed Swastika. It's been there times before WWII and the Nazi party, and it continues to be there in current use. The symbol predates Nazism, it has origins in Buddhism and Hinduism. No one there sees manji as reverence to nazi ideology.
Which all turns to - do victims of japanese imperial military forces have a right to feel offended or scared and scarred by the Rising Sun flag as a symbol? Of course they do. The attrocities were no joke, it remains some of the worst human rights violations en masse of recent history, as bad as the Nazi party and Italian Fascist party commited.
Does this necessarily translates to Japan and japanese culture being forced to erase a historical patriotic symbol from it's entire cultural and historical production? I don't think so too.
At the same time, I also don't think Japan has any right to have revisionist politicians. That one is what really crosses the line for me. And yes, the current governmental party (former prime minister Shinzo Abe and current one are from the same party) has some shady non declared ties with revisionist groups, which is plenty bad. They are not, afaik, openly and declared revisionist themselves though, and contrary to what you may have heard, the japanese government continues having a stance of recognizing it's war crimes and that it was in the wrong side of WWII on every single diplomatic visit and in relevant dates, to this day - it's documented, you can look it up.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
@Narity_ Well, let's break down your arguments without calling names, ok?
First, the two things I'm talking about - "these sorts of attacks" and "electing demagogues into power" are related imho, you are free to disagree of course, though at this point it's pretty much proven by history.
And honestly, it shouldn't be very surprising too - when you elect people with outspoken prejudice, historical revisionism, calls to action against minorities, puritanical views and/or outspoken calls for violence against those that oppose them, yes, it has an effect on the population he or she is supposed to represent. You always see an effect of empowerment of the radical sections of a population, because they see the discourse of a leader like that as a flag of permissiveness for their own radical thoughts. If the president or PM is saying he or she supports it, then it's ok if I also act on it.
See that I didn't mention this particular case mainly because I didn't know about the details which you are bringing up, thanks - but that's not the correlation I was making anyways. It's that of violent crimes in general, with the election of demagogues. It could even be related to this one regardless of the motivation the criminal is giving, but I won't be the judge of it, again, because there are not enough details.
Just in case people don't know what I mean by "demagogue", it's about politicians who use their platforms to stoke fear, uncertainty and doubt against minorities, foreigners, particular classes of people and whatnot, to get support, to get votes. It's an appeal to the crudest negative emotions people have so they feel indirectly threatened to vote for them.
There are other definitions for it, but this is one of them.
The reason why I personally think they are related is because I live in a country where a demagogue using arguments not too dissimilar to the ones the Italian PM used, was elected and then we had a ramp up in violent attacks by people who felt empowered by having a demagogue elected, pure and simple. Reason for the warning in general. Crimes against minorities, domestic violence, gun violence, mass shootings, politically motivated crimes... they all ramped up. In states where his political influence is highest, it's also where these sorts of crimes ramped up more, because people are buying fully into the political discourse.
"People like me"... sorry, I don't think you know me enough to make broad generalizations like these.
And I have to say, you are a random guy on the Internet much like myself, so it seems pretty illogical to make a comment like that... I could just say random guys like yourself dismissing fears other people have on the Internet to also be toxic in itself, we end up zero to zero.
So... there you go. In the hopes you understand my comment better this way. Feel free to disagree of course.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Ray-tracing isn't AI, the difference in vanilla Minecraft vs the one "enhanced" by ray-tracing is less because of it and rather because of aesthetic choices, and the difference between ray tracing and current techniques of emulating realistic 3D graphics isn't as far as the video is trying to put it.
Minecraft and older FPSs (like Quake) videos are impressive, but the difference is not because of ray tracing implementation... it's because those games were originally not made to look realistic in the first place. Well, Quake perhaps was, but at a standard of over 20 years ago, so of course it would look impressive. If Quake was redone with modern 3D realistic techniques without ray tracing, it would also look super impressive. Same thing for Minecraft.
You wanna see the difference between modern techniques for 3D realism and direct ray tracing you need to get a modern game and make the comparison with ray tracing on and off. They are actually not that big, because modern techniques for 3D realism outside ray tracing are already plenty advanced.
The thing is - it was already possible before real time ray tracing to make a "realistic" Minecraft, a vastly improved Quake, or demos like the realistic 3D home shown. You have probably seen them if you are following demos closely. Square Enix has a bunch of them, as other major game devs with big game engines. More mundane stuff like architectural and real estate video rendering also have been out there for a while now.
It's not that real time ray tracing isn't impressive by itself... in fact, it's a long standing dream for 3D game developers. Basically, since the inception of 3D games, devs have been working extremely hard to emulate ray tracing in real time to produce realism in games. But since the hardware we had for an end consumer was nowhere near powerful enough to do actual ray-tracing, a multitude of techniques and strategies were developed overtime to emulate it. Texture mapping, bump mapping, FoV boundaries, object occlusion, selective rendering, switching between low and high res textures depending on distance, upping or downscaling the number of polygons on a given 3D object depending on distance, different ways of dealing with reflection, transmission and absorption of light in a given material, particle physics, cloth physics, water related techniques... etc etc etc. Most people don't know about these techniques, but they are there particularly in realistic 3D games.
Ray tracing is better and easier to deal with because it basically reproduces how the world works inside the game - it traces rays of light from sources and lists the behaviour of said light against all sorts of materials. It is simpler and more logical, but also exponentially costlier in terms of processing.
So, in essence, before real time ray tracing you had to apply a huge number of techniques to make realistic scenes look realistic. With real time ray tracing it's more a matter of rendering the light and having the correct set of behaviors for each material in the game. It is simpler, but way more resource intensive. One way or the other, gamedevs themselves don't have to worry too much about it... game engines already take good care of this abstraction layer. It's one among the reasons why so many games these days are made using engines like Unity, Unreal, CryEngine, among others. Those engines hide the extremely hard math and techniques to implement stuff like realistic 3D scenes, physics, interface, AI, etc etc, delivering those as packages for devs to use in library or even graphical interface form.
Now, for the rest of the video, machine learning will really change lots of things. In fact, lots of things are already being applied. If you ever played a procedurally generated game (roguelikes), you have seen at least the rudimentary beginnings of how machine learning can help in games. Machine learning with training sets and neural networks can help a ton with the technical side of things - you can think of it as an extremely smart random asset generator. It enables gamedevs to give more abstract and generalistic things for the engines to generate by themselves. For instance, I want a desert scene with an earthen labyrith of medium complexity for this level - instead of having to model everything by yourself. With a good training set and a good neural network, it could instantly give me tens of different options that already fits the game look and feel.
But, at least for the beginning now, properly training and making machine learning work as expected is not an easy task. This will likely be adopted first by game engines, not directly by gamedevs. Much like game engines come with standard assets for each developer to use however they like, standard pre-trained neural networks and machine learning tasks will likely come included. If those don't evolve a lot overtime and gets diversified, it ends up in the same problem standard assets comes with - they look too generic, and might not fit the narrative of a given game. So, devs have to take the lead and train their own neural networks and make things work for their particular game. I do agree that this can still reduce costs quite a lot for game developers... but it's not like they will suddently become super cheap and easy to make.
It ends up making a difference in the same way game engines made a difference not long ago.
The price of games these days are not dictated only by costs of production already, they are estimates of volume sale. It's usually a fixed price point given the category of the game itself (mainstream, indie, etc), with the hopes that it sells enough to cover costs and turn a bit of profit.
You have to think kinda like Hollywood movies. Better and cheaper cameras, lenses, filming techniques, cranes, automated gimbals and dollies, stuff that vastly cheapens the construction of sets among other stuff do have an impact. One big thing that has changed the movie industry is the adoption of dSLR camera videos and vastly cheaper post production setups with regular computers running something like Adobe Premiere or Final Cut X for the editing process. In the past, those were in the order of 10 to 100x more expensive. Cameras, editing stations, other post production processes.
But the final price of the movies themselves for the end consumer didn't changed all that much, because the final price of movies didn't have that much to do with production costs in the first place.
It's an interesting exploration on topic nonetheless.
1
-
1
-
You can call that whatever you want, but not saying this is about secularism. Secularism is not a denial of religion. It seems a ton of people misunderstand the concept.
Yes, secularism is about the separation of state and church, and more broadly the reduction of religious precepts as factor for conflict resolution in government, but it is designed to respect all religions, including non-religious but not exclusively, not ban them all. It's supposed to be used to enable religious diversity, not kill religious expression.
A secular school or public institution will allow people to use whatever religious clothing, be it as Muslim identity, Catholic, Buddhist or whatever, as long as it does not interfere with politics designed out of respect for all.
Banning something without apt justification on the intrusion of the liberty of others is autocracy. Which I guess fits well the current French government.
I suggest people read and understand these concepts better before making use of them.
1
-
1
-
I think some parents will disagree strongly with me on this, but I have to say - this is going too overboard and too "won't someone think of the children" for it's own good. Particularly the entire vagueness of it, which is rife for all sorts of abuses from several parties that just can't end up well.
And this isn't even only about YouTube and creators, this would be about the entire Internet, as COPPA is basically for everything online. This overzealousness and literal nanny state ruling is starting to approach chinese government levels of sanctions and penalties. As in, the sort of law that you'd expect from a controlling puritanical dictatorship, not a democracy.
The obvious problem here is that COPPA is so vague that almost every video could be labeled as partially child oriented in some way, which ends up with the same problems. There are no hard lines in any of those pre conditions listed by COPPA, so the situation you end up with is a set of rules that can be exploited by just about any ill intended person or group.
Competitors will flag videos just to take a channel down, trolls will abuse the system, helicopter parents could take down an entire channel beloved by tons of people, politicians could abuse it, blackmailers and scammers.... there are so many ways the system could be abused that it becomes a tool for oppression rather than beneficial to kids.
Looking at that list is damning enough, specially considering how, as Devin already masterfully explained, there ends up being no mixed child-adult content classification.
Subject matter and visual content. The cross section between subject matters that both kids and adults will find interesting and will seek out is just too huge. Worse yet, let's remember that there is an in-between category here that includes teens and young adults;
Use of animated characters. This is a LARGELY outdated, biased and just plain wrong concept that contains prejudice inside it and is in no way, shape or form defining of content aimed for kids these days. Arguably, it has never been, it's just a close minded assumption that came from mainstream ignorance a long time ago, even if we look only on animated characters from the US solely (because from countries like Japan I don't even have to argue about this). You go all the way back when animation was invented, the area is littered with examples of animation made for teens and up or strictly adults... ignoring this fact doesn't make it go away. Animated characters were never kids exclusive in the entire history of the medium, it doesn't make sense for this item to be there.
If you limit to online animation alone, then it gets even worse.... anyone who was around at the time when flash animation became a thing will know that the absolute vast majority of animations created had strictly adult content in it.
But that's an entire other discussion, the fact is that this item being on this list already shows how biased and ignorant the idea was from start.
Music/audio content. Kids listen to basically any type of music these days. Sure, there are specific types of music that are more targeted for kids, but this also doesn't tell much about who's watching it. It could even be argued that people who would be watching videos with kid oriented music these days would probably be parents trying to learn those songs to sing to and with their kids.
Age of models, presence of child celebrities. Makes no sense to assume this would be indicative in any way of the age of people who are watching. Yet another case where parents will likely be the ones watching most videos with kid actors in it, deciding on presents to buy, observing behavior, paying attention to trends, stuff like that.
Celebrities who appeal to children. How in the heck a celebrity can control if he/she appeals to children or not?
Language - damn son, look at the sort of language that is being used for certain types of adults to understand certain concepts these days. I don't wanna get political on this, but there is a whole ton of politicians that would be plain classified as kids considering the language that needs to be used to explain some stuff for them.
Advertising directed to children - what is this? Is this ads of stuff for kids? How is this one defined? Wouldn't it be extremely easy to confuse this with ads directed to parents of children, relatives of children, or people who buy presents for kids?
Audience composition - again, outside control. Creators, artists, musicians, actors and actresses, authors... media in general do not get to pick and chose it's audience. It has always been, it is, and always will be the other way around. Putting the burden of "choosing and audience" somehow on the authors of content is unreasonable, backwards, and kinda crazy if you think about it. Creators can at most hope to reach a certain audience.
I will conclude my comment with a question - is there any video, any channel, any category that is guaranteed not to have some kids watching, particularly the most popular stuff? I'd posit that this just isn't a thing. And it most likely never was. For books, radio, TV, music. It's just an extremely idiotic concept that never made any sense outside the minds of religious zealots, puritanical assholes and lunatic parents.
I'll say it for myself - when I was a kid between 11 to 13, a whole ton of the content I watched wasn't for kids under 13 already. Some of it was strictly for adults even.
The only way to enforce something like this would be for the entire world's population to be chipped when they are born with an accurate lifetime clock that would tell the age of everyone to a system, and I'd bet it would be hacked and bypassed very quickly. Which if I'm being honest, sounds more like a dystopia for me.
The taboo concept that people really don't wanna discuss around these subjects is that in reality, kids will start having contact with stuff not appropriate for their ages overtime as part of growing in modern society. A sheltered kid that is left completely ignorant about certain things until he or she turns 13 would have a far worse time dealing with all of that at once. We are not robots or characters of a game, switches aren't suddenly flipped when a certain number of years passes from your birthdate, the best we can do is control exposure to a point, educate and hope for the best - which is what has always been done regarding media.
The systems in place don't work because people, again, shouldn't be and are not automatons. So the entire concept goes against how we actually work.
And then, when it comes to kids, modern societies have propped themselves up to put their priorities above everything else for a myriad of reasons - some of which I agree with, some not so much. It has become so much twisted this way that politicians and people overall often don't consider negative consequences of trying to enforce certain stuff. There is no recognition nor confrontation of bad effects a nanny state has on kids. I'm reminded of some recent video I watched about the obesity crisis in chinese kids in modern China.
Anyways, I wrote too much stuff that people will shout against me already... I will even admit that I think there are tons of content on YouTube that I think kids should not be watching, and I do have problems with YouTube or any other platform tracking activities of kids (and adults too). But these things are not going to be solved with ill thought stuff like COPPA. It's like solving climate change by exterminating half the world's population. Might even work, but that's not the solution you should be looking for.
1
-
1
-
1
-
I'm not entirely sure about this VW strategy in Brazil too, even though it seems lots of other car manufacturers are going that way too. Renault is another one announcing plans for major investments in the country.
Brazil does a whole ton of trade with China, and several Chinese automakers are already building assembly plants in the country, or already here - Chery, BYD and GWM. Some in locations where older car manufacturers had plants and shut down.
The only saving grace for VW in Brazil is the market itself, but this is mostly because of market inertia.... so it's really not that much of an advantage.
The country is unlikely to adopt EVs anytime soon, so VW wins because the market will be mostly ICEs and Hybrids for a very long time. Partial win at least, because Chery has been around in the market for a while now, and their market share is only growing. Price is king.
The problem with EVs is infrastructure. There are no significant projects, neither government level nor private initiative, to build national fast charging infrastructure, seems real estate is also very timid with at home charging, roads are pretty sh*t and highways already have a f*ckton of accidents everyday that don't need the added danger of EV batteries going thermal runaway, and so on. It's not only a matter of peppering the country with EV chargers - highways and roads all need upgrading to carry the extra load and do it safely.
Kinda ironic because it'd be a great thing to do. Brazil does not have to deal with snow in winter, so that's one major thing not to worry about. At the same time, the heat and horrible road conditions can be a huge challenge in itself.
Plus most vehicles going around these days are old and used. Cars are such an expensive thing that you have very very few people who can afford new cars regularly, or ever. The new car market is very limited.
Of note, a new BYD factory that was scheduled to start operations this year got frozen because of reports of slave labor. Certain things will not be tolerated in the country, because despite the current president having a factory background in his early work career, he also went into politics exactly because of a fight for workers' rights and union backgrounds. He's all for business with other nations, but he was elected by workers to defend workers' rights. Whether you like him or not, that doesn't matter, that's the image he projects be it true or not.
But of course, they are building stuff in Brazil for export, not for the internal market.
Thing is, Brazil probably doesn't feel it owes any allegiance to big brands too.
In 2021 Ford ended production in Brazil after 100 years of history. It left a ton of workers in the cold right in the middle of the pandemic. The country had significant shut downs, production freezes, union protests against car manufacturers and all sorts of attrition over the years. It's a big part of the industry history.
At the same time, the country is also very reliant on it for economic output. So the area as a whole will likely thrive. But I think overtime, we'll have a change in who leads market share and sales.
The big traditional brands will have an uphill battle with Chinese auto, that's for sure. Years ago I could see them filling only a niche market of people who were willing to risk a newcomer brand because of it's cheap price, but nowadays they are becoming much more established. Between advertisement, huge trade deals, major factories and assembly plants, cars you see running on the streets, general thoughts on price to performance, and stuff like that - it's not all about the old brands anymore.
With scandals and bad reviews in droves for American, European, South Korean and Japanese brands going around, at some point even for the most traditionalist folks, the thought of going with a Chinese brand, particularly for something this expensive, starts winning out. Their brands dominates the charts of cheapest EVs, ICEs and Hybrid models.
Anyways, but for me personally? Whoever sells the car with least computer crap, Internet connected sh*t, tech I did not ask for, simple mechanics, and no anti-consumer crap forced in it, wins. Until this doesn't happen, I'm keeping my 20+ year old beater indefinitely.
Last year I decided to overhaul it to the point of the bill being well over twice it's market value. Reliable car that does everything I need without all this computer sh*t in the mix. And if no brand or manufacturer gets out of the software age to offer something simpler, I'll just continue buying used if my own car fails.
1
-
1
-
Ignorance is at the bottom of all of this, once again. If not grifting and other problems that are arising from the exploitation that is happening around the alt-right.
These groups' useless fight against books they don't like is just ignorance or complete misunderstanding on what books are, what purpose they serve, and why they need to be in schools in the first place. Which isn't all that surprising for religious extremists that follow their own interpretations of what was written in a books ages ago, but that's just another component part of the problem itself.
Books, particularly the ones that are being banned for arbitrary reasons, are not there for kids or people in general to blindly follow or replicate actions without context. They are there to expose different realities, experiences and ideas to others. You are not talking about instructional booklets, you ignorant morons, you are talking about novels, biographies, comic books and whatnot.
If you or your kid watch a movie, read a book, listen to a song, play a game or consume any other type of entertainment and thinks that you'll just blindly replicate whatever you saw there because "the book said so", this is a problem in the way you or your kid sees things, not a problem with the material itself. I'd suggest these people reading more books to understand what I'm talking about. It's called critical reasoning, and one of the better ways of acquiring it is by reading as many different books with different perspectives as you see fit.
This is all a consequence of self entitled privileged egotistical mentality that everything everywhere needs to serve a purpose for yourself and only yourself, and needs to fit the categorization you created in your own mind for your own selfish purposes, plus this tendency that people have to skirt personal responsibilities and delegate it to everything other than themselves.
In fact, it's by no mere coincidence that all sorts of statistics regarding crime, criminal behavior, or irresponsible behavior happens exactly in communities like those, where ignorance prevails, and religious based censorship continues being a thing. It's because there is no education there to prevent people from having a proper understanding of whatever, when they face it in real life.
Indoctrination happens when there is a vacuum of knowledge in place, not otherwise.
Teen pregnancy when seen as a problem, or "sexualization of children" is a much more likely scenario when you have an educational system that is blocked from teaching kids about it, when kids don't have access to books that talk about it, when kids grow up in an environment where this sort of information got banned in schools and forbidden from being talked about. And it remains a persistent problem when there is no experience shared on the subject. Let me tell something for worried parents - there is nothing more welcomed and better for child groomers than total ignorance from the part of victims. And there is nothing that creates more child groomers than ignorance on adults on the horrible consequences this has on their victims, often written about in the very books you are trying to ban.
Because when ignorance and censorship prevails, what happens is that kids and adults are unprepared to handle it when it comes up in real life, they don't know how to position themselves around the subject, they don't know the dangers or problems that arises from it, they can only experience the thing by trying it for themselves and seeing how it goes.
Prejudice works in exactly the same way. The absolute vast majority of racists in any given country simply don't know what they are talking about, they don't know the history of the people they are blindly against, they have only anecdotal biased information, if not straight up fake news and conspiracy crap to go by. Turns out that radicalizing people and turning them into extremist, tribalistic, conspiratorial idiots is far easier when ignorance prevails.
So, this is a complete disservice for a developed nation. The more you prohibit books from playing their part in the development of a nation, the more you stop people from learning from the experience of others, the more utterly disconnected your culture becomes. You are forcing your kids and adults in a condition of mindless infants once again, you are not protecting them, you are forcing them to stay vulnerable and continue being in a highly exploitable position.
I'm also not a parent, but if I had kids I'd definitely encourage them to read as many books as they want to. Play as many games, read as much content, and absorb whatever you can, understanding that those are not things to follow, they are things to learn critically about. You will shape your own story and have your own experiences for yourself, it's your responsibility to understand what is right and wrong for yourself, and whenever you need guidance or to clear up questions that you have on the material, teachers and myself as a parent will be there for exactly that. This is the role of responsible adults trying to raise kids.
This is how you raise kids to be respectable and knowledgeable adults, able to navigate properly in the real world, who will succeed in life and feel free to do whatever in a way that it doesn't fire back. Not by deliberately making them blind, but by letting them consume as much information as they want to, and then guiding them as much as needed.
1
-
1
-
@agateslate7939 That's because you are evaluating an entire nation based on superficial, often sensationalistic stuff that does not reflect everyday reality.
It's not that those things don't exist - they exist in every nation in the world. It's because when you only consume information about Japan through International news coverage, small docs, blog coverage and that sort of stuff that tends to go for the clickbait stuff, plus fictional content such as anime, it creates an unrealistic image of the situation.
For each of those, you should look at worldwide statistics for each and every subject to actually check if those are out of the ordinary in Japan in comparison to other nations. But I'll let you some of the stuff I know from previous researches, you can check for yourself if they remain true or not, don't trust a random commenter on YouTube.
Hikkikomori came to prominence because it's an officially recogned problem for the Japanese government, with a specific name and all, but it is far from being a Japan exclusive problem. It's just another name for reclusive young adults that are unemployed and don't leave their homes. It is far more common worldwide than most people think, and it's quite likely that Japan is not the leading country for this.
Both workaholics, suicide and suicide from overwork also became news because on how Japanese government has prioritized the problem, as well as named some of them specifically like karoshi, but again, those are not as big as some people seem to think in Japan, and other nations have worse statistics on those. Suicide and suicide from overwork both have an interesting characteristic to it - both were rampant back in the 80s and 90s, but the rates dropped sharply over the years, and continues to drop. Meanwhile, in most western nations, both are having meteoric rises to much that some countries nowadays are reaching the levels Japan had back in the 80s and 90s.
Now, as for the isekai phenomena, it's more related to how many people play games and understand western fantasy scenarios rather than "desperation to live a new life".
If a preference for fictional stories that shows a different world or environment than our own was indicative of desperation to live a new life, then I'm pretty sure all countries all around the world would fit the description. We are all watching movies, tv series, anime, playing games, reading books and whatnot to escape reality to some degree.
1
-
Yep, agreed... it's a "ban" in the sense that it hopes the Macbook owners themselves won't try to take their 2015 Macbooks in the plane, and then potentially throw the liability on top of them if they do despite warnings and something bad happens.
But probably, no one is gonna enforce it.
Which is a big side of how several bans work. Less about your direct real ability to do things, more about what happens if someone finds out you did, or alternatively if you do something that is banned and it ends up in a bad situation.
About whether to hold this against Apple... it's just a thing that seems to periodically happen in batches of laptops regardless of brand. Lenovo, Toshiba, HP, Sony Vaio... all of those had some model of laptop that got recalled because of battery issues. It's a long list, and some brands had multiple recalls over the years.
The one thing people should understand if it is to put it against Apple is simply this: Apple is no different from all these other brands. In fact, it's quite likely that the batteries on the 2015 Macbook, as it is for several other Apple products, just comes from the same factories that mass produces the batteries for all these other brands. So, it comes as no surprise that batches of Macbooks could have similar problems. Apple does not do their own batteries. They don't have mass production facilities for batteries. They buy from someone else, and slap their brand there.
This is also partially why the whole strategy of making independent repair battery replacement look bad is so eggregious. Not only it's very likely that there's no real difference between an Apple branded battery and a generic one, but also... did you know that a couple of the oh so catastrophic and feared iPhone battery fire cases happened... wait for it... inside an Apple store during maintenance work? Because whoever was doing it physically damaged the battery? Yeah... I'm not joking here.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-09/iphone-reportedly-explodes-zurich-apple-store
https://9to5mac.com/2018/01/10/firefighters-iphone-explosion/
https://9to5mac.com/2018/08/19/apple-store-amsterdam-battery-explodes/
1
-
1
-
1
-
The more I watch Hyperloop related content, both negative and positive, the more I am convinced that it's not a mode of transportation, it's more like a cult, some form of propaganda, an attempt to skirt around existing proprietary technology, or just a cash grab.
It's all hyperboles, theoretical stuff based on borderline fantasy, and no criticism or comparison as to why it's looked as highly upon itself as it is, specially in comparison to what is already out there.
And yes, cue the people saying how we didn't get to the moon by sitting on our asses or something similar to this tired argument.
Let's see the claims:
1. it's a new mode of transportation. I'd say it's existing and already employed Maglev technology with a ridiculously expensive and hard to do near vacuum tunnel system. What makes people think that countries will be able to build entire subterranean or even non-subterranean vacuum tube systems when they can't even revamp way cheaper and way simpler stuff like roads or train tracks?
2. zero emissions. If you are going to need electricity and energy to create a near vacuum inside tubes, zero emissions is highly reliant on grid. Which, btw, is the same case for maglev train technology. I don't see anything in this tech that would make it more power efficient in comparison to other existing forms of transporation, so this claim is pretty much baseless.
3. comparisons to current US train systems, and outlandish false equivalences to the evolution of other types of technology. See, all of those pros could be achieved right now by just investing in and building up a bullet train system in the US. The problem is not that we don't have the technology, the problem is making government and private sector invest and actually build it.
4. this entire documentary still didn't answer the most common questions that comes around the idea itself, it's just the same tired bullshit that has already been fed since the start of this entire thing. How much it would cost, how secure it'd be, how accessible, how would it be funded, how it compares to existing similar technology.
Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting area of study that could result in parallel discoveries, tech and ideas to improve other areas and whatnot.
But this is the only thing I can see it being. Not a new form of transportation, not something that is even remotely close to being achieved, but something of a modern monorail thing.
I don't want to sound that much of a bullet train fan, but I'm making the comparison due to proximity of tech and transportation ability.
Here are the advantages I can imagine for maglev trains: it doesn't depend on near vacuum tubes or tunnels, but they probably could be used or adapted to use in such scenarios. They don't need to fit exact pod sizes, running in different car configurations, which lends flexibility to the system. They can, much like trains, be built progressively and in a more interconnected way, which seems to be something hard to do at least for the core hyperloop idea. You can have lots of stops in between major points because it doesn't have a pod that needs to be accelerated up to certain speeds to work efficiently. They already work and are in use right now, so it's not a theoretical thing. They are actually already considered "ground airplanes" or something in a similar tone, so you don't have to steal the moniker from another form of transportation. It's a technology that is still progressing and still breaking new records each year.
The advantage for hyperloop - it can theoretically reach higher speeds at huge extra costs and a bunch of disadvantages. That's it. I'm talking about theoretical speeds, because that often repeated LA to San Francisco in 30 to 40 minutes? That's theoretical, an highly doubtful whenever and if Hyperloops ever happen. They didn't even manage to pull those sorts of speeds in reduced scale, ideal conditions testing grounds just yet. And complexity grows exponentially with this sort of thing. The longer the track and size of pod is, the more and more complex it becomes - to maintain a near vacuum, to have straight tracks and tunnels, to make the thing accelerate properly, to avoid accidents, to keep things in perfect shape, etc etc.
So, I have to start speculating why this entire thing is being sold this way, as if they are gonna soon solve half a dozen unsolvable problems in just a decade or less.
I think that people are afraid that if the idea of making a trip from x to y city in record time isn't put upfront, the funding and the support will run dry. People are less enthusiastic on putting money on research and development of technologies involved if it's not going to produce an actual thing.
Same reason why they keep repeating Musk's name. Ellon Musk does not have a hyperloop company. He only conceptualized the idea. All companies working on developing it further than a napkin drawing are unrelated to Musk. Quite likely because he himself doesn't think it's technologically or economically feasible.
The overpromisses are helping governments accept the idea, which for now is great, but could become a huge problem when it ends up not being delivered.
Maglev train technology is proprietary, so they can't outright say they are replicating a whole ton of stuff from it without getting in legal hot grounds. My guess why it's never mentioned in Hyperloop documentaries, interviews and whatnot despite being the closest transporation technology to it.
Perhaps it's also the only way they can keep investing, educating, researching and developing the stuff they are doing without stepping over proprietary technology's feets.
Prove me wrong. I've made similar comments on several hyperloop related videos, articles and posts so far... until now, I've got nothing concrete in return. Just very weak Hyperloop fan retorts.
1
-
1
-
First of all, it's hilarious that the ones that created this so called overcapacity and overreliance on Chinese exports are now complaining about the Chinese government just... you know, continuing the strategy by itself.
It should be no secret to anyone that it was exactly developed nations' private corporations who offshored all industrial production to China because of cheap, largely unregulated labor and industrial practices, as a sort of modern continuation of industrial revolution era practices including modern slave labor, horrendous consequences for the environment, zero welfare and workers' rights, and all of that. If anyone is to blame for China becoming the industrial sector of the world, it's developed nations private companies and general demand/consumerism.
It has only become a problem now because China wised up and is building it's own corporations and using that industrial capability to produce their own stuff instead of generating profits only to developed nations multinationals. Curious how this was never a worry when Foxconn was scaling up massively to attend the demands of foreign nations, with even notorious cases of child labor being employed and a string of suicides over poor job conditions, but now that you have Chinese companies like Huawei almost overtaking Samsung and Apple, plus other Chinese companies that overtook western companies on certain tech areas such as DJI with drones, it's only now a problem, right? It's not like China's internal market being smaller with production going mostly for exports has ever been a problem from the time China became an industrial powerhouse. This isn't anything new. The situation was entirely created by US, EU and other developed nations.
In fact, it seems you have truckloads of smartasses and armchair warriors complaining about Chinese product quality, and with the bring jerbs back jingoistic rhetoric, plus complaints about Chinese coal power plants and how it pollutes the entire regions, and a whole ton of other tone deaf complaints that do not understand this simple fact. Today's China is largely a product of developed nations influences and demands. Every single one of those complaints traces directly back to policies enforced by developed nations corporations who took their industries into the country for the cheapest production possible.
Second... about not wanting to overstate the whole thing - it's also valid for most developing nations cited, and even several of the developed ones.
I'll give some background for people to understand this better. In Brazil, protectionist importation taxes have been a reality since forever. And they are once again mistakenly being raised in a few areas because of the absurd notion that this would boost/raise our internal industries somehow. I'm saying absurd because Brazil has had a close to 100% importation tax over several decades now on several types of products (not only coming from China, but coming from outside in general), and the only effect it had was to keep the country late behind in production and consumption of several technological products, left behind in several areas, in a constant state of brain drain, and no real local industry was born from it. None. All industries we had got left behind, became assembly plants for foreign companies, and shut doors because they couldn't compete with superior tech from other nations.
We have continued importing everything with the importation taxes, or via grey and black markets, because what stupid protectionist taxes really do is block access to products for the vast majority of people including those who could study products coming from the outside and starting their own companies, businesses or industrial production to compete. Electronics that several nations consider essential or commonplace these days are luxuries here because of the taxes, this climate does not incentivize local production of anything, it just makes access to those harder, which kills demand, which disincentives local production of anything, which keeps Brazil in a permanent banana republic state. There is a reason why throughout the entire history of Brazil, despite having some notorious outliers when it comes to tech and creativity, remaining a country that only exports commodities and primary goods. And it has nothing to do with protectionist measures, it has to do with being submissive to developed nations demands, and not investing in education and science. And this is something that apparently neither side of politics get. You cannot compete in a global scenario by shutting doors and hoping your internal industry will sprout out of nothing. What generates local industries is investment in education, research and science, not trying burry your head in the sand while coming up with ways to shield your local production from the realities of the global market.
But also, I'm saying it's overstated mainly because it's on a very short list of things, it's not really considering trade volume and deals. If you take higher taxes for some primary goods such as steel, you should also take in consideration how two major Chinese EV makers are opening local car production plants too. How trade volume only increased over the years.
Or deals on a higher level such as BRICS nations trying to come up with or use a common currency detached from the US dollar. I'll just come out say that it's a straight lie that China is falling out with Brazil, at the very least. I dunno about other "global South" nations, I suspect it's more or less the same thing, but it simply isn't true that China is falling out with Brazil. Brazil has not only been importing more and more year over year from China, but also exporting more and more too. And this is besides Brazil's previous far right president being an anti-China guy himself, which the current left wing president absolutely isn't.
Brazil is a rare case of trade surplus with China. You can look it up. It's much more likely that Brazil will have a fallout with the US and EU rather than China, which is also unlikely, just to be clear.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Ooof, the lowest depths humans can reach... tough as it may be, these things should always be brought up just to remind us how far low we once got.
The only real problem in the video was, like others pointed out, using Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment for the conclusion. xD
Weird, I though Joe's channel was one among several I saw debunking the whole thing... but nope. Pretty sure I watched a handful of channels debunking the whole thing already though. And if I'm not mistaken, I think I saw a mention about it even on TV when, for some reason, the topic exploded and got thoroughly debunked, years ago.
I don't think the idea of de-individuation is totally wrong, there is something there perhaps more to do with power and influence of authority, how far some people will go given command and order or just permission, general radicalization, and certainly doing horrible stuff people would never do because blind faith and beliefs gave it an ok - but you know, in the particular case of Stanford Prison Experiment, through interviews with the participants and analysis of data collected in the experiment, seems the whole thing was biased from start. It was a grand fabrication that is still giving Zimbardo credit and fame to this day. The supposed results it gave are worthless, even if there might be hints of truth there.
Students weren't randomly selected, Zimbardo knew them and picked specific people to play specific roles according to their personalities. They were directed to act a certain way, not only before it began but also during the whole thing, and the ones who acted more violently were encouraged while those who didn't were instructed to be more violent, more energic, play the role, etc.
It was wholly directed, participants didn't act freely out of their own will.
Then comes all the unethical stuff about Zimbardo not letting multiple students get out from the experiment when they asked to (including people playing prison guard part), which obviously pushed the situation to it's final conclusion, him not only monitoring but also being a participant of it acting as director and being there multiple times, and a whole host of other problems.
Reason why the whole thing was never reproduced (well, of course it wouldn't given the ethical problems, but nothing about the experiment could be reproduced using different methodologies).
In general, the debunking of Stanford Prison Experiment, people take it to mean that the whole concept of the study, that of de-individuation, to be completely false - because the study was a sham.
But I don't think this is totally accurate too. The experiment indeed has proven nothing due to how biased it was... but it's proven nothing either way. It can't be used to say de-individuation is a thing, as well as it can't be used to say de-individuation isn't a thing.
That aside, we know parallel concepts to de-individuation to be a thing already. Radicalization, blind faith, belief in false stuff leading to abhorrent behaviour.
And perhaps the most horrific part of the Nazi camp experiments and japanese Unit 731, is that really, you can't oversimplify what happened there. This whole idea of promoting concepts that take out individual responsibility from people involved in horrific crimes and war crimes came about because of our need to reconcile with the idea of what humans are capable of. It's easier and more digestible for us to believe Nazis aren't humans like us, and that we would never act in such ways given the most extreme scenarios like war and whatnot. But even though I think these psychological traits and effects are there, even more given all we see regarding the political scenario, effect of fake news and firehosing, populism and a bunch of other stuff... it can't be oversimplified, and it's just part of the human condition.
Likely, people leading those horrible experiments already had traits that led them to do those things - they were selected and chosen because they were willing to do it. Or they went ahead and used the war scenario to allow them to do what they already had in mind.
And then, there's probably a mix of blind faith following, people who didn't agree with doing that but were forced to because of the situation, people who got conviced in several levels on it being for scientific progress or on treating victims as "not human", and a whole mix of things.
If you really think about it, doing unspeakable things in the name of something is what we often also see in religious cults, general extremism and terrorism and political factions. And then, I personally think that a sense of ethics, of being social, and upholding moral standards is something that is built overtime, with education, with care, with standards, setting examples, providing care and fomenting whatever is needed to instigate a sense of what we call humanity.
So, I see it as a social construct. If we don't wanna see stuff like Nazi experiments and japanese Unit 731 experiments from ever happening again, we have to work for it. People are not born as total blank slates, but more than we might think is socially constructed.
So, it's about avoiding wars, not allowing for people to have unlimited power over the lives of other groups of people, enforcing human rights standards, giving everyone conditions to learn and keep such things in mind, etc.
1
-
On the ergonomics and keyboard thing.. I don't have problems personally, but here's advice I heard through the years.
If you have a related inflamation or general discomfort with using mouse and keyboard, the first thing you should do is not hunt for new stuff to solve the problem, but rather look at your own habits around what you already use. You should take breaks, you should see if you are putting too much tension in muscles and nerves while you are using those, and you should have a stretching routine once or twice a day.
There's a standard chart for sitting position at the office in front of a computer to be observed, you can probably find it by looking for ergonomics with an image search.
But a basic description goes like this: the center of the monitor should be at eye level, you should be sitting somewhere where you can touch the ground flat feet without effort, in a relaxed position. Your back should be straight, not huntched, relaxed but not too much. You should be typing and using the mouse with your arms in a 90 degree flex, not tensioned. They will be more or less at elbow high. The recommendations are not absolutely strict, but to be followed as best you can, or rather you have to create an environment that enables you to do all of those naturally without thinking much about it.
This is specially important if you have herniated disc, which I also have. Herniated discs require a certain set of stretches and exercise that you should always keep up with.
Once that is done, then you'll probably identify problems in the stuff you are using...
For the most part, changing keyboards and mouse do not change a whole lot unless you have muscle and nerve inflamation problems... repetitive strain injury.
I started feeling a bit of that in the past, but it was on the wrist and the cup of the left hand palm. But fixing those were more of a matter of fixing habits rather than buying new stuff. I just had really bad posture in front of the PC, I didn't stretch hands much, and I kept in front of the screen for hours and hours without pause.
Since I did play a whole lot of FPS games in the past, I did invest in a better mouse though... but it was only because I played those too much, to the point a regular mouse got uncomfortable. For me, bigger was just better because I could rest my entire hand on top of the mouse - I got myself a Microsoft Sidewinder older model wired mouse which is still with me, but which I haven't been using much because I haven't been playing FPS games a whole lot anymore.
But truly, I'm currently using mostly a wireless keyboard and mouse cheap combo that has nothing ergonomic about it which came with my now 6yr old Dell XPS desktop.
The mouse is way smaller than my Microsoft Sidewinder, (not as thin as the Apple mouse though) and the keyboard is just standard size a bit thicker than the Apple keyboard, but still pretty thin, with chiclete style keys.
It's just that I don't game much with it, and I don't type anything much other than extremely long comments on YouTube videos of channels I just started watching *wink wink*. :P
This is annedoctal of course, but from personal experience, I have to say not to worry too much about keyboard and mouse. I guess Apple is kinda notoriously non ergonomical, perhaps at least a better mouse would be nice.
But way more important is all the rest of the setup that most people ignore - chair, table, taking breaks often, stretching, constantly monitoring posture, and stuff like that. I often hear about people who have went through 20 different keyboards and mouse combinations, feeling they just can't get it right, when in fact their pain had nothing to do with those.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
I agree with almost everything Louis said, apart from the bit about science and these outside inside kyosks. I already talked about this in a previous comment in the previous video, but I'll repeat again because I don't want people to miss this.
Politics and science should stay separated, or at the very least be seen as independent entities to be treated differently. It's extremely bad when government, mayors, governors, president and whatnot enact hard generalist policies that don't offer alternatives, solutions or some sort of relief, even when it is in response to something serious, like a pandemic.... particularly in countries that should have conditions to provide some solutions or at least some relief.
And I think a lot of what could've been done just didn't happen because of government lack of trust in science, general chaos and confusion regarding who to trust, which made people lose time and money in fruitless arguments when those could've been better spent on thinking about better strategies to handle the situation better.
Ok, now, about those outside inside kyosks and... well, shackles or cabins, and it being better or worse than dining inside.
Let me preface this with - studies are still ongoing, the science isn't 100% on most things about the pandemic, but I'm basing my comment on studies and articles that I've read... so it can't be considered anything more than my personal opinion really, but I'll still link to some studies that gives some base to what I'm saying.
The transparent tents and the shackles that Louis encountered in NY.
The alternative offered is an outside but inside solution. Because temperatures are freezing. Which then Louis said seems worse than simply being inside.
Here's where I disagree. What are the advantages of the tents and shackles?
First, isolation between tables. Because those are all individual table booths, what you avoid is costumers getting into any space shared among all costumers, without a mask. Even more if they never set foot inside the restaurant, paying the bill at the table and then going back home.
Second, if the restaurant has a policy of limiting the number of people in each table, or something like allowing only people from a same household inside a booth, then it's very effective. Because what you essencially have is people who are already in contact with each other inside a confined space. If the restaurant is not asking for this, then this point is moot... though you are still limiting the risk of infection only to a single table instead of going through multiple tables.
Third, there have been reported cases of transmission between different tables because of a central ventilation system, which is likely in most restaurants. Basically, what you have is air conditioning system having a strong enough airflow to carry aerosols with the virus from one table to another.
Fourth, with the dynamics of aerosols taken in consideration, if those booths are cleaned up in between costumers, they considerably lower the risk of transmitting the disease. The virus is present mostly on aerosols that don't remain airborne for too long, so as long as you take care of surfaces cleaning them up well, it won't just stay floating in the air. If neither the booths nor the tables are being cleaned off, worst case scenario, you gotta remember that the virus is still being spread by aerosols - which are heavy, and quickly drop to the floor. So transmission is still less likely than when you have lots of people packed inside the same space talking, eating, coughing and sneezing. The virus does seem to survive in cold surfaces for sometime depending on type of material, but studies are still inconclusive about that type of indirect transmission... what we know is that Covid-19 is mostly spreading person to person directly, in these superspreader events.
Fifth, also conditional. If restaurant staff ask costumers to only take the mask off inside the booth, and put it back on if they intend to leave it, this also helps limiting exposure.
Sixth, regarding other comments Louis made. Filters only help contain stuff either coming from outside or going outside, if the air conditioning system is central, which is the case for most restaurants. Best case scenario would be for each booth to have it's own isolated filtered system. Ventilation can be good, but only if it's exchanging air with the outside quickly... which often doesn't happen during winter. If you only have strong air circulation inside a confined space, it can actually be worse - because it's helping spread aerosols all around the room. This is among the reasons why cruise ship cases went to bad - they had a lot of internal air circulation, but it didn't exchange much of it with the outside.
And now, here's the kicker - if all those conditions are met, it might be safer to eat in those individual booths, outside but inside, than just outside. Because this is all about aerosol containment.
If only some of the conditions are met, it might still be safer than eating inside, but perhaps not outside outside. Because even if the virus is spread among people sitting on a single isolated table, it's still better than it spreading among strangers, which is what scientists are calling superspreading events. One person infected means it spreading out inside an entire household, and potentially inside an entire social circle, so if it's contained in a table, there is potential for it to stay only at that social circle and not go further than it was already going to go one way or another.
And with this, I should also note another misunderstood thing with the term outdoors - it's generally used because usually, outdoor tables are more spaced out, there are more chances for aerosols to spread away with outdoors airflow, and during daytime you have the sun hitting on... which might kill some of the virus.
That said, if you saw videos... I particularly have seen videos in Paris of all places... where people are eating outside, but the tables are almost shoulder to shoulder packed, restaurants filled to the brim, and waiters/waitresses almost not having space to attend tables... that could be potentially worse than eating inside with half capacity. Again, because this is about aerosol containment.
So you see how complicated this can get. And how important understanding the science behind it is.
Just remember what I already said. This isn't black and white. Most studies about how the virus spreads out are inconclusive, or just still not 100%. And there are lots of ifs and buts for measures to be effective. Just that, it's better to follow whatever is already out there in scientific investigation, than politics, popular knowledge, or what the uncle of a friend said on your favorite chat app or social media.
Links:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-coronavirus-spreads-through-the-air-what-we-know-so-far1/
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6936a5.htm?s_cid=mm6936a5_x
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2271-3
https://jkms.org/DOIx.php?id=10.3346/jkms.2020.35.e415
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0764_article
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMicm072576
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMicm1501197
1
-
1
-
I have never "forgiven" Lenovo after the Superfish fracas, and I still think about the company in the same way I did back at that time.
No one has to agree with me, of course, but the whole deal about maintaining the image and tradition of Thinkpad line always smelled a bit fishy to me. Thinkpads kinda died when IBM sold it... some almost 15 years ago now? It'll just slowly go that way... trend for trend, slowly being cheapened. Motorola will probably also go that route.
I mean, lots of people may forgive and forget some stuff pretty fast, but to me trying to install adware that turns out to be spyware directly into laptop firmware just to squeeze more money out of their line of products takes a certain type of philosophy from a company that tends to be insidious and structural. So I tend to blacklist companies like that. Lenovo with Superfish, Dell for their line of shoddy Windows tablets, HP used to have a huge problem with shovelware but they've been doing better lately, Blackberry for their single key encryption that was handled to canadian mounted police, OnePlus for private data collection going into some server in China, Samsung and the entire Note 7 case... the list goes on. It's all about how they respond when they are caught red handed.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Why are you guys still talking about Magic Leap?
Wasn't it revealed that their teasers and trailers were all made by some fancy GFX/SFX studio, and that the tech they have is actually worse than a Hololens?
I'm getting tired of this hype build around prototypes and tests with huge technological barriers not expected to be solved in at least a decade or so.
Yes, you can all dream about AR glasses the size of regular glasses that will replace our smartphones and whatnot. I also do. We will probably get there one day as the idea sounds like a good replacement for what we have today.
But it's not realistic in a short timeframe.
We need new battery tech to pack more power in smaller sizes (or perhaps room wide wireless charging tech), we need to keep improving on SoC miniaturization, we'll probably need mature and very high res transparent flexible OLEDs, plus a bunch of other stuff. Some of those are in development for a good decade or more, but they still have ways to go and some big hurdles to pass.
I highly doubt we'll jump from smartphones directly to smartglasses. There will probably some steps in between, particularly with the tech that is needed for it. Foldable, scroll-like smartphones that can either roll into a small pen shaped device, or smartphones that can unfold to tablet size will probably come before smartglasses... and that idea is another one that has been indevelopment for almost a decade now.
Being secretive about it, or making CG videos to fool the public and investors works against development. VR also took a hit because of stuff like that, and I'm not sure it'll survive much longer the way it's going.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
I can totally understand when people are this entitled and this out of touch with reality... when it's those cop cam videos of people caught in DUI cases. People who are completely wasted and don't even know what they are talking about.
This here is on a whole other level... it tells a story of a complete cultural failure at some level in a society. And it's not happening only in the US, it's happening basically in every single country that has far right fascist politics close to the top in the political ladder. I'm not an US citizen, but my country also has cases like hers. People that, from a distance, look perfectly normal, they out of nowhere became politically radicalized, participated in violence, were arrested for the first time in their lives, went through the system, some even spent jail time, got out, are still under house arrest or in some supervision situation - and still don't think what they did was wrong, do not admit any responsibility for what they've done, the only regret being that they were caught, and still believe in the same lies that got them there.
This is a human extinction level problem. I am honestly more scared about this trend today, than I am of nuclear weapons and Climate Change itself... probably because the combination of those just puts our species closer to total extinction.
And the only things I can think about that are similar to this in terms of behavior, are all extremely bad and should not be affecting this many people in any country - I think about doomsday cults, I think about religious extremist terrorist groups recruitment and cells, I think about high level life ruining types of scams and grifts, I think about all the extremely predatory and vicious types of exploitation on the vulnerable, ignorant and weak. I think about mass shootings, and the mental state people are to commit such crimes.
These things have always been super scary to me when they were limited to individual level. I heard, and I think we all heard stories about that one friend from school or college that suddenly vanished, and only years later you end up finding out that this person joined a cult, got into some pyramid scheme of sorts, or became isolated believing in the weirdest conspiracy theories ever, and this ruined his/her life, it ruined the life of the entire family, it made close friends cut ties, and all these things... perhaps the story ends up with the person getting out and getting better, perhaps it ends with death or suicide. Sometimes it's not the person, but someone in the family. But it used to be kinda specific to one person of at most a family, a small group of people.
But turning these stories, which used to be exceptional, into a whole party that composes almost half of a country's electorate? Or that elected a president? Or that has control of a substantial part of a country's economy, that has enough power to make drastic changes, that has influence over thousands to millions of people?
This isn't just personal tragedy anymore, it's starting to sound like The Great Filter, the limits of humanity, having to do with the level of communication and stage in technological advancement that we reached that will doom the species.
It's like a next level tragedy of the commons situation, societies having a limited capital of who gets to publicize and broadcast information, and we lost control of it by opening it up for everyone.
1
-
1
-
Cursed inheritance that can be seen on the evolution of the commenting side of the platform I guess, right?
I mean, seriously... this isn't to lay blame on YouTube, Google, or whatever... but you gotta understand what we're working with so that you get why such problems arise.
YouTube had it's own very messy very primitive and very hellish commenting system before it was acquired by Google. At that time, I basically restricted myself to only watch the video and never interact in comments because honestly, among all commenting systems I used in social networks, discussion forums, blogs and whatnot, YouTube had the worst crowd and system of it all put together several times over. It was a cesspit with no redeemable features, pure and simple.
Then Google came along, and integrated Google+ to it here... which a hella ton of people did not like and complained about, but honestly, for a while and for myself, I think it slightly improved things. Not by much, but still.
And then, very very slowly, I have to recognize that a few things did improve on a personal, still anecdotal level, but still, not by much. Particularly on videos of a few creators, it seemed a semblance of a community started propping up, with bad comments getting kicked to the curb, and more productive discussions going around. Still nowhere near the golden age of discussion forums and blogs, but somewhat better.
The problem in all of this is that the foundations of the system remains the same. You can take a commenting administration system of just about anything else you can do out there... social networks, discussion forums, blogs, webportals, eCommerce platforms, online collab software, even down to stuff like school and university Intranet software, condominium administration systems... the list goes on and on. They almost all have a comment administration and moderation system that is more functional, more usable, has more management tools and whatnot in comparison to YouTube's commenting system.
The commenters themselves might not be great, but the system for moderation probably has more resources, more options, more tools, more flexibility to moderate the hell out of comments.
And I'm not talking only administration/channel owner side, I'm also taking about what is available for commenters themselves.
What happens when you have this bad foundation situation is that it probably becomes extremely hard to build on top of it. Like, it doesn't have the proper foundations to handle the types of functionalities people (both administrators and users) want it to have. Basic stuff like multiple sorting functionalities, prioritization choices, batch functionalities, advanced filtration systems, advanced detection systems, multiple choices for interaction, user verification and analysis, policy making, whitelisting and blacklisting functionalities based on multiple identification factors, user management and administration, etc etc etc.
I think YouTube's intention on migrating all it's commenting system to Google+ was a shift in foundations to make the general system work better, and it probably accomplished it to some level, but the base problem is that Google+ also didn't have a very robust moderation system by itself. Probably miles better than the raw YouTube commenting system, but still nowhere near a discussion forum system for instance.
In fact, it seems that for some reason, on newer more popular platforms the concept of a robust moderation system just degraded overtime instead of getting better. All these new social networks and content sharing platforms seems to have a worse commenting administration and moderation system than older platforms.
And I'm only writing all of this because a long time ago, before even Facebook, I had been moderating comments in discussion forums, early social networks (remember Orkut?), newsgroups, among a few different groups. I did for for almost half a decade, perhaps a full decade, no pay, just on the hobby side.
Even though I never moderated anything with as many people as say an MKBHD channel, I can imagine the pain of it. I at most could handle a few hundred thousand people group with less than ten thousand active users, and I'm only drawing from that experience alone, which I never want to ever go back again, seriously. My ease to write long comments comes from it, because of all the rulemaking, explanations on why it's important, long discussions on what freedom of speech constitutes and all the crap you have to deal with when you are moderating comments.
And I can also see why YouTube has a hard time handling it - YouTube's commenting system was built on a foundation that isn't even on the same level that moderation systems of 20+ years ago were. And to be fair, I'm pretty sure significant improvements were made over the years, but in an extremely sluggish pace and the way it currently is, it's still not even close to being as functional and as feature complete as again, several commenting moderation system already were back 20+ years ago.
You just have to look at something as mundane as a Wordpress blog commenting system crude by itself without extra mods to see how much you are missing out. It's just insane. It's almost like comparing a plain HTML page to a full feature dynamically updated modern one.
So yeah, fully agree with MKBHD on this one... I just lost hope of YouTube ever really making significant improvements to it a very long time ago... kinda like I lost hope on Android ever getting it's sh*t together and making a single messaging system that has at least all features of modern platforms. It doesn't seem like a priority to them, and the risk of making it worse than it already is, and displeasing a ton of people even if they get it right, impedes them on dedicating time and money on it. Only my personal guess, not anything based on fact.
1
-
Ooof, yeah.. the Thanko stuff. Interesting ideas, sometimes looks good on paper and to show off, but often with product killing bad designs, bad materials or simply impractical. Lots of stuff that seems to never have been tested on a day to day usage basis, as they'll break fast, or not work as intended, or have several very annoying problems.
Well, every country has one of those, when it's not an entire segment of the market. xD
So... as a single guy myself, I am interested in a few of the ideas there, but I'm not really interested in buying single purpose stuff for it as I don't have the space. I'm always looking out for multi purpose everyday usage stuff though. xD
Rice I mostly cook a ton and freeze most of it. A cooking and warming bento box is great for some situations, but at least for me it seems like the Thanko version is lacking some features and implementations. Better design to handle things and not burn yourself, a battery, and both materials and cutlery that will work better with it. Could do without a battery for people warming things in a hotel room or work environment without a kitchen, but it needs refinement to handle hot plates and whatnot.
The electric oven... well, those are pretty cheap from any brand, and I'd personally go for one that fits just a bit more stuff in it.
I was actually considering to get one, but then I bought an air fryer, and now I'm thinking of some way to adapt a stand or something into it to do the job. It should've come with a stand or something, plus the egg container, but unfortunately it's just a strainer-like thing. I'll find some way to do it.
For nabe, I've been thinking of getting one of those induction cooktops with a single "burner" for camping... I already have a full size induction cooktop plus pots and pans, so I don't see the point of getting an entire new thing for it. Perhaps find a way of insulating the pots to avoid burns. It just seems to give you more flexibility on size. That way it can be used either for lots of people or just myself. I already have a set of pots and pans that use a detachable handle on it, I only wish it also had vertical one like that, would be very practical. They are very convenient for direct storage... xD
Though for instant noodles, I don't even bother anymore... it's hot water from the electric kettle directly into a regular bowl with the noodles and ingredients all into it. xD
Grilling stuff... I have an unwieldly round and big electric grill here. Next time, I'll see if I find a smaller rectangular one, perhaps a bit bigger than the one Greg is showing there. Back when I bought it they were all big and round in the local shops, horrible for storage. It's bad because I have to store it out of reach, and so I end up not using much because of that. Kinda like my mixer set... occupies so much space that it ended up stored over the fridge in cupboards that I need a stool to get to, so I almost never bother.
Reachability is king when it comes to daily usage, so these days I kinda adopted the idea that if it's something I'm likely to store away, I gotta rethink the whole thing before considering a purchase.
I didn't have an oven, thought of buying an electric oven, thought about those smaller toaster ovens, then finally got to the conclusion that the best thing I could go for the stuff I wanted an over for was an air fryer... and it's been working well for me personally.
I've also been thinking of getting rid of my rice cooker and keep only the electric pressure cooker, and I usually don't use both at the same time. They are basically the exact same thing, it's just that the pressure cooker is a rice cooker with an airtight lid and a timer on it. Gotta figure out the proper timing though, I have to say the rice cooker single button automatic turn off thing is pretty practical. xD
1
-
1
-
Microsoft only has to give up the failed Windows Store, find a way to put a shell on top of Windows 10 and make it user friendly, and adapt regular software to work in a mobile workspace somehow. None of that is easy, but if they come out once again with a smartphone that tries to put out something like the Windows Store, they'll fail again. And they'll keep failing, because they cannot compete with Android and iOS at this stage.
I hope they learned their lesson, though Surface Laptop does not support this much. Regular Windows 10 can even get some traction, but any neutered version of it seems to always fail... from Windows Phone, to Surface RT, to Windows 10 S, I think it's more than enough already.
The alternative is caving in, giving up Windows on smartphones altogether, and make the hardware division build an Android phone with a Windows skin on top. I mean, with the ammount of customization possible on Android, you could basically make a smartphone that looks like it's running Windows, while keeping access to Google Play Store.
It's actually something they did in the past:
http://www.mod-gadget.com/microsoft-releases-android-phone-with-windows-8-skin/
Personally, I'd be plenty ok with a Courrier like device running Windows 10 that could also take and make calls, but I'm not too sure about the market itself. Because you see, the stuff people buy smartphones for, specially the usability aspect, has to be there for people to even consider switching. It's a completely different paradigm. You need something that either is, or works exactly like chat apps like iMessage, WhatsApp or Messenger. You need a fully featured camera that is following the most recent trends. The mobile games, the same setting scheme, the notifications, everything that smartphone users are already used to. And most important of all: it has to come out fully featured and fully functional.
Because I'm sorry but I'm never falling again to the empty promises I heard when I bought my Lumia 1020. The store will get better, the devs will come, the apps wil get updated, the ecossystem will get better, options to do this and that will happen, blah blah. Most previous Windows Phone users that switched to something else got out of the experience extremely frustrated. I don't think most of them will go back unless there's a very significant reason to do so.
1
-
Conflicting needs, a system that is oversimplified and missing several nuances, and the lingering doom of automation.
Honestly, I can see why employers would want such a system in place - I've watched some trucker documentaries here in Brazil. There have been spikes of drug usage and bad practices going around not because truckers want to, but because they need to stay awake and complete absurd routes at record times if they are to make a living wage.
So, monitoring might be needed. But it doesn't need to be rigid or intrusive like that, and most importantly, it won't do anything if it's not tied to fair and sustainable wages.
You don't even have to consider the truck "home", though it almost always is the case: not even office jobs and businesses should have that ammount of privacy invasion levied against employees.
I'd also argue that the problem isn't "capitalism" as some will say... it's greed, and unrealistic expectations. You don't need electronic monitoring devices to reduce accidents and abuse during work hours. You need more employees, splitting shifts in a reasonable fashion, with wages that won't force them to consider driving dangerously just to make a living, and a bonus system that will enphasize safety over speed, miles covered, or following rigid unrealistic rules.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
The charge port analogy... Apple is actually part of the USB-IF (implementers forum). xD
There really is no actual excuse for Apple not to use USB-C on iPhones... USB-C is an industry standard, and Apple is part of the forum that implements it. It got in pretty late in the game, but it's in.
Well, there are reasons, but it's not much of an excuse. Basically, Apple gets a whole ton of money on licensing fees for 3rd parties to make cables and accessories compatible with lightning, and there are some technical reasons behind it too, but they are mostly fluff.
Tesla Superchargers use proprietary technology. Only Tesla makes the charging stations, and the connector, even though it has been standardized between models, was also estabilished by Tesla.
Which is probably among the main reasons why other auto makers are not interested in using it... they'd be interested if it was an industry standard with open tech that enables anyone to make the chargers, use the connectors, vote equally on prioritization of new features, and implement in cars without licensing payments and whatnot.
Tesla might be open to sharing the SuperCharger network, as Musk says, but that's only half the truth. He's saying he doesn't mind if other auto makers wants to adopt the tech... not that they won't have to pay for it. And then, what happens with it will also be under Tesla's control... which if you think about it, if your competitor controls the way charging is done in your electric car, that's a pretty huge ammount of control.
If Musk really wanted to open up the SuperCharger network for other companies to adopt like a standard, Tesla would have open up the tech, call for a standards forum, etc... same stuff that was done with USB.
It's not that I disagree with Marques with how important it is to have several charging stations spread throughout wherever drivers are going... it's just that I think automakers will only settle for a standard, when it is an actual industry standard.... kinda like USB-C. With an implementers forum that your company can have a voice on development, control and whatnot. Which is likely not happening anytime soon.
Unfortunately, it never happens early in the lifecycle of technologies. Remember all the proprietary connectors of early cellphones? Well, this whole thing is likely happening to electric cars too... hopefully to be solved faster. :P
1
-
1
-
1
-
Not to alarm fellow americans, but the hack John demonstrated is probably one of the hardest I have ever seen related to voting machines in the US... some models of american voting machines can be hacked remotely, and the way hackers got those machines in the first place to make the auditing was... through eBay. Yes, it's being openly sold out for anyone, including people from adversarial countries, to buy. That's the real level of ridiculousness.
If you wanna be truly shocked, search for "Voting machine hacking village defcon". There you'll be able to see how truly vulnerable and crappy these machines are. You wouldn't accept it as a personal tablet/laptop/desktop if you knew how they were done, much less a voting machine. It's impressive that they work at all.
In fact, I don't think there's any country in the world that is currently more vulnerable to voting fraud than the US. These machines are mindblowingly vulnerable.
The problem here is having multiple types of voting machines from all sorts of shady weird sources that for some reason try to totally incompetently make use of the latest in tech, with zero considerations on security and privacy in mind. It's the worst possible combination of factors.
Paper ballots are better than this. But if you wanna use tech for it, it didn't need to be anything this complicated. Just make them like black boxes - offline, no wireless connectivity, no exposed ports or points of entrance, use regular buttons and non touchscreen interface, and lock the media that will be taken on a final count behind a tamper proof lock.
This is one of those baffling cases where I can say that for some reason, my shithole country did it way better than the US. The excuse I kinda imagined is because the US has a representative democracy system where citizen votes don't count as much as they do in my country, that has a direct democracy, where presidents, governors, senators and whatnot are all elected by direct vote. So perhaps less importance is given on the whole citizen voting thing. But of course it's not that. Seems to be something far more insidious.
Our electronic ballots are like what I described - offline, no wireless connectivity, no access to internal software whatsoever. New models coming out take biometric identification to match with voter ID. They are always under surveillance. There is never a moment immediately before and after voting day that they are left alone somewhere.
That random selection taken for auditing happens in all districts, immediately before and after the voting day.
You also vote in front of a 4 person committee composed of randomly selected voters... of course, they cannot see who you voted for, people cannot see the keyboard and pannel, but you are in direct sight. A physical attack like the one demonstrated would be basically impossible without someone noticing it. But it cannot be done one way or another because our voting machines have nothing to pull, push, open, disconnect and whatnot. Even the power cable is non removable... you could try to yank it off the wall socket, but then you'd be arrested. xD
Anyways, there is far more to it than I could explain in a single comment, but in US elections case, I think the best that could be done right now is to just go back entirely to paper ballots. Not enough time to comission new machines, adopt the system of other countries, or try to fix things somehow.
I know it'll take far longer to count, and have all sorts of extra work and hurdles to go through, but it's still better than this hodge podge of crap you guys currently have. It's all but guaranteed that the 2020 election will get hacked and manipulated if you guys use the systems that are currently in place, if not by foreign hackers, by domestic ones, and by people from all parties.
1
-
Yep, this whole thing about how you perceive temperature is complicated... because we're not thermometers. xD
Not only what a "comfortable" temperature and humidity is varies from person to person because of a truckload of different factors, including psychological ones, but also baseline perception of what the temperature is depends on temperature itself (duh), humidity and wind... probably also stuff like atmospheric pressure.
And then stuff like your body fat percetage, muscle density, metabolism, etc etc. xD
It's super confusing and often goes against our assumptions.
And I only know this because I was born in a city that is sea level and very hot and humid, in the middle of the continent, very stale air no wind, and then moved cross state to a city that is 2000 meters up, windy, colder, closer to the ocean... and for a time I thought it was drier, but I think it actually isn't.
Man, it was like moving to another planet... a better one for me fortunately.
At my hometown, which I'm currently trapped in because of pandemic, helping mom to go through this shit, I simply cannot live without AC. It's that type of heat you are sweating and panting all day and night long. It's a sauna-like heat, the worst type, with stale air by night. Most cities are like that because we're in a tropical country... almost no winter, no snow, and currently with climate change things only seem to be getting worse.
But the city I moved to is almost like an impossible exception. It's almost always colder in comparison to any other city in the state, and often in the country apart from the south most states, I've been there for 5 years and rarely felt the need to get AC, and I guess it's not only a matter of temperature... for some reason my body doesn't feel the need to sweat there (at rest, any tiny bit of physical exercise I'm sweating profusely), even in the hottest days of the year, and I don't fully understand why, despite researching and trying to understand better for years now.
And then, the most infuriating thing of this is - my mom is almost the opposite. Her ideal climate combination factor is on my hometown... the city I currently live in is too cold for her, she can't be comfortable without a heater and humidifier, doesn't like how windy it is, and also has developed this throat problem that if anything cold hits her, she starts coughing and throat cleaning.
So she doesn't want to move there, and I don't wanna move back here. Oh well... I'm just rambling.
o/
1
-
Man, while I wouldn't vouch for such a hard and inflexible standard these days, I sure would love for my country to have at least SOME standards in place... specially now that I'm looking towards having to drive a lot on roadways. The myriad of different types of headlights, with glare issues, cars that will blind you with blue leds and whatnot, and getting too much variation between how much visibility one car gives you versus another is just kinda crap.
Proprietary designs are also so much crap. I've got used to changing my ancient Ford Fiesta halogen lamps by myself avoid the shop costs that would cost me like 10 to 20 times the cost of the lamps themselves, not looking forward for a car that will not only require me to go into a shop for that, but also pay for some proprietary design that will make the shop costs look cheap in comparison... that's of course added to all the electronic stuff and computer stuff that I simply don't want in the car at all.
All this stuff might not be the main reason why I haven't gotten a new car just yet (it's because I'm poor, that's it), but it definitely plays a role there. Honestly, I have zero interest in how my car looks and how much fancy gadgety tech stuff it has... for cars I'm super utilitarian. It needs to take me from point A to B, and give me the least headaches possible.
Then again, it's no wonder... I live in a country where regulations for all sorts of things are just kinda laughable. I follow a whole bunch of home improvement channels and DIY channels, it always impresses me how much regulation, standards and whatnot are there to ensure safety, make things easier to repair, and just general good practice so the next guy checking it don't face an uphill battle to figure things out...
1
-
1
-
@Adele K I don't necessarily disagree with what you are saying, specially from a historical perspective because I fully agree that EU has some pretty shady foundations, and some pretty anti-democratic decisions were made to enter or support it, but do you think the consequences of pushing a no deal Brexit at this point is still the right thing to do for the UK in general, even considering some very severe consequences that it could potentially have for it's entire population?
I mean, we could keep this entire thing on "in principle" level, ignoring potential consequences, but this doesn't sound very reasonable.
I can understand not being comfortable on being forced to be part of an economic block that does not reflect some of the country's policies and general objectives, but in a situation like that I think I'd rather admit defeat, step back, replan it better, and then move for a departure when you got a better foothold.
I always thought that at the end of an economic block like the EU would be a renewed and perhaps less rigid, other economic block formed out of dissatisfaction with it. And perhaps that was the gambit being played, but it just didn't pan out.
Obviously, it will be entirely humiliating at this point to step back with further extentions or a full retraction, but probably still not as damaging than a no deal brexit. Or is there a sense that stepping back now would be even worse than no deal?
And perhaps I'm wrong on this, but I strongly believe that neither people nor even politicians have a full grasp of all the damages a sudden change like that will cause. Perhaps it's a bit alarmist on my part plus pessimist to imagine this will leave UK's economy in shambles, but I don't like the chances of a country even as rich as the UK suddenly breaking up with an economic block that will probably try to leverage the situation as much as possible to exploit UK even further.
The shady nature of EU unfortunately seems to work badly in both ways. Whether you stay or leave, there will be massive consequences at this point.
But you know... if I wasn't clear on this, just to put it out, I'm not an UK citizen, so I really don't have a real horse on the race there. It just doesn't seem from an outsider perspective to be a logical route to follow. I mean, not on a UK citizen perspective worried about his or her livelihood...
1
-
1
-
I've watched many interpretations on this, falling into a black hole, and I understand it's all theoretical in the name of some fun (and sometimes a bit of horror) xD, but let me ask something that kinda ruins the fun - aren't the conditions around a black hole so extreme that it's basically impossible for a human in a spacesuit to survive anyways? xD Or even for a probe for that matter. Relativistic effects around the black hole already being too nuts to even think about getting close.
There is always a need to imagine someone in a spacesuit or ship or whatever to somehow be able to get close to the event horizon, right? In order for the weird things to start happening and we get the perspective of whoever is in the situation. Spaghettification, space-time relativity effects, red shifting, time slowing down to a crawl, etc.
But isn't it true that if someday this ever happens, chances are no one will ever get to experience this, because you simply cannot reach a black hole event horizon alive anyways?
Like, I dunno if I get this right, but thinking about gravity pull, pressure, radiation, speeds, heat by friction, stuff like that... is it even possible to withstand conditions before touching the event horizon limit?
The event horizon itself, is a boundary where gravitational pull is so strong that nothing can escape it, not even light, right? So... wouldn't you likely be long dead before getting anywhere near it?
Anyways, it's always an interesting subject to hear about, explore and imagine...
1
-
1
-
1
-
With all due respect to president Biden, if his objective really is to defeat Trump, dropping off the races and leaving it to a new Democrat candidate is the better strategy here.
I'm not an US citizen, but from what I hear from Americans against Trump, it seems to me that people are basically willing to go full bust. They either elect a candidate that will bring progressive views to the forefront in a combative manner, or the fight isn't even worth having.
It's not even about age, despite all the talk. It's because of a weak opposing stance, lack of clarity in stance, trying to negotiate on things that should not be negotiated.
What I see with an outsider perspective is a lack of willingness to defend democracy, inside politics that is. It's not about fighting one side or another, it's about defending basic fundamental principles of democracy. People are not seeing this in Biden, and to defeat Trump you need someone that makes this defense way more clearer, spreads the message effectively, elevates the fight for democracy to it's appropriate level. You can't have only the press playing this role, this needs to be in politicians and justices speeches all of the time, particularly in a time like this.
1
-
On Sunak and his deportation plan - thanks John and LastWeekTonight staff for giving me a video to point out when I'm explaining why this will never work, and why this is just a crime against humanity.
I just hope the Tories getting f*cked next election was worth it for them. Because it certainly wasn't for the UK. It's yet another bad outcome from Brexit... in a pile of only bad outcomes.
On the opiod settlements - and here I thought that the fact justice allowed for the Sacklers to settle and be free of guilt forever for this crisis that they obviously created was bad enough.
Honestly, the money sum should never have even gone out of court without strict rules on where it should be spent. It should not have gone to government at all. And if it's too little time, it should be saved until there is a concrete plan for it. Not a penny should've been spent on anything else.
That money should be going into a fund to be spent in very specific actions towards family of victims first, and then public action very specifically to address the opioid crisis itself - as in education campaigns, public treatment centers, harm reduction centers, training and equipping all the places that already have to deal with overdose cases in their doorsteps like some libraries do, and exclusively stuff like that.
And if people don't know or don't have a place to apply the money - it should simply be saved. This money should be in a fund to last over the years, because the opioid crisis isn't ending anytime soon.
It shouldn't only be immoral and unethical to spend the money like that - it should be illegal. And the fact that it isn't is just another proof that democracy failed in the US, another proof that the legal and political system in the US has to go back to the drawing board, another sign that the US has become a house made out of sticks that supports itself only because it's the most rich and powerful nation in the world. There are so many problems, so many unsustainable grounds, so many fundamental errors being padded with money right now that it's just hard to accept that people can accept things as they are.
I've commented this once today already, I'll comment it again - if it wasn't for that fact, by now the US would be a complete failed state already. Might sound like a good thing that the US can jerry rig it's way out of it with a lot of detours, patches and workarounds, but the thing is - everytime an injustice, a fault in democracy, and a problem like that gets somewhat corrected because US has unlimited money, those problems accumulate and become an origin point for yet another string of failures.
The opioid crisis itself already has it's origins down to privatization and overexploitation of the healthcare system. It became bastardized by a capitalist interest of profit above everything else, which led to the ultimate consequence of corrupting the entire medical system to prescribe addiction to patients.
And now that the damage has been done in terms of lives lost and unnecessary suffering, instead of a needed revolt and correction, it's basically just feeding itself even more. It's money being used to make things worse, because it's normalizing yet another abhorrent unacceptable and unjust behavior, done by people who are supposed to represent electors.
I don't even know what to say anymore, and I can't get more disgusted and disappointed than I already am. And I'm just coming from a news piece that was talking about justice Clarence Thomas and his remarks about law having to reconsider things to see if it can't cut access to contraceptives for the whole nation.
1
-
1
-
They all look gorgeous in it. But I can see how it can be inconvenient at times, so I guess it should go kinda like japanese kimono - optional for special occasions, dates and celebrations.
You know, as long as it's an option for people to wear when they feel like it, that's great.
But same problem of several other traditional asian clothing - think about, for instance, having to go to the restroom in something like that. The time it gets to undress, dress back again, the risk of damaging and dirtying it. And then I also imagine that a complete piece of traditional clothing like that must be super expensive.
We call them traditional, but really, back at the time they were popular, they weren't common by any stretch of the mind. Special clothing for very special occasions, or reserved for the upper class only, or both. But I guess it's something common for most cultures.
For western cultures I picture men in complete tuxedos, hats, canes, monocles and whatnot, for women corseletes, full dresses with several layers, structural support, petitcoat, all that stuff.
Looks good, but it's a bit much to wear all the time.
1
-
Wow... I didn't even know this was a thing in the US.
I mean, I heard about trailer parks, seen in movies and TV shows, know that there are tons of people living for years and years inside trailers renting lots and all... but didn't know this could apply to prefab homes which should not be considered "mobile" at all.
How come? In my mind a mobile home needs to be something you can either drive, or at the most connect to a car and drive away with it. If that isn't the case, it's a prefab, or a regular house with a structure that facilitates moving it with specialized vehicles.
There are just some of these capitalist scam things that John is always bringing up that I'd totally expect from my own shithole 3rd world country, but not quite from the US. We have our own real estate related problems here to be clear... but I don't think we have something like that. But most likely, because we don't have too many unscrupulous rich people banding together to exploit poor people, because there aren't too many rich people, and because the poor are more likely to not pay taking years and years and too much money for said rich people to recoup. I don't think prefab "mobile" homes would have much future here too, perhaps I'm wrong.
But most likely, this has lots to do with housing crisis too. To be clear, we also have a housing crisis here, land and real estate is not cheap, most people cannot afford it. But I don't think there's many people in this weird middle ground category here... like owning the house, but renting the land. You either are homeless, living on rent including land and property, or owning it fully. Or perhaps it's also happening here and I just don't know.
In any case, it's obvious what needs to happen here. First of all, these prefab homes should not be called mobile at all... that's pretty deceptive. It needs to be treated for what it is: you are building on top of rented land, with all the risks and downsides of it. And if this is being used to fool and exploit people, there should be some sort intervention there.
1
-
Brazilian here.
The problem is that in our recent election, our choice was authoritarianism flavor one or flavor two.
Well, I voted for neither in the first phase of election, which had over ten options to go for, several of them moderate, a couple of them even more extreme than the candidates going for a final run. I mean it, we had a candidate that was a raving lunatic version of Bolsonaro (Cabo Daciolo), and a couple of candidates that are willing to go waaaay more communism and socialism than worker's party Fernando Haddad was, with candidates complimenting all sorts of communist regimes that had a turn to totalitarism and then fell.
But brazilians chose not to go moderate/centrist - so we ended up with the guy shown in the piece, which I fully agree has authoritarian tendencies, running against the puppet candidate for the workers' party, Fernando Haddad. De facto ex-lawyer of ex-president Lula that came into the elections very late, and was running on a campaign to basically free convicted felon Lula, and be yet another president that acts and does everything Lula commands him to.
The worker's party, which Haddad was basically a puppet for, has been in power for over a decade in Brazil, that had it's past puppet impeached (Dilma), that is involved in numerous corruption schemes, that has dragged brazilian economy to the depressive state it's currently in, and that is an active part of supporting authoritarian/populist latin american governments like Venezuela, and that has also been running all sorts of strong man authoritarianism strategies.
The party came to power with populist/authoritarian stances just as well.
Projecting strength: worker's party had the discourse, back when Lula was elected president, of being the candidate of the people, the only one with enough courage to stop the "elites", that it would end systemic corruption in Brazil politics, that other candidates were weak, that the press worked for and was part of the "elites", that they would ruin the country and whatnot. While Lula didn't project strength in a militaristic manner, he touted himself as the only solution for a systemic problem in politics... drain the swamp style. The workers' party have also been accused several times of coordinating and grouping up with supposedly social movement groups to do a whole lot of damage, like MTST and others.
Demonizing enemies: like said, Lula and the workers' party blamed all brazilian problems on "elites", "bankers" and in general rich well educated classes. It's a populist move that several other Latin American countries fell victim to. Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela are clear examples of it. Basic strategy is to say you are part of the worker's class, that you represent the will of workers, and that the economy is failing because of the greed of bosses, corporations and elites overall. It's the sort of propaganda that works very well on emerging economies in development.
They also created the fear of a wave of privatizations of businesses and services that are either entirely or partially government owned, which would defund Brazil and put all the power on private businesses, including a very symbolic company that is now key to all the corruption scandals you probably heard about in Brazil - Petrobras. People nowadays question if the worst case scenario painted by workers' party back then - the privatization of companies like Petrobras -, wouldn't have been a better thing, since they wouldn't be so intimately tied to the government, which ultimately let to the multiple layers and multiple crippling corruption schemes that we are currently facing.
Dismantling institutions: Worker's party, Lula and Haddad ran on a campaign of freeing Lula, of changing brazilian justice system which they say is biased against the workers' party, they often criticize the press for some supposed demonization of the workers' party because it's often involved in corruption schemes, and Lula has ran on an initial campaign of changing brazilian institutions because it was falling victim to a supposed "elite" responsible for all the problems brazilian society has been facing. I mean, if the candidate of your party is already running on a platform of freeing a convicted felon despite multiple corruption schemes weighting against the guy, convicted in multiple stances, and with years and years of collected proof, it's by principle trying to dismantle the current justice system, which is a big part of brazilian institutions. It's basically an attempt to legitimize corruption and dismantle our justice institution. Which might be fine to some, but it would ultimately put our country in an even deeper mess by downgrading the entire country for international investment even lower than it already is.
And there have been multiple cases and evidence of the party just trying to do it regardless of public opinion. Like using people inside the justice system affiliated to the party to let Lula get out of jail, or let him run for elections despite being a convicted felon, plus all sorts of other stuff. These multiple attacks against brazilian institutions and a clear display that not even systems like justice, supreme court, and others are still not free from the party control is ultimately what is leading Brazil to such a horrible stance towards the international community. No one wants to invest in a country that has so many deeply ingrained ties with corruption you can't control anything.
So you see, we stopped having a choice out of authoritarianism the moment we had only two final options to go for. We should have gone with neither. But I guess, economic strife paired with ignorance attracts these sort of leaders, unfortunately.
Much like the US, Brazil will have to trust it's institutions and trust the movement against authoritarianism to control Bolsonaro. He has a rethoric against secularism, not in favor of programs that support some minorities, of making deep changes in constitution and in politics to punish corrupt politicians harder, he has a military background, he wants to go down harder on criminals, he displays a degree of ignorance that is not unlike Trumps', and there are lots more on the list of worries there. He also kept putting doubt on the election process, and he has also accused the press of conspiring against him.
Our situation is not too dissimilar for now. Bolsonaro has said a whole ton of crap, has adopted several bad postures, and has defended a whole lot of crap too, but in politics terms, he is far more moderate than what international press gives him credit for - given that he has been a congressman for over a decade now and we have access to all sorts of laws and propositions he has given so far. So we'll have to see from now on.
I just think the alternative - letting the workers' party stay in power that is - would not only be better, it could potentially be much worse. Because it would essencially be an ok to the type of authoritarianism we already had. One that has effectively reversed the progress of our country towards a spiral of failure putting the lives of the population at the hands of corrupt politicians. It is by no mere coincidence that people outside Brazil probably heard some extremely disturbing stuff happening in Brazil in recent years, like scientific institutions burning to the ground due to mismanagement, huge numbers of people dying victims of senseless violence, absolute poverty, or the country being backwards in technology production in such a way that most prominent scientists and developments end up leaving the country altogether for better opportunities in foreign land.
I'm not saying the currently elected administration will revert the trend and do better... in fact, super unlikely (authoritarianism never is a good solution) and if anything we'll probably add more crap on the list of problems to solve. But perhaps, insisting on the same error for another half decade would be the worse choice for now.
1
-
Westworld + Skynet + Psycho Pass + Ex Machina... Serial Experiments Lain
Forget about it. We're already living in super intelligent machine simulation number 1938402485, and this one doesn't lead to interstellar conquest and domination too. :P Needs more tweaks on the problem that came up with fake news and climate change. The next one is running in parallel microseconds after this one was created. At least it didn't finish in nuclear catastrophe back in the 70s like the past one did.
Yeah... the problem with the whole singularity thing is far more basic than most people seem to realize. It comes from basic concepts like it being a black box, opaque, we can't follow it. And from the limits of our own brain processing power. And the whole idea is older than most people realize too... you know the saying be careful on what you wish for? Those funny stories about evil geniouses making wishes come true by using the most gruesome routes possible for it?
World peace? Sure, just kill all humans. You wanna be the richest person on earth? Sure, just make everyone else miserable. Etc.
Yep, that's the whole thing. Humans don't have enough processing power to understand the full consequences of what they want, ask for. So comes an impossibility of programming a super intelligent AI to do something while being aware of the full scope of each tiny action it's gonna take to get there.
Say you send the whole thing to another planet and ask for it to do while in isolation there. What you get is Borg. xD Or perhaps Gray goo.
It's also weird how many seemingly benefitial wishes coming from individuals gets far easier once we as a species either go extinct, get controlled, oppressed and dominated by a superior being, or suffer such a high ammount of change that it's just not us anymore.
For lots of current problems, an AI would most likely start with the Thanos solution.
Looking at it from another perspective, this is one step above the problem with nuclear weapons. It's too much power given to an individual or group of people to use, that would have an effect for the entire world, indiscriminatedly.
And the final point of analysis I'll point out in my already too long comment, perhaps, goes to the Matrix or living inside and under a machine's control. If we value free will, freedom of choice, evolution whatever that means for each one individually... even if we got a superintelligent AI that fully understand us, developing into an utopia rather than dystopia... we don't have those anymore, right? No free will or freedom of choice because we'd be living under the invisible hands of AI to, even if subtly and imperceptly, guide and change outcomes to maintain the utopia somehow. Or not utopia, but whatever is the objective of whatever outcome the superintelligent AI is seeking.
And then, perhaps humanity's final objective is giving rise to something like a superintelligent AI after all. xD Selfish gene aside, who knows? You gotta see that, from a disconnected out of the box overview, if a superintelligent AI dominates us and guide us for the rest of our history, who cares about our species anymore? It's the AI that will be on the top of the foodchain. Eventually, we'll become kind useless. Just extra work for the AI to deal with. :P
1
-
I don't mean to trash pun intended Japan, this video, or the initiatives presented in it, and I actually have nothing against Japan... quite the opposite, I hope to one day live there.
But the more I dig into the subject, the more I see that this is kind of a myth. Or rather, people tend to confuse cleanliness with efforts to produce zero waste or less trash.
Cleanliness and their very strict trash categorization rules, that I don't question.
There are places specially in big cities like Tokyo where you will see a bunch of trash lying around occasionally... like overflowing bins and whatnot, specially around matsuris and a few neighborhoods. I have seen it personally. Regardless, streets and places are cleaner than most other countries I visited.
BUT, and this is a huge deal, recycling isn't exactly great, and I think Japan actually ranks pretty low in the list of countries that recycle their trash. Germany I think is number one, but several Asian countries are above Japan... like South Korea and Singapore.
I don't know exactly why, but I suspect it has majorly to do with eWaste and overpackaging. Not sure how effective the recycling system really is too. I mean, littering is a crime in Japan and citizens have to separate the trash super carefully, but what matters is what happens to all that afterwards. It's like the regular problem with recycling but amplified - just because you separate things correctly and with great care, it doesn't mean the job is done right there. If the recycled trash is not being used in full to make new stuff, then it's still trash.
The trash that is burned is organic and non-recyclabes... on one hand, it's not being shipped overseas to some landfill outside Japan. On the other, organic trash could still be turned into compostables and whatnot.
But this is only half the story. Japan produces too much eWaste, and that afaik is being shipped overseas. Stories I heard from family members who lives there plus what foreigners talk about is that there isn't a very big culture around fixing broken electronics... people will trash stuff that is new but with minor things broken, or even toss old electronics that are still working perfectly because they are getting something new - specially in cities where space comes at a premium.
On the other hand, it could be that other countries have their numbers twisted because it's simply cheaper to ship trash outside the country. Japan is an island, shipping trash elsewhere comes at a premium.
It's hard to find videos and docs going all the way though. It's always about a few towns that are trying to reduce trash to zero, or about the complex recycling system from a citizen's perspective... there is no follow up.
1
-
Called this as soon as I heard about the technology behind it. This was always going to happen, no matter what 5G evangelists told you.
This tech is really dark magic, but the fundamentals of it isn't. Reason why if you had a basic understanding on how 5G works inside the spectrum, in comparison to it's predecessors or other type of wireless communications, you'd know it had no chances of scaling up the way it's predecessors did.
So, the actual problem with 5G is the problem with most other new-ish tech that is coming out in the past 20 years or so - it's overhyped to the point of being just plain fraudulent in it's advertisement.
As we moved towards a line goes up late stage capitalism system that needs to always lie about the promises of upcoming technologies, feeling more like political campaigns rather than tech announcements, what happened when 5G was announced was an unmitigated disaster.
The propaganda was so absurd and so misinformed that the majority of the public got out of hearing about 5G understanding less on how this whole thing works. Among the reasons why the misinformation campaign on 5G and Covid caught on as it did.
While still being a good shift up that should happen overtime, the telecom industry and all other industries involved hyped this sh*t up so much that it started sounding like some advanced alien technology or something, when reality was far more constrained than that.
Providers used the whole hype to scam costumers with their 4.5G crap or 5G+ bs, this was far and wide promoted in industry trade shows as a huge leap in evolution that would make smartphone Internet feel faster than home Internet, people speculated about the death of home Internet as everyone would have a 5G modem that would attend everyone's need, and all this BS that came trailing with it.
But understanding the very basics on how it works would be plenty to get all of that was just a huge pile of bullsh*t. It was just a new evolution in what we have now that was using a range in higher frequency in the electromagnetic spectrum that yes, could come with higher throughput of data, but at a cost. Which btw, is something that plain Wi-fi already has been doing for ages.
And you know the saddest part of this all? The fact that most people who deposited their hopes into 5G to solve problems, actually have issues that has nothing to do with the tech itself, but because of anti-consumer practices by mobile telecoms, aging infrastructure, improper scaling of service, and bad implementation of tech in their own personal devices.
All it took to understand this back at the time was comparing your mobile Internet at home, and then trying the mobile Internet in countries that had mobile providers that were less predatory, less monopolistic, and with proper infrastructure maintenance and upkeep. It was the same tech, 4G LTE, but the actual quality of service was so incredibly different that it seemed like they were generations in tech ahead.
This is the sad reality of this all. We don't need a leap in tech. We need current tech to be properly implemented and for predatory anti-consumer practices from the industry to stop. And this endless chase for the next big thing is just making people blind to this. It's an endless expectation for the next big thing while we race to the bottom.
1
-
1
-
1
-
@carrielopez1728 Could be at the mind of some, and depending on case, but the right for abortion isn't the codified law I've been referencing to - a law that forbids it is. Understand the difference? Like for instance, if there was a law that obligates the state to provide abortion if it is proven somehow that the woman in question is suffering trauma with the pregnancy, then this would be going both ways. But there isn't, because in effect trauma is very difficult to prove in time for it to happen, and courts would always err on the side of doubt. And again, people aren't asking for the state to provide abortions, it's not about forcing someone or an entity to do something, it's about asking for the option for an abortion to be there, because the state shouldn't be mandating what women should or shouldn't do with their bodies.
I know this might sound confusing, but you should understand the difference.
1
-
1
-
She deserved the verdict, but not from where it's coming.
See, I can get landing in jail for decades for deceiving people with bogus medical tech, risking patients lives with empty promises and lies, and damaging the overall medical tech sector for lying about the potential of tech resolving all issues with a snake oil device that never worked in the first place.
But she's not going to jail for that, she's going to jail for defrauding rich investors who often goes with the hype instead of actually doing the work of fact and logic checking, verifying if the stuff they are investing in makes sense or works, putting multiple experts to see into it before giving away millions of dollars, and demanding that at least part of the procedures be made public so it both proves itself right.
Now, though I understand part of her fraud was falsifying reports from trustable sources, it still seems a bit too much for her to get to the point she did without anyone noticing it. There is some obvious massive auditing failure there, one which would only take asking for results for a few patients and cross checking with current blood test methods. How the hell something this simple to do didn't happen at multiple stages of the whole thing. Let alone major investors asking for expert opinion on how such machines would work in the first place.
This is a failure and a disease of the US tech investment sector itself. There is too much money there being put in magical pie in the sky stuff, and not enough put into things that could actually make the lives of lots of people better. It's like investors are constantly asking for snake oil sellers to come at their door, because real businesses that would benefit everyone are just too boring to pay attention to.
Because the interest there is in locking down people into proprietary tech crap that will eventually harvest even more money from the sick, poor and choiceless.
And so, you get what you ask for. It is no coincidence that cases like Holmes' exist and go as far as they do. It's because this is what lots of investors are asking for. Magical mumbo jumbo that promises them 10fold returns at the cost of closed off proprietary tech that will fully exploit a late stage capitalism society dry of it's money. People wanted to believe this was a thing because they wanted to make ludicrous amounts of money on it, a-la Sacklers, which is probably the role model of tons of those investors. A filthy rich family that made fortune at the cost of millions of lives, are paying nothing for it, and still have the gall to ask for deals that would grant them total immunity. The American investors dream, apparently.
I just think it's weird how in all of this it seems no one stopped to ask if this sort of tech, if it even was real, shouldn't be public in the first place.
So yeah, she deserves the verdict. But it still leaves a sour taste. Because true justice wasn't done, it just doesn't exist anymore. And I bet that if this was only about victims, she'd end up paying nothing.
1
-
1
-
Hey, brazilian here.
While I do understand some of the questions raised against this objection with iPhones 12 not coming with chargers in Brazil, I'm gonna play the devil's advocate a bit here and perhaps explain a bit why this sort of thing happens.
As some will know, Brazil is a highly bureaucratic country. Our laws and government, like many other countries, are highly bureaucratic, but perhaps more than some people might think.
This basically comes from a long history of corruption, exploitation, and scams that happened and still happens through the entire brazilian history, but let's cut it down to consumer laws.
Our consumer laws are extremely detailed, and scrutiny on paper is always harsh. Just so people know, enforcement is whole other story, but when questions like the iPhone 12 lacking a charger comes up, it has specifically to do with strong precedent cases that I'll explain next.
What is being questioned on the iPhone 12 case here is around "forced couple sale" (venda casada), which is a practice that had several rounds in brazilian court cases. Basically, a company that is advertising and selling a product that is incomplete, needing a separate sale for an accessory or something else in order for it to work as advertised.
More commonly, it's about a company forcing costumers to buy two similar or different products for a given functionality, but you can see how the case goes around this - if you only buy the iPhone 12 by itself it's missing an essencial component needed to make full use of it - a charger.
But this comes from a history of consumer abuse, businesses selling incomplete products intentionally to force consumers to pay extra for overpriced proprietary "accessories", false advertisement promissing functionalities with a base purchase that are not there unless you pay more, etc.
Now, yes, there are pro arguments for Apple's case on the environmental cause, but it assumes something that may or may not be true for brazilian consumers - like Louis said, that people at this point probably have a box filled with USB chargers that would work for the phone.
Ok, now we have to consider the brazilian market itself to see if this is a reality of the market, or if there are questions to be made around it.
First, on statistics, iPhones have somewhere between 10 and 15% marketshare in Brazil - do note, it's 10 to 15% for all iPhone models... you can still find mobile operators, retail deals and whatnot that are going for the first iPhone SE, iPhone 6, 7, etc. People buying the latest iPhone models are a tiny tiny tiny minority of very rich people.
You see, it's a different reality compared to Apple dominance in US land. Brazil, like many developing countries, have a majority of Android smartphone users, and it's mostly low end, older models. It has to do with extremely high importation taxes, currency exchange rates, and other factors, but put simply, electronics in Brazil are extremely expensive, particularly brand new stuff, leading to-
Second, on price. A flagship device or close to flagship device such as iPhone 12, 12 Pro, 12 Pro Max in Brazil is considered an extreme luxury here. I don't personally know anyone who has one or is considering to buy one.
Those products range anywhere between 6000 reais (our currency) for the 12 up to 11000 reais for the 12 Max Pro - the starting price, not the full spec'd one, with official chargers compatible with the phone going anywhere from 200 reais (the most basic USB charger) up to 800 reais (newer MagSafe chargers) on the brazilian Apple Store.
For context, the monthly minimum wage in Brazil is a little over 1000 reais. So yeah, you can buy a car with the money you pay for an iPhone 12. You can cover your all your basic expenses for months. You can pay half an year rent or more. That's the type of money we're talking about. So, the mentality of someone purchasing an iPhone 12 in Brazil is closer to someone in the US purchasing a Mac Pro, ridiculous as it may sound.
Third, perspective difference. Of course, with those prices, the iPhone 12 is probably targeted at the less than 1% rich consumer market in Brazil (more like less than 0.001%), so it is likely that lots of people in that market do have a box full of USB chargers that would work well with the iPhone 12, but it is less true than the US market, and it is way more expensive for brazilians to buy Apple branded chargers.
Brand loyalty is also less of a thing in Brazil in comparison to the US, because of that discrepancy in price. As your current economic status is likely more directly related on your ability to buy a smartphone from Apple, brand loyalty comes second.
People buying iPhones in Brazil likely want to use Apple branded chargers for their new phones, because the brazilian market is flooded with unbranded, shady, crappy chargers.
The perception is, if you are buying an expensive flagship phone from a big brand, be it Apple, Samsung, Motorola, LG, Nokia or whatever, you wanna use the included charger to avoid any potential problems, warranty voidances, and questions that might be raised if some breakage happens.
Apple itself recommends that people use their chargers instead of random chinese ones, or ones from other brands and 3rd party (other than the Apple Store sanctioned ones), with fears of malfunction, fires, smartphones getting damaged, etc.
With all this considered, you can start seeing why brazilian consumer protection laws are questioning why iPhone 12 models are coming without chargers. It's a different market, a different reality, iPhones are in a different product category and it's overall a different situation in comparison to the US market.
On a general sense, USB chargers in Brazil are not as trivial a purchase as it is in the US. People can have multiple gadgets that came with one, but they are less likely to have multiple Apple branded chargers. Way less people here buy extra chargers, external batteries, multi port hubs and stuff like that. Way less people have multiple gadgets that came with USB chargers. Way less people have gadgets from brands that are likely to include reliable, safe, well built chargers.
People who have multiple Apple branded devices are a tiny minority, because those products are considered luxury here. You don't have as many people who has or had half a dozen iterations of Apple products.
1
-
eWaste is obviously still a huge issue in Brazil, but considering market size and whatnot, it's not as problematic as it is in the US, particularly on more modern items such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and it's accessories. It's still more on the side of CRT TVs and monitors, old desktop computers, and older kitchen and home utilities (vacuum cleaners, clothes and dish washers, fridges, wall mounted AC, etc).
If anything, I think we do have a strong culture of handing older electronics down or selling them so that they keep being used. So you kind actually do want complete packages so that they can handed down by themselves.
To conclude, while I do understand there is a case to be made regarding iPhone 12 lacking a charger for certain parts of the world, I do feel it's way less valid for Brazil, considering it's market and the reality of brazilian smartphone users, particularly in the face of prices brazilians have to pay for those, and how it is expected by brazilian Apple consumers to have a charger included in the extremely expensive package, so they don't have to pay extra for extremely expensive accessories.
These questions are important to be made, and to be had, but you need to consider where they are coming from, first and foremost.
Brazil had an international press beating round earlier this year because of the Amazon fires, which is justified given our current government stance, but it was extremely lopsided and superficial in it's coverage. Current government might not be contributing much to solve the issue, but the issue wasn't created by a single government, and it wasn't a consequence of it alone.
Climate change is majorly affecting the climate here in Brazil, but international press chose to make it as if it was the work of a single administration, when they know full well that this is affecting several countries south of the equator. You know extreme events such as bushfires in Australia? Here in Brazil we had several states facing an unprecedented drought, unprecedented in recorded history... so yeah, it's not only because Bolsonaro is an insufferable asshole, which he is.
I think because of stuff like that, foreigners tend to have an image of Brazil being a backwards country on environmentalism and whatnot, but this couldn't be further from the truth.
We do have huge problems regarding all the same stuff other countries have, but you should know that our clean energy production is double or more than most developed countries, it was in Brazil that environment talks started in the first place (Paris Agreement has some of it's origins here), and countries that are constantly berating us like the US and France have a whole ton of stuff that is way more backwards than our policies and regulations here.
Just so people know... yes, Brazil does yet have an extremely long way to go, it has abbhorent problems particularly tied to governments and corruption, it's walking backwards with the current government, and it is deservingly a country that is in development rather than developed. But there are some stuff in Brazil that is far more advanced than most people think.
In the case of questioning Apple about iPhone 12 coming without a charger, overall personal opinion, I think the environmental impact of including a charger would be minimal, so it has fallen under consumer protection rules, which may actually be right considering the brazilian market for such devices. I may be wrong on this, but I wanted to offer a different perspective.
Links to check and to read more:
https://www.apple.com/br/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-12
https://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2020/01/03/salario-minimo-em-2020-veja-o-valor.ghtml
https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/brazil/2018
https://techinbrazil.com/e-waste-management-in-brazil
https://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venda_casada
1
-
1
-
Yeah, the browser space is getting thin in terms of privacy respect, quite unfortunately....
I personally use Brave and was using Firefox, but was already planning to shift towards something else for a long time already... Waterfox, Librewolf, or some other privacy focused fork.
For this discussion to be meaningful, we have to separate a few things already so complex the situation is. The reason to still use Firefox or one of their forks is because of browser engine monopoly. This is a situation that is bad in general - if a single browser engine gets the monopoly over the entire market, then everyone will be forced to deal with whatever it puts out. Nowadays there is nothing worse for privacy than corporate monopolization.
Now, I don't trust Mozilla as a company to continue respecting privacy because of it's recent changes and policies, but that trust is already dead with Google and Chrome. Has been dead for over a decade now. I won't even bring up Edge here because it is Chromium based and run by the worst company regarding privacy - MIcrosoft.
Doesn't matter if the engine itself is open source, both are, it matters who rules over it's development. We've seen anti-privacy and anti-consumer implementations in Chromium with Manifest V3, so this myth of open source guaranteeing something is already gone. By the way, I consider this to be true for Android and AOSP too, though we are still waiting for good alternatives. I'm watching the Linux space development (other than Android of course)... seems to be evolving again after a period of stalling.
So, the actual situation is that there are no browsers made by engine developers that can be considered private anymore. We're all scrambling for forks now.
Brave, to me, is very very far from being perfect. I don' t personally like the AI crap, don't like the crypto crap, don't like what I heard in some interviews with the people at the top - but I made a compromise between it's privacy features, and overall functionality, and am running with it at the condition I can jump ship fast if something bad comes out that directly affects me. What I've been trying to do is detach whatever I can in terms of functions from the browser to privacy respecting software so that this becomes easier. So, no account syncing, trying to find 3rd party bookmark management software, password managers independent from browsers, and so on.
Firefox I was running mostly due to inertia - I have a switch from Windows to Linux planned for this year (which is already happening), so I just thought that I might as well make the switch from Firefox to one of it's forks all together to avoid extra migration steps. So this is kinda happening right now, but I have to test between several forks. Still not sure what I'll end up with.
My personal reasoning is that I'll use it concurrently with Brave, both because some stuff works better on Firefox Engine while others works better with Chromium, but also as a fast switch option. Should something happen with any of them, I'll just ditch it and go for the next.
I also know there are plenty of other options out there as forks and whatnot, but it's the combination of userbase, time it's been around, features, ease of use, community, and stability that matters for my personal case and threat analysis. I don't want super private software that has no features and breaks all the time, and I don't want new projects that haven't had the time to prove themselves, could be dead tomorrow, or get outdated and insecure because the team broke off and went to do stuff that is better for themselves.
I know this sounds kinda unreasonable, but I'm not looking into this only with my personal case in mind, but also for family members who have to deal with tech, but have less tech knowledge than most people can even understand. To them, being able to use the thing at all without constant maintenance is more important than privacy, than security features or whatever. Because if it breaks or starts behaving weirdly, they simply cannot use it.
This has been my consideration on Linux distros too... so far, it's Mint. And I still had trouble installing it because of Bios configuration.
In any case, good luck for all of you that must be in a similar situation, good luck for all of us!
1
-
Again Greg, wonderful, thorough, well organized and lovely information that I was super curious about. It's the sort of stuff I wouldn't expect this much quality and research not even from a dedicated course on the subject or something. xD
So, I had heard a bit about this, but didn't know the intricacies of it.
My mom works in real estate, so I really know about all the huge problems bad tenants can generate, the fears, the downsides, among other stuff around real estate. So while I stand for saying racism isn't justifiable, several of the other reasons for worry coming from a japanese landowner's perspective are plenty reasonable.
I'm also voluntary part of the management group in my apartment building (like, superintendent, not sure how it's called properly), so I end up knowing everything that goes wrong here... some unbelievable stories. My building is almost half rental, half owned, with lots of students. We have everything from the regular stuff like garbage problems, smell and noise problems, garage problems, bad usage of public facilities problems, to downright ugly police cases where people got evicted and prosecuted.
In lots of cases, people have worked long and hard to purchase property for rent, and in some cases those are peoples' lifelines. I imagine in Japan this must be pretty prevalent... plenty common for retirees to have invested in real state through their lives being able to live comfortably in retirement with property rent money.
The last thing landowners in those situations would want are tenants giving them all sorts of problems, or worse, skipping bills and whatnot - in the very same way an employee wouldn't want a job that does not pay in time or generates all sorts of problems for themselves.
Of course, it can be pretty unfair for foreigners trying to find a place to live in Japan, that have all good intentions and would never like crash the place down, but the fear isn't without reason. So what John says is very to the point: the more you show upfront that all the owner will have to deal with is receiving the rent money by the end of the month, the better.
In my admitedly far fetched dreams of moving to Japan, I'd only risk moving there if I had something like a job waiting for me there, or an international job that would allow me to work while living there, and I'd also only go if I had enough money to pay for real estate upfront. Doesn't need to be anything fancy, but I have lots of stuff in mind. Like not in Tokyo but somewhat close, relatively near a station because I don't want to own a car there, if possible somewhere with a climate close to my current city (hard), not tiny but also not big, etc etc.
It's far fetched because I don't intend to leave family behind, but it could still happen one day when I'm older I guess. I'd also only move if I knew I could live better there than here, which isn't very hard considering I live in Brazil... but I do live comfortably here, more than people would imagine given the bad image Brazil has, so.
A distant dream, but still a dream. xD I've been there twice as a tourist, and I have the urge to spend far longer I guess to explore the country and culture deeply. I feel some sort of abstract connection that cannot be put into words, and it's not only because I'm japanese descendant (yonsei).
Even considering I have some family and friends in Japan (relatives), so I could potentially get guarantors, they are brazilian of japanese decendency married to japanese, I still didn't want to rely on them for anything this burdensome.
Other things that absolutely must happen before considering moving there is for me to learn japanese properly, at least as much as I know english right now, and diving a bit deeper into japanese culture and customs/habits. I know quite a bit, but would probably have to talk far more with the family living there before feeling comfortable. But I guess I'm not too distant from it because I have a very low tolerance for noise too. Unfortunately, in Brazil there's not much respect on that, so I'm currently renovating my apartment to include some ceiling insulation... *sigh*. I went the extra step to install my floor with a layer of insulation not to bother the neighbor downstairs, but of course my neighbor upstairs didn't do that, nor respects silence laws at night. Complaints fall to deaf ears and the legal system does not help. Oh well.
Anyways, keep up the wonderful work you are doing Greg... this is invaluable information.
1
-
Oh, also love genmaicha. Super hard to find here, very specific japanese import shops will have only sometimes. I just drank my last cuppa last week. xD Gonna have to hunt for more.
But yeah, great stuff. You know, in the past I really didn't like green tea much. I think I tasted some stuff that you could find in local markets here, it didn't taste great, they mixed it with local ingredients and whatnot, so it really didn't appeal to me.
But when I went to Japan back in... I think around 2008, I tasted it again from some of the vending machines, and it surprised me how different it was from the stuff I had tasted before. Very light, not bitter, great as a hot beverage to warm the body.
And then I started tasting several varieties. Yeah... definitely, nothing like a good genmaicha. I also love that lemon tea that you can find in any vending machine. xD But I kinda came to appreciate different varieties with different types of food. Also sweets, it goes so damn well with all sorts of sweets. xD
Oh, you know one other thing that I loved that surprised me too? Ochazuke! Damn, it's so good... I had no idea the thing would be so flavorful just by pouring green tea on it. xD The cheap packaged stuff you can find in kombinis, it brings out a flavor out from the rice that is kinda shocking at first. xD So good.
Awesome video as always... I had seen these tea farms before in other videos and photos, but they left me curious on how the entire processing goes. Very interesting stuff, looks like a whole lot of hard work too. Kudos to the couple working hard to spread the culture, it really is worth all that. I don't even consider the medicinal stuff all that much, I just like the taste. xD
It all also makes sense how imported japanese tea tastes so different from local stuff or stuff made in other countries... I thought I was kinda biased, perhaps not so much learning the complex process they employ. I tried brazilian stuff, english stuff, american... something always seems kinda off - well, after you tasted the japanese stuff. xD
1
-
1
-
BBC, be part of a better movement and put some caveats in your fetishist videos about Japan.
No, most childcare facilities don't have robots in them. Yes, plenty of places in Tokyo and Japan do not have robots as part of the workforce. Actually, there are parts of the US that are much more likely to get robots everywhere before Japan adopts them. Even stuff like farms and countryside are way less automated than the US.
And all of the stuff shown in this video are experimental and fairly unique, non exclusive to Japan, and you'll probably find lots of similar stuff in the US or other developed countries if you look for it. In fact, if you go on the streets of Japan and ask random people around all the stuff that pieces like this one is constantly pushing as uniquely japanese or something, most people will never have heard about them.
It's also curious that if you start picking up all these international press pieces about Japan, it's always the same half a dozen companies, people, and experimental robots that pops up. That's because actually, there aren't that many of them.
International press always has this bad habit of trying to fetishise, sensationalize, and paint Japan in a certain way. Be aware of that people. This fantasy that they are constantly trying to sell might not seem bad at first look, but it paints a false picture of a country that is not actually like that.
Yes, there is certainly a part of modern japanese pop-culture that is fascinated by sci-fi visions of robots and AI dominating the landscape in a distant future, which is pretty much universal as several other cultures also have this, but if you are gonna put it down to statistics, I'd have to argue that Japan is investing far less on this than most people think. The US with autonomous cars, autonomous delivery, industrial technology, high level policy discussions, and a whole bunch of other things is far ahead.
Robots capable of replacing people in several types of jobs won't be coming soon enough there. Japan has some pretty restrictive immigration laws, but the government has been changing it and opening up because of the aging problem and others related to a lack of workforce.
All in all, I personally think that all this fetishism around the discussion is overall detrimental. But at least, less detrimental than other types of fetishisation that international press seems to always be pressing on. We should try to understand other societies better, as in what they have similar and what they do in everyday lives, instead of constantly trying to seek what is different about them to marvel, make fun of, and see as foreign or different.
1
-
"If true all the encryption [..] may soon be cracked in seconds"
Nope. Sensationalistic bullshit, and bad press. If you don't understand the concept, don't make clickbait assumptions about it that you don't understand nor know is true. Freaking tired of bad science interpretations.
Quantum Supremacy is a milestone, performing a task exponentially faster than traditional computing, but it does not specify WHICH task it is, and this is the most important part to understand why this does not lead to encryption being cracked in seconds soon.
In Google's case, it was about predicting how quantum phenomena would generate pseudo-random numbers, which the quantum computer did, in 200 seconds versus a predicted 10 thousands years a regular computer would do. Random number generation and analysis. That's the task Google used to achieve Quantum Supremacy.
But you see, it isn't anywhere close to cracking encryption. And even then, it took a whole ton of work, a whole ton of research, and the latest in quantum computer tech advances to do that. It is an achievement, make no mistake, but saying encryption will soon be cracked in seconds is a non sequitur.
Given the complex nature of quantum computers, we could be anywhere between years, decades or centuries from making quantum computers crack encryption. It is hard to predict because there's no way currently to know how fast Quantum Computer development will really be.
Other stuff to note - just because Google achieved it with massive amounts of money put on research, equipment and an insane infrastructure to support it (this includes chambers full of highly sensitive and highly controlled specialized equipment), does not mean that your average basement hacker will have access to that sort of technology anytime soon.
Also, encryption is not a single thing that works uniformly and thus can be cracked by a single method. There are types of encryption that a quantum computer could be very strong at cracking, there are other types that using a quantum computer to crack doesn't make much sense.
In the same manner, encryption is not a static field or concept. There are different encryption methods/algorithms, parts of encryption that are already quantum resistant, and development of new quantum resistant encryption algorithms out there. It'll likely come faster than quantum computers being applied for cracking.
So there you go.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Just to stamp on the lies of Russo bots and ignorants in general, the problems in the region didn't start when USSR dissolved, and being part of USSR was not voluntary nor good for people in the region.
In fact, both countries had purges of resistance groups, after wars against Soviet take over and rule.
So no, it was not a "peaceful" area during USSR rule... it was an actively dominated and suppressed by force area, with purges of any groups that were for independence.
And then, in a way, the reason why there are so many conflicts in countries that became independent after USSR fell are majorly closely related to the history of USSR taking over these regions.
This is both because of the way these independent nations were divided, and also because of how the Russian empire took these territories in the first place, which everyone knows how it works, because it's similar to what Putin does.
First, there is an influx of Russians into a territory, which later on triggers a separatist movement, which Russia then uses as excuse to invade the region, and then take over it.
So, that's more or less it from historical perspective. And now you understand how most modern Russian invasions also worked.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Regarding encrypted pendrives, I imagine "Timmy" is referring to stuff like Kingston Ironkey line... which I'm also genuinely curious about.
I've never heard of a security assessment on whatever they are using to encrypt data, nor other stuff they claim or that the pendrives have, despite the line being pretty old at this point.
Perhaps you guys can find something through your sources?
I see both bad points and good points in stuff they are offering, without judging how good the implementation actually is. For instance, their pendrives have a numeric pad to enter a code to unencrypt the drive. That's both good and bad I guess... good because it's more convenient than using Veracrypt, so more people have access to it. Bad because it's obviously a point of vulnerability...
Still, you know, threat modeling and use what you can. I have been using Veracrypt for a while now, have known it from the time it was Truecrypt. But it's something that most regular users I know wouldn't know how to handle... whereas an IronKey drive seems pretty straightforward.
It's obvious from their website that they are managing a balancing act between convenience and security there... like you can use more complex code, or PIN or passphrase ( LOL ), but they claim to be using AES 256 without getting into further details.
Anyways, just curious if someone in the security community tried breaking one of those, and what people think about it.
1
-
Why take a plane when all he needed to do was punch the ground? xD
Anyways, nice one! Gotta love Terry Crews!
15 jumps here, all solo, AFF course, never did a tandem jump. The few last ones no helmet, no radio, pilot chute, amazing feeling.
If you take an accelerated free fall course, it's a different experience because the first few times you jump, your chute will open right after exiting the plane, so you don't really experience a whole lot of free fall... but depending on how well you control your fall and navigation, you soon get some air time.
You don't get to enjoy the freefall much in the beginning because you are more worried about stabilizing the fall, hiting navigation points, and sticking the landing.
Well, that's from when I did my course, a bit over 15 years ago... don't think a whole lot has changed though.
It's expensive as heck these days, but yeah, those who want to do it, should... nothing quite like skydiving.
As for passing out, it really does happen. For tandem jumps not much of a problem other than the landing... pretty hard to stick a landing with a huge dead weight like that. xD
As for students jumping solo, student chutes have an automatic pilot that will open the chute at a limit altitude, so it's mostly also not an issue... again, the problem is navigation and landing, particularly when you have a limited area.
My landing zone was like the private airport area that was surrounded by two pretty large pastures, so you had lots of margin for bad navigation... which just happens when you are learning. xD Lots of people landing on top of fresh manure. :P
1
-
There is a clear cut answer to all these questionings - the bill isn't about the effects, it's about clarity and transparency on how much consumers expect to pay. It's also about truth in advertising.
In my country, this problem was becoming rampant too, around a decade ago, perhaps a bit more... I remember landline providers were big culprits of this too. Extra hidden fees in ISP and mobile bills, bars and restaurants charging extra fees for service and live music, other types of services charging fees for supposed "benefits" they gave to their costumers.
The problem in all of this is that some were double charging for it, because the prices were already more expensive than average and then they put the extra fee, and then there's the usual greed of ISPs, mobile and cable providers.
This also makes competition worse, because it allows for false advertisement, and businesses are incentivized to use novelty crap to charge extra for it, not attract costumers the regular way and try to compete on price.
There are remnants of this bs to this day... some mobile providers have all this extra crap services no one asked for because sometime ago, they used to surreptitiously and creatively try to insert hidden fees for those into the bills. Backup service, some music app no one used, some other eBook thing that no one asked for.... didn't matter if you never used it, didn't even create an account, they still charged it. And for a while, they tried dodging regulations too by adding up the extra fees into a sum and calling it a "service package" and some other creative naming. The companies that did this all got sued. Some had to return the entire sum of years of charging these things directly to consumers.
When you don't regulate this enough, it's left on a case by case decision by people who are not in power to contest, and so it will always get abused.
This has been almost completely eliminated by regulations here. There are established fines and channels to denounce businesses that put hidden fees in their services. Press also loves making stories on those, and people react very negatively to them.
We had huge lawsuits and a string of court cases against the worst culprits. Most big companies won't even try this bs anymore. A few of them plain went bankrupt because of it, had to sell assets or merge with other companies to keep going. And consumers here are all better for it.
Though it hasn't applied for everything, particularly banks.
Afaik, taking what came up in the video... banks still have annual service fees, so do credit cards. Anything you do in an ATM has fees. Credit cards have transaction fees, but this is coming down because we have a direct digital payment system now that skips the fees. Overdraft fees still exists here too, and they are very unlikely to go away.
Hotel related extra fees I've never even seen happening here... you pay if you consume stuff inside the mini-fridge, they are overpriced as heck, but that's about it. Pretty sure hotels are obliged to inform what comes with the stay, and anything extra needs to be clearly labeled and stated, they cannot charge for it if it's not made obvious.
For flights, the current state here is that the cheapest tickets allow you for a piece of hand luggage and something like a backpack that can go under the seat, you need to pay extra for each piece of luggage that will go on cargo area. People protested this quite a lot because you used to not pay for a single piece of luggage going in cargo, but people eventually relented.
Concert tickets I'm not sure, haven't been a concert goer for ages now, but I don't think you need to pay anything extra for it.
Purchasing a home here though, you do have a ton of extra fees, but those are registration fees, documentation, taxes and whatnot. You are paying notary offices, and the services that take care of those, but it's not an extra fee, it's the service itself.
Afaik, real estate agencies that deal with the entire transaction will take their percentage of sale or rent, but they cannot charge extra for helping to take care of those, as you are already paying them to take care of the process.
There are varying degrees of how much they'll help you with the entire process, and the best real estate agencies and agents are the ones who meticulously take you through the entire process.
Yep, guess that's about it.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
This is something I'll never agree with US law - indirect threats, libel, defamation and a bunch of other stuff that appeared on the entire video, and no one was punished. I don't care if it's a tweet, potentially made in jest, an exaggeration, and whatnot - it should not be acceptable, period.
I don't personally agree that just because something was made in a virtual private Internet platform, that it should be any less punishable. It's arguably more cowardly, but it should be taken seriously.
And yes, I know US law allow for those things... but should it? Because I don't think it should.
Honestly, I also don't care about the argument that this would be a slippery slope towards censorship and weakening freedom of speech... there are some stuff that is just unacceptable there.
And make no mistake, this also applies to threats made by antifa groups and sympathizers, BLM people, and whatnot - an indirect threat of violence or accusation is still that, no matter from which side it comes from.
I also don't get how a network like Fox News can continue operating the way it does. The severe ammount of accusations, lies and patently false stuff it puts out on a regular basis... how can it even keep operating? Are there no regulations or laws regarding content that is labeled news? I'm not an american so I don't really know how it came to this, but if there are no ethics in journalism anymore, not even in mainstream media vehicles, it's no wonder the chaos in information became so well estabilished in the US.
When you go out in public spaces, in front of crowds, in a position of leadership, and starts outright saying lies and giving recommendations on how his or her follower should act, I don't care who the f*ck you are, you should take full responsibility for it. I can understand penalties and whatnot being flexible according to situation and seriousness of it, but it does not make sense to me to allow people to do that sort of stuff because it's "protected speech".
Also, let me tell people something that they might not like. You live in society. Rules comes with it, whether you like it or not. I dunno how the concept of freedom got mistaken with exemption of responsibility overtime, but this freedom that we hear so much about always came from a pespective of freedom from tyranny, freedom from colonists, freedom from imposed rules of opressors... not freedom to do whatever the heck you want without consequences.
And you know, I'm in no position to criticize the US given that our politics are also horrible and our president is a ignorant prick trying to copy Trump, feeding off the same shitty sources of informations that he does, but it seems in law, constitution interpretation, and defense of supposed cornerstones of a democratic society, the US is also a bit out of balance, like capitalism also is there.
I tend to think that one of the reasons why things have got to that point, is because while Proud Boys, QAnon, and all those far right, neo nazi, conspiracy theory groups have a clear intention and message all the time, the opposition spends too long thinking whether this is fine or not, whether further action should be taken or not, whether this is protected by the first ammendment or not.
I'm not saying these groups should be rounded up and killed, or anything as radical as that... something that they would preach for their opposition. But it's pretty obvious that the protections you have now are not enough, they are not gonna stop these people, and that actions being taken are just not appropriate.
What is happening in the US now is potentially even worse for democracy. Private corporations are either allowing themselves or being pressured by public opinion and perhaps even politicians to act like judge, jury and executioners, on behest of a system or institution that is not strong enough to do that by themselves.
What happens if these groups increase in numbers, organize further, create their own networks that do not depend on Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever, find their own way of funding their operations, and the government keeps doing nothing about it because they are so intent on protecting the first ammendment or something?
I just don't like it. I mean, I love that Biden won, and I love that he's reversing a whole ton of damage Trump did, but the problem is the margins. The margins of this election and the one that put Trump on power.
I keep hearing that the majority of americans are not like these Trump supporters, but clearly there's a split that's almost 50-50.
And yes, freedom of speech and freedom of press are important cornerstones of democracies, but it's seriously dangerous to let those rights be used and abused just because of some abstract sense of entitlement. Those things were created still, thinking about society as a whole, not selfish immature individuals trying to replace democracy with anarchy.
It's ridiculous to see actions being taken to destroy democracy and promote what would become either anarchy or dictatorship, just because there's this overbearing sense that democratic cornerstones should be protected at all costs in all levels. Something as ridiculous as I dunno... an enemy taking the general's sword and using it to kill allies and allies arguing they should be allowed to because it's the general's sword after all.
There's seems to be a fundamental misinterpretation of what the thing was about in the first place.
Alas, you are free to disagree of course... and I think many would. It's actually not from today that I have this disagreement with US law. And I'm not saying the laws in my country are better or more just, or any crap like that... if anything, law in my own country were made to protect white collar criminals and corrupt politicians.
1
-
Good to note, even though Microsoft was the big corp behind this entire thing, it's far from being the only company with the exact same anti right to repair practices.
They all have put out huge marketing campaigns trying to paint themselves as the good guys, their recycling, eWaste, refurbishing and repair programs never goes past the surface for marketing purposes alone.
When it comes down to it, in raw numbers, their programs never attend even 1% of the eWaste problem they generate by themselves. And the reality of it is - they never will.
It's not a corporation specific problem, it's a problem of reach, volume, and people needed to really change the eWaste scenario.
The only way to really stop electronics from being dumped unecessarily is by having enough people working on it to attend every corner in the world where eWaste is being generated.
A single corporation, no matter how big and how rich it is, will never be able to do it by themselves.
That's why independent repair comes into play. The service needs to be local, the problems diagnosed on a per case basis, and repair done in a personal manner. It's just not something that can be easily put in a factory environment, or industrialized in some manner.
So, what you as a consumer has to start doing in order to provoke change?
For starters, people have to stop believing the dog and pony shows that these companies put out to make them look like recycling/green heroes or some other bullshit.
You know what incredible Apple recycling robot advertisement that showed up sometime ago and that Apple fans always talk about when it comes to Apple environmental policies. Yes, that one is also pure bullshit. It doesn't get even on the surface of problems with Apple electronics turning into eWaste.
These computing devices we have nowadays in forms of smartphones, tablets, laptops and computers can have a very long productive lives with minimal repair or refurbishment. And yet, a whole ton of them go to waste with little reason. It's even worse than bruised produce or restaurant food waste.
Corporations have to change, not only in terms of internal policies, but via regulation and laws to at the very least allow people to keep these things as long as possible in the market. We cannot allow for companies that puts their sales, branding, and image above everything else. We cannot allow for corporations that irresponsibly ignore the damages they are doing on the environment in general for their own sake. Reckoning is coming, sooner or later. It's better if we force these companies to act responsibly now than everyone paying the price of their folly later on.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
My bet is still 5 to 10 years away.... which was the bet before foldable smartphones were announced, based on CES prototypes from Samsung and LG.
I'm glad that these early devices are coming out now, because they'll probably serve as good basis for what's to come, and what the manufacturers will need to improve drastically before the foldable panel thing becoming a true everyday usage device.
The one prototype I'm not seeing still... but I hope it comes out sometime in the next few years is a rollable screen device. Instead of just a fold, you roll the entire panel inside something smaller. That would put way more stress in the panel, but can't really beat for portability.
Well, LG came out with a big screen TV that already does that, but you are not going to be carrying that around anytime soon. xD
Between tablet and laptop is not really my use case... I mean, it's cool and all, but my primary need is something between smartphone and tablet. Because if I had a smartphone that could unfold to a tablet, that'd be more or less all I need for a trip. I already carry a smartphone and a tablet for most trips, but the bulk problem is real. Between tablet and laptop it'd only make sense for me if the guts were pretty powerful. Otherwise, it just doesn't make much sense.
But the most prohibitive thing about these devices right now is just cost. They'll understandably come at a premium, and just not as durable or as strong as regular devices, so just not worth the risk unless you have the money to burn. I mean, not even flagship smartphones these days are worth the price point. I'd have no problems paying 1000 bucks for one if I could easily use them for more functions than a smartphone reliably on a daily basis, but as they are right now, mainly because of software constraints, it's just not worth it.
The only question I have with this now is which will come first on an everyday usage scenario - a foldable easy to use, durable, cheap, and powerful smartphone with foldable screen, or AR glasses that are the size of regular glasses which can give you any size panel you want without all the hassle. No matter how foldable a screen is, it'd be really hard to beat the portability of a pair of glasses that you have to carry one way or the other.
1
-
1
-
@luvyuluvyu5266 Almost everything you said are lies that won't or cannot happen, and I'm very sorry that you bought into all those fake narratives and misinformation campaigns. Several things don't even make logical sense, much less have any connection to reality.
Please check proper channels to understand what you are talking about, most of it makes no sense at all. You are taking part of a radical cult and you haven't even realized yet. Eventually, these people will start demanding your work, money, and participation in order for you to stay at their side, at which point your life might end up ruined because of it.
The president has no power to free people at will, change the justice system however he wants to, censor news, and do most of those things. It is proof enough that Bolsonaro tried doing this himself and couldn't.
Lula is not a criminal until proven guilty, I'm sorry if this doesn't fit your narrative, but it's simply a fact. Brazil has a justice system where anyone accused of a crime has to be proven guilty, and so if the justice system has annulled Lula's judgement on basis of bias, he is de facto innocent until proven guilty. You can shout crap however much you want, this won't change that fact.
No president in Brazil has the power to do most of what you talked about, there are no proof for a whole ton of crap you said there, and ignoring all the evidence to the contrary makes you similar to an indoctrinated brainwashed cult follower that cannot use basic critical reasoning to understand the world around yourself.
Multiple international organizations, monitoring bodies, and the scientific community at large has confirmed that there has never been worse years for the Amazon than the past 4. Like I already said, responsibility for this doesn't fall flat on top of Bolsonaro, but that's just a fact. It's not "paid Media" or other crap like that, it's coming from multiple scientists and researchers worldwide.
Have you ever questioned any of the stuff you are talking about if it is even compatible to the reality surrounding you? Have you ever checked the sources of information you get those ideas from?
Does the channels of information you take your news from give you actual credible sources, which the so called "paid Media" you are talking about always do? Or you just hear videos created by people with authoritarian stints shouting their lungs out to convince you about conspiracy theories and FUD?
Life is not a movie my friend, it's more complex and requires more work to understand. Lula was president for 2 terms, none of the ridiculous crap you talked about happened during his administration, or the other 2 terms when Dilma was president and he was behind the scenes in control.
No alliance with criminal factions, no changing of Brazilian flag, no attempts to censor the news, none of that incredibly stupid surrealistic crap you talked about.
Maybe you are too young to know, or too radicalized to care, but what you are talking about simply isn't reality - it's a fiction shaped like a religious cult, a pyramid scheme, a scam or a moral crusade to convince you to spend your time and money into this.
Rethink the priorities in your life, you'll be happier and have more power to take decisions for yourself once you do.
1
-
If that's what "falling out of love" with a government looks like, I really really wish all countries all around the world also falls out of love with their own governments.
Let's see here. One farmer complaining about increased regulations and taxes because of Climate Change concerns. I'm of the personal opinion that we shouldn't burden small farmers and small agricultural business with Climate Change in mind, perhaps subsidizing up to a certain category of those... but it's fairly obvious that we should also not dismiss Climate Change altogether, and there must be an increased set of burdens, be it via taxes or regulations, that needs to hit big agricultural business. Not because they deserve it, but because something needs to be done about Climate Change concerns. This isn't some foreign problem that developed nations needs to be burdened with, this is a problem for all humans all around the world that will need to lose something in order for it to be solved.
So, changes and problems are going to happen in sectors like those, it's understandable that small farmers and categories will have problems with government because government is the only thing that can make changes in this sector.
People protesting against vaccines. There's nothing I want more than these people getting pissed at government - because that means the government is doing it right. If anything, it seems no government on Earth did this right, for fears of angering people who cannot understand that living in modern societies demands certain civilian responsibilities they are not prepared to handle. We prospered living in communities exactly because of this, you gain the power of combined work and force, but you pay it with measures being taken collectively in order to protect everyone inside the community. There is no way of reducing this concept more than this.
If we want a world better prepared to fight pandemics in the future, the weak posture adopted by most countries will need to change soon. And I'll tell you straight outright so there is no illusion about this - if there is a scientific consensus on how we should fight it, countries that benefit from any production of the scientific community all have an obligation to adhere to it's recommendations, period. A future pandemic might give no room for religious exceptions, ideological infighting, and people refusing to vaccinate because of conspiracy theories and political bickering like that. Not because I'm saying so, but because a virus or an illness does not care about any of this. A future pandemic could happen that forces people to either take harsh precautionary measures and vaccinate as soon as possible, or they could end up crippled for the rest of their lives, or just quickly die off. So people can protest and be angry at the government as much as they want to, this is a positive thing for me - positive that it's happening, not positive that there are so many ignorant people still around in developed nations.
Housing, now that's a legit reason to be pissed about. It's a failure of government if it's not taking as many people as before, there needs to be strengthening on policies, and if necessary measures to control and regulate the market better.
But I have to wonder how much of this happened because of the government itself, and how much could be directly attributed to the multiple world crisis we went through. How much of it is a consequence on the necessary actions that needed to be taken for all the rest, like acting on the pandemic, keeping the economy stable after all the shortages, consequences on Climate Change and whatnot.
It pops out to me specially on how the guy is talking general statistics, not governmental action. More kids living in cars and more people waiting for subsidized housing, sure, but how much of it was a failure in policy, and how much of it was caused because of the multiple global crisis we've been going through?
Take this here for instance:
https://www.stats.govt.nz/topics/tourism
I know that tourism and related businesses contributes quite a lot to New Zealand's economy, and it just went through a period were tourism had to be halted because of the pandemic. Now, it's tricky to measure how much of that affected the housing problem, how much was because of government inaction or bad policies, and who exactly is to blame for it... overall though, I think New Zealand survived pretty well through a time that could've been deadly for any country that gets a good share of GPD from tourism and related services. I imagine this was a combination of both... government should've done better, but also the entire world has been through a pretty rough patch there.
Still, it's a way more legitimate complain in comparison to the other two. Unfortunately, there are loads of developed nations out there that don't see it that way... with cities filled with housing that no one but the 1% can afford, and entire cities converted into AirBnb ghost towns because of late-stage capitalism woes.
All in all, I'll take the complaints of farmers living comfortably with cattle going around and self-entitled people complaining about taking a jab and implementing enhanced isolation and hygiene practices all day over countries that deny science, puts capitalist interests above everything else, have politicians only interested in lobby money, and has a political system that has gone so much into the extremes of ideological battles it can barely function anymore....
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Called it! xD Right after a typhoon, or very rainy days, it's when things clear out and you can see mount Fuji. xD I just didn't know if the Journey would last long enough for it...
Never fails to amuse, Japan seems to always have something interesting in every corner. xD
I thought you guys would climb the mountain by car... up to the fifth station/level or something?
We (me and relatives) got to see Fuji clear with no clouds in both our trips... back in 2008 we took a taxi to go the furtherst up we could. Amazing views, but man, the temperature drop got me by surprise.
I only took a light hoodie with me since it was already in the middle of April or so, mild to hot temperatures. But every station we went up it was colder and colder 'till we got to the last station by car and it was freezing cold. :P Nice thing there was a place up there serving hot ramen, but the cold got me by surprise.
Last trip in 2018 we didn't go up the mountain, but could still see the whole mountain when we were getting back from Kyoto, Tokaido Shinkansen.
But man, seems like the way to go is visiting the towns around the mountain by car... thanks for sharing you guys!
1
-
1
-
Super wild guess here, I haven't read into the details of this story just yet, so don't count this as an informed opinion.
But if this thing is limited to Pixels only, it's likely a goof from the Pixel app development team, perhaps some recent update.
It also won't necessarily spread to other devices via AOSP too... see, Pixels don't exactly use raw AOSP in them, despite many people thinking so. It's the closest you can get to it without rooting, but it's not exactly AOSP.
Particularly for image apps that could make use of Tensor cores and such, those are made by Google specifically for Pixel phones.
I wouldn't call it exactly a "flaw" though... well, it depends on perspective really.
The problem here is saving screenshots in .png and allowing for edits to also be saved as .png instead of forcing an export to jpg or some other as-is format. This is why people are generally instructed to export to jpg or gif or some other format when using Photoshop.
.png is a format that specifically preserves the original image, saving edits in different layers, which is why information can be "recovered".
But you know, this can be really useful for editors sharing parts of the job.
General recommendation - if you are not an editor sending image files with a specific purpose, never send files in .png or .psd formats. Not exactly the same thing, but it's kinda like sending .doc and .docx files when you don't want people to be editing those... you'd opt for something like .pdf instead.
1
-
Oh, as for responsibility attribution.... xD that's an interesting question that I don't even want to touch much in the ethical and moral part, but if I had to guess, on the legal side, as things are, this would end up with the victims carrying all of the burden, unless it becomes a class action lawsuit.
Say, if it's a libel case, it's hard to prove malicious intent if there was an effort to redact sensitive information which failed because of software flaw. And then, without malicious intent, there is no libel case to be made.
On the other hand, if there's a class action lawsuit, be it by victims or by people burdened for the app not working as intended, then perhaps there is a case to be made there... for endangering or violating privacy of users and people in general by reckless disregard for basic security. It's still kinda difficult though, it depends on EULAs, terms and conditions, and whatnot. There might be some bullet point in there that takes responsibility out of app developer hands in the case of misusing files.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Interesting stuff... I always wondered about real estate for the rich in Tokyo, I knew there should be some there, but never seen anything about them. Well, nothing of that size at least, and I do follow some japanese real estate channels.
Is it fair to say though that they are kinda few and far between, in comparison to something like New York, for instance? I mean, you'll pay 20 grant a month for way smaller apartments in NY but you know what I mean... it sounds like in Tokyo, extremely expensive apartments are less numerous, which I see as a good thing.
As for me, quite honestly, I wouldn't want to live in an apartment like that even if I was ultra rich. :P
Really, if money was of absolutely no concern, that I could get something like that free with a job or something, I still wouldn't want it.
First, I like to do my own cleaning and organizing. No way in heck I'd manage to do it on an apartment that size. xD And hiring people to do it for me feels kinda uncomfortable... probably because of how anti-social I am. xD
Second, I'd like to see myself... as a kind of objective and kind of philosophy to strive for, as minimalist without attachment to material stuff. I definitely am far far faaaar away from those, but I feel like I'd rather have an apartment that forces me towards that, if you know what I mean. I still have a figure collecttion, book and comics collection, and I accumulate a whole ton of electronics and components because I try some DIY projects every now and then, but I should get rid of most of it... at some point I think I will.
Third, honestly, I wouldn't know what to do with so much space. Perhaps if I had a large family to put in there it'd make more sense in my mind. But it follows the same idea - I don't have a wish for luxurious stuff... huge screen TVs, home theater setups, etc.
I've been living comfortable in a 50 sq meter apartment for a full year now with my mom because of the pandemic... my apartment that is gathering dust is... I think 70 sq meter.
Weirdly enough, my mom and I have grown up on relatively big houses when compared to the Tokyoite lifestyle. My mom was raised in a small town, large family and large house, with relatives closeby living in farms... and when I was a kid, we lived in a relatively big house with a backyard bigger than the house itself.
Then I went to living in small apartments, for a year with an aunt while studying for university in a 40 sq meter apartment, then back home, then inside another 40 sq meter apartment - rental, then a 70 sq meter.
My mom went from one house to another smaller one, and now ended up in a 50 sq meter apartment rental, soon to be moving to another 40 sq meter apartment. To note - my apartment and my mom's apartment has room for us... I just couldn't convince my mom to move with me, nor her for me to move back wit her. :P
There are moments you'd like more space for some stuff, specially now during the pandemic, but smaller spaces forces you to be organized to a point. If I was ever to have the luxury of extra space though, I think I'd like a separate office or workspace instead.
If I was ever to get my dream to move to Japan, the ideal would be up to 2 hrs away from Tokyo central, but not in Tokyo central, up the mountains or something, around 70 sq meters apartment, upper floors. Oh, lotsa windows and a good balcony. That's the ideal, but I'd settle for anything. xD
It's kinda weird... even though I lived most of my life in a house, seafloor level city, very hot and humid tropical climate, I've been loving my currenty city climate - it's 2km up, colder, and my 70 sq meter apartment is on the 15th floor, downtown. I guess location and usability/functionality of floor space matters more to me than just a lot of room space. Even though I don't think I could function well in as tiny an apartment as Emma had times ago, too much would be wasted on me too.
But you guys know the general idea... a place to crash and spend time comfortably, but not a prison/bunker that you stay in all the time. Money and time better spent traveling around and whatnot.
1
-
Finally, I should've known MKB was gonna be the one to answer my question.
I had a nagging suspicion that even though Essencial made some of the barest(?) Android skins ever, it was still a skin that needed to go through Essencial for an update instead of receiving it directly from Google... and this is the case. I've seen a whole lot of publication straight saying this is stock Android, but it really isn't, no matter if it's almost exactly it.
People should know that it's not only os development that causes upgrade delays.
I mean, I like the approach, but I'd rather get a Pixel Phone instead for the most important part of it: getting OS updates without a middleman.
Honestly, I also don't like skins of several other brands... but it seems pretty much all brands these days are walking towards vanilla, they finally got the message that we don't want all that extra bloat, and I even like the touches Oxygen OS brought to OnePlus.
In the end though, Essencial's promise for fast updates is only that - a promise. Like so many others. I'd trust it as much as promises of shipment, promises of release, among others.
Not that I'd ever get one at that price though. xD
1
-
1
-
1
-
The root of public shaming commonly stems from unstable family structures, personal misery, and a wish to see others being more miserable than him/herself as an outlet for their own personal situation. The public part of shaming commonly stems from ignorance, lack of awareness, fear of being the next target, and/or a misplaced sense of morals.
It is a destructive habit that has certainly gotten potentialized by globalized fast communication and that will likely not go away very soon.
But more often than not, it is a waste of time and human potential.
It's only one of several aspects of human behavior that shows how unprepared current societies are to something like the Internet. There are aspects of how we communicate and how we socialize that has dramatically horrible effects when amplified by a global instant public and never forgetting communication tool such as the Internet.
Honestly, I'm quite afraid of what might happen when these very bad habits that were once contained by self restraint, face to face communication and just being hyper local goes worldwide viral. Not sure if we'll be able to adapt to it before entering some death spiral or something.
But yeah, at least some people will at the very least identify and understand what has been happening. It's left for us to see if we'll overcome it.
Anyways, lovely interview with Monica... she pretty much went above and beyond basically everyone involved in the case, despite being the most targeted, most vilified, most young, most potentially unprepared, most abandoned and most attacked of all. If there are more people around like her, perhaps we might just survive the avalanche of bad stuff that is coming because of this paradigm change.
1
-
ROFL, making a bad situation into something interesting... always valid.
Ages ago, for reasons that would take too long to explain, I had the opposite experience... my sense of taste became extremely overly sensitive.
Put simply, a very weird and deep allergic reaction that we took to long to identify what the source was.
So, in the midst of headache, lack of sleep, fever, chills, pin prickly skin, sore everything, swelling hands and feet, the worst sore throat case I've ever had, plus a bunch of other stuff... my sense of taste became extremely oversensitive, which gave me an opportunity to see things a bit how I think my mom does.
For her, everything is either too salty or too sweet, she detects flavor in stuff I consider as bland as eating cardboard, so I have always been a bit intrigued.
It all connected when my sense of taste went on overdrive.
For instance, Coke Zero, something I drink as much as I should water... had this overbearingly sweet and kinda burnt taste to it. Like really, you know when sugar goes from caramelized to full burnt? That's what the taste was. It was just too much.
Same thing happened to industrialized stuff, which my mom avoids as much as possible.
Surprisingly enough, all the stuff I should but don't consume regularly started making sense to me. Fruits and veggies, plain water, less processed stuff... it all started tasting just right.
Fortunately and unfortunately, after two visits to the ER without solution, we found out the culprit. It was a thick blanket that I had been using for over a decade (at my mom's), that for some reason I developed an allergic reaction to. In fact, that only happened an year later (finding out what it was)... on that period the solution was really that I went back home, and the symptoms disappeared.
Then it went away, my taste went back to normal, and I went back to my horrible habits. xD That's the unfortunate part, but at the same time, I really don't want to be in a situation like that ever again. If I could just alter my sense of taste a bit though, without the side effects... that would really help me eat better. Perhaps therein lies a better strategy to tackle obesity and nutrition... but I wouldn't know where to start developing something in that line of reasoning. xD Overly sensitive tastebuds might be key for people to go for fruits and veggies more than processed foods, is what I'm saying, not because they have to, but because it just tastes better for them. Take notes, next Nobel laureate! I'm only half kidding here.
1
-
1
-
I don't think socialism is a better alternative or anything like that, but just up for consideration, I think capitalism and libertarianism has it's own limits.
It's not a matter of being completely for or against an economical system, it's a matter of realizing that taken to their extremes, perhaps no system is great.
I personally think that, for instance, most of the socialist implementations failed not because they were necessarily completely bad ideas, but because they were made in a reactionary way, as a rejection of status quo - which naturally leads to extremism. Something by the way that in the vast majority of times tends to go wrong, micro and macro scale.
Capitalism became "a thing" because it has a longer history, and it was introduced in a way more gradual way. It wasn't a complete reactionary rejection of how things were done in the past, it just followed an evolutionary path. Which does not mean it cannot get to it's extremes... just that it took longer.
I'm biased because I was born in a capitalist economy, but I personally don't think changing systems is a good idea in any way, shape or form. But going less towards it's extremes certainly seems to have it's benefits. At least it's what I have seen through the world.
A whole lot of the problems I hear about America goes around human rights related issues and how capitalism isn't doing those any favors. In this video it's about jobs and workers relationships with corporations. In other topics - education and debt, public healthcare and coverage, military spending, pricing of drugs, environmental issues, consumer rights, governmental agencies being taken over by corporate puppets, the shift of information sources towards private owned platforms (social networks), etc etc etc. It creates an imbalance because the ultimate real objective of capitalism is concentration of power and money by individuals.
The wage gap is not a side effect of capitalism... the wage gap is capitalism itself, taken to ultimate consequences.
So, over the years, some capitalist countries have adopted some socialist concepts (so called social capitalism), to try to strike a balance. Chernobyl is certainly one disaster that could or could not be pinpointed to an economic system, but if that's the case, there are plenty of bad examples on the other side... but perhaps just because of the size imbalance. Three Miles Island, Fukushima, all the superfund sites in the US and rest of the world. Incidents like Chernobyl certainly are not exclusive to countries with socialist or communist systems.
But perhaps one big difference between the systems is that capitalism is just much more in tune with human nature than socialism or communism is. These latter two are much more idealist and utopic in their conceptions, which is why they tend to get corrupted far easier and faster. For the most part, most socialist or communist experiments ended up in dictatorship and totalitarianism. Again though, this can also be because of their reactionaty nature - it does not mean that capitalist systems cannot also become totalitarian, something that current populist governments have been proving in recent years.
But there you go... just thought I'd share a bit on this topic.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Don't get the pocket wi-fi, get a Sim card with unlimited (or speed downgrading) data plan. Pocket Wi-fi is one thing extra to carry and charge, and you'll want everyone to have their own access in their smartphone instead of it being separate device dependant. Personal experience going on a trip with other 7 family members. :D
Always carry a small towel and a bag for trash. No public trashcans, everyone has their own towels to dry hands after going to public restrooms. You're gonna dump that trash on your hotel room, or perhaps a combini.
If you are planning to travel long distances with bullet train and whatnot, check the JR Pass prices. Might be worth it. If not, check Suica card and similar rail cards before going... easier to go that way then trying to figure out tickets everytime you are going to use the metro there.
Book your hotels and stays far in advance, specially if you are going to Japan during busy seasons. Too late for people who are going soon I guess, but if you are planning to go even a year or more from now, do it now. I mean, for cities like Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, among others. It can get super hard to find an acommodation in vacation season there, you'll either pay far more or not find a place at all if you leave this to the last minute. You really don't want to waste time hotel hunting when you get there, it's not fun, and the type of stress you don't want during a vacation trip.
Please consider visiting non-touristic places, specially if you are going during the busy season (early spring, autumn). The touristic places will be all extremely packed, and they are becoming more and more tourist oriented by the day. That packaged experience that seems out of touch with the culture.
Instead, check Chris' and Tokyo Creative own Journey Across Japan for a whole ton of incredible places to visit that are not packed with tourists. wink wink
Or just go generally more to the north or south of the Tokyo-Kyoto triangle. You almost cannot get this wrong. Almost everywhere you go in Japan there is something amazing to see, it seems.
1
-
Technically, I won't judge aesthetically, those seem like good ideas but not because of the indoor/outdoor discussion... more about the isolation between tables.
So, what you get is really an indoors situation, but where each table is isolated from each other.
The only real thing you avoid there is contamination between groups... like that often used animation scenario where someone infected with Covid on a table spreads out the virus because of how ventilation, AC or whatever circulates the air in the room.
It wouldn't be that much different to just isolate tables from each other inside the restaurant, but I imagine tents or provisory outdoor rooms are just more cost effective. Because if it's inside a building, ventilation is complicated. The isolation is not only about walls, it's about the air that circulates inside it. Inside you'd still have to contend with corridors, shared spaces, individual ventilation for each room/table...
Think of it like the cruise ship scenario. You have a bunch of individual apartments, you can lock everyone inside them, but because of how ventilation system works in the ship, everyone ends up sick because they are breathing the same air that is being shared and recirculated inside all rooms.
Afaik, in the US there is a high adherence to central AC and whatnot. Which means the air inside business and commerce estabilishments is shared... no real separation between rooms.
For individual tents and rooms built on the outside, those can have air exchanged directly with the outside individually. You could even control position of venting and where the air is coming from to avoid worst type scenarios - like taking air from high up where contaminated droplets are less likely to be, and discharging air from inside down, so that droplets don't stay suspended in the air. And if you are really fancy, use filters.... a mask for the room. xD
As for surface contamination, this doesn't change all that much... considering what we think we know so far on how droplets spread out and how long the virus survives in cold surfaces, after guests use either the tent or room, it'd droplets would go down on tables and floor given enough time.
Open up the room, wipe up table, chairs an floor, and you're mostly done.
They could get pretty creative with it too since it's outside... like adding extra ventilation, filters, using those fog style cleaning machines and whatnot to speed up the process.
Given how there probably just aren't that many costumers willing to go through the experience, rotating rooms is probably enough. With enough time, potentially contaminated droplets would just settle down.
But even still, if the air inside those tents and individual cabins stays contaminated for a while... you are limiting it to next costumers, and still avoiding the spread to all other individual cocoons. xD Cold analysis.
I mean, it looks and sound kinda ridiculous... but you know, desperate times. I think businesses that are creative about fighting the disease are ultimately the ones that will survive.... even if by the end of the next year this thing will be gone, something tells me this isn't gonna be the last time most of us will see a pandemic like this one... this shit is gonna keep coming, and those with experience in creative strategies to combat it now will have better chances in subsequent times.
Is it even worth going this extra length to attract costumers on freezing nights? Well... that's for the restaurants to see.
But my guess is, there are so many people so desperate to have some semblance of normal life back, that they are willing to concede to almost anything. And with the prospect that lots of people having to deal with the pandemic restrictions and whatnot for at least a few more months... you start budgetting up costs, patience, risks and whatnot.
So like, we'll dine inside a plastic tent now just to do something different, it should stave off boredom a bit and stretch our patience for a few more months until we're vaccinated... and we help the restaurant to still be there when things gets better.
1
-
1
-
You get whatever is going in the right direction because no one else is... basically. xD
I don't think people should expect an ideal, perfect, all checkboxes marked solution, simply because the industry wasn't built on those principles, period. We had little chances of getting something like that 20 years ago, now it's basically impossible.
Making a smartphone from scratch without hitting any intellectual property from other companies is not just a matter of money - it's outright impossible, period.
I know some of the stuff Louis is saying there might sound a bit novel to some, but it goes far deeper, is far more insidious, and just part of the structure as most can imagine.
Put simply, the logic of smartphone industrial production, as is for several other categories of industrialized products, is that of mass manufacturing. Making more and more for less and less, in which uniformity pays off.
Lots of people laid blame on logic for the way smartphones all look the same today - and partially it is. If you want a pocketable device for which it's entire interface with the user, which is what users care for, is a rectangular screen of fixed proportions, the logical evolution of it would be a glass brick. Can't make the interface any more portable than that - the device IS the interface, period.
But it's actually not only that... it's just that since smartphones took over, they are pretty much all the same - several of the tiered pricing schemes are largely artificial, the influence hardware components have on final product prices are close to nil, it's just an artificially calculated "how much people are willing to pay" price.
And particularly for smartphones, I can't think of any other product category that had a clearer indication on how that's the case with the ramp up on flagship model prices blowing past the 1000 bucks level. It's not about how much it costs to produce, it's how much categories of costumers are willing to pay for.
People will come all around saying how Apple does their own stuff, yadda yadda... you do realize that Apple only "does" their own stuff because they bought the companies that did it for them in the past, right? That iPhones used to have component parts coming from several different companies that do stuff for Android phone companies too, until they bought the competition and consolidated production. That everything from SoC microarchitecture to wi-fi chips, bluetooth, NFC, screens, cameras, and a whole ton of other component parts, the more you peel layers of bs, the more you find out they are very much the same with adjustments that don't really cost more to do, but that justify product categorization.
We grew used to thinking that higher res panels, higher megapixel cameras, bigger batteries, more ram, faster SoCs, wireless charging, blahblahblah is what justifies the price difference between a budget phone from a flagship one... because it sounds logical, but if you put down everything on paper, you quickly realize how that doesn't really make much sense - because it mostly applies to limited manufactury. Small numbers, customized batches. Mass manufacturing is an entirely other beast.
As for the idea that Apple, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sony, etc etc "designs" their own stuff... again, it shouldn't come as a surprise to no one the partiality of those claims. This again, has to do with external image and how many people still don't realize how dependent all of those companies are on stuff that happens in China, particularly in cities like Shenzhen - which to be fair, is something none of those companies will ever admit in public because of the very same reasons of the theme of this video - copyright law.
One major reason why Shenzhen was so incredibly successful as a place where tech happens, is not only because of mass manufacturing, production and logistics... it's all about development and design happening closer and closer to where the sausage is made. Innovations and ideas for implementations coming faster and faster because they happen in lockstep with hardware development and production. It's no coincidence all major players have huge subsidiaries there.
Does anyone really thinks the general smartphone evolution of recent years would have happened the way it did if there wasn't a very big amount of crosstalk between competing brands? To a point, you could be excused if you thought that way. One company innovates with one thing, the other comes and copies it, makes it better, and so forth.
But that's not what is actually happening there, the evolution is too similar, they are in step, synchronized, and just disguised to not seem that way.
It happens that way because even design, even software, even OS, even these parts of production that are supposedly happening only in corporate headquarters and whatnot, also gets a whole ton of what they are going to do with their products in the future from the exact same sources in Shenzhen and other international hubs. And it has largely to do with new improvements in hardware components being the source of what is coming next, in the first place.
Anyways, back to what Louis was talking about... the thing that happened over the years behind the scenes was consolidation, competition killing, and the usual process of market monopolization. Each component inside a smartphone comes from ultra specialized manufacturers that used to be half a dozen or so, but nowadays are getting closer to one or two companies (such as the TSMC case for chips). So, if you want to propose something that is either more open source, less proprietary, more fixable in general... there will be a whole ton of work balancing things for you to do.
It's not only that you have very few options to go to, a whole ton of the latest steps in evolution for several of those components were built on proprietary foundations.
This is why companies that adopts a purist standpoint trying to go all in open source, all in non-proprietary, all in openly available, often end up with products with past decade specs, missing a whole ton of stuff that newer devices have, or end up looking a bit like white label Chinese products... because there is no other option there. The latest stuff is either entirely proprietary and owned by a company that was gobbled up by a bigger company like Apple/Google, or has contracts that states production is exclusive to a certain company, or a mix of those. Monopoly practices have been in the script from start. We'd have to go too far back into the history of the product development to get anything resembling open source or at least openly available.
If on one side people have been happy with the entire trade war thing against Huawei, on the other hand you can figure out what it also means. Theoretically, from an open source design standpoint, there shouldn't be any reason as to why Huawei couldn't just pick up from AOSP and keep developing it's own everything... but because of a whole bunch of other stuff that is also tied up in all this mess, SoC proprietary tech, ARM contracts, yadda yadda, what effectively happens is that if a nation like the US cuts off ties with a nation like China, in effect what you have is a huge corporation like Huawei having to do all sorts of maneuvers to continue production. Xenophobes rejoice, but if you think about it, even if you hate the CCP or whatever, just think if you were a Chinese citizen.
Because of a badly justified trade war, a major tech company in your country lost control of a major line of product that they were doing quite competently, all because access to essencial tech was barred from it one sidedly. And then you start realizing the problems of having a product category production work like that. It sends alarms for the mainstream, alarms that have been blarring for most of the open source community for decades now.
Thus, talks about Risc V adoption, questions on how much AOSP is really open source, plus related privacy, security, and also right to repair related stuff. Because from a given lens, it all sums up to consumer control versus corporation control.
We've let businesses and corporations take over for so long that it's getting harder and harder to put control back in the hands of consumers. The thousand layer onion of proprietary crap we have to unfold is just too much, and it hits so many levels of the stuff we use today that it has become a daunting task to go against this trend.
So, just to conclude, I'd like to thank and congratulate companies like Fairphone, Framework and others trying to do something about it. I don't expect the impossible from them, but just for trying to do something, they already deserve recognition.
1
-
1
-
The problem is leniency.
There are a few ways of solving this. Something's gotta give, so expect complaints.
One way is suspending the illumination for a year, and see the reaction. You can bet there will be a multitude of suggestions on how to combat the problem right away. Erase the opportunity for a nice shot for social media brownie points and people will go away. Leave the lights off until late at night when the street gets closed off for car traffic or something similar.
The second is caving in and either blocking car traffic, or blocking pedestrian access during the time of the year. The problem is the mix of both, right?
It is obviously clear that the strategy of putting guards shouting at people there isn't working. Particularly when all they can do is shout, not arrest.
There will always be people to jump fences or disrespect more rigid laws, but at a manageable size you just put those people in jail for the night, make an example of it.
Ultimately, nothing will be solved if this continues being normalized as it already is. What is the point of producing news pieces every single year if no changes are actually implemented. Just becomes fodder for prejudice and jingoism. Such is the problem of the vast majority of news that blames all problems on foreigners and tourists.
I think ultimately people get this wrong. If you have a clear problem with tourists and foreigners, and no action is taken, at some point the problem is not because some tourists are disrespectful, ignorant, badly educated or whatever - the problem is that you have a clear issue there that no one is trying to actually solve. Shoving your head into the sand and expecting time to go back to a time when social networks and tons of people trying to take photos with their smartphones of things they find interesting is not a sound strategy. That's Stockholm Syndrome.
The fact is that Japan is becoming increasingly tourist independent. But it doesn't want to change to fit that reality, because while people wants the benefits of mass tourism, with sector growth and foreign money pouring in, they don't want to change things to better fit the behavior of mass tourism. News pieces are produced on the bad behavior of a small percentage of those tourists, and it elevates feelings of undue prejudice, nationalism, and jingoism. Doesn't matter if you have egregious cases attributed to only 0.1% of tourists that visits the area, the perception that comes from that is that all tourists and foreigners are disrespectful, arrogant, behave badly and whatnot.
Meanwhile, nothing concrete is being done to actually combat the behavior. People have to start questioning why the neighborhood association, plus government are not doing anything concrete about it if it's causing such major problems. Why are there no proposals to actually do something to stop it. Times are always changing. Those who refuse to change with times get left behind.
This has already happened before with Halloween in Shinjuku, right? Does it need to get to the point it got there for changes to be implemented forcefully? An horrific case like Itaewon or similar for this case for people to wake up to the problem? This isn't a great way to solve issues like those. Waiting for major accidents to happen to only then do something about it.
1
-
1
-
@Home Love Very true.
I think in terms of detection, which unfortunately is kind of a complex thing to tackle right, at least for starters and for Android I can think about a few things.
There's an app called Avira Vulnerability Checker that comes from a well reputed anti-virus company.. it checks your device for open vulnerabilities and makes recommendations on how to fix it. This isn't specifically for stalkerware but it helps.
To detect stalkerware, malware, spyware... the one I use and recommend is Malwarebytes. Not sure if there's something better in the market, but it's a very well known brand and company. I also use it on the PC.
Finally, sometimes it's worth going through the entire phone configuration, particularly the parts about apps and security, going one by one and blocking access to stuff like camera and microphones for apps that don't need it. Takes time, but makes things more secure. But this requires a bit more familiarity on what apps need what to work as intended, as it can potentially break them if you block access to stuff they need to work.
There's also a setting on security options about letting the system install apps that are not coming from the Google Play Store, which people should always turn off. It's off by default, but some stalkerware needs this to be turned on to be installed.
All of this isn't enough to prevent all cases, and the scenario is always changing, but it makes things way harder.
1
-
@Home Love General rule of thumb, app updates cannot modify permissions that you already set up... It cannot do that because the permissions are configured on the system side, not on the app side.
Apps don't have access to modify permissions you set on the OS (Android, iOS) level.
So, it would only happen if, for instance, an Android or iOS update broke the permission system. Then all bets are off. xD But I don't think this ever happened so far... perhaps in the very early days of smartphones, but not in the past 8 years or so.
But for instance, if an app previously didn't require access to your camera, and a new update comes out that requires it, the app will have to ask permission directly from you before it has access to the camera.
So I don't think you have to worry too much about updates sneaking behind your back.
The only exception to this rule is when you have malware and apps installed from outside the official stores... the stores usually block apps like that, but malware, kinda like a virus, could get what people call root access to your phone, which enables it to change all system level settings and more. For those, you need the malware scanner to check.
No problems, if you need anything else just ask! :D
1
-
So, details for those interested in X/Twitter getting banned in Brazil.
Sometime earlier this month, Brazil's Supreme Court put out an order to block a bit over half a dozen accounts for using the platform to spread messages with hate speech, fake news, anti-democratic content, and/or actual threats against members of the court.
This includes one well known far-right senator (Marcos do Val) that is famous for his bullsh*t. He has a long list of scandals and problems with other politicians, ministers, judges and even with supposed allies from his own party or allied parties.
You know, kinda like some Republicans that support Trump.
It goes from libel, infantile attacks, baseless accusations, conspiracy theories and general fake news all the way up to death threats, and threats against family members of judges in the Supreme Court, which already resulted in a few episodes of actual violence by supporters - some of these cases being under active investigation.
I don't know who the other profiles are from, but I can guess. There is a cadre of far-right influencers, politicians, and radicals who have been, for years now, constantly attacking judges, other politicians, and members of the current government, in that range - from vague unproven conspiracy theories all the way to actual crimes of incitement, hate crimes, and threats of violence.
Elon Musk already attacked multiple times Brazil's Supreme Court, came in defense of far-right politicians and figures, came with his whole Freedom of Speech absolutist agenda (which for him means freedom to speak what he wants without consequences, while censoring everyone he doesn't like). His position in Brazil is well known already.
So, he refused to comply with court orders on basis of it being an attack on "freedom of speech", of course. He has the whole spiel about our Supreme Court being a dictatorship, but no one managed to prove any of those accusations so far. Supreme Court in Brazil only complies with Federal Police investigations, and none of those investigations came out of nowhere. The court only approves or not the results of investigations.
The response X got after refusing to comply with court orders is that if staff did not comply with orders, they were at risk of getting arrested. And X has also been paying fines for quite a while now.
This has happened in the past with Facebook and WhatsApp if I'm not mistaken, several years ago.
Other than that, I need to add that the platform also has multiple other lawsuits running against them, a few of which it has already lost, regarding users that are being constantly attacked, stalked, threatened and persecuted. The company has refuse multiple times to surrender data and information regarding attackers, which led to criminal lawsuits against the company.
So what Musk did was to shut down X local operations and representation in Brazil, fire all the staff, to get in the way of Supreme Court orders. If the company does not have an official representation in Brazil, that makes it way harder for orders to be followed, and it means police and justice has to find a different venue for compliance.
Also note that there is a run to block and freeze the company's assets in Brazil so that it can comply with past court decisions that were already made. The company has already lost several cases that it needs to pay fines or indemnity for.
If there is no way to negotiate in the table, the final action would be blocking the service altogether. This has not happened so far just yet afaik, but it's supposed to sometime next month if nothing changes.
Currently, Twitter/X is still available in Brazil, it's still available on app stores, I can still access the page. And please, don't conflate things - the VPN thing has nothing to do with this.
I'll further recommend you guys to be very careful when it comes to news from Brazil because there is a truckload of far-right propaganda, misinformation and conspiracy theories flying around that are absolutely false. Unfortunately, the far-right dominates Internet based portals in Brazil, and they are extremely unreliable sources. Stick to big publications if you are going to report on what is happening here. Also never trust what people on forums say.
So, this has absolutely nothing to do with censorship - this has to do with a rogue company that refuses to comply with anything regarding Brazilian justice. It's not only about the Supreme Court order too, it's about several other cases that have been happening since Musk took over. Twitter/X and Musk are walking the same fine line that resulted in today's Telegram founder arrest in France. It has all to do with compliance with the justice system.
Twitter/X indeed is at the risk of getting banned in Brazil because of the company's systematic non-compliance with courts and judicial system, that's true. But it's quite atypical for this to happen. I can see it truly happening this time though, given Musk's attitude. He has adopted a far-right political posture in Brazil, and so X might end up like several other far-right radicals.
Alas, I couldn't give a f*ck about it. In the end, I think this is great. X has become a cesspool of misinformation, hatred and ignorance, which is something Brazil don't need more of.
I've used the platform for a limited time years before Musk took over only to get in touch with university colleagues, and then never more. Now I'm just glad that I decided to erase my account altogether times ago. I left it there so that no one took my username to impersonate me for a while, but the direction the platform was going I just thought it was better to delete the account entirely. Seems I was right in doing so.
1
-
This is exactly what I imagined would happen as soon as I read news the government refused to negotiate for hostages with Hamas earlier today. I knew family of victims would take action. Good on them for this.
I can only imagine their despair.
Netanyahu's government will defend nothing but it's own selfish interests. It has been about this from the beginning, the intention has never been to defend Israel, respond to Hamas attacks, or rescue kidnapping victims - it's all to advance their radical agenda of Palestinian genocide. This government has never cared about Israelis, never cared about the safety of it's citizens, never cared about justice or safety, and their constant accusations of anti-Semitism against people who are denouncing this genocidal government just shows even more how ill intended this government has been from start - it's all Zionist hatred and extremism behind the scenes.
It's sad that it needed to come to this, but everytime these things happens it makes it clearer what the real intentions there really are.
I dunno what more is needed, but hopefully people understands things better now. Particularly people who voted this fascist government in.
Netanyahu needs to go to trial on international courts, be judged for what he did together with the radicals he put in government, and they all need to be sanctioned by the international community just how Putin was. He deserves much worse, but we'll have to do with this for now. And I hope the electorate in Israel and what is left of a good government and justice there bans him from politics for the rest of his life, if not put him in jail for his actions. Fascists and the far right needs to be taken out of power everywhere. These people are criminals given free reign, and we need to stop this now, before more places in the world ends up in a situation like Israel currently is in.
1
-
Thanks for the Q&A you guys!
Let me put up a scenario here that is kinda like a middle ground between self hosting and using VPS or hiring 3rd party servers and services, that I don't see talked about much so I have a few doubts...
How about self hosting locally, and using a VPN such as Tailscale, ZeroTier and others to access it? I know the obvious downside on this is that you can only access it if you are part of the VPN, but say you don't necessarily need to open what you host locally to the open web, which I know is a huge part of hosting anything anyways. But I think more people could benefit from this rather than solely looking at the self hosting to the open web, vs VPS conundrum.
Don't it make more sense for people to do this way, or at least segregate parts of the stuff they use into it, rather than trying to host everything in the open, or hiring a service to do it for them? Or like, are there also major security and privacy risks to consider while using those too?
Take a case example to understand the whole thing better - Say whoever is looking at this don't personally need to expose almost anything publicly... but like, there is still a need to have a photo hosting service, perhaps small social media-like functions for close relatives, private messaging, backup and storage, password manager, perhaps some streaming, some databases, access to local security system, remote desktop stuff and so on. Perhaps even experiment with local e-mail, webpage hosting, etc.
Everyone who will access those functions, instead of being anyone in the web, it's more like only close family and friends. So, with that in mind, doesn't it make much more sense to setup a VPN with aforementioned apps/services and host everything locally? How much more secure that is vs trying to make it openly available?
I imagine that depending on how many people are actively using the VPN or are part of it, there will eventually be considerations about bandwidth, the load on exit nodes, and then you still have lots of management to do for upkeep, to maintain everything updated, to include and remove people in it... but it kinda sounds to me like a good middle ground still. At least for certain services and capabilities that some people want to have and provide for just a few family members and friends perhaps?
1
-
Here's to hope a better politician without shady ties replaces him this time...
It's understandable that not many people knows about this, and certainly there's a whole lot of good that came from Shinzo Abe's politics, but there have also been plenty of bad stuff that people should be aware of. Heck, not even many japanese people follow this stuff.
That relatively recent spat with South Korea? It probably has something to do with links to ultra nationalist parties.
That involves potential denial of war crimes, calls for militarization of Japan, general discrimination against foreigners, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Abe has always been walking a fine line between making Japan a more conservative and nationalist country, and opening the country more for foreign workers, promoting gendrr equality and whatnot, adopting more progressive politics.
The fear is that someone worse than him gets the position, because it really can get much much worse than Abe.
I'm giving a critical point of view, and he had his problems, but it wasn't nowhere as dramatic as countries with populist nationalistic governments in the west.
At the very least the guy was smart. Populist, nationalist, racist dumbfucks becoming the norm in western democracies and all, Japan still held a more serious, smart, statesman conservative in position, whether you agreed with his politics or not. He also did some very good progressive reforms during his time, instead of only taking radical decisions that goes with his party or something.
But for japanese people, I imagine it was also time for change, so it came at an appropriate time, despite the surprise. There is a whole ton of criticism going on there regarding how the pandemic was handled, how diplomacy with South Korea went, and how some other topics are being treated by the government.
In any case, I hope the best for the country itself. It's a culture and society with such strong standards that it probably wouldn't let politics ruin it... or so I'd hope.
1
-
I mean, I'm not sure how many people realize this, but you know... Apple, the richest western capitalist company, operates in similar ways as regimes like CCP.
You can do business inside our premisses as long as we get a cut and you adhere to our arbitrary standards, it's all in the name of "protection of our citizens", you can always get help for our products as long as it's state sponsored help that adhere to arbitrary rules we make, you should admire us for what we do, external criticism is either dismissed or blamed on costumers, costumers have plenty of choices on what to do, as long as it's Apple sanctioned choices...
No wonder Apple got so easy in China and have no qualms adhering to CCP censorship and demands there, while it paints itself as defender of privacy in the rest of the world. Ever wonder how Apple managed to become a major China brand while Android mostly had to give rise to chinese smartphone brands instead?
People don't get that opaqueness and one sided ruling is not the same as being a defender of privacy and security. It's puzzling how Apple manages to still keep selling straight faced this charade that it's defending user privacy.
A company taking exclusivity to collect and exploit user data for themselves and impeding other companies to do it might look good at first, but guess what, they still collect it and exploit it nonetheless.
It's yet another monopolistic practice ill disguised as something good "for the people", and because you don't know how the company operates internally due to it's walled garden paranoid proprietary nature, at any time they can start selling it all and you can do nothing about it.... in fact, you'd likely never even know about it.
It's a company that both has no reason to be trusted, but that is the most trusted one nonetheless. I just don't get it.
There is no privacy and security without independent auditing and access to inner workings, period. The less you can see inside it, or the less the company lets independent, 3rd party, neutral people, researchers or groups to check how good privacy and security protections are, the less it should be considered trustworthy.
And the fact that every step of the way Apple makes their stuff more and more proprietary, more and more opaque and closed off, more and more interdependent and impossible to replace and access... it falls into the same trappings of a lack of privacy - centralized power.
In essence, it has the same issue of a nanny state. People can feel comfortable and complacent with power run that way, but it is so easy and ripe for abuse that fundamentally, you are giving away your rights and ability to fight off corruption and wrongdoing because you trusted it too much.
1
-
1
-
Yap. Surprising that it took this long, tbh.
I'm gonna contrast this to my experience with a company that probably most people consider pretty shitty, almost a decade ago now, in backwater country (Brazil), that might surprise some people.
Pre-considerations: nowadays I think their costumer service here dropped the ball by quite a lot, and the problems I had I discovered afterwards that it was all design flaw and their own fault. Alas, I was probably among the very few people who actually got one of those here in Brazil, and class action lawsuits are not a thing here, so not a chance of that happening. It did happen in the US though, but of course not being an american citizen I got nothing.
My first Dell XPS laptop. Expensive as heck (specially for brazilian standards). I wanted a desktop replacement because I was going to be taking a trip every two weeks for a post graduation course in game development, and it needed to be both powerful and lightweight.
Ok, after a year or so of normal use something went wrong and I got all sorts of weird artifacts on the screen. I think the laptop kept running full power while enclosed on it's case and something fried. E-mailed support, sent some photos, explained extensively what I had done. Some back and forth and they were sending someone at my apartment to check.
To my surprise, the guy who got to my door, despite being 3rd party not a Dell employee or anything, knew everything there was to know already.
Like, not one of those cases where you have a lengthy detailed discussion with tech support only for them to send someone who knows nothing about the problem and you have to start explaining all over again. Nope. This guy came to my aparment with a motherboard replacement in his bag. He tried some stuff, did some tests, called it out and started replacing the entire motherboard.
This happened twice. Nowadays I know why. Faulty discrete graphics chip, a gift from nVidia. It would overheat if you forced the laptop too much, and kill the entire motherboard. Dell, at the time, honored the warranty and even extended it a bit, but by the time it ran out I had already learned how not to fry the damn thing (by not forcing the graphics side too much) and was already on the way of getting back to a normal desktop - needed a video editing station.
I gotta say, the level of expertise, the knowledge that the tech support guy showed, the speed in which he solved everything and how I was treated - I never saw anything near as good in any other tech support from any other company or from independent PC repair centers ever in all my years of dealing with computers. In Brazil, computer repair shops are just not very good at all. First SSD I got, I went looking in several shops for a way to fix it inside my desktop, most people I talked to had never even heard what a SSD was. Only one repair place whose owner also worked repairing computers had heard of it and asked to see it, suggesting some solutions.
Anyways, back to the Dell XPS - It's still working to this day, but as you can imagine, Linux only, very sluggish... it's a core 2 duo with 4Gb of ram, can't do much with it nowadays anymore.
About Apple, the way I personally see it, and have been seeing it since last I had an Apple product (an iPad 2), is that at some point Apple stopped being an electronics development company and became a commodity company, like so many others. The switch to highly proprietary components and tech became less about innovating and improving on existing stuff, and more about corralling costumers into a trap - the so called walled garden which has withered away a long long time ago. And it worked. You don't pay for innovation anymore, you pay for marketing, status, brand and luxury. The great usability stuff, the great integration in the ecossystem, the great design.... all that stuff that made Apple great are shadows of the past. It was very true at some point in time, it's still historically true, but they are just not doing it anymore. And anyone who is still not feeling how aged this philosophy and mindset currently is for the company, is just in denial.
And this is something that I'm definitely not gonna put just against Apple. Google is just the same. Microsoft was always kinda shitty, and it still is, so no big changes there. But these companies have been just riding on the coattails of great past accomplishments while doing nothing comparable to their past these days. Apple with it's famous great costumer service which I'm seeing nowhere these days, Google with it's great innovative ideas and dedication to projects which I'm also not seeing anywhere these days, what with their constant flubbing with messaging apps and whatnot.
In the end, nowadays I will go for almost any Windows laptop rather than a Macbook. All the Windows laptop companies might screw me over, but at the very least I can open things up and try to deal with it myself, to a point. With Macbooks, I'd not only have to pay the insane premium price that is practiced here in Brazil (you think Apple products are expensive there, you know nothing John Snow), but also be sol if it breaks. Nope. Not gonna fall for that.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
xD, great video as always...
There's a whole rabbit hole discussion on why bad reviews happens in sports like those which Claude touched a bit into, I'm just glad the experience was great for Taji. xD
Trying to summarize it though - first, the expectations lots of people have of extreme sports do not reflect reality, particularly people who are like "bucket list" types, showing off to social media circle types, total tourists types, or alpha male types. By which I mean one and done, not caring about anything else about the sport, the people and work involved, etc. If you see this, thinks it looks cool, and say that you need to do this at least once in your life and leave it at that - know that the type might be you. xD
I know from experience at least paragliding and skydiving requires preparation, patience, and the right conditions to happen... and yes, sometimes you will land on cow dung, on fences, get hit by trees, have to walk a few miles and all sorts of other stuff. Videos about those sports only show the good part, so people are completely unaware of the rest... I bet most people have never seen a paraglider or parachute getting checked, folded and prepped, how much work that is, or what actually goes into reading a jumping and landing zone, navigation and all that.
Several times the weather conditions turn to worse, and you have to cancel everything. And do understand - cancelling a jump is always sad and frustrating, particularly for the instructor or guide - but it's a decision made for safety. The majority of accidents in paragliding and skydiving happens because experienced people underestimated the weather or overestimated their capability to deal with bad conditions... so really, costumers should be thanking Claude or other instructors for cancelling the thing if they don't feel safety is there. And of course they have to be paid for it - that's what you are hiring them for. If you just want to jump whatever the condition is, might as well just go by yourself, don't involve others. :P
I personally have around 13 skydiving jumps in my notebook, from some 20 years ago more or less... but really, I have at least another 10 weekends of going to the landing zone, waiting around and eventually giving up for the day. And I'm thankful for that. It comes with the sport.
Safety risks are also always a part of the thing, it just comes with the unpredictability of weather conditions and other factors like those, mainly the way new people to the sport will react to this entirely new thing happening to them.
It also doesn't behoove instructors to keep explaining every little thing for tandem jumpers... it's not the wind, it's updraft, thermals, atmospheric conditions close to ground vs up in the air, yadda yadda. xD
And then of course there's the clash of the instructor's ego and the student, the attitude he or she expects, the posture towards teaching or not, past interactions, and all those things. Put very simply, tandem paragliding and skydiving requires the costumer getting a ride to know... nothing. All the safety checks, preparation, and whatnot needs to be done by the instructor, and is expected to be done. This may sound jarring for someone who is paragliding or skydiving for the first time, but it's really what it is - you are leaving your safety and life at the hands of the instructor and his or her experience, period. There is nothing extra you have to know, you need to be taught, or prepare other than immediate instructions... so often it's just better not to overexplain because not only it's a waste of time, it also can make some people very nervous and confused.
Some instructors will talk you through everything step by step, some of them won't. People going tandem should understand they are paying for the ride, not for a paragliding or skydiving course. And please please pretty please people, even if you have done half a dozen or so tandem jumps, also do understand that this doesn't qualify you to calling yourselves, working as, or claiming to be paragliders or skydivers (God forbid starting your own business and giving lessons away). It takes a whole ton more work for that. My instructor had over 2000 jumps military background before he started his club, and giving lessons on it.
Final point, of course, Yelp (and other open review sites) is mostly a place that people vent off. Needless to be said, but people will go to vent off mindlessly, and not to give accurate assessments of the experience... and of course people are far more likely to go there to complain and criticize, but not go when the experience was great or ok.
But that's just how it goes. Particularly for stuff like tandem jumps, where costumers are unaware of the preparation that goes beforehand, or how the instructor is making his or her own evaluations and preparations for the jump, how much experience talks there.
For paragliding and skydiving, you can assume most professionals working in the are that have hundreds to thousands of jumps, they know what they are doing. I dunno how licensing works in the US, but you gotta also understand that for tandem jumps, the instructor is also putting his or her life on the line anyways.
Anyways, enough rambling... just to share some of what I know or think I know on the subject. xD
1
-
1
-
The cult of personality is quite frankly disturbing, and the invasion of privacy and censorship, general population control, is just dystopian.
But you see people, China is a country with almost 5 times the population of US, and the current plus previous governments managed to transform what was a predominantly extremely poor population into middle class, upper middle class, and now has a big part of the richest people and richest companies in the world.
You might not like some of the stuff that was done to accomplish it, you might not like lots of the stuff that is currently happening there, and most people probably don't want any of that in their own countries.
But you can't ignore it. No one can. It's ultimately a model of unparalleled success. No other country ever managed to develop living standards so fast.
The other country I always have in mind for this is South Korea. How it transformed itself from the 80s up to now, into a highly developed technological country. But even for South Korea, the development was far more gradual.
1
-
Man, I'd love so much to completely ditch Paypal forever, but here where I live for the very specific stuff I use PayPal for, it's either it or handing away credit card information, banking information, personal information, to a whole ton of random companies with even worse security and privacy practices.
I feel like we're in the cusp of having a better alternative with virtual credit cards, but the entire virtual credit card system seems to be so little used that the whole thing isn't working as intended just yet. And as they are bank mandated, it's not super anonymous and private or anything like that. Just more secure than giving physical credit card information, which isn't saying a lot. :P
I've been using the thing more and more, but it so often ends up in rejected charges and blocked purchases that I'm already getting fed up with the whole idea. And the f*cking bank system is so incredibly dumb that I don't even know what to do with it anymore. It's not like I'm making purchases in random unknown places too... major retail chains, major airlines, major services, which I use all regularly, and the bank keeps blocking it. There is no rhyme or reason for it, and I cannot get an explanation from the bank for doing it.
It's going like so many security measures that banks here have historically used, which is basically a randomly and haphazardly made patchwork of security practices that end up overlapping with one another which makes everything super inconvenient and bad.
I dunno why banks have this fixation on trying to reinvent the wheel all the time all by themselves, but it always ends up in this sort of situation.
Years ago I remember you had some 3 different passwords, all with different types of requirements and limitations (like one 6 digit numeric password, one 8+ password with letters and numbers, another one that requires letters and numbers interspersed plus a special character), plus one of those physical token cards, and you needed to install some weird piece of software that goes deep into the registry and system like a virus or something, just so their online banking can invoke some javascript virtual keyboard for you to input the password.... and then as tech goes on, you get a bank mandated ToTp keychain that became something inside an app, needing to install an app and give it full permissions, needing to go through some facial scanning process... it's like, bro, at least pick to a few strategies and keep using them for some years, or a known strong authentication strategy that is well know, instead of this constant throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks.
But anyways, I kinda tried moving away from Paypal to a local service that did basically the same thing - took your credit card information and served as an intermediary. What happened was that not long after I made a purchase, my credit card data got stolen. And I hadn't used it for anything else, so I immediately closed my account and reported to police and bank what happened. Nothing ever comes out of it, but I just had to stop using it.
It's like, hard to get other options. Paypal itself is nowhere close to universally accepted here, not by far, but the few shops and services that do take it, there are no other good options.
Oh well...
1
-
1
-
This is basically just a few steps before a Christian ISIS.
There are only a few things you really need to get there:
1. A dead mythic leader, preferrably a martyr;
2. A lawless or weak government country;
3. Poor living conditions pushed to an extreme, or at least the feeling of it;
4. Descentralized cell recruitment.
Weird how this is coming from South Korea, but it actually looks way more like something that should've come from North Korea. Dear gun nut leader.
All the rest seems to be already there. Set of beliefs based on paranoia. Power of judgement over other people's lives given willy nilly - I'll take other people's lives according to my own rules. Debasement of society/government value and roles (like police). Constant terror of being displaced, being shunned, having your "God given rights" taken. An excluding ideology where you and your peers are right and the rest is the enemy. Mythic origin themes. Political alignment with whatever serves them better. Traces of antisocial personality disorder in leaders and followers. Cherry picking sacred texts with surreal interpretations while ignoring most of the rest to conveniently serve their rethoric.
It not only is a cult, it's a special type of cult which people outside it should definitely be worried about. Because most cults people probably heard about are inwards facing, closed up and off, with victims mostly being members, or family of members. This isn't it. This is the kind of cult that produces the sort of extremism and radical thinking in which members going off the deep end or in bad situations in their lives could convert it to external violence towards communities not aligned to their "teachings".
In poorer countries that have been under violent government or control, with people that are struggling to get the very basic human rights, this sort of cult is exactly what originates and empowers terrorists. If I am right, or my group is right, and the majority is wrong, and God or some other deity gave me permission to use guns as a tool to make things right, then in desperate times I will employ this tool and I will make my voice heard, because this is my mission here on Earth, it is my God given right, and nothing else matters.
1
-
Ayup, fully agreed.
Also, almost no one understands the level of global codependency we have nowadays... I also don't, but I think I approach the truth better than a whole ton of people who are constantly arguing about just cutting China exports away or some other ridiculous proposition.
Sadly, the world needed a horrible wake up call - the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I don't mean to play down these countries importance on the global trade network, but you just gotta think a bit about it.
Most of the exports majorly affected by this war, coming from Ukraine or Russia, are primary commodities. Fertilizers, wheat, gas... I think those are the most talked about.
Those are essential globally, but also, not exactly impossible to replace, and it's not exclusive to those countries. I'm not saying it's easy, because you'd have to ramp up production after investing a whole ton of money in other source nations, if they are even able to come close to the production of Ukraine and Russia, build up infrastructure wherever they are available or can grow, do a ton of work to reach current production, or replace consumption with something else in the case of gas, but it's still kinda doable in perhaps a decade. I mean, if for some reason Ukraine and Russia stopped exporting those entirely, which is not the case even today in the middle of war.
Taiwan with all steps of chip making, and then China with almost a 5th of the global population and exports of so many things that at least today, they are leaders, if not have almost exclusive production of... there are so so soooooo many insurmountable obstacles to go over to assume China production that it's just outright impossible.
It goes from raw materials that China exports almost exclusively, to compensating for logistics and infrastructure that the rest of the world simply does not have, to the problem with finding the amount of workers requires for all of this, plus industrial and manufacturing tech that the west just does not have.
People think you just have to re-activate some industry or production that the US had in the past and offshored to China and other Asian nations, but this was several decades ago... it unrealistic enough to reactivate industries of the 80s or something, but you also have a ton of stuff that western nations simply never had.
There is this very negative misconception, particularly amongst citizens of developed western nations, that sees China as a whole as low skilled factory labor country and nothing else. Yadda yadda they copy everything yadda yadda. These people don't even realize that a whole ton of the most advanced tech in several parts of industry, product development and several other areas were created in technological hubs located in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and whatnot. This just isn't how most tech stuff is developed anymore. You are looking at a final product, that might have some design cues given by big tech in US and other western nations, but the thing you are looking at is composed of tens to hundreds of component parts that were mostly developed close to where they are being mass produced. The western parent companies might even have patents and rights to those things, but they have absolutely no idea how to actually make them, where to start from, what mass production processes are involved. It's an ownership on paper alone, it doesn't mean they know or have the capability to churn thousands of units a minute of that thing.
A total cut in trade, in commercial relations, between say the US and China, would throw most of the world back over 100 years of development, if not more. Shortages of everything, most of the biggest companies seeing the floor disappear under them, the population of most countries having a portion go starving because they can't have access to lots of things... it's hard to even imagine how truly catastrophic it'd be. I mean, in the long run, after stocks go dry and all. There'd be a period - years or potentially decades - of extreme suffering throughout the planet.
Anyways, I'm rambling a bit now, but yeah... I'm also always a bit baffled by how ignorant the vast majority of people are on topics like these, including sometimes politicians in high positions of power. Man, it's super scary how much representatives don't understand stuff like this.
1
-
I'm not a German citizen, so I can't really say what people think about this, but I don't see anything "left" there on what was described.
So saying it's "far left" in some way made close no sense to me. It sounds more like the bog standard definition of far right, with perhaps some socialist leaning policies on the economy? Which weren't talked about on the video, so I dunno what they are.
Is this party proposing to tax the rich? Solve or work on economic inequality? Spend lots of taxpayer money on free public services for the most disadvantaged? What justifies putting "left" on the title?
So, what I'd personally call "far left"? There is a single thing cited there that I think would fit a far left ideology that I sometimes see in my own nation, but even at that the connection wasn't very well made - because it's citing an economic incentive, not an ideological one.
It's about defending communist dictatorships abroad, solely because of ideology or anti-establishment anti-colonial sentiments. Basically, the enemy of US and UK is my friend. That's what I'd personally consider a far left point, but it can't work for Germany, because Germany is considered an ally of those today. It's part of the EU, which radical socialists groups together with the establishment.
I know some radical leftists myself, they tend to pick nations that self proclaim their governments as communist or socialist and find all sorts of excuses for them being actual dictatorships. From Russia, to China, to Venezuela, to Cuba and other nations, there is an apologetic if not outright glorification tone coming directly out of these countries' government propaganda that they use to say that what we see in international news coverage is unfair, is actually western propaganda, or that it somehow doesn't count against these nations because they are the poor poor victims of sanctions, of constant attacks by dominant powers, and stuff like that.
Most people who says stuff like these are extremely ill informed or just went down the indoctrination rabbit hole.
China in particular there are several types of denial that enters these realms. People always talk about the incredible rate of the country's growth, but never mentions that it's because the country became the industry of the world getting money from developed nations for it. In more direct terms, it's exactly because a global and insatiable capitalistic economy that China grew, it has zero to do with socialist or communist ideals.
People always talk about the modernity of the nation, never talking about censorship, great firewall, or level of control that the government imposes on the population. They talk about modern capitals, but forget about the 80% ultra poor rest of the country. They talk about positive economic numbers, but don't talk about the unsustainability of it. They don't talk about religious persecution, limited freedoms, zero power of the people in political discussions, etc etc etc.
And they sure as heck never talk about the huge damages and destruction of the environment that happened and still happens there, because it goes against environmentalist ideals.
Other reasons for a far left denomination would be the extremes they are willing to go, so you have people in movements like say, antifa or ecoterrorists, that are willing to forego rule of law, appeal to violence, and use other tactics if it goes the way of their ideology. The "far" denomination indicating the level of ideological extremism and action.
That's what I personally imagine when someone says far left.
While it's true that being pro immigrant and being pro environment has to do more with a progressive agenda rather than a left agenda, and trying to appeal to masses on anti-immigration stance and nationalistic interests has to do more with a populist movement, it still doesn't feel right to me to conflate those policies with a term like "far left".
And perhaps I'm wrong here, but all major proposals listed on the video are core far right stuff. You have far too many conservative talking points there.
In fact, the video doesn't inform of anything that would make that party left wing in any sense. To me, it just sounds like bog standard far right party. That it's gaining popularity is a bad sign just like any other far right party gaining popularity is.
1
-
Honestly? I think it's neither... really.
Not to be a contrarian, but perhaps to present another hypothesis - I think the way Google does this sort of approval process is bad because there is no strong policies set in place, no real due process, and no auditing. Or they do have policies set in place, but it's not enforced, because of the environment.
It's extremely arbitrary, to the point of it probably depending on the judgement of very unqualified people who actually don't do much cross checking to know what they are doing, and it's done in minutes because these people are underpaid, overworked, and have no real reason or background to do a good job.
Only a theory, but let me explain the logic.
First, you can see from Google products and support in different areas that there is no real cross communication when it comes to some of their biggest investments in the past few years.
In Rossman's case, sure, if he does the cross checking, it's self evident that the ad should be there. But I highly doubt that whoever looked at his ad submission did it, have the time to do it, or cares enough to do anything like that. Look at Google reviews, YouTube ranking, etc? Nope. He or she will likely rely on some general guideline, potentially made out of prejudice, and put out an arbitrary decision out in seconds which is the time that person has to do it.
It's a company that can't even analyze past projects before firing up new services, apps and projects, they apparently can't even do simple market research, study what was the problem of past failed projects, and take lessons from active successful services. It's really like several startups shooting crap, and management arbitrarily terminating stuff left and right.
So you end up with a disjointed mess of stuff with little to no commitment. It's like a company with 10000 little groups that do not communicate with each other and keeps shooting crap blind. A school science fair with free theme is more coordinated than that. Google has become something like a WeWork of projects - no correlation, no moto, no mission statement, no rules for commitment, just shooting the crap, with tons of money and zero objective or focus.
When a company is this disjointed on public facing, important products that directly affect their bottomline, that should matter for the company and it's investors, and that should be their mission statement, you can be 100% sure it's gonna be several times worse when it comes to stuff like costumer service, analysis of advertisement submissions made by small businesses, general reporting, content flagging, copyright strike analysis, general user communications, etc.
Because ultimately, as a company Google doesn't care much about it. It became an amorphous blob sucking the tits of the older more successful, estabilished projects.
On one hand, you can understand why huge corporations like Google, Microsoft, Apple and others act the way they do. They are too f*cking big. It's the usual cognitive dissonance that happens when you work in a company that makes products for millions to billions of people, but you are so big and so disconnected from your public that you can't recognize what matters to them.
Inside work, people inside these corporations are worried with either listening to the bosses, or to investors. And both categories can as well be living in another planet, it wouldn't make a difference. Their reality is so completely different from ours that they are basically another species.
You can bet adsense, much like YouTube, only really gives significant time for the highest grossing or paying people. Top 100 YouTubers, top 100 advertisement companies, etc. The rest get whatever treatment allocated for the masses, and this will never change.
When you understand how out of touch with everyday reality that people like Zuck, the Google brothers, Tim Apple, or even lots of the people working in those companies are, self absorbed in their own bubbles, you start understanding why so many ex-employees of those companies gets out of their Sillicon Valley reality shield and creates ridiculously stupid startups that goes nowhere, like that Bodega shit, or that Juicero crap.
How can people get together, convince a ton of investors, draw money, and try to put together products that are so obviously stupid for the general market? It's because they live in another reality. These products makes perfect sense inside the bubble created around Sillicon Valley. Overpriced hipster vending machines, and an overpriced overengineered press that only works for overpriced frozen fruit packages.
Also, because of the insane volumes of everything they have to process everyday, quality and interpersonal treatment dies off. Whatever processes Google still does in relation to costumer service that still involves people in the middle, they will pay the least possible and shove as much work as they can on individuals.
These corporations usually have extremely strong non disclosure agreements, but you can search to see how the cracks are showing. Facebook, Google and YouTube employees with PTSD, ex-employees talking about hellish work conditions, long hours, and crazy stress levels, etc etc. When it's not completely outsourced to developing countries, what you'll get with costumer service like jobs is probably worse than the average telemarketer with a quota to fill.
Now, do I discard malicious intent and the other markers of monopoly practices? Of course not. You think a corporation this big and this disjointed wouldn't also have several problems regarding corruption, malicious practices, and all sorts of other things? Again, it comes with this sort of insane scale.
Google single handely dominates a huge Internet economy that has been engulfing real life economy ever faster and steadily for years now. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Here's the problem though. What I see in monopoly cases like this one is a repeat of european courts monopoly cases of the past, like the one against Microsoft.
It targets these large corporations because they are the easy targets. Particularly now with an administration that is quick to the draw against any business it perceives as being against it, which is the wrong reasoning to do it.
The accusations against Microsoft back then were ridiculous, not because the practices weren't bad, but because basically all other giant tech corporations were doing exactly the same thing Microsoft was being accused of.
And in the end, this didn't stop the practice, this didn't change the market, this didn't solve the problem, and the huge fine those corporations get can usually be paid with the profit they make in 3 months or less, at most.
Because there is one big component of the problem that never changes, and that is it's users. Google keeps forever amassing profits because people just keep using Google, despite an insane number of reasons not to, that is not limited to monopoly practices. People are paying to have their privacy eroded, putting devices with cameras and microphones inside their homes that are sure to harvest valuable personal data, advertisers will keep going to Google regardless of results of this lawsuit, no one will care to adopt other search engines like Bing, DuckDuckGo, or whatever, because status quo and convenience is always speaking higher than anything.
Really... these days, I don't think there is anything that can happen to break these monopolies, outside of them self imploding by some miracle. They can be as anti-consumer as they want, they can create shady parallel economies based on harvesting private and personal data, they can create data collection devices for people to happily buy, they can collude with big corporate competitors to force smaller ones out, they can buy and dismantle any interesting competition, they can pay to acquire the costumer base of other services and applications whose costumers explicitly hate them, nothing is outside their reach.
Late stage capitalism umbeatable monsters. I'm not even sure WWIII would beat them, if it was waged directly against them. But you be the judge, here on a YouTube video commenting section.
1
-
1
-
Keep using masks. I'm sorry if this doesn't fit whatever political narratives people are trying to push out there, but it shouldn't be this hard for people to understand this.
The end of the pandemic was declared too soon, and authorities are in denial because of economy worries and whatnot, but it should be pretty clear to whoever understands the core mechanism on how respiratory illnesses spread - you can prevent a lot of it by just using masks in public. This should've been the new normal, and I hate that politics got in and wrecked the whole thing.
Do not fall for the tyranny of the majority, if you don't wanna get sick, continue using masks in public.
I know this is anecdotal and there are a lot of conspiracy theories floating around, but this has been my experience - half a decade before the pandemic even came around, when I moved to a new city and used public transportation instead of my car which I left back in my hometown with my mom, I was getting sick monthly. Every single month of the year I'd get the flu or some respiratory disease. It was hell. Imagine having to deal with a flu for a week or more every single month.
Because the new city was colder, and people had a tendency to close windows and make all spaces closed off, you are basically breathing air that everyone else in the room is spitting out all the time, so I got sick all the time.
It was back then that I started using masks, years before the pandemic hit. Whenever I expected to get in spaces with a bunch of people together with the air saturated by droplets of other people, I just put on a mask, got the weird looks, and whatever. It was mostly in public transportation, and I was the only one using it, but I had to do something because this was affecting my entire life.
Using the mask meant I stopped getting sick all the time. I still got sick every now and then, but it was a very drastic reduction. Another reason why I was relatively ready to deal with the pandemic when it hit.
You don't even have to wear the mask all the time, but at least put it on when you are in a situation when risk goes higher, or put it on when you are not feeling well yourself. This alone already helps things drastically.
I haven't contracted Covid a single time during the pandemic years, and also not the flu. I got all the shots available too, no side effects fortunately. My mom who was following the same thing as myself got the flu once - on a family trip that was unavoidable (death of a relative that had respiratory problems and got the flu herself). My cousin's kid was sick, and he passed it on to the entire family, because people weren't using masks indoors... some weren't using outdoors too anymore, it was early this year.
So, while this piece is fine in explaining everything, I personally find it moronic that it clearly seems to have edited out recommendations on masking. I don't care what people have "normalized" these days, I'll continue using it, and so should you if you don't want to get sick all the time. What should've been normalized with the pandemic is mask usage. The real catastrophic part of the pandemic is how everything got politicized, and how we let conspiracy theory idiots take over the narrative and influence how press and people report on things. Mask usage to prevent respiratory illnesses should have stayed a purely technical thing. The same reason why surgeons and dentists use masks, or even other jobs like people who work with carpentry and soldering all the time - you want to keep potentially harmful stuff out, and avoid contaminating whoever or whatever your are working with your own breathing. It is that simple. Or it should've been.
1
-
I'd say that age verification using facial recognition or ID recognition will ONLY be a step in the right direction if it's open source, auditable, and made a standard that is not in the hands of any private company, but rather constantly being evaluated and improved by multiple independent bodies.
And it's only a step because even being all of those, there's also a multitude of problems regarding reliability, exploits, usage abuse, plus other factors even if it was guaranteed to have those in place - that are inherent to the core systems it's using, like facial recognition tech, image recognition, databases, pattern recognition, etc.
By which I mean, the way it is being from Discord and all - it's just a full nope. Out of discussion, unacceptable, a step in the wrong direction actually. My personal opinion.
And I'm going to agree with all the points Nathan just cited, but I'm going to dig even deeper... so bare with me those who have patience to read my long comments.
Other than all of that, the tech part, I'm also of the personal opinion that there is ample room to discuss whether this form of imposed age gating type of censorship is really beneficial as a whole, or if it's just an evolution in current helicopter parenting that tries to fit kids inside and artificial bubble which keeps them ignorant until they have to face the real world by themselves unprepared, and all sorts of issues arises from that kind of upbringing.
I am not a parent myself, I do have lots of friends who are, and I have put lots of thoughts into this based on their experiences, and my own upbringing.
I really have huge doubts whether hard enforcement of age gating is ultimately beneficial or not for upbringing of children, as a concept in general, not just for Internet content and whatnot. As in, it's purest form, let's imagine that tech, privacy or security inherent of those systems weren't an issue so that we eliminate this side of the discussion entirely.
We already have generations of people with lifetime mental problems, warped personalities, dealing with everything from trauma to full on PTSD, because of the type of extreme imposition during their upbringing due to religious puritanical radicalism and the like. Absolute control over a kid upbringing that was so effective that when they became adults, the shock of becoming one was so big that it had negative implications for the rest of their lives.
In science, culture, traditions and other spheres, particularly in western nations, there seems to be a kind of self imposed idea that it is a proven fact that children should not have access to any content that is violent, sexual, controversial or reprobable in any manner "because they are not ready for it", until they reach a certain set age - be it 16, 18, 21 or whatever -, as if this was set in stone. But it is not like that, has never been, and every time you try to dig into this the subject, it is so taboo that you get screamed only for considering to look into it. Which is just bad. We cannot impose laws and burdens coming from a supposedly democratic government based on such lose standards that don't seem to have any solid ground to go with it. There is actually nothing in science, in history, in medicine, in anthropology, in philosophy or any other area of study that I know of that tells definitively that there is an age where people should be allowed to have access to x or y content because now, they are ready for it. Lots of people may think and even swear that there is something like that, but there actually isn't.
Governments and self righteous people keep saying this is for the sake of protecting children, like it was a no-brainer, but I personally cannot accept this at face value. Of course, I do understand that stuff like crimes of abuse, scams, exploitation of kids using online platforms, plus a bunch of criminal behavior that is always cited as "will someone think of the children" kinda reactionary content exists, are serious, and needs some form of action and response - but I just don't think the matter is being treated as seriously as it is, if we only take policies and ideas from this narrow minded point of view. The way things are being treated currently is the definition of not being serious about it. Haphazardly using proprietary tech that we already know won't work, and will definitely have several negative effects from the outset.
It's like horrible parenting is being excused so that we put in place a sorry excuse for a measure that has huge effects on society that are not being thought of. I don't like the idea that we're basically live experimenting here with current and future generations just because western societies think it is taboo to properly investigate and understand certain subjects.
I don't think this pre-established hard line between what someone can and cannot access between say, 17 years of age and 11 months, and then 18 years of age, is some sort of magical way to solve things. Humans don't work this way on a fundamental biological level.
And so the insistence of trying to treat things this way, rather than thinking about how parenting changed over the years, how social media changed relationships, how education affects it, how work life balance has an effect from parents to kids, and all these other stuff, to me has a priority over censorship and control.
What I'm saying is that I continue having problems with the policies coming up when the subject is age gating, even if we had an ideal scenario and tech for it - the age gating was perfectly secure, perfectly private, 100% guaranteed to work every time, standardized, not privately owned, convenient, automated, and indiscriminate. Even at that point, which I don't think we'll ever reach and at this point I consider it as far away as us inhabiting some other planet, but even at that point, I still have serious questions whether this is a good idea for societies or not. And I want more people to think about this bigger picture, rather than just the technicalities of it. It is the same for AI, crypto and other stuff. Too many people get lost in the details of these things, and end up not thinking about the big picture, the ultimate consequences these have when applied the way they are being done.
1
-
1. There was never a full lockdown, never.
2. Kids are already well known to be huge carriers of disease not only for teachers and school staff, but also family and friends.
3. In practice, majority of kids are nkt getting severely sick, but so also isn't the majority of infected people, period. This does not mean these assymptomatic people, regardless of age, cannot spread the virus around. Quite the opposite, there is compeling evidence that assymptomatic people do spread the disease, and so it should be assumed that such will also be the case for kids, not otherwise.
4. There's also compeling evidence that most social distancing measures are moot inside enclosed spaces for long hours. If the disease can spread like wildfire inside a ship, a bus, hospitals, care homes, or in social gathering places, it should be obvious that it's also gonna happen inside classrooms.
But hey, sure, do it and sse how it goes. Take responsibility for it afterwards. If you are willing to jump the gun and test unlikely theories on the population, the least PM and government should do is resign if this whole thing goes wrong.
Decisions like these should have consequences. Not taking responsibility for actions is becoming a huge problem of modern democracies.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
It ends up being a bit of a skewed metric, at least if the idea is to rank "bike friendly" cities, because if the infrastructure is already there good enough for most people, it might still rank low for not having new policies, new plans, and advocacy in general. So the score has an entire section on this, plus a few items (such as increase in modal share) that highly depends if the city is actively investing more on it or not.
Then again, not an easy thing to measure one way or another.
There is one particular point that really matters both for bike riding and public transportation which my country does not have... security. Even if my country scored very high on most of the items, tons of people still wouldn't use it for lack of security, save from gated communities, and other limited specific areas. When I was a kid, I lived in a semi-gated residential neighborhood in the suburbs where kids could ride bikes to go around. And it was fine. Still got my bike stolen a couple of times though.
Now that I live in a bigger city downtown, there's no freaking way I'm using bikes to go around here. Well, we don't really have anything good to point out from the Copenhagenize chart, but the absolute first thing that comes to mind is being mugged, assaulted, and having the bike at high risk of being stolen or broken anywhere I'd go with it. It's kind of a chicken and egg issue. No money is spent on bike related facilities because no one uses it, no one uses bikes because there are no facilities and programs that supports using bikes, etc.
1
-
1
-
1
-
I'd imagine it's also a matter of having good administration and knowing how to handle what they are doing... xD
Case in point, little over a decade ago, when I was still living in my hometown and attending post graduation classes at the capital city of my state which is on the opposite side, two low cost airlines opened up the route - Ocean Air and BRA. I think it was a joint venture deal of sorts... or it became one when business wasn't doing very well, because I remember that at some point it didn't matter where you got your tickets from, the price was the same an the plane was the same. xD
To note - my hometown is a touristic city, it has an international airport, but it's kinda distant/isolated from major brazilian urban centers because it's in the west. The biggest urban centers in Brazil are mostly located along the east coast.
A few years after I abandoned my post graduation course... well, I did it all but didn't conclude it with a final essay, the course was closed, long story. Both Ocean Air and BRA cancelled the route. So we went back to having only TAM (currently Latam) and Gol, both have prices closer to regular rather than being super cheap options, though this has changed somewhat these days.
Anyways, right when Ocean Air and BRA gave up, Azul came in. And it seems it's working well for them. So much so that both Gol and Tam had to lower their prices to match Azul prices at least for specific cases and at specific times of the year. High season during holidays it's kind of a toss... you need to check all three companies far in advance up to right before the flight to see which is offering the lowest prices.
If you can get that pre flight day period when there are a couple of seats left to fill the plane up, you can get some very good deals no matter which company you chose.
But on average, Azul offers the cheapest fares.
There were a few times I got tickets priced in between the ticket for regular bus service and prime bus service (individual bed seats). Always great, reducing trip times that takes half a day or more down to around an hour.
1
-
TLDR or summary:
1. Everyone has something to hide, and if you truly don't, it doesn't mean others don't have a right to privacy. I'll just add that if you think you have nothing to hide, you are more than likely wrong;
2. There's nothing that can be done about location hacking right now because this is fully dependent on the telecom infrastructure side, just remember this is about a very specific type of attack that not everyone has access to. Derek make it look kinda easy, and to a point it really is doable - but not everyone has easy access to experts like that;
3. Stop using SMS, particularly 2 factor authentication with SMS. This is an old advice already, but if you are hearing it only now, do whatever you can to use an alternative 2 factor method.
Another thing important to note about the piece though - security and privacy are not a black and white thing, like you either have it or you don't. Whatever steps you are able to take to protect yourself lowers your chances of getting hacked, targeted or spied upon. The game here is about lowering your chances, not imagining you'll be able to be 100% secure or 100% private, because you won't.
And for everyone, what you need to be aware is of your threat model - how you can be targeted. Not everyone will be as targeted as an escaping Arab princess or Linus, it's a better use of your time and money to protect yourself from the types of attacks, hacks and dangers that you find likely to happen to you, rather than waste time and money trying to cover yourself from scenarios that are unlikely to happen to you. And focus more on stuff you can already do, rather than wasting time with long term plans you're not sure you'll ever get to.
For instance, sometimes it's just better to block your kid from downloading random stuff on their cellphones than pay for a VPN plan or spend tons of time trying to harden security of your devices. It also doesn't matter much if you start using all sorts of super secure apps and services if you will still click on links without checking first what it is. Using big passwords with random numbers and words is worth nothing if you share it with someone else who won't bother storing it somewhere safe.
All of this is why I also recommend together with measures for security and privacy - have a plan B. If your computer, phone, or whatever gets hacked, data stolen or erased, account stolen or erased, etc... have a plan B. Go through it. Talk with family members and friends how to identify that such as thing is happening, and what they should do.
1
-
The worst part of it all is what I have always been saying about Trump - the guy should be in jail, not in the White House. And yet, there he is. There he still is. Nothing is changing. People aren't allowing him even to self destruct, which was always the way I thought he would go.
And you know the worst of it? He might get re-elected, he might build the wall, go to war with North Korea, and make an enemy of almost all other countries other than Saudi Arabia and some other proto-dictatorships US sells weapons to. They'll become enemies once they have enough to turn it against the US though, which is what most self declared enemies of US did in the past.
A terrorist group or an enemy state couldn't have hoped to do as much damage as Trump did. Really. In just a few years the US became a tribalist country with severe divisions, with backwards politics, with a president that is seem as both a joke and a lunatic by several other countries, with several public services and basic needs overtaken by corporate interests, health crisis that looks more like something from the middle ages, huge holes in security and privacy, an education system that enslaves people with debt for most of their lives, with healthcare enslaving for the rest of it... it's completely insane.
Like I said before, I'm not one to criticize much considering my own country is a shithole of biblical proportions, but man, years ago I would have never imagined to see US in such a state. Never.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
What politicians don't seem to understand is time frames and effectiveness of measures.
First of all, sure, 14 day quarantine for people coming off the country helps. It should've been implemented when first cases were detected - what New Zealand did, not now after the pandemic already done it's worse, but still.
Again though: there is no dychotomy between preventive measures and economy of tourism and travel.
Politicians all around the world keep saying that they need to open the economy or ease up certain measures because if they don't, the economy will plummet. This is bullshit. If this is the condition, then you are admitting the economy already failed, and just trying to use the population as a scapegoat.
Here is the harsh reality: if you ease up measures right now, what you are risking to happen, and it is indeed already happening, is that a second wave of infections will pop up, forcing lockdowns once again, and this ends up having an even bigger impact than just keeping the measures up from start.
Because all this prepping to open up and receive costumers again and whatnot takes a whole lot of money. People are lending money to do it, and they cannot afford for it to be a small temporary window with things closing down all over again. That will accelerate bankrupcy and businesses closing down, not the opposite.
If governments wants to prevent the economy from failing, they have to tighten their budgets, give all financial aid they can, and talk to banks to ease up loan conditions and whatnot. That's how you are going to save the economy, there is no other way right now.
And there is nothing new out there to point otherwise, I'm not sure where politicians are getting their stupid strategies from. We will only see the pandemic easing up when we have vaccines available broadly worldwide, not a minute sooner. Past pandemics have proven this plenty. You implement lockdown measures, see numbers going down, get overly optimistic and try to relax measures, a second peak comes right next - and it's often worse than the first.
This virus spreads fast, but not fast enough to burn through millions of people inside a single country in a few months. Till the end of the year there will still be plenty of people to catch it, die from it, and put tremendous stress into the public health system.
There haven't been a single unique case all throughout the world that didn't follow the standard logic of pandemics so far. Countries that adopted strict measures fast and strongly have suffered the least. Countries that didn't are on the top list. It couldn't be easier to understand, and yet we have to keep seeing politicians and representatives talk crap and take the worst most counterintuitive decisions because they are either too dumb to understand, or are malicoously trying to deflect responsibility for hard decisions.
1
-
Agreed... this had nothing to do with the pandemic, because on the go or not, people are still watching bite sized video content on their phones... arguably more than ever. It's quite the weird argument, even if it fits some logic in their heads.
The commuter marketshare thing is kind of a myth as in it doesn't really compose of as many people as some seems to think, at least not in the markets Quibi was targetting.
People watch bite sized videos as a daily routine, not as part of a specific thing like commuting. It's a replacement rather than an extra market - younger people are watching bite sized videos INSTEAD of movies, TV series, and more traditional media content, rather than bite sized videos PLUS those.
It's replacing, at least partially, stuff like the aforementioned movies and TV series, plus other media like print media, radio and other... "time passers".
Further, it's not about watching on the smartphone only, it's about having the option to watch in multiple platforms - why all the success cases, or at least still surviving cases, are spread out in as many platforms as they can. YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, HBO+, Vimeo, etc... it's not that people wanna watch things in a different platform, it's that they want the option to watch in as many different platforms as they own. Smartphones, tablets, TV, computer monitors, gaming consoles, etc etc.
Ok, so, what would give it more chances of succeeding? Well, that depends on objective, target market, and whatnot. If we keep it close to the market they wanted to achieve, like said on video, they should've gone for current video streaming celebrities instead of Hollywood, in line with what Microsoft's Mixer tried and gave up too soon.
The problem with this is that there would be resistance. People that are fed up with platforms like YouTube and Twitch wants a platform that is more open, responsive and less stringent on copyright laws and whatnot. So some sort of differential would be needed there.
The service also should have a free tier of sorts, supported by something else - ads, perhaps served differently than other platforms as an alternative, because lots of people are fed up with the way they are served in other platforms. I know this is a very harsh impediment for new platforms, but it is what it is - people in this category expect this. If it's something your service can't offer, you will have to compensate with something as attractive as that proposition.
And then, what I already said - Quibi should have a smartphone app, a tablet app, and a web app for all the rest, at least. But it'd be a good idea to also include at least web wrapper apps for everything else, including gaming console systems, PC OSs, IoT devices and whatnot. This is not only part of flexibility in offering, which is what this market wants, but also a component in marketing.
If they wanted to switch markets to something else, like people who are really into the Hollywood stars they recruited, then they'd need to flexibilize the format - make it available in other places, including even TV perhaps. Basically, it needs to be wherever those stars have the most followings.
But more importantly, they should've advertised this waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than they did, particularly where the Hollywood star follower crowd really is. Perhaps Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. It's flood style marketing rather than short ad campaigns.
This would be less to take a market that is already there, and more to create a new market and convert people. People who watches lots of Hollywood movies and TV series, a portion of it would likely want to watch extra bite sized content starring their favorite actors and actresses.
This is very complicated because you are essencially creating an entire new format, but with enough persistence and advertising it probably could be done. But this market probably wouldn't want to be restricted to smartphones alone, they want to see their big actors and actresses in the big screen.
Just a guess here, but I also think day to day more mundane stuff is also important here... by which I mean news, sports, etc.
Thing is, video streaming for entertainment is pretty heavily saturated already. It's saturated enough that even exclusive content with Hollywood stars is not much of a draw without sufficient advertisement. And I don't think the fact that it's bite sized content is enough of a draw for most people.
Netflix and it's competitors aside, there are multiple completely free video streaming services.
And while it's true that not a whole ton of Hollywood celebrities migrated to open streaming services like YouTube - en masse I mean, you do have some on YouTube and Twitch - ultimately this lack of migration caused for those services to create their own celebrities separatedly, and those are the ones people are actually following.
So, truth is, it'd be hard for Quibi to succeed whichever way it went. And it's not alone in that. Remember how many video streaming services we used to have in the early days of YouTube? I kinda remember because I had to write an essay on it... this is back in early 2000s mind you. A few of them survived, but most are dead these days. I had accounts and looked into at least a dozen of them. Metacafe is one that is still around, but I remember names like Brightcove, Revver, Google Video, Sevenload...
Changing markets a bit, paid premium video streaming services have multilpied too much in recent years, and several of them are surviving not because of their particular strategies, but because they are being backed up by lots of money from the corporations behind them. Because you know, segmentation of content also segments the market.
So I also have to agree with another thing on the video - I think there was some shortsight from these big CEOs that were very used to the Hollywood environment but not so much to the Internet video streaming environment. It sounds like they knew very little about what they were getting into, despite having lots of Hollywood specific contacts and experience.
It's not an environment where you just pay big bucks for the right celebrities and roll with it. In fact, there is at least part of the market that started watching Internet streaming content BECAUSE they were tired of this old model, particularly early adopters (me included). And so, perhaps Quibi failure was just bound to be.
Personal opinion, of course.
1
-
Every modern developed society needs to imprint the idea in it's citizens through education and other means that there are some inalienable rights, needs, and basic human necessities that needs to be attended by the government and by society as a whole in order for it to function properly.
This isn't about ideology wars, about being a commie, about being part of the left or right, about political parties and whatnot. It's something a modern society either does, or you are back to the dark ages paying a sack of gold for the king to do whatever he wants with it, getting nothing in return. Common citizens not having access to public healthcare should be reason to revolt in a modern society.
It's particularly true to rich countries and I can't imagine how any american citizen would even consider that healthcare, which is a pillar of any modern society, would be treated like that.
Health, security, education... those are the priorities. Those are the very basic stuff that you are expected to contribute so that your society as a whole can sustain itself. It is among the reasons why societies came to be in the first place.
Stop being an egotistical asshole saying you shouldn't pay for those in need that do not deserve healthcare... everyone deserves it if they are part of your society. And every citizen that can should contribute. Food, shelter and health. This is a core principle of a functioning society. You are paying this for criminals in jail, because it is basic. It makes no sense to get stingy. If people cannot understand this very basic concept, quite literaly you have a sick society that cannot sustain itself.
I find it so weird when I see people defending so callously the right to bear arms, but they can't defend something as basic as universal healthcare. It's super counter intuitive for a democratic society. It sounds like a symptom of a failing democracy. People going to great lengths to defend something that they don't really need, but being super lax on defending something that is urgent and necessary for survival.
And shame on politicians who speak from their mouths out. I'm sick of these assholes who keep promising stuff without even having a proper plan in place, contradicting their own actions while in power. They are scammers, and it's truly sad how so many people fall into their rethoric.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Apple alone has never been responsible for most of the hardware advances in their products, be it panels, touchscreen, SoCs, and whatnot. They do the design and software.
iPhone X is far from being the first time Samsung is listed ammong parts supplier. For the most part, Apple design their stuff, tells manufacturers their requirements, and manufacturers try to meet demand.
Samsung already did in the past their SoCs, LG and Japan Display was once responsible for the LCD panels (thus investment), Sony is still majorly responsible for camera modules of several brands, Toshiba for storage, etc etc.
This is of course not unique to Apple... smartphones in general are a mishmash of components made by several different brands. This is also part of the reason why it's so hard for smartphone manufacturers to get out of places like Shenzhen. If your company moves away from there, you are at a major disadvantage in comparison to other brands designing products close together with all major component manufacturers.
This is also valid for several categories of products including laptops, desktops, all in ones, set tops, smart watches and whatnot.
Lots of people gets this wrong, but then again electronics brands are very opaque about it.
1
-
May sound like coincidences, but if you think back at the time, right in the middle of Baby Boomer generation (for Dennis I mean), it does make some sense.... well, apart from the exact naming, which is very much a remarkable coincidence.
All of the greatest most famous enduring sunday cartoons empathized with the happenings of the generations of the times, and some particular ones like Dennis, Calvin and a few others put a mix of angst, comedy, nostalgia and a few other elements right there, for dads and kids to enjoy.
Probably has a lot to do with the readership of newspapers at the time... which I guess lots of people nowadays wouldn't be too familiar with unless they are as old as me or older. xD
Everyone read newspapers, specially dads, and then kids would always take a peek at the sunday cartoons. It was the main source of information that was guaranteed to have the most readership. So it makes sense for the theme to be around that.
Garfield for pet owners, Dilbert for white-collar office jobs in the 80s, Beetle Bailey back in Vietnam War... they almost kinda define some of the ethos of the time, the stuff people thought and were worried about, the collective consciousness in a light hearted way. The more general and broad the topic was, the more reach it had.
1
-
The sad thing about all of this is that while Aum Shinrikyo is pretty much over, or at least we hope it's over, the reality of radical cults operating in Japan is far from it, getting further from it by the day, and it seems lessons that should've been learned from this episode are pretty much forgotten.
Proof enough are the ties and active participation of several high ranking members of the LDP, the ruling political party in Japan, in a radical ideological cult with a misleading name like the Unification Church in Japan, aka Moonies.
They might not be a doomsday cult, but they are a cult nonetheless, they use similar tactics to exploit members and acquire power, and leaders have said similar things about the leader being a prophet and messiah, this cult has renamed itself multiple times over it's history, it has tentacles that reaches all over the world, and an untold number of victims came out miserable and destroyed for it.
The last event that happened connected to it all was the assassination of former PM Shinzo Abe, because the assailant accused him of being a promoter of the cult that ruined his family. To this day there is still a whole ton of connections between this cult and active members of the LDP. For American viewers, you should know that this cult also has ties to Republican movements in the US, particularly on the gun lobby side, but this is far from being the first time the US had to deal with this cult.
Way back in the 70s some members of this cult were trying to gain political power in the US, they backed Nixon's campaign and were trying to put a member inside Congress.
The cult held events with the participation of both republican and democrat politicians, and on the other side this cult also has supported the developed of nuclear weapons of North Korea, the cult has systemically allowed in child abduction cases, and the list of controversies go on into infinity so large it has become.
It's basically like Japan is a huge financier along with several other nations to a radical religious cult that is as shady as they come. Believe me, if you start looking into this, be prepared for the enormity of it, and be prepared to have a very bleak view on humanity once you do. People living in Japan or even people all around the world, be aware that this cult exists, and be wary of their tentacles. The true danger of the Unification Church is that it has branches everywhere and with all sorts of different names so that it does not get immediately identified for what they are.
The only real defense people have, particularly people in vulnerable positions that are willing to accept promises of such groups, is being aware that these cults exists, understand how they operate, and understand the real size and the tactics they use for recruitment.
1
-
Market oversaturation, extremely bad timing and no one wants to pay for news anymore, particularly when the news is negative all the time and just repetitive - even if it has a reason to be this way. Baffling that someone though this would work out somehow, they haven't been paying attention.
See, even if the market wasn't oversaturated, and the timing was not the worst possible, I still doubt it would've worked out.
Netflix, HBO plus, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney plus... people only play for those because of movies, TV series and exclusive entertainment. Not only that, the market is far bigger because those are not country dependent. All of the aforementioned can sell outside the US and be fine.
I can see CNN working as suplementary content, but not it's own subscription service.
1
-
1
-
1
-
You know what?
I'll be extremely reasonable here and assume all of it was a mistake that can easily happen... ignore that they are the ones asking citizens for the sacrifice, that they should've known better, that this is a clear example of "do as we say, don't do as we do because we're above you and have more rights than you" thing (sorry, it's hard do completely ignore).
Let's say, after a long day running around with a bunch of people on his birthday, Boris just capped it off with a cake and drinks in the end of a long day with the same people that was already in contact with him anyways, in a manner that it is still wrong, but at least less damaging than if it was a full on party with tons of people invited who were not already in contact etc etc, potentially becoming a super spreader event and all that.
Personally, perhaps because I live in a country where general Covid 19 rules were so disrespected we quickly became among the worst affected nations, I can understand why an ignorant buffoon wouldn't really understand the rules he was trying to enforce, sure - because despite Boris putting it out, of course the rules were made by people who actually know what they are talking about.
Boris sure isn't an infectiologist, which these days weirdly enough seems to be what it takes for people to truly understand the basis on how the virus works... I mean, it is complex, but not impossible to at least have a general grasp.
But even doctors, nurses, researchers, scientists in general were puzzled by how the virus spreads and what prevention methods are productive, and at what point it becomes counter productive. We are still learning from this disease as of yet after all.
Thing is, what I see as truly damning in this entire case is not the party itself, or "accidentally" breaking the rules you imposed on everyone else... it's the lies. The constant lies up 'till now.
There was no party, all rules were respected, we didn't do anything wrong, yadda yadda.
The party itself is bad - but a blip if it wasn't for the constant denial, the constant deflection, the constant refusal to acknowledge what happened. That's the thing that erodes trust, and that will make citizens tell the government to go f*ck itself whenever there is another situation when it asks for any sort of sacrifice to be made. Imagine a resurgence now, with yet another variant - how can the PM go and ask for the population to abide by the same rules again? Would people even bother listening? And then, what sort of consequences the UK would have because people completely lost trust in the government's messaging and pleads?
That's the true damage there.
Ideal world, politicians should be taken out entirely of this equation because the measures against the pandemic are entirely technical - lockdowns, social distancing, mask usage and enhanced personal hygiene measures are standard to contain transmissible diseases, period. Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world, and now if you have a government that can't be trusted, people are more likely to ignore the rules exactly because an untrustworthy government is trying to push it on them.
Personal opinion to be ignored though... not an UK citizen, and my government performance on the pandemic was several times worse than UKs'. I'd still like to see more countries doing the right thing though, despite having no hope of it happening here.
1
-
1
-
1
-
I'd go even further and say that the only reason why microUSB had very rare cases of non-compliance is because of how simple it was... for charging that is.
It had to be either USB 2.0 or USB 1.0 and between power standards, so manufacturers had to botch it extremely hard to get it wrong as it was also kinda tolerant to weird behaviors. Mind you, I have seen and owned stuff that despite having a microUSB connector, still needed to use the supplied charger or else it wouldn't work. But it was far more uncommon of a thing to happen.
It was still a mess of opaqueness and non-compliance when it came to features like OtG compatibility, MHL, among others.
Data transfer was also ok, but that's likely due to the fact that you either had it or didn't... no optional midways there. I think there was one speed for USB 1, and a couple of specs for 2, but all backwards compatible that didn't require any changes in cable or connectors.
Then, as this became a multiple options thing for USB-C, data on USB-C is the worst thing to measure for every device that needs it. It's this entire sh*t here that I can't even:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Signaling
Again, USB-C is just the connector standard, despite being used by marketing and by manufacturers to talk about the protocol... so it means you can have anything between USB 2.0 up to 4 and everything in between with all it's multiple potential combinations and horrible nomenclature. USB 3 alone can have some... I think 4 to 6 different variations on this, with no clear way on how to inform the consumer where it's at.
Transparency is poorly enforced and poorly established by the implementers forum anyways. There's a bunch of very obscure and unclear symbols and tags that not even the biggest manufacturers use, and the standard explicitly puts as optional.
If not even manufacturers like Samsung, Apple, Dell, HP and whatnot are using tags and properly listing what exactly their USB-C port implementation supports, there is zero expectation that smaller companies will... and that's the failure of USB-C.
It opened itself up too much to accommodate every potential requirement, scenario and what electronics manufacturers might want, to the point it might as well be anything.
The simple solution would be to reduce optional crap and include labeling in compliance, forcing all manufacturers to put up the information in labels, boxes and in their websites and manuals. You wanna be compliant, those need to be there.
Ex: USB-C connector using USB 3.2 gen 1x2 protocol, Power Delivery Rev. 3.0 compatible. It's a word salad that most wouldn't be able to figure out, but at least it's there.
1
-
Yeah, this reflects my personal experience with split systems, even though it's a whole different beast when it's whole house to the small systems we have down here in tropicaland.
My mom has a couple of split systems in her small apartment, one for each room, they are of the inverter type.
It's not used a whole lot throughout the year. She doesn't like air conditioning much, and she doesn't feel the heat as much as I do, so she uses it far less than myself, and I only spend a few months of the year with her, so it's only on very cold or very very hot days that she'll turn it on.
We don't use thermostats here, it's more you turn on when needed, because it's so rarely needed. Few weeks in summer for cold, few days in winter for heat.
We had lots of breakage, one because the system might be undersized a bit particularly for extremely hot days, two because the condensers are kind in a bad spot but it's the only place that could house it (it takes balcony space in a place where it's in direct sunlight for a big part of the day), but three as I've noticed - it breaks a lot when you turn it on after a long time it's not being used. 9 out of 10 times the thing goes down it's in that type of scenario.
The two things that fail the most is the startup capacitor, and the motor itself. But it's not the compressor motor usually, it's the fan motor. That thing tends to overheat and go down all the time, which requires full dismantling of the unit and taking away the fan motor to rewire it or something. And man, does it happen a lot. I don't think there's been a single year this didn't happen. To be fair though, this might be poor design from the brand we got.
And I mean, yeah, this is kinda common knowledge when it comes to motors... if it's in constant use, it'll be fine, if it's stopped, it's fine, but the real stress is on startup, particularly after a long time not in use. xD
Place where I currently live don't require AC much because it's almost the opposite to my hometown where my mom lives... we have a few very hot days during summer, and a few colder weeks during winter. I've been managing for the past almost decade now the hot summer days with fans alone.... but it's getting worse. Winter it's more like a few weeks of very cold days, but insulation helps a lot, and I do have a few space heaters for the worst days. Thing is, I've been moving back and forth from my hometown to here, and I tend to spend the winter days with my mom where it's hotter, so I've been pushing the AC purchase and install further and further... because if I'm gonna go through the hassle, I want a 3 way split system to make the full install all at once, and those can be very expensive here where I live. Not to mention it also means opening up drywall, passing a lot of cabling, and all that mess.
But if I'm going to invest on it, I'll pay extra for the better brands... which down here seems to be Fujitsu. My mom got a deal on a couple of... I think it's Midea split systems that don't have that square-ish traditional condenser design but rather that other type that has a fan mounted vertically, you know? Mostly because it occupies less space so it fits her balcony better. I'm not sure if that type of design doesn't help, or just the brand itself that isn't great, or a combination of several things, but like I said, it goes out for maintenance like between 4 to 8 times a year. :P
Still better than dealing with gas though. We don't have gas heating systems down here for the most part, and I still see news almost every week of a fire being started because of a gas stove.
My apartment building is a rare case that uses central gas heating system, but it was just an incredibly stupid choice in a country that don't use that system much anywhere, so it's costing us a lot. The central gas heaters for the building burn out all the time, we have to procure parts and people who can deal with it outside the city and sometimes outside the state, sometimes gas prices go completely overboard because it's mostly used in commercial and industrial settings instead of residential, and stuff like installation, following code and whatnot are often botched because professionals have no experience dealing with those.
1
-
Nice that this tech is happening, but realistically speaking, I'll want one of those when I can get something closer to Hololens 2 or better in the form factor. Because I want like a screen that looks bigger than my phone, which would be a useful thing. Can't be anything less than what I can already get by looking at my phone instead. That plus something that can interact with the environment... an enhanced Google Maps/Street View with that AR functionality for instance. That will be the killer app for AR glasses.
Of course, easier said than done, but when we get there it'll probably be the point this sort of tech will really explode, become mainstream, and get super popular. Because it's way easier to have a screen of any size in front of your eyes rather than carrying around multiple devices with different screen sizes to attend your needs.
Could be paired even with wires to a smartphone, or say a desktop/laptop module. As long as it eliminates the need to carry 3 or 4 different slabs in a trip (say, smartphone, tablet, laptop, some gaming portable, HTPC, etc), should be enough.
Then, if it ever becomes high res, powerful and bright enough, with some tech to block most of the external view, it could become a replacement for current VR, as well as replacement for all sorts of things that use a TV/monitor.
1
-
Influencers should never be trusted with any sort of information they may be peddling, never ever, not even for a single moment.
Even very credible source oriented channels should always be checked and crossed with difference sources, let alone these channels that presents no proof nor real argument for what they are saying.
Social networks should also be never used as a source of news. We are facing today multiple problems that comes from the fact that people are trusting information coming from unreliable sources these days. There is no critical reasoning anymore, no fact checking, no value given to ethics in journalism... it has become just a bunch of he said she said with no deeper reasoning anymore.
So, it comes as no surprise that all theocracies and totalitarian dictatorships around the globe are trying to spread propaganda like this.
Vice also covered what North Korea is trying to do, China and Russia will also go at it, and soon Middle Eastern theocracies might also enter this game. Extreme political groups, religious cults and all sorts of other people vying for power or money will also enter this game.
What you can do is prepare your kids, talk to your friends, warn your family members, and spread awareness on this everywhere you can.
Tell them to let go of social media, stop paying attention to what is shared in chat groups, start questioning everything they see online, and be aware that propagandists are being paid left and right to lie as convincingly as possible in videos and whatnot.
Do not wait for justice to go after Big Tech to put a stop on these things, they have decades of incompetence and malice behind them, they have too much power to be taken down, and we cannot wait for things to change in this front. We continue fighting to bring them down, but we cannot wait for justice to act on this, it has failed us for too long.
If you cannot convince people to stop using social networks and chat groups, tell them to at least be careful about what they trust and what they believe coming from those.
This is a fight for the future as important as, if not more important then the fight against Climate Change is. If the next generations don't learn how to deal with the constant propaganda that will be coming via the Internet, we'll end up with violent totalitarian dictatorships all over the world. The rise of far right parties and groups all over the world have to do with this. And then, when we have enough countries taken over by radical politics, the only option that will be left then will be a war to end all wars.
1
-
1
-
This very same problem is just a million times worse in the 3rd world...
I'd get an electric car whenever it got cheap enough for me to afford, sure.
In fact, I'll probably do it one way or another some years from now with a critical mass of fast chargers in my city... at least perhaps a hybrid.
But basically, there is no electric infrastructure built for long trips. And the trips I make every year to visit family... it's just even worse.
It'll likely take a strong enough shift in several other countries to the point of leaving no choice for big car manufacturers to shift production entirely for EVs... then, if there are still car manufacturers here (some are already closing down), they'll need to shift production lines, making gas cars more expensive, and forcing adoption of EV infrastructure across the board.
One of the trips I make to visit family is cross state tip to tip, which means a whole ton of hours going through small towns and small gas stations. In several of those gas stations... you don't even get cellphone signal, an electric charging station in one of those would be like the monolith in the beginning of 2001. xD
But perhaps more important than the problem of availability, there's the problem of reliability.
Here, if those chargers are not cordoned off, heavily protected, and heavily maintained - they'll just be broken all the time like every single open to public facility.
This is a country where vandals destroy everything that is in public space all the time, and criminals are resorting to stealing copper cables in buildings that are not occupied all the time.
Yep, I've been hearing more and more about businesses, churches, gathering places in general that are only occupied a few times in a weel, getting their entire copper cable installation getting pulled off to be sold as scrap.
If the electric charging infrastructure is build anywhere with easy access, it's gonna be immediately destroyed. Government is never gonna fund this, and it's preferable that it never does, because it cannot maintain any facility open to the public in great shape. Bureaucracy tramples over any type of project that demands a high degree of maintenance for availability.
It needs to get to a point current gas stations offers the service instead.
And then, another pretty big problem comes from infrastructure itself - particularly for the long stretches of space where you only see small towns, the electric grid has always been spotty at best. Between having been poorly build in the first place, and not getting any maintenance for decades, it's not exactly in the best shape to put something like DC chargers. So we're talking about a revamp not only in charging solutions for cars, but potentially also the entire local grid... imagine that.
So, I guess if developed nations are a few years away from it... we're probably a few decades away or more.
In that sense, hydrogen fuel would make for an easier transition.... I'm kinda hoping development of it still goes forward, but not sure if it will.
1
-
I have to be honest... having watched one too many machiya and inaka traditional house renovation videos, the horror one that Chris and Alex showed there... it's in pretty decent condition. :P
I've seen quite a few that looked waaay worse... tatamis half eaten by mold and bugs, back walls and wood floors on the entire house that looked like those futon closets, some spots where it obviously rained down from ceiling leaks, the entire place being filled with stains, rot, mold, bugs, dust, etc.
Those would be perfect horror movie sets if it wasn't so hazardous to shoot at in the first place. xD
I guess you're paying 250 thousand on location alone, which could be fine... if it wasn't for two major things - the fact that it's stuck between two other places with paper thin walls, and perhaps some particularities of Japanese real estate ownership.
Oh, and the whole insulation thing, that's a major problem in all machiyas. It's not only that you have to renovate, but rather to put it up to code and adapt a whole system to insulate the place, that's hard. It's like, even if it is in good conditions, you'll still have to basically build and entire new place inside it for proper insulation.
1
-
1
-
Nikki Haley from the beginning was only a plant to measure how many Republican moderates against Trump there were still inside the party and among the electorate. I dunno why some people thought otherwise, but it was always just that.
It's clear and transparent as it can be, you only have to look into her career to see it. She compared Trump's first impeachment to a death penalty, she compared Trump's suspension from Twitter to Chinese censorship, she made the same play in the 2016 election criticizing him at first but ultimately voting for him, she licked his shoes during his presidency calling him a friend, saying that she understood him, being an apologist for his behavior, and then she also backtracked on all criticism she had for him before he became president.
Her time before politics also plainly shows what she's about. She was a Boeing board member behind several of the decisions that led to the situation Boeing is currently in. The disfunction in Boeing that everyone knows today? You can thank Haley for voting and being for several of the most important decisions that led to the current Boeing situation.
So if you are asking yourself why Nikki Haley is publicly stating that she'll vote for Trump after all the sharp criticism she had for her during the midterm campaign, the answer is: She's just being herself, and that has been her intention from the beginning. She's someone with no morals, no ethics, no sense of honesty. She says she's for something today and tomorrow she completely backtracks on it if it serves her purposes. She has always blatantly lied about stuff, and operated behind the scenes for her own gains. She even did the exact same theatrics when Trump got first elected, so why the heck wouldn't she do it again?
And that stuff like this is happening in US politics is another indication that democracy is already dead. It's a minor one compared to things far more serious and far more absurd than a woman with no morals, but it's still just that. What she did there, bold faced lying during her entire campaign, would be enough to disqualify her from politics or any position of power forever in a sane democracy. But not only this will not happen, I bet you that she'll get whatever position she was promised when she made a deal with Trump to play the part of "inside opposition" in the midterms, if Trump gets elected. You'll see. Well, hopefully not.
1
-
I gotta be honest with myself and everyone else - Reddit will likely continue, perhaps the CEO will backtrack on some stuff or not, and a month from now this will all be over?
Why do I think like this? Basically all of social media, but particularly Twitter and Facebook.
I don't blame users alone... the thing is, I think for some of these massive social networks, there are just too many people, small businesses, corporations, brands, celebrities, news networks, influencers, content producers and all this entire ecosystem of mutual dependency that it never ends no matter how egregious the behavior of those running the platform becomes.
I'll tell you straight up - if some of those platforms started blatantly and flagrantly selling data to criminals, putting up insane prices for service, and abusing users in several fronts, people would still do their upmost to keep using the platform.
It is in part a matter of addiction, but it's also one of masses of people, businesses and systems getting too comfy and too used with "the way things are", and refusing to budge.
Nothing has proven this more to myself than Twitter. Facebook was very egregious and bad, but it's a slow burn focused on privacy concerns and lack of response for criminal behavior inside the platform. Those were serious enough for me to leave, but it doesn't reach everyone, not everyone cares about those, and it happened over a long stretch of time during which Facebook kept promising things were going to change, that they were trying to do better, yadda yadda.
Twitter is on a whole new level. The platform had it's problems that also kept slowly mounting over the years, sure. But then came Musk and took multiple huge turds on top of it while everyone was watching. There is no parallel in the history of Internet or computers. I can't come up with a single service that got this shit on, trampled over, destroyed and burnt to bits. Twitter is a unique case. It went from a regular platform that lots of people used for it's speed, including traditional media, big brands, etc... all the way down to 4chan and worse in no time.
And people still continue to use it.
So, no, not even Reddit's CEO incredibly stupid remarks will kill Reddit. It's at least several orders of magnitude better than Twitter still.
I'm just glad that I abandoned all of this crap long ago and went back into just reading RSS feed with sources I'll change overtime when any of them goes to shit. The current Internet just went to a very dark place that does not need my participation, nor I want to give it.
In fact, let me use my rant to ask for something I've been looking for a while now - if anyone knows about a self hosted open source RSS reader app with a blacklist function, please let me know. It'll be the final thing I truly want to make my news reading better.
Then I can blacklist - Apple, Twitter, Elon Musk, NFTs, Crypto, AI, VR, Lenovo, Amazon, Facebook, earbuds, bitcoin, TikTok, Instagram, Telegram, plus a whole bunch of stuff I don't want to even hear about anymore. It's like, I'm not saying those are bad, I'm not recommending people to stop reading about those, you do you... but to me it got to the point I don't even want to see news about any of those anymore. My personal life is better if I don't even hear those words ever again. I'm only wasting time skipping half my news feed because those are all over the place.
I really don't feel I'll be missing much if I don't ever hear about those ever anymore, even if some people will say I'm an old person that is out of date with what's happening in the world, I don't care. Perhaps I should add Reddit to that list.
1
-
@ritaprangle5671 Observations from a skeptic point of view if you will. I don't have an expertise in this area, but I'm fairly sure experts of different areas like psychology, audio researchers and perhaps material scientists would have a similar opinion.
Which I should note, the entire video is lacking, should ring some alarm bells for anyone who is worried about the topic at hand.
The thing is, I have seem enough relevant material on subjects spread through the video conducted by experts to believe lots of things in the video are flawed. Personal opinion, yes, but you are free to take your own conclusions.
Not specifically about a hum phenomena, but on equipments used and on areas of expertise invoked in the video, plus some statistical data quoted in it, among other stuff spread out.
Scientific method aside, there are several problems in using video and audio recording gear without proper considerations of how they operate, what their limits are and what readings actually entail, there are problems with introducing biases on interviews, and there are shots through conclusions while ignoring other factors that are plain unacceptable for something like this.
I'm not gonna say it's impossible for some currently unexplainable phenomena affecting a bunch of people to happen... well, it just recently happened in the US embassy in Cuba. But people need to understand that shoddy methodology disguised as scientific can be very very bad, and a tool for convincing ignorant people of something that isn't quite there or quite right.
It's also fairly common for people with high education degrees and titles to run away with it and present studies, statistics, selected papers and non peer reviewed or non meta analyzed weak studies that have a semblance of being "proper" to enrich, if you will, their own ideas in other areas that are completely out of their range, and then take outlandish conclusions out of them.
It's something that actually happens fairly frequently even in expert paper studies when they have strong biases - statistics and reference stuffing.
1
-
1
-
I don't follow Tesla much, can't say I follow right to repair as much as people involved in the bussiness or US citizens overall since I'm not one, but I do follow security and privacy a bit, and here's what I'll say about this:
The Reddit comment was absolutely right.
If there is one thing that was proven over and over again in recent years, is that security by obscurity, or proprietary code for securing data, is only worth for one thing - to make the owners of said code less responsive, less liable, and less proactive about securing data.
Open source code, meaning code that can be audited by 3rd parties, be it security experts, white hat hackers and whatnot is the only way we've found out yet to truly hold businesses and corporations responsible for securing user data as best as possible, because transparency.
So, I dunno how good faith Tesla's argument is (probably not judging by the FUD ad campaign), but on the security and privacy realm of things, it's not only totally wrong, it's also outdated as hell. On software, that sort of excuse doesn't fool anyone anymore.
Any company dealing with code these days that has some ammount of worry regarding security and privacy will not only open up the code for 3rd parties to see, they'll pay for white hat hackers and whatnot to scrutinize it and find flaws, potential exploits, etc.
Several of the most scandalous data breaches, private data leaks, irresponsible user data handling, cases where corporations took months to disclose breaches and whatnot happened because of bad auditing practices, opaqueness from the code owners, and a general lack of proper scrutiny from the parent company while handling user data. It's always about very poor security practices and bad training, or not having a security sector at all. And not being open about it only worked for those companies to delay talking about breaches and leaks.
Someone who is not from the area might ask, why having open source code makes it more secure? Wouldn't proprietary closed off code make more sense? Unfortunately, that kinda logic doesn't work when it comes to security and privacy for digital data.
See, if people working in maintenance, replacing parts, and whatnot have access to private and personal data just because they are repairing your vehicle, that's a problem with how Tesla is handling the data in the first place. If a car shop has access to your data, then any hacker also can. It's Tesla's own responsibility to secure that type of data, regardless if 3rd parties can repair your car or not.
Giving access to repair tools and whatnot does not mean giving access to private and personal data, particularly for something like a car. The strongest tool we have to secure such data these days is open source encryption, because it has been audited, scrutinized and is constantly being monitored by security specialists all over the world. Open source encryption is what the most secure and private messaging systems, banks, and overall security schemes use, because of how robust they are.
It's also what makes Linux so strong in the server side of things, and it's the sort of code and scheme car companies should be employing for themselves, if they really cared about security and user privacy, protection of personal data.
So if they did that, they shouldn't care about people looking at codes. They should only be worried if they are using shoddy proprietary code that is bound to have tons of vulnerabilities and bugs, and they wanna keep leaks, breaches, intrusions and hacks outside purview.
If the data on your car gets breached or leaked somehow, and some creep comes after you after seeing it, you can bet it's because there haven't been enough scrutiny on securing the data by the parent company. And the best way to prevent it currently, is to open it up for 3rd party analysis.
So, it's actually the opposite of what those ads and the Tesla message are saying. If you don't want for those scenarios to happen, right to repair is actually a good thing. Let people see how exactly Tesla is securing the data. Be transparent about it. Let people audit and scrutinize the methods being employed. If it holds, this means Tesla is doing a good job. If it doesn't, Tesla owners have to pressure Tesla until they do.
This will be particularly important for these future plans Tesla and other automakers have in mind - car to car communications, autonomous cars as a service, more and more algorithmic integration and personalization in the electronic systems of cars. What is really needed is to force the entire auto industry to adopt an open source, transparent, easily auditable, scrutinized by 3rd party security groups, standardized code that can properly secure the data, without means for said companies to hide bugs, exploits, breaches, holes and stuff like backdoors into their proprietary codes.
1
-
This has always been, and will increasingly become the biggest problem for Putin - Russians themselves.
See, if this was North Korea, then perhaps the government would be more shielded, because of how much investment was put into complete isolation from the rest of the world and total indoctrination and brainwashing of the population... years living in those conditions means the population in North Korea should mostly be seen as members of a huge cult.
And even then, when you heard testimonials from defectors, you see that even in those conditions some people have to clarity to understand what is going on.
In Russia, the state just does not have this level of control on the minds of citizens.
Yes, there are certainly lots of Putin radicals, nationalists and whatnot, but we've been watching as many Russians fled the country when conscription came about, we saw protests sparking out even when they were guaranteed to get arrested, and we know there is resistance there.
Popularity pools manipulated by an authoritarian government should not be taken very seriously for obvious reasons, I personally think there are tons and tons more Russians who say they support Putin but actually understand what is going on, and a good portion of those are likely working together in some capacity to overthrow the regime.
Make things worse, Ukrainians are like the second largest group of immigrants inside Russia, and Russian soldiers have been dying in droves in a war that it doesn't take much for parents, relatives and friends of these soldiers to realize it was an unnecessary, illegal, and coward attempt to invade the neighboring nation to take over territory that isn't theirs by right.
Resentment of having your family and friends killed in a war mandated by an authoritarian dictator will run deep into these peoples' minds for the rest of their lives.
The thing is, we are all human. I bet almost any nation in the world, if a dictator came to power and started doing stuff like what Russia is doing, most citizens would behave in a similar way that Russians are doing. We are mostly worried about our immediate surroundings, protecting loved ones, guaranteeing a way of living, and maintaining a way of life. If actual war and destruction doesn't reach people, the vast majority of individuals won't go sacrificing their own lives when they already have a ton of things to worry about in their personal lives.
So this strategy is cruel, but pretty apt. This war needs to get personal for as many Russians as possible, or else there will be no change in mentality, awareness, and sense of urgency. It needs to be close enough and damaging enough for people to turn their attentions to the subject, but fair enough that it doesn't turn the perception of Russians who are already against Putin on a justification of Putin's actions.
There is a very tenuous balance to maintain there. But I think Zelenskyy is doing a great job on it.
1
-
Awesome awesome episode! Specially for me, I've been wanting to know more about nitinol for over a full decade now, but I never watched anything that got this deep and was this comprehensive about it! Derek continues to amaze us with such good content!
Given the properties of it, I have a question that wasn't covered in the video though... could nitinol be used for something like... bulletproof vests?
It phase transitions into a fixed shape when heated, and the temperature when it does can be manipulated by the composite... it's also relatively light if I understand it correctly, and already being used in a sort of fabric/chainmail style for tires.
Not sure about the property in really thin strands though, but perhaps it could be thinned down even further to make a mesh that could go inside a bulletproof vest layer?
And then, perhaps with the properties it could lend some rigidity when shot, but be a bit more flexible during regular usage?
Could be infeasible I guess, or not have the exact properties we're looking for... probably was already tested for application, if it's not already in active use. :P
Anyways, great episode!
1
-
I think it's fair to point out, if people still didn't notice this, that this is exactly how most totalitarian dictatorships in the world had their start.
It's not that I don't understand that, given how bad the situation was, and how corrupt previous governments in El Salvador were, the approval rate of Bukele would be this high.
But I think it's very important for people to understand that a whole ton of totalitarian dictatorships throughout the world and throughout history started in a very similar way.
A country in shambles, a new figure with lots of promises to break the mold takes over, popularity rises insanely, tough on crime and minorities, the streets are peaceful again, institutions are eroded, press is persecuted, liberties are taken away, all in the name of "fixing" the nation. Did you know that Nazi Germany early history is exactly like that?
So much that it's pretty creepy.
This is exactly why you have a saying that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It comes exactly from this phenomena that is observed through history when it comes to dictatorships.
See, if you read history and understand the parallels in the mechanisms described in this video, you start understanding why this could just be the calm before the actual storm. We keep always hoping it isn't, but there are just too many parallels to ignore.
Particularly when it comes to stuff like taking over congress, dissolving justice, changing constitution to allow for a takeover of power for an indefinite period, cult of personality part, hard on crime stance, human rights violations that are overlooked because of potential benefits it has for the nation as a whole, dismissal of international criticism... the list goes on.
I'll give some suggestions for people to read into. Try looking into the early history of the Nazi party in Germany. Perhaps the rise of Bolivarism in Venezuela. The history of the military dictatorship taking power in Brazil. Perhaps something about the first period of military dictatorship in Myanmar. The history of the post Korean war that divided between North and South, and how the North became the way it is today.
There are many more all throughout the world.
I won't criticize Bukele, nor want to make an alarmist call for Salvadorans, but I really think people should understand the basic mechanisms on how totalitarian dictatorships comes to be, so that you can be prepared for whatever comes next. There are several steps in the trajectory of democracies becoming more and more autocratic, then turning into dictatorships to then become totalitarian dictatorships that can be observed.
Is there no hope for El Salvador then? Yes there is. After all, lots of strong democracies emerged from totalitarian dictatorships. But the focus should never be on a single popular president or figure, and it should never be on a single political party. What makes a strong democracy are strong democratic institutions. If you don't see this happening in a country that had a (much needed) political shock, that's when you know it's backsliding into a dictatorship. Strong democratic institutions are what prevents a country from being taken over by a dictatorship. It's a decisive factor whether El Salvador has chances of coming out of this better or worse.
It's not only about Bukele one day dying or being removed from power, it's about the imbalance of power itself. A person cannot maintain god-like powers over the lives of so many people because a person's life is an unstable thing. And the thing is, the more powerful someone gets, the more isolated from the realities of the people they become. Priorities shift, becomes distorted, and for the people it becomes arbitrary too.
I'll give you one example not mentioned in the video that everyone already knows about - the whole Bitcoin fracas. Had Bukele's stance on Bitcoin really taken over and really spread out like he wanted it to be, can you see that large portions of El Salvador's population would have lost on average half the value of their entire savings? That's more or less how much Bitcoin devalued since he started talking about it back in 2021, up to today.
But Bukele continues to double down on this idea, because he's already in a bubble... it doesn't matter much for him the fluctuation of crypto because he doesn't depend on that for his daily life.
Now say someone got totally into his advice, traded everything he or she had into crypto, saw the whole thing crash, got out as soon as he or she saw that it wasn't worth it, and now is living day by day, perhaps thinking of giving out to crime gangs, and then got arrested in the crackdown.... how many people are needed to have stories like those for a president to be considered not worth his position?
I guess it's an unanswerable question. But it's worth considering.
1
-
1
-
Didn't agree with many of his views, but it's unquestionable how much of a statesman he was... irrespective of his own political inclinations and the views of his party, it seemed to me he always managed to keep balance between the extremes and focus on problems and worries that affected most of the Japanese population instead of playing favoritism and ruling only with particular interests in mind.
Japanese economy may have been in recession over his entire time there, but there are lots of positive changes that happened in Japanese society that most of international media coverage does not recognize because it's not in their interest.
You know how you hear about suicide in Japan all the time? It has been reversed to a point that most western nations have worse rates these days, did you know that? There is a bunch of stigmatized "only in Japan" problems often reinforced and exploited without context by foreign view "documentaries" that are not huge problems there anymore thanks to the hard and often hidden work of politicians there.
I understand and agree with people who questions things such as historical revisionism, militarism, revising the constitution, among a few other controversial topics, but we need to understand that while he was prime minister there was no radical action to push these far over the will of people. There was a balance kept between the wish of people on all sides of the spectrum, which is what great leaders do. It's not only this politician or that party that has these radical views too, it's a portion of the population. Keeping the most extreme views at bay is what good politicians do.
It was a shock when he left office due to health issues, this news is just surreal. Political views for political views, he was far from acting in a radical manner in any way, so it all just doesn't make much sense. There are far more radical politicians in Japan's governmental system. Feels like this was done much more on attention rather than politics disagreements.
Regardless, this shouldn't happen in any democracy, and much less a peaceful country like Japan... the damage extends far beyond one man's life, career and legacy - it could change the entire dynamics of politics in Japan.
The nation does not need political radicalism, no country does. May he rest in peace, his family be comforted by his achievements, and that his legacy is seen as a way to keep peace, moderation and diplomacy.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
I feel like the problem here is Trans people not having space for themselves, perhaps as an added category, or currently enforced rules coming into direct conflict with sports themselves.
Wasn't there a piece just a few days ago saying how some women with bigger testosterone levels also being discriminated against?
If that's the case, then some sort of redefinition has to also be put in place.
I'm not a sports fan so I don't really have a horse on this race, but when it comes to this level of scrutiny, things starts getting pretty bad.
For instance, if trans people are allowed, if there is no discrepancy of what stage the person is, wouldn't we basically neuter the physical differences? A trans person who is not taking hormone therapy would also be allowed, which basically means people that are physically males would also be allowed?
If there needs to be some sort of hormonal therapy going on, would people need to have those checked before participating? And if so, would biological women that passes a certain testosterone threshold be forbidden or allowed?
And then, if everything comes down to hormone levels, would everyone have to be tested and categories shifted to represent not the more general indicators like age, gender, weight and whatnot to be separated into hormone levels instead?
This is not something as simple as the piece is trying to put. The way sports were set up from the beginning, specially when it comes to stuff like power lifting or sports that tests the limits of human endurance or power, is around categorizations around physical attributes and anatomy.
One other route perhaps would be eliminating gender altogether and letting people compete regardless. But you can already imagine how this creates a whole host of other problems.
1
-
1
-
Just adding up to Louis' argument... and going a bit further, I just don't know when to shut my mouth I guess.
I think it's fair to say you shouldn't calculate a fair wage based on your own currency or living standards... mainly because of currency exchange rates. Fair needs to be seen in comparison to similar sectors inside the society it's situated in.
But there is a more or less reasonable way to do it, and that's looking up what the official or average minimum wage is in the country.
For developing countries, the minimum wage is usually a little bit bellow of the ammount someone needs to pay the bills and feed themselves through a period of time. I mean, it's supposed to be the minimum ammount someone needs to live with basic human rights attended, but that's usually not true in developing countries.... it goes more towards the minimum ammount negotiated between government, unions and businesses - a compromisse.
It's the case in Brazil, it's likely the case in India too. You don't make ends meet with just minimum wage in Brazil, but it's a baseline start I guess.... meaning less than it is just obviously criminal.
So, you wanna know how unfair the wage is in this case.
Some sources say India doesn't have an official minimum wage because it varies a lot depending on sector, but it should be somewhere between "160 rupees ($2.40) per day in Bihar to 423 rupees ($6.35) per day in Delhi".
http://www.minimum-wage.org/international/india
https://www.india-briefing.com/news/guide-minimum-wage-india-2021-19406.html/
Wanna go deeper? Correct me if I'm wrong Indian friends, but afaik... Narasapura, where the factory is located, is a big famous industrial complex in India where the minimum wage is actually pretty high, because cost of living also is.
It's located in Karnataka, for which I found this chart:
https://www.simpliance.in/minimum-wages/karnataka
So, looking at the article and values this means workers were promised a wage that already doesn't sound super great, which was then subsequently slashed several times... for engineers going bellow the absolute minimum wage for unskilled workers, and it seems some floor workers got a single day wage or less for an entire month. In the middle of a pandemic in one of the countries worst hit by it.
Was it an overreaction? I'm just gonna go ahead and say that it obviously wasn't. Lucky they didn't straight out lynch people there.
And look, I even understand a bit the whole thing on saying that if it wasn't for these factories, all those people there might not have a job.... kind speculative and mostly bullshit, but still, it's a very common mindset for foreigners looking at the situation without much context.
We've heard these types of arguments for factories in China too, particularly when people were killing themselves on the factory floor so desperate the conditions were.
But you gotta ask yourself if that's really true or just a biased perception based on nationalistic feelings and fanboyism, potentially with a good ammount of racism and classicism thrown into the mix.
Because one thing is going into those countries, promissing basic wages for basic work, not raising the standards of living for anyone, and doing just that.
Pretty shitty of a thing to do for billionaire and trillionaire corporations if you ask me, but at least it's adding jobs to the pool I guess.
But what is really happening there is that Apple is entering these countries explicitly to exploit workers using international name and clout for the worst labor practices ever, and coming out scot free from it because they relegated all responsibilities to local administrators and 3rd parties. Oh, we didn't know these things happened, we will monitor our partners better from now on. BULLSHIT. This has been happening for decades. Nothing ever changes because it's part of how these companies get rich.
This will never be ok no matter how many jobs you are supposedly opening up in a region, because you are not opening up jobs, you are willingly supporting slave labor and worker exploitation there. You are lowering the bar. You are creating a culture of exploitation and poverty. You are holding the country down. You are perpetuating the problem.
The people who rightfully destroyed the place there would likely get better opportunities locally or by themselves. You used your name and their goodwill to destroy their lives. This is modern colonization.
And so, hitching a hike on this to make people understand China, some other poor asian countries, and India better: Do understand that China went through repated multiple situations like this through several decades on the hands of big tech companies. The endless list of big tech companies that are costumers for Foxconn, they all made their millions, billions and trillions by exploiting chinese workers, exploiting vietnamese workers, exploiting indonesian workers, exploiting phillipines workers, exploiting brazilian workers, exploiting african workers, exploiting workers of all countries where Foxconn has a presence.
So understand that when american, european, and other developed nation's people and politicians start complaining about technology stealing, copyright infringement, copying american products, etc etc etc - it's as f*cked up as you can imagine, in context. Do people realize how much these american and european countries exploited China and other developing or poor nations, to now complain that these nations are "stealing" tech by using what they've learned to prop themselves up and cut off ties with their exploiters?
Several if not all of the companies that developed most modern technologies people enjoy cheaply in developed nations were done at the cost of blood and slave labor in the countries that are manufacturing the actual stuff.
That they managed to overcome the situation, learn how to it by themselves, and then started getting better at the trade than their own abusers is just poetic justice, and sort of a miracle.
I've said this in the past and I'll say it again. These decades of abuse are coming byte back developed countries responsible for it one way or another. And when it happens, people will cry foul because they are missing the bigger picture. I'm saying all this because you better be aware of the reality of things.
People think the way these countries work, oppressive regimes, human rights violations, surveillance state, lax regulations, zero welfare... lots of people think it has nothing to do with them. But actually, it has all to do with us. These are systems propped up to support late stage capitalism and insane consumism of developed nations at the cost of other nations. It might not have been a concerted effort, done directly by tech companies themselves, but the result is the same, and responsibilities will be assumed.
And the more you understand how these dynamics work, the more you see how pervasive it is, and how f*cked we are if global justice prevails. And obviously, it's not only the tech sector. Fast fashion, the eWaste global route, weapons trading... it's all similar or basically the same. Be aware of it so you at least understand the perspective of other countries when they come at us.
1
-
This was taken to a rather odd extreme, but the core message is good and clear: the state should always be secular. Keep your personal beliefs out of it, politicians.
And by the way, the 10 commandments are not even close to being the first set of written laws, not by a long shot. We're talking thousands of years here.
It's not because the state shouldn't have things in common with christian values, or that it's wrong to believe in 10 commandments, but because a state that is inclusive of all people should respect all religions by not considering politicians' religion of choice to be the one that applies to everyone else. That is called a theocracy, and you really don't want your government to become that, lest you want to have your personal rights capped at middle ages levels, or are ok with some dystopian future like what is portrayed in Handmaid's Tale or something.
So religious iconography has no room in public spaces, because if you allow one, you must allow all others, as it is public space, which belongs to everyone, including people who are not christians. It's best to just keep all out, so it becomes neutral ground. It is as important to defend this, as it is important to defend democracy itself.
It is quite a hard concept to understand for some religious zealots, but it is an important one, and why we aren't living the same way people did back at the times of cruzades and religious wars. If you can't understand that religion is one of the biggest enablers of wars and most irrational ways of running things, you do not deserve the lifestyle and the comfort you have today.
By the way, it's also why some democracies came crashing down in middle eastern countries - because they had fragile and tenuous democracies that didn't take secularism seriously, or that they were overtaken by religious extremist factions. So some of those countries got taken over by theocracies that allowed everything from religious based terrorism to the massacre of religious minorities. If you don't know about this, just look at the history of countries like Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Yemen and a few others.
It is quite curious when you realize that some of the most religious countries with theocracies are also some of the most bloody, violent, terrorist enabler countries with some of the most tragic histories of massacres, totalitarianism, corruption, and complete wage disparity. It is quite telling. And if you think this is only about Islam and islamism, you better check your history books once again because that's the only real difference - time. Christian theocracies were as bad, if not even worse than Islam based theocracies are today. What has really saved democracies from becoming similar to Islam based theocracies are today is secularism.
So, even if it looks kinda dumb initially, one of the things that actually allows democracy in the US to prosper and go forward is exactly that groups like these exist, and that they are able to pull up stuff like this.
Provided that it's basically as ridiculous as people making protests or demanding laws based on faith alone, as long as it's kept outside what the state does.
We more and more need strong institutions that will not allow particular religions to have a say in state matters. And unfortunately, this seems to have been becoming more and more true through the entire world. We are once again walking towards a world where religion dictates too much.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
See that last lady there? That's the stuff cults and terrorists are made off. A system of belief built with lies, misinformation and fearmongering that places them out of their own realities and forces them into a fictional narrative that will justify any course of action regardless of consequences to eliminate an imaginary threat. Because it's not led by reason anymore, it's led by uncontrollable and immeasurable FUD, anxiety, and unknown variables.
That there is freaking scary, and it's the scariest part of american culture in recent years - that there are so many people vulnerable to that sort of mentality.
I'm not for willy nilly open borders without a system for any country in the world... unless it's part of a limited and comprehensive deal among countries like the EU.
But illegal immigration is not a national crisis, it does not threat the so called american way of life (which I will argue is a term that has been totally corrupted and emptied of it's original meaning, since it originally included being humanitarian, forward looking, and optimistic), it is statistically insignificant by all measures, and furthermore, building a wall is the most wasteful, inefficient and frankly backwards way of trying to deal with it.
Not only it won't work for shit, it's probably the solution that wastes more money and resource of all other possibilities and has some of the worst drawbacks.
Build a wall to stop the barbarian invasions might have been in vogue a millenia ago, I think people can come up with something better nowadays, since we're nkt in the dark ages anymore, countries are not at war with everyone else all the time, and annexing territories etc etc.
More importantly though, it's just incredibly undemocratic like, and very dangerous by design, to have a tool like government shut down handled the way it was.
Particularly for people who are forced to work without pay, they have another name for that, and it's called slavery. I'm not american so I dunno how that came to be, but it just boggles the mind. Let me tell you this shit keeps repeating regardless of who is in power, you will start seeing massive distortions in public service everytime a potential shutdown could happen, and they will be for the most part very negative. Because of course bad things happen if you have a period of time in a job that perhaps you boss will stop paying you and forcing you to work anyways no matter what's happening in your personal life. I'm amazed there wasn't a systemic meltdown this time already. Just imagine if a major catastrophe had happened during these days...
1
-
Well, if people understand that giving money upfront to alleviate multiple problems that stems from commercialization/exploitation of several basic services that should be universal, free and public is a good route, why not? It's at the very least something, and kind of an imperfect shortcut to stabilize things.
But ultimately, relying on UBI for me personally sounds like a stopgap solution, while the underlying problems should be resolved. Education, healthcare, jobs, security and a bunch of other things needs to be pulled back to basic human rights status.
I actually don't buy the argument that robots will steal all our jobs. I can accept that this could happen far far faaaaar in the future when we have absolutely solved a whole ton of humanity's problems in a period where the entire planet is facing problems around negative birth rates and whatnot. But right now? Nope. A period of instability, sure, but automation has been here for a long time now, and robots are not all that much different from it. People will move to other sectors, and robots will gradually take some areas, but not overnight, and not uniformly.
I guess it does connect well with libertarian principles, but it just doesn't connect well for me personally. I'd rather see strong politics towards resolving the underlying problems instead.
Problem I see with UBI is for the long term, and for the prolonged health of a country's economy. Because ultimately, money is just a tool - it can be used for good or bad, and if I'm being honest, I've just seen too many examples of money, power and time being wasted on.... crap.
Perhaps I'm a bit biased on this, but it just seems that sometimes the people who needs help the most are also the people with the worst control of money, worst spending habits, and least prepared to deal with an influx of cash. And to be clear, it's often not their own faults - it's because some societies have created all sorts of trappings and all sorts of strategies to keep exploiting them.
It is often a problem with capitalist societies. The people who needs basic human rights the most, the people who are living in poverty, that are going day by day, that cannot save for emergencies, that have to pass days without eating much, that have a hard time finding a job, that are the most abused and most exploited in society, are also the ones least equipped to handle money well. Because scammers, advertisers, psychological predators, and all sorts of people willing to take that money out of them as soon as they get it will likely target them the most, rather than people who already have a good ammount of money and will likely put the extra money in something more secure.
So it ends up that giving this ammount of money for people no strings attached, could really go both ways.
Much like the next guy (I'm not an US citizen), I'd friggin love to have that kinda guaranteed cash on hand every month. 1000 USDs would cover most of my monthly basic expenses.
Boring as it may sound, I'd probably just stash it into a savings account and consider it emergency money. As a general rule for any society though, I think countries would prosper more if they had all basic human rights guaranteed by the government as best as possible in comparison to any ammount of money the government could give with no strings attached.
Because ultimately, the collectivism that is behind this sort of support is the real reason why we live in societies. It unifies people under a flag, it protects people from individual bad decisions, it eliminates potential threats, and it dedicates a portion of a country's unified power for the benefit of all citizens.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Call me a pessimist, but the way things are going, my personal prediction is this.
At some point in the next couple of centuries or so, humanity will face it's own mass extinction event. A significant percentage of people will die. It'll be a humanity defining event.
I'm not entirely sure what will come first - a nuclear war, runaway effects of climate change, a global pandemic that is even worse than the one we just went through, some of those combined... those seem the more likely ones to me. Less likely but also possible, meteor impact, Carrington event like catastrophe or something related to advances in tech gone wrong - AI, nanotech, etc.
The hope I have is that there is enough left of us and the environment to make conditions livable, so that we can recover. Not sure how deep the reset will go.
If we recover to be better or just continue doing what we do, that depends on how many survive and with how much resources we are left to work with. But there will be fundamental changes in the way of life... and it's going to be harsh for the vast majority of the population.
Independent on what flavor it comes, it will make large portions of the world impossible to live in. This is already coming one way or another with Climate Change, but think worse than even that.
Now, for the very optimistic take on my pessimist train of thought. If no nuclear wars happen, Climate Change does not cause major runaway effects, and a global pandemic never happens again in the next centuries... what I think is important for people to consider is that Climate Change by itself, going the way it is, is already poised to cause a huge catastrophe in the near future. Slow moving, increasing in severity, but happening all around us. It has already started.
We are already f*cked. Even if by some magic we stopped emitting climate change causing gases today, the accumulated effects are already poised to completely change humanity by the end of the century.
We'll have huge climate change related mass migrations, we'll likely have wars because of those, we'll have mass die offs of entire ecosystems, natural disasters will become more frequent, we have islands and coasts that will go underwater... it's already inevitable.
A whole ton of stuff we currently depend on will just change or cease to exist. There will be tons of things we'll have to adapt to.
If you factor that in the worry about overpopulation... it's kinda like eh, doesn't matter all that much. By which I mean, bigger and scarier things are to come. We'll be decimated one way or another, as a species I mean. Remains to be seen if human ingenuity will be able to keep the species going after the worst came and went...
1
-
I don't drink, I do smoke, but not weed... just the way more addicting and bad for your health and health of others around you average tobacco which is even more mindblowing that it's legal while weed isn't.
But yeah, fully agreed. I am not one to be convinced by highly charged highly biased takes, but I think it's plenty obvious that at the very very least, marijuana should be in a classification that allows research into it. And arguably, if people who are sick are already being prescribed what ammounts to synthesized marijuana to treat their problems for a whole ton of money, they should have the option to smoke pot or eat some brownies instead.
And given that weed is less addictive than several other drugs, I'd say it's a bit terrifying that weed isn't legal in some states and some countries, while opioids or fentanyl are killing tons of people everyday, with several addictions starting inside a doctor's office with a prescription that often times was made for money, not for the benefit of the patient.
This only furthers my belief that the war on drugs was blind, shot itself in the foot, and let go of a huge target right there. How can tons of people be in jail and researchers be unable to look into a drug that is not very addicting and doesn't have many side effects, while doctors be prescribing something that has tons of research, is widely known to be addictive, and is now killing tons of people everyday?
And look, I don't even wanna try it myself. Legalization for me wouldn't change much. I'd probably only take it if I ended up with some disease or sickness where it would be benefitial to make use of it. I don't have any interest in recreational use. Same as alcohol, I just don't like taking stuff that has the potential to alter my senses too much. I like my senses the way they are.
But if others want to, I don't feel it's my place to deny the right for others, specially in an environment where both alcohol and tobacco are legal. It's just wrong. And this hypocrisy has gone long enough. We just can't keep justifying laws and stupid wars on the retrograde morals of backwards people. There's enough going wrong because of that already.
I know people who smoke pot, I don't really like being around when they do, but it's just stupid for it to be illegal. There is absolutely nothing different about them in comparison to others. In fact, I'd rather be around them when they are high rather than being around other friends when they are drunk. Alcohol has directly or indirectly taken the lives of at least half a dozen people I know, as well as making life very hard on some relatives. Marijuana? Meh, nothing. If anything went wrong, it's because they were caught with it and unfairly villanized for it.
On the other hand, this is something I wouldn't exactly open to other types of drugs. Crack, cocaine, mushrooms, pcp, lsd, ecstasy, opioids, meth, heroin... those are just plain nope. Ideally, we'd live in a world that everyone could do as many drugs as they wanted to without affecting the lives of others... freedom of choice and all. But we live in societies, and the choices we make affect others and society itself whether we are aware of that or not.
Any drug that has a bigger potential of being even further abused, becoming even more addictive, and altering the sense of people to the point of them becoming extremely violent, suicidal, or just completely unaware of what they are doing... that's not something I'm willing to accept because I don't want my personal safety stripped away because of the irresponsibility of others. One of the reasons why I cannot wait to see the day truly autonomous cars arrive and we take away driving from at least a good portion of humans' hands... it's quite obvious that we're not capable of taking that responsibility as serious as we should, like, as a species.
1
-
The incredible thing about this all is that you can't say it's just striding along political lines anymore - it is trampling over decisions made along with US history with much struggle and bloodshed, with a current revisionist ignorant viewpoint, and going against fundamental principles that makes a modern democracy just that - a modern democracy.
Overturning Roe v Wade can't be said it's just an imposition of opinion from Republican judges... it's trampling over US' secularity status, it's trampling over women's rights, it's going against what scientific consensus has to say about the effects of banning abortions on saving lives, it's trampling over what science says about when life begins, and it is going against the will of many Republicans who understand at least a few of those already. It takes the rights of half the US population in favor of a radical religious minority. It promotes laws made not on solid argumentation and logic, but on the imposition of what one religion radical side has to say. It's as if the medical board came out tomorrow saying that we need to go back to applying medicine based on the four humors starting tomorrow.
The Supreme Court went radical on this one, it's not leaning towards one side or the other, it took a fundamentalist decision that would be more adequate for a theocracy. Their decision is based on nothing logical, nothing of consequence, nothing of consideration about the things they are ruling over, nor the people who will be affected by their decisions. When you have judges on the Supreme Court that takes their decisions this isolated from the society that will be affected by those, doesn't matter who put them there, it's not representative in principle. They took their individual interpretation of a historical piece of text over what people are saying to them, which for me has only one name - religious radicalism.
On guns, it's perhaps even worse, because it transforms the Constitution into some sort of cult-like religion to be followed at any cost. It's transforming the Bill of Rights, which no doubt is a cornerstone piece of legislation that forms the base of law in the US to SERVE it's people, into the ten commandments read by a fundamentalist preacher - as something that people have an obligation to follow according to the church's specific interpretation without questioning it.
This is the sort of stuff the Taliban, ISIS and other terrorist groups use to justify their actions. Interpretations of historical or religious text that are so narrowminded and so distorted towards violence and taking rights of others it might as well be anything else that it wouldn't change anything.
The Constitution wasn't made to be used that way, there was ample understanding that it was never supposed to be read that way, but perhaps it's the only way these so called judges seems to be able to think about things - further evidenced by the crap that comes out of their mouths, or the very serious crimes they are being accused of doing in the past.
And the irony of criticizing countries where laws are dictated by narrow religious interpretations isn't lost there. I see this happening not only in the US, but a whole ton of other democratic nations that were taken over by religious zealots, cult of personality idiots, conservative retrogrades and puritanical sanctimonious revisionists.
Middle Eastern nations struggling with this have a long and relatively recent history of a radical fundamentalist powerful ruling class that is still getting on and off to this day, and it continuously plagues their populations, taking away fundamental basic human rights because someone in power said that this is his understanding of an old text. Western affluent modern democratic societies are supposed to be beyond that, though having very similar histories in their past. But we're walking backwards here. Is this an inevitability of human nature, and by consequence, societies?
1
-
ROFL, I guess this is probably true to most westeners first experience at an onsen.... well, at least those who already knew about it before going, not those who knew nothing, got there, and then suddenly realized everyone was going in naked and no one was wearing trunks or something. xD
It didn't bother me much, personally. I mean, it did, in the sense that I was never totally comfortable walking around naked, but once you're in the bath, you're in.
Guess I was fairly lucky too... the few times I got to an onsen it was mostly with family and the onsen was relatively empty. Even then, it was family that I wasn't super close to.... still better than complete strangers though.
Fat japanese descendant guy with small penis anyways, I knew from start I'd be pretty unremarkable and just disappear in the background steam, so. :P
1
-
Sorry, but I find the final argument a bit disingenuous... while it's true that we accomplished some pretty awesome stuff that past scientists didn't predict, it is comparatively much more true that we never accomplished a f*ckton more stuff that they said was impossible too. From the absolutely mundane like hoverboards and flying cars (as predicted, I accept no lame replacements), to bigger more generalistic stuff like time travel and well... FTL.
I mean, I don't really want to poo poo on anyone's parade I guess... given enough time, like infinite, everything can be accomplished, perhaps? It's just that I'm not really sure we have that much time to spare anymore.
My guess for interstellar space travel, if we ever get there before destroying ourselves as a sentient species that is, would be going for another approach - us rather than the stuff around us.
Mind uploading, some advance form of VR, etc.
Which is highly problematic if we make the conditions of living in this planet impossible, but you know.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
The only thing that individuals accomplish by stating that "sissi men", crossdressers, effeminate man, and then gays, lesbians, LGTBQ+ people are not part of their country's history is just making evident their own ignorance on the subject, nothing more than that.
This idiot with the hat that keeps saying western culture is trying to oppress them is not only obviously completely outdated in his references, he has no idea what he's talking about, and seems to be fixated in a masculine model propagated by western Christian puritanical values rather than giving any reference of a concept of masculinity from his own nation, which is just sad. It looks to me that all his references aren't about this fabled Chinese culture, but rather something completely foreign to China, like he was borrowing sexist references from the west to justify his ideology. It's just pathetic.
It's a huge "Hey, hear me out on how little I know about the history of the culture I'm trying to defend, because I've been blinded by bullsh*t, FUD and paranoia".
This is true in the west, it's true in the east too. So called "men" shouldn't be this afraid, if they see themselves as so macho, aggressive and apparently superior, of living with differences. Accepting that the world does not revolve around your concepts and accepting differences is strength, true strength is not this bullsh*t that so called alpha males keep professing.
That's fragility, that's what is really eroding cultures. This fear of the boogieman and of catching the cooties or something. That does not display courage, that displays weakness and insecurity. That's immaturity. You can't even confront reality outside your bubble, you are far more a coward than "sissy men" or whatever. If you are gonna accuse other men, women, LGBTQ+ people of being a threat to "courage", you better stop acting like a chicken yourself. It's always these old decrepit idiots with a punchable face that will say crap like that. It's the egotistical self image tied to stupid idealism and having never dared to step outside their toxic bubbles. They don't understand or know what is out there, they refuse to leave their comfort zones, and so they live their entire lives thinking they know better than anyone else. Cowards with their heads buried inside their own asses.
China in particular, an ancient culture that has gone through all sorts of transformative periods through it's history, also has an extremely long history that includes crossdressing, that includes transgender people, and that also does not have the burden of puritanical religions to muddy the waters, will also produce assholes like that. It's just amazing how convergence works, right? Every culture, no matter their history, no matter how different from one another they are, no matter what the ideology, politics and whatnot are, will always produce a class of cowards who never had to deal with any problems in their lives who have now become paranoid and in panic about some supposed cultural rot that is happening because they are seeing things that does not match what they've seen inside their thick social bubbles, and they are too afraid to understand it better.
If you are worried about protecting your culture and protecting military might, values, and whatnot, it is just shameful to behave exactly like radical Catholics and be blind to your own culture history. Any Chinese citizen who has studied even the littlest bit of their own country's history will know that crossdressing and transgender people were a pretty normal thing during several periods of the country, usually the most prosperous ones. This has never subverted culture or some sh*t. Much to the contrary, the periods when people feel they are free to express themselves however they want to without artificial government pressures, puritanism, authoritarianism, religious zealotry getting in the way, are exactly the times when societies thrive the most.
You can see this worldwide. It's when governments starts demanding that their citizenry behaves under more and more stringent rules that they truly fail. The most failed ideologies and most failed countries worldwide tends to be those where governments and cultures dictates that they need to live under unbearable rules "for the country's prosperity" "for the protection of our culture" or some other bullsh*t excuse like that.
But that old guy with a hat will never understand that, because he's under a veil of ignorance that does not let him see anything. His ego will be his downfall. Personally, I think the guy in the dress looks way cooler and more courageous than the idiot with the stupid hat.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
I dunno about something something killer, because I think that's a hugely stupid idea from principle specially for an emerging technology. Why the heck would you want to kill a company that is working in new tech, makes no sense. The term is already sensationalistic enough for well estabilished concepts, let alone emerging ones.
But putting it in terms of real competition, these new concepts (which is all they are) could be competition.... if they had come out when Tesla was still announcing their vision, and these concepts were still around developing their entire product stack.
As it is, these new cars are nothing more than showroom concepts from unknown brands. Same stage, like MKHB said, that Faraday Future was and died.
I don't even hold supercharging facilities and autonomous driving capabilities against them. There are some potential ways around those, that would be very half-assed but still could work for some. Like charging on regular grid only with some technology to improve charging times, and just ourtight buying autonomous driving tech from another company. Again, half assed, but could work somehow.
The thing Tesla has that no one else has, specially these new concept models, is infrastructure - even if construction is still ongoing. We're talking about the Gigafactories here.
You see, the biggest thing Tesla is doing is not Model 3, Model X or whatever car model. The biggest thing they are doing are humongous factories that are producing stuff like the huge ammounts of lithium batteries necessary for the cars, in an automated-as-possible way to have flexibility for changes, together with other lines of products or stacks that are considering the upwards demand in energy consumption lots of EVs will put into the grid - those Tesla home batteries and solar panel technology.
They are not envisioning it, they are not showing projections for the future, they are doing it. Tesla has already overcome, even if they still have few kinks to work out, the hardest and worst part of every project - making it happen.
This is what puts Tesla ahead of even traditional brands. Traditional car manufacturers might have the history, tradition, and several complex portions of making cars on their side, plus the money of course, but this infrastructure around the tech for batteries and whatnot, they either don't have it just yet, or they are not focusing on it as much as Tesla is.
Again, I don't even think big car manufacturers being conservative about what EVs can do or coming up with bizarre ideas is necessarily a bad thing... but the fact that they don't have a focus on or dominate the other part of EVs - batteries, charging tech, infrastructure, testing, etc - that's where they might fail if they don't invest a whole ton of money on that side of things.
A proper Tesla competitor would have to think about EVs that way, and enter production asap. I'm not even much of a Musk fan myself, but the way he envisioned EVs is far ahead of anyone else, because the scope is just much bigger. While he's working on the entire stack of his vision, most EV companies are working on the car alone.
Let's talk about, for instance, barriers. Say these startups don't go bankrupt and keeps developing their vision. Ok, now they want to sell it at scale. If they don't have a lithium battery factory, they'll have to rely on 3rd parties. In a world that is demanding more and more lithium battery production, what would happen if you suddenly have an influx of cars that also needed them? Well, you'd be paying more and more for it, the EV company would be tied to 3rd party prices fluctuations, and you could be losing control fast.
In fact, for Tesla it'd actually be pretty great if some of those startups survived. Tesla could focus on making some types of cars, let others focus in other types of cars, and then just close a deal up for usage of not only superchargers, but also batteries, solar panels and whatnot. Tesla is already working on the other part of stack, and if market pressure is enough that other EV companies have nowhere else to go, they will have to work with Tesla one way or another.
Even if Tesla faced a catastrophic scenario where their cars became ultimately useless in comparison to cars from other brands, they'd still have that other part of the stack to lock down other manufacturers. See where I'm getting with this?
I always thought that the biggest potential competitor to Tesla would be a company like Google. I'm not sure why Google decided not to go the other way though. By this point, I had imagined that Google would have already outright bought a big car brand, integrated their autonomous driving system with it, also started heavily investing in all tech involving EVs, and started selling cars already. But they are missing this bus. They could still sell their autonomous driving tech to other companies, but again, if you are not working in all fronts, you don't have a complete vision, and at some point this becomes a huge disadvantage.
1
-
Thing is, this is extremely predictable, a natural progress of not punishing people who commit libel and defamation with political purposes. Well, with any purpose. Plus of course not punishing people for violent threats, stalking, and all sorts of other related crimes.
It goes way back to when Trump first got into politics, if not even before that. It also has everything to do with not properly investigating, going after, and punishing radical people who listens to these criminal speeches and messages, and uses that to justify criminal behavior, violent threats, and violent action.
I'm sorry to say this, but this is straight up something that the US brought into itself, welcomed it, haven't done anything to stop, and normalized in the past few decades. It's the sort of absolutist inconsequential and corrupt "freedom of speech" concept that criminals keeps bringing up to defend themselves.
And it's a problem that has multiple ways of addressing, but every single one of these ways have been neutered for lack of action, for not taking the problem seriously enough,
Trump should've been arrested from the beginning for his messages and speeches that accuse innocent people of crimes they didn't commit, for calling for violence, and for abetting in criminal behavior. That's only one way to address the problem, but it's the most obvious one.
People keep running in circles trying to understand and find ways of solving these things when they are right in front of them, but no one is willing to commit to it, do the work necessary for it to happen, or change things for the obvious action to take place.
Justice should've acted to guarantee a way of forcing the telecom industry to quickly identify and pass forward the source of calls and messages sent from people threatening to do all sorts of things - this pre-dates Trump by decades, but it wasn't done in any regulatory capability due to lobbying and other stuff. So what you have now is a communications system that is primed for abuse. Seems that not even people using their own personal phones are getting caught anymore, let alone criminals who uses anonymity practices to hide themselves. And if you need to put hundreds if not thousands of extremist people behind bars, so be it. Number of people is a problem that directly correlates with not taking action sooner.
It's just that none of this matters when you have an entire justice system contaminated by radical ideology, politics, and extremist level favoritism towards politicians who should not be called politicians at all.
People still fail to see this, so normalized the behavior has become, but today's Republican party is not something you'd consider a political party in a normal democratic environment. They are a group of radical people willing to commit crimes to overthrow democracy in America. They are fascists, scammers, grifters, criminals willing to break all rules and destroy every foundation of American democracy in the name of their project for power takeover. And the damages they've already caused are already past the point of recoverability.
We are reaching and will continue on this path towards radicalization of a huge portion of the population because it benefits Trump and the people around him. And soon we'll have QAnon levels of conspiracy theories causing death and destruction, more than it already did. Because it is the logical path that this kind of radicalism takes, be it in politics, in terrorist organizations, in radical cults, and in run of the mill scam tactics. So you either recognize the current Republican party as being part of the categorization, or US politics is heading towards the same categorization soon.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1000 Chernobyl meltdowns wouldn't be able to match the damage Instagram influencers have brought upon the world... the fact that I'm not surprised by Kyle's accounts here is already horrible in itself. Everyone that lives in any place that attracted Instagram influencers at some point will know about their reckless behavior, how entitled they think they are, and how ultimately bad things became even if for a while it brought some money in. It's predatory tourism in it's ultimate form.
I really do sincerely believe that we more urgently need to learn how to stop these people and these trends from happening rather than be worried about the dangers of nuclear power. And of course, in the grander scheme of things, just stop social media in general.
What is the real point of reversing Climate Change and trying to undo the damages we humans did to the planet if we're going to leave it to a future society where everything revolves around corrupt communications systems such as social networks and group chats that we have today and are already rearing their ugly heads for everyone to see how damaging they can be?
It might be Chernobyl's second disaster, but I think social media and the culture that is being generated around it is more a sign of our own extinction event. I'm not even joking here. The disruption this reckless uncontrolled means of communication that came in with the advent of technologies such as the Internet, smartphones and whatnot might just be too much for human societies to control and bear. These things have a hand in the current state of democracy erosion, misinformation take over, countries taking a turn to the radical right, and a whole host of things that incentivizes thoughtlessness, hatred, violence, and a tribalistic mindset that when amplified leads to war and destruction.
1
-
The best advice I can make regarding education in my country these days is a very simple one: learn english.
This isn't to suck up to the US, which humble opinion currently has a very fucked up system right now with those insane student debts, not because I am biased because I know english... it's just the quality and quantity of information you can get in english that you simply cannot in my native language.
This became even further evident with the pandemic.
While we do have eLearning, online courses, Internet portals in universities and schools, plus a bunch of other stuff... the number of quality, fact checked, cross referenced, quality material available in the most popular services and portals (like YouTube) in my native language in comparison to english is like... a decade behind.
The whole reason why 90+% of my Internet usage is in english. Because you go look into content in my native english, it's all memes, pranks, jokes, soap opera crap, soccer, celebrities, and all this endless low brow crap.
Not that you don't also have all that in english, but it's again, quality and quantity. You have to dig through too mich crap to find quality educational or science related material ib my native language, and even then it's often superficial stuff, poorly referenced, in a form that ends up not forming a strong web of cross content and reference to keep going.
English language has already more or less build most of the material foundarions needed to cover basic to advanced education. There might not be a single unified standardized structure quite there yet, but the content is available. In my native language, we're still building this foundation. There are subjects you might be interested in you still won't find, or will have a very hard time researching deeper into the theme.
In any case, I agree. Education will, and imho has to keep updating and changing. Pandemic was kind of a wake up call, but more than that, it hasn't properly adopted and shifted to the age of Internet and of information networks.
I'm also old... been very long since last I was in school, but I attended 2 universities, one private and one public, and some old stuff kinda persists there.
One thing coming from qn university point of view I do tend to agree and think it's also valid for schools too. One of the very important stuff you learn there, indirectly, is the social part. Being forced to live daily life and learn how to handle and deal with different opinions of people coming from different backgrounds and different situations to accomplish tasks.
This is needed perhaps more than ever, and a school system that does not promote that leaves a very big gap, which is why I also agree that online only education will never fully replace presential.
We need reforms though. There are some very basic, very important stuff that is being left out because they are relatively new, and becoming extremely important.
The Internet era shifted a whole ton of responsibility to the hands of individuals, and we are failing to handle that.
There is an urgent need for schools to teach how to handle this tool that everyone innevitably has to use for everything these days, and the approach is lacking so far.
But it's a transitional period I guess, so we'll get there eventually.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Authoritarian regimes with too many authoritarian figures tends to self implode...
At some point Putin will need to disappear with either one or both of these figures, take charge, put other people who respects Kremlin command blindly, and this will end up in huge costs for any potential military effort, which will stop Russia's expansionism once again.
It'd be funny if it wasn't so tragic. Putin is basically fast retracing the history of USSR.
All of these things are totalitarian dictatorships 101.
Wagner group actions shows Putin's weakness to control the army vs private military spat that always happens when you do stuff like that, along with using criminals as mercenaries.
Of course, it's not that Putin did not know this was a possibility, it's just that the situation in Ukraine is so bad that it has now come to this. The commander of the mercenary group going online to criticize Russia's army command.
This type of strategy is great for scorched earth invasion such as what Putin is doing, but control is always a problem because even dumb criminals and dumb private military figureheads eventually realize they are being badly paid to be cannon fodder.
The internal fight and fracturing of groups leads to derision, which leads to splits, which makes them easier targets. Ukraine is winning this fight.
And we've long known from history that conquest by force and violence tends to round back to bite dictators in the ass. Some die before realizing this, some become so paranoid they need to be dethroned by their own people a the risk of complete self destruction. Putin is likely the latter, he's already walking the path.
Putin has put a lot of faith into them being the larger country, the more powerful overall in military terms, but he underestimated the problem of being a country that conquers by force and violence in modern times. He's fighting against not only Ukraine, but a global culture that is tired of this sh*t, and has learned at least a few lessons over the years how to deal with this type of ideology.
Wagner group, if they ever make good on their promises, get away from Ukraine and go towards the African continent to fight their own ideological wars, they'll be the next ISIS, and the world has to treat them exactly like it. I'd rather they all die in Ukraine by Ukraine soldiers' hands, which is what they deserve, but if not, they must be hunted like the terrorist group they are.
Putin will be even more weakened in his "strategic military operation" inside Ukraine and will likely either be chased out, or Putin will have to come down to negotiations, but not before several attacks against Russia itself happens, be it led by Ukraine forces, or by Russian citizens that are tired of his leadership. His time is getting to an end. I just hope lessons are learned and Russia sets itself up to not return once again to this. It seems to me that the fall of the USSR wasn't enough, and so this time NATO, UN and others will have to force something harsher there.
1
-
It's the one thing that makes several of the things in the list work - care about community, plus community activity.
At least the festivals, kizukai, cuisine gamification and night life are in part because of it.
Here's the thing, particularly about festivals. It's not the festival that matters - it's everything that comes before it, the preparations, the decisions made before, the ideas that are discussed and then promoted in the neighborhoods where the festival will be taking place. The boring part, which most tourists will never see.
The festival is the culmination of it, but it's the whole planning part that is the most important thing.
For cuisine gamification and yokocho it's kind of a similar thing, at different scales.
Also valid for several other things people find interesting about Japanese culture... the school festivals, how temples are organized and maintained, a good part of the cleanliness, security, preparedness for emergency situations, how there seems to be some thoughtfulness in how infrastructure is organized, and so on.
On a residential level, you have neighborhood associations that will have regular meetings to discuss stuff about safety, emergency preparedness, stuff like that.
On commercial associations, that's where the ideas about local specialties, combined promotional and advertisement campaigns, general rules and whatnot will come up.
These things go up and up until it reaches national level, when you get stuff like the regional specialties, perhaps mascots, tourist promotion, and so on.
I dunno how strong this continues being in Japan, but a whole lot of things that I find interesting in Japan tends to have some involvement with the local community association.
I'm not sure if I'd want to steal it for my country though... it's more like a thing that needs to grow organically. I always grow tired enough when I have to attend HoA meetings. :P It's because people never learned how to behave, how to concede, how to promote, how to discuss things in community, that these meetings gets so tiring.
But there are a few reasons why I think this side of the culture in Japan, which is not often seen by tourists and even expats living in Japan, is the central part of lots of things we admire - it engages regular people in politics in a fundamental way, from a very young age onwards. And it keeps going indefinitely.
Not in politics as we see in western nations, but in the core definition of politics - decisions made by the collective for the collective.
Anyways, wishful thinking I guess. But still, a pretty interesting cultural component. This appears a lot without direct mention in Chris', Tokyo Creative, and several other Japan channels. A trip to visit a farm that is open for tourists to do some activity that is related to local specialty... it's not always, but often the decision to make something like that available was made via a community association.
1
-
1
-
1
-
What people have generally to get is that yes, Apple has some pros and qualities to their stuff, but it's not magic lala land utopia. They don't pay sweddish virgin nuns living on high steep futuristic factories to build your iPhones with their nipples using unobtainium and unicorn ivory or something. Your hardware is being assembled by the exact same chinese companies as hardware from Microsoft and Google. And a good part of components inside Apple products are exactly the same as in products from the competition, though Apple has been slowly working their way towards designing their own stuff - by purchasing other companies btw.
Apple is still a corporation, and it still holds the most classic problems in corporate environment, mass production, cutting corners and whatnot.
There is still too much unjustifiable fetishization around the brand's products, and by extention what the company does.
Their software and OS might be better for some case scenarios, and I agree they have better design teams and UX overall (relatively speaking, I don't think that holds much truth nowadays anymore), but it's a whole ton of PR and advertisement, and a whole ton of time and money spent on branding.
Which is quite unfortunately a loss for all of us. Why? Because Apple is the biggest corporation in terms of profitability, which means the vast majority of the market cares more about branding than anything else. This signals a trend for other corporations to do the same.
I'm also not against Apple users... though I am against Apple apologists, fanboys, and fanatics. There are plenty of jobs and scenarios where it really does make sense for people to use Macs, Macbooks, iPhones, iPads and other Apple products. From usability perspective, to productivity and whatnot. But it's not all cases, and not without drawbacks. And people should always think thoroughly about their choices.
It's why I don't buy the "but I always used Macs, so they must be the best" argument. If you never tried using other brands, how can you tell? And I mean really used, not just tested and dismissed imediately because it wasn't familiar to you. And I get that some people don't even wanna try because it's just convenient to stick with Apple, but if that's the case, just say so. Don't presume you know better if you didn't even try.
1
-
Well, on the political side, the US could start by arresting the criminal president that gave rise to political tribalism in the first place... really arresting, not spending years reporting arraignments, accusations, court procedures, yadda yadda. Perhaps also take down several of his minions and some corrupt judges.
But that's for the polarization part... for attempts on politicians lives, that's a far more complicated and more deep problem that will require a lot of work, a lot of reforms, and a lot of reversals not only in politics, but also law, intelligence, culture and other stuff. It's structural reforms several countries are not ready to make.
And even then, violence in politics can only reduce, it can never be 100% prevented... it's simply because when you have politics, you have people in representative positions.
1
-
1
-
Just amazing the difference a decade makes, right? Or how much things remain the same depending on perspective.
Almost 10 years ago, the US got attacked by international terrorists. This gave birth to an entire security theater, total erosion of individual privacies, barriers and walls built to protect themselves and all that.
International terrorism never ended, and it consumed most of the decade. Yes, Bin Laden was killed, but we've learned that the hydra lives on, it doesn't end. We never found out a way to end this, and perhaps we never will.
A decade later, after 4 years of signs and multiple cases happening, the election of a lunatic and all that, domestic terrorists attack the Capitol by order of the president himself, entire governmental sectors got dismantled and taken over by people who believe in the most absurd stuff, and the democratic process is crumbling down. Actions are being taken yet again too little too late, this will likely continue going on for the next decade, and it'll likely be a repeat of the past decade, only this time it's right inside the country. Trump leaving presidency won't end it, no matter if he's impeached or not, arrested or not, properly take responsibility for his action or not.
This is yet another type of terrorism that doesn't let go, won't finish with heads taken down.
Institutionally and fundamentally, it is already worse than 9/11. The anti-american violent uprising is coming from inside, and much like other terrorist organizations, this also works in cells and via information and recruitment networks, brainwashing people and appealing to undue faith.
And looking at it a certain way, with all the actions and inactions the president took with the pandemic, it potentially already also is worse in number of lives lost too. But this time, a whole ton of americans are to blame for it too.
All of this is happening in the richest, most powerful country.
If this was fiction, I'd say it violated my suspension of disbelief, so absurd it is. But it's reality.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Then move, preferrably to some foreign country that does not enforce vaccinations, see what that will do to your kids.
You know, a huge portion of these problems that are affecting lots of americans have to do with lack of perspective and excess priviledge. The entitlement is palpable.
People start thinking they have the right to everything and can demand anything because they never went through situations that confronted that entitlement head on.
Living in society always has tradeoffs. If you are not willing to compromise even when the entire society is saying it's a good thing for everyone, you don't deserve to live there.
They think their beliefs are the only right ones, they are the only ones who knows the "truth", and cannot be bothered to listen to opinions outside their own bubbles.
This is what ends up creating an entire generation of NIMBY types, racist assholes, conspiracy theorists and gullible people who fall into disinformation campaigns.
American society is diseased and failing because of it's own trappings. I admired and respected it's culture and society not long ago. But now? I think a downfall is needed to put things back on track. I know the majority of americans don't think like that, but you know, it's starting to show badly.
Nothing effective is being done to prevent or even remediate this sort of mentality, so it seems things will only get worse.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
I kinda disagree on this, even though I use Facebook a bit in a similar way.
Twitter, I just chose not to participate. There's really nothing there for me. I do have an account, a relic of university days because coleagues used it to communicate for a while. It'd be Whatsapp these days, but I digress.
My account is there so that other people can't impersonate me, and just in case I start some other blog, channel or whatever for auto-share, if I even bother to set it up.
Facebook on the other hand, is where family and friends still post photos and updates. So I check occasionally... sometimes weekly, to see if something showed up. But I've been checking less and less these days, and it's becoming a read only thing - I only check, I don't put anything up. Half of them migrated to Instagram, which I also have an account, but haven't checked in months now.
The curation on Facebook is so heavy handed that at some point I think I broke some limit of blocking pages and people that it's kinda wonky. And at some point I just got fed up with all the little ways Facebook tries to exploit you. Not giving the choice to sort things chronologically by default, not letting you completely disable messenger, etc. There are all these easily fixable annoyances that Facebook doesn't mess with to advance their own agenda, with time this kinda thing gets old and you don't wanna deal with anymore.
The political thing is also bad like in the US, but because of curation and the people I follow, I mostly don't see it reflected on social media... so that dark side of the whole thing I honestly don't see much of.
I don't think social media needs to exist, in the same measure I don't think celebrity culture needs to exist, or something like tabloids. They are imperfect tools filling some sort of void for people, more often than not doing more damage than anything worth it. And there are likely better more productive tools to fill whatever void those are filling, but general culture needs to advance more to get it.
Social media is not the Internet though, I can't live without the Internet. But I can live perfectly without social media.
Will they ever cease to exist? Probably not. But I can live without it. And honestly, I think the world can too, and would be better for it... even if it had to go back to pre social media days.
What did we have pre social media days? Discussion forums and blogs. They may feel antiquated and inadequate these days, but I personally think they were just less harmful tools to spread infornation out, due to their own nature. I guess the trouble you went to create, manage and deal with those gave less opportunity for them to be a stream of conciousness thing, where people just vomits whatever is stuck in some part of their brains, like it happens in social media.
Anyways, while I do love my extended family and friends, plus we are geographically separated and most of them don't know how to use other tools, don't have the time to learn, or just don't want to... at some point I have to consider forcing the change, or simply getting out of touch. The important updates will come via direct contact, and the less important ones whenever we meet in holidays or whatever.
But if I'm being honest, I guess this is mostly a me thing. Earlier this year I tried a different social media experience. One which is arguably more fit for what I wanted - the descentralized, federated, social media which you can customize and filter out everything you don't wanna see. Fediverse, Mastodon, etc.
I used it for a while, but I'm not using anymore... I guess because the essence of it, or the format doesn't get my attention anymore.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Wrong guy, wrong tech.
Current geolocalization systems cannot be done at the microdot size, you'd likely need a whole new tech to do it at those sizes... mainly due to power limitations, but also because of chip size. It can be done, not very reliably, with something a bit smaller than a matchbox.
Microdot is just a dumb ID tag.
Even if you want something simpler like an RFID tag, it's still the size of a grain of rice... it can be implanted under the skin, but not mixed in vaccines.
Wrong guy because no matter what your opinion of Bill Gates is, he is very obviously not a guy who is interested in tracking people surreptiously. Billionaire who donated half his fortune to charity and is spending horrendous ammounts of money in humanitarian actions on countries in Africa, he doesn't care about stuff like tracking these days anymore. In fact, among all billionaires and trillionaires, there are plenty of people to be suspicious of rather than Bill Gates... he should be very very low on that list.
Google, Facebook, Clearview AI, Amazon... heck, even Apple should be more suspicious than Bill Gates. At the very least, it should be Satya Nadella, the current Microsoft CEO, or the chinese government.
Also, why the heck would any of those rich powerful people even need to go through the trouble of developing something this advanced when everyone is already being tracked through their smartphones anyways? Because some company out there really need to know where hermits are building their prepper caves?
Man, these conspiracy theories can be moronic and misinformed to some surreal levels at times... you'd think these people would at least know the basics. It sounds like scifi from the 60s or something.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Uncharted waters? More like raw sewage.
American mindset and culture have always put them in some special place as if they were always above the rest of the world, this sorta thing just goes to show how no country in the world is free from falling into populism and cultism that destroyed and keeps destroying entire nations. Life became comfortable enough for people to make entirely irresponsible uninformed decisions without a second thought, and late stage capitalism dictated that appealing to the last common denominators, basic instincts like fear of the unknown, guesswork and speculation tied to ignorance and hatred, is the way to go, because it's just more profitable.
This, btw, is the way several empires collapsed. Interesting that for the US case, there was no need for religious extremism, or hereditary incestuous succession of power... just a network of corrupt information producers and manipulators that don't even get to the level of WWII propaganda.
Like a country level psychological pyramid scheme or something... it's just ridiculous.
The material is so blatantly false and so easily discredited that they look like the work of angry teenagers or something.
It's just impressive how this many people, sometimes educated people that spent years in academia, people who were born and lived their entire lives in priviledged spaces, people who have traveled the world and should be old enough to know better, people who had and have all the conditions to be better informed, how these people can be this easily manipulated and fooled like that, using such a primitive and unrefined method.
This is why we as a species are really not going anywhere, and probably fast approaching our mass extinction event. It seems we didn't evolve enough to avoid the fate of the dinos. We're just not equipped to do it, or rather, we are equipped but given the choice, we'd rather fight amongst ourselves and die off.
It's so textbook populist and proto dictatorial that it sounds more like a bad fiction script, but it's happening in real life.
Some part of me wants to see Trump re-elected because it seems one term during a pandemic no less wasn't enough for a class of people to wake up. Alas, I don't think there is a real cure for this type of people... only death in misery. The brainwashing went too far, brains started to rot already.
1
-
1
-
1
-
I'm surprised it didn't happen earlier...
I dunno if people get this, but if you say that you're not going there anymore, or that you're staying in another city, complaining that it's too expensive, or badmouthing the city, etc.... you're only making it look like this is the right decision.
The problem is overtourism, high traffic, too much garbage and illegal photo shootings in private properties, stated in the description. Entitled people is exactly what the government is aiming to get rid of. It's an actual case of them not wanting you or your money.
Been to the city twice... before the pandemic, and 10 years earlier. On my first trip there it was already pretty hard to get a place to stay on short notice around Hanami holidays, and that's around 15 years ago. Mostly about local tourism that time, but it was already packed.
On my last trip it was just insane. Hotels fully booked a full year before the trip, and that was when the Arashiyama vandalism case got worldwide attention. Main tourist attractions were so packed that we didn't go to most of them, there were lots of garbage spread around the places we went, and too many people to enjoy places properly. Lines to go up Fushimi-Inari, Kyomizu-dera we just gave up, and even small street markets/matsuri had shoulder to shoulder packed movement. It was very clear that the city was not designed to support that many people at a time.
I predicted the problem with overtourism all the way back on my first trip. I knew changes would happen all the way back then. Some stuff just seemed too vulnerable and unprepared for a huge rush of tourists.
But of course, this isn't a great solution for anyone - except for the government. Local businesses don't profit from that, it's an added tax for accommodation business, and who knows how the money will be invested.
But I just can't think of anything else for such a case. Minpaku laws are pretty strict as is, but I think it'll become even stricter for major urban centers overtime there. And I'm all for it. I absolutely hate what short stay and AirBnb is doing to touristic cities, and to neighborhoods.
And these measures will eventually happen more and more to Japan's major cities. They have to find some way of spreading tourism around instead of it all becoming heavily concentrated in the so called Golden Triangle.
As someone with a dream to move there someday, as long as I find a way of supporting myself outside of local economy and properly speaking the language to integrate into society better, the over reliance on tourism is quickly becoming more like a curse than a blessing, from personal perspective. If I were to move there, even I as a foreigner wouldn't want to live anywhere near major tourism spots, quite honestly. :P Locals must feel this even more strongly.
1
-
There's a whole lot of layers and nuances to take from this, but here's an overall takeaway:
The Internet has definitely potentialized and brought the conspiracy theory community to light, and things can get pretty bad.
What most people don't think about or realize I guess is that the beliefs and ideas that conspiracy theorists seems to be trapped by kinda goes on a spectrum.
For instance, most security experts and just plain conscious people knows that there is a huge problem with privacy erosion happening for the past decade or so. Even if you are super ok with that and just conformed to the idea that it's "the future" or something, you still get hit every week or month with news of some huge hack or leak of databases containing the information of millions of people.
And it's pretty normal for people to also think that there are some very shady deals and very bad stuff being done behind the scenes with information collected on users without consent. That's because several corporations where already caught red handed doing all sorts of things with their costumers data, as well as the government caught with mass surveilance schemes and spying on citizens without any reasonable cause.
Governmental organizations are extremely opaque as well as some of the biggest corporations that pretty much have a hold on peoples' everyday life and routines.
This is one part of the equation.
One the other side, individuals have a huge web of things that have an influence on their perception and judgement processes of what's going on.
I think the majority of people will face some level of persecution complex in their lifetimes. It'd not only crazy people, specific medical conditions, ignorance and whatnot.
This touches a huge collection of things. Self-esteem, faith, self-image, social conditions, environment you live in and grew up in, political leanings, daily routines, philosophical standpoint, trust in people, trust in police, trust in government, how you deal with strangers, what is your initial reaction to unfamiliar situations, how much you think you know about the world, what previous experiences you had in the past, how much guilt you are capable of getting for yourself, how much people around you share about themselves, how much you yourself think about your own life, how much self awareness of your own behaviour you have, how much your own behaviour is led by others.... etc etc etc. It's an endless list of things that influence your thought process everyday in minor or major ways.
I personally have a cousin that for sometime dealt with major persecution complex problems. Every tiny sound in her home, she thought it was someone spying on her or someone trying to break in her home. She wanted a weapon to protect herself and she was always worried about being assaulted. She locked herself at home and couldn't do almost anything.
People locked into situations like those will start trying to justify what they feel with whatever is at reach, ignoring other details that would make others question themselves. It's confirmation bias setting in, and in this day and age where you can find almost anything on the Internet it becomes easier to go that route.
Every case will be different, but usually you have to take that person away from whatever is helping potentialize the situation. My cousin eventually moved away to live closer to her sister, she changed her environment and social context, and things got better. People can get plenty entrenched on their habits and routines even when it's obvious that that's the exact source of several issues. It's almost like drug addiction.
But get ready people, I think we're gonna be seeing far more cases like these in the future. Unfortunately, it's looking like we're marching towards a future environment, global economy, governmental systems and whatnot that will only potentialize conditions like these.
1
-
1
-
1
-
I can see how it makes sense for iFixit to have a product like this in their line, and to be fair, I think they came with a good idea there at not too much of a steep price considering the research and development needed to put physical controls on the battery pack... this is more complex than most people would think. If it works flawlessly I mean. xD
All of that aside though, I'm not entirely sure if this makes sense for people who already knows about all the portable pen style soldering irons that are out there. Lots of comments are talking about Pinecil, and Norm showed the TS series, but the reality of it nowadays is that you have a multitude of options in which iFixit's solution is kinda in the middle of everything.
So, if you want really portable solutions that don't require you to carry a base station around, there are battery powered soldering irons... well, they've been around for quite a while now.
I'm not sure how safe they are considering you are putting a Lithium battery right next to a heating element, but it makes sense because of how these portable soldering irons came to be in the first place - they came from vapes. Just that you are pushing the limits of the thing by heating a soldering iron there instead of a heating element to vaporize juice.
Of course, from the times this came from vapes to now, the category has evolved quite a bit. But you can still find what essentially is a vape body with an attachment to soldering irons out there. I've also seen several models that uses 18650s. They are understandably less powerful than ones that uses direct USB-C power, or adapted audio jacks, but they should still be enough for small jobs.
Which is where those portable irons are useful anyways - general micro soldering jobs.
But back to USB-C only, I can see how it makes sense for some people to move the controls away from the body, they can get in the way and result in accidental button presses, they are harder to see, and it's just nice to put the display away in a separate base station - but this of course means you'll need to carry that base around. So it reduces portability.
If you are going to require a base, plus soldering iron that needs to be connected to that base... it almost doesn't make that much of a different to just straight buying a regular soldering iron anyways. Apart from situations you don't have access to a power outlet.
You have one option for a battery bank, which is the one iFixit provides, which makes this system proprietary. Whereas you can use any USB-C battery bank with proper 60 or 100W charging and cable for the ones with controls directly on them.
1
-
Funny how assholes trying to defend the president say it's fine for a president to behave like that, but if it was a democrat president telling white folks to go back to their or their ancestors country they'd be all up in arms.
Here's what you gotta understand assholes - the US is the country of those representatives too. It's the country of people coming from all over the world. And if anything, this is the one thing americans should be proud of. It is incredibly sad that the one country in the world that should take pride for being diverse and cultivate this as an obvious advantage over several other countries would end up ruined with such petty reasoning.
If anyone had the right to say something like that, it would be only descendants of native americans, period. No one, not even the president has the right to tell them where to go. This is how a democracy works, and this is how it stays a democracy and not a dictatorship of the few.
Provoking discussions, questioning laws, and working to make the US a better place is the role of elected politicians. Or are you all fine with electing rich assholes so they can flaunt how great their lives is at the cost of your shitty lives? It's just flabbergasting this sort of behaviour. Why? Is there a masochist epidemic of sorts?
And it is also an extremely childish remark that is very unappropriate for the president of your country. The type of shit that will come out of people who have no proper argument to present in his defense. And it only makes it worse that some people are willing to defend him for it. Think for yourselves for a moment, see if that is really the thing you should be seeing in public messages from your highest representative. You can think whatever you want about his policies and his presidency, but this is just such a blatant display of ignorance that people in other countries are laughing at your politics these days... no one can take this shit seriously anymore.
If that is what americans are expecting from presidents these days, next time I suggest you vote for a comedian. At least instead of all this infighting, we can all laugh from his or her tweets and call it a day.
1
-
Very much agreed. Unfortunately, this is basically the whole way US and other developed country's companies found to mass produce products cheaply enough to turn all of them into commodity for US consumers, and Apple is a pretty new player to this game... even if it's among the kings of it right now.
Case by case it may sound abhorrent behaviour to us, but this has been happening since the times developed countries started outsourcing industries and whatnot to China and other poorer countries... it's a whole way modern capitalism works in the first place.
We're hearing about it more because of the Internet/mass information effect. More independent people going after the stories, doing independent checks, and blowing it up before powerful people have a say.
The solution is also simpler than people might think - law and heavy regulation for corporations that have 3rd party relationships, proportionate not only to the case, but to the size of the company. They only speak money, so let's speak money.
Bare minimum is compensating for moral, physical and other types of damage done to the victims, plus punitive damages for violating labor laws, plus punitive damages for breaking international agreements, plus whatever more is related to the case itself with money going for the victims and country that were exploited, and then you add up a lump sum proportionate to the revenue that the company makes so the fine makes sense, so we're talking about percentages of whatever the company made through the period the violation happened.
If the objective is to stop corporations from going to the bottom of the barrel to find the cheapest most questionable 3rd parties out there with all sorts of problematic behaviour, those types of practices needs to cost so much for the company that they'll spend whatever they need to avoid the situation.
Alas, it needs to be a global effort so the corporation doesn't just flee to another country. Or it needs to be a pre-condition for the company to do business in the country. US has the biggest Apple market bare none in the planet, so it has leverage there.
Unfortunately, this doesn't bode well with late stage capitalism that the US is going through. Too many people in power dependant on dirty blood money these companies make, not enough willingness to do what needs to be done, too much complicity.
Because really, that sort of stuff should've been done from start. As well as imposing laws and regulations to stop stuff like corporations using tax heavens, and all sorts of other schemes to enrich themselves while leaving nothing to the society that got them to the place they are right now.
Problem is, this needs a revolution. Radical thinking. A complete disruption on how politics and justice is done in the US and several other countries. But it's just too disruptive on how currently things are. It's so disruptive that even people staunchly against these Apple practice, if they stop to think much about how much things would change, would take a step back. And that's the real problem with these bad practices that have been going on for decades...
1
-
1
-
You can trust none, that's the answer. You should do whatever measures you feel necessary to protect your private data independent of what service you use.
Because I will say this, the problem with all of those companies is not what they say they will do or what they say they are doing, which you really shouldn't pay much attention to, but on the degree of transparency they all have - which is close to none for all three cases.
The size of these companies also all come with the standard "we'll only start giving a fuck if things affects a sizeable ammount of users". Sometimes not even then. Because that's how corporations operate. If your personal privacy was violated and you got fucked somehow, if you are not part of a larger crowd, you are gonna get ignored and shoved off as a civilian causalty or dispensable costumer.
The CEOs of all three companies have already clearly demonstrated over the years how easy it is for them to position themselves and to say that their companies are defenders or privacy or something ridiculous like that while behind the scenes they were either selling or leaking private user data. All of them. Regardless of business model, regardless of CEO bravado, regardless of motivations. Whichever way you go, the moment you put some blind trust on it is the moment you are fucked.
And no, Apple is not any better than the rest. They might not rely on an advertisement based revenue model, but they screwed up several times with data leaks, bugs, exploits and vulnerabilities to the point of there even existing specific tools and hacker groups selling services to extract data from Apple devices.
It's also always good to note that none of those companies have absolute control over everything they sell in their products, apps and services. The ecossystems are too big for that. So, even if you somehow got brainwashed to believe in the words of this or that CEO, it doesn't matter what their wishes and their mission statements are, they are all still vulnerable in a multitude of points.
The better way anyone worried with private data should go for is one, keeping as much as possible offline, two, doing whatever you can independently to guarantee privacy, three, open source projects. Full transparency, audits made by anyone who wishes to, no proprietary crap to hide flaws and problems, no commercial interests to paint a story one way or another, no marketing speech, no secondary interests. There you go.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Yeah... sorry, but if people still don't know about this, let me just put it out there.
Read Foxconn's Wikipedia entry if you need more info, but basically.
There have been reports from workers in Foxconn factories, which is the main manufacturer for Apple, and almost all other big tech companies in the US, of: excruciating working hours, without intervals, and insane extra hours, usually everytime a new high selling product comes out.
This goes back to early days of iPhone mind you, with Steve Jobs himself trying to give out excuses or say it never happened.
Remember the multiple cases of workers commiting suicide? That was just a single chapter into this whole thing. What international press and tech press have written about this is just a tiny part of the whole.
Foxconn has been reported for and accused of, multiple times, horrible working conditions, violent treatment of workers, employing child labor down to 12yrs of age in badly disguised "internship programs" with chinese schools, insane overwork and work hours, plus a whole ton of other stuff.
The suicide string was just a consequence of a long term practice of work abuse that was closer to slave labor already. Workers in some factories reported being forced to work all day everyday with almost no pause for restroom and meal, and some of those factories were purposedly located in remote areas so that there was basically nothing for these workers to do but work, sleep few hours in their cramped horrible bunks, and then wake up and go directly back to work.
People started killing themselves both because of bleakness, desperation and the hellish conditions they were in, and because a work death compensation would likely pay their families more than they hoped to get in a year or more of those horrible working conditions.
Employing Uighur slave work wouldn't be even the worst that they already did, and Apple never cut ties with it.
And there is one major reason for that, which I've already explained a few times in other comments - there is NO alternative to Foxconn. Not for the sort of insane mass manufacturing needed to attend developed countries demands.
That's not even to mention the insane ammount of slave work and bloodshed in cobalt mines, which all goes into the production of batteries and electronics we currently all use.
So, to be clear, it's not only Apple on this - it's also all the other tech companies for which Foxconn manufactures products. This includes, and this is not an exhaustive list: Acer, Amazon, Apple, Blackberry, Cisco, Dell, Google, HP, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft, Motorola, Nintendo, Nokia, Sega, Sony, Toshiba, Vizio.
Basically, all major companies that have large production of electronics products.
But really, if we expand it to cobalt mining and many other minerals needed for production of electronic components, it's just all companies, in all countries, which everyone is contributing to.
Production of complex commodities just helped making the process as opaque as possible.
And yes, fast fashion, cosmetics, and several other industries all work in similar ways.
There's no magic in cheap everything. It's just a result of out of sight out of mind exploitation.
And people complain about chinese companies copying stuff from corporations that have been exploiting them all these years? Heh. You do understand that the whole way China works today is the product of western capitalism, right? The environmental problems, the worker exploitation, the lack of regulations, the lack of welfare, the cheap labor, the human rights violations... it's all directly or indirectly related to China becoming a factory for the rest of the world, in the early industrial revolution model.
And don't think for a bit that it wasn't done on purpose. These big tech companies all knew and know what's happening there. As lots of us consumers also do. We just chose to do nothing about it.
And obviously, legislation also won't do anything about it. At most, it'll give opportunities for governments and whatnot to throw in some more ineffective lawsuits against big corporations, a way to compensate for all the tax evasion tactics these corporations have.
But it has nothing to do with Uighurs exploitation, worker exploitation, and human rights violations. It never has. I guess some politicians are dumb and ignorant enough not to know for how long this dynamic has been playing out, but I'm sure several of them know plenty well, and know nothing is gonna change there.
It's just playing to the crowd, empty threats, or find ways to take these corporations down a notch.
Because you know, if people really wanted for these things to stop, it's not indirect laws that are gonna change it, because quite frankly, it hasn't changed anything for decades now. It's sitting down with chinese government, through diplomatic channels, and agreeing on policies that would stop products being made in China by US private companies from going out of the country altogether, in the very least.
These random visits and whatever other measures Apple and other companies claim to do are all ineffective, they have always been, by design or not. And they know it full well. They won't allow 3rd party auditing, they block the factories from press, and it's all controled by them, so why th f*ck would an honest report ever come from it?
1
-
1
-
1
-
I'll just reiterate the comment I made on the previous video, which wasn't in time for Louis to read for this follow up I guess... eh, and I know my comments are just too long for most people to read anyways. xD
But again, the problem with Louis' logic on this topic is that while his arguments may apply to the US market, the brazilian market is different for iPhones, particularly new models. It's different for electronics in general. And honestly, I don't think going for one perceived problem invalidates another. I agree that most of other Apple anti-consumer stuff are far more dire in comparison to not including a charger, for myself and probably lots of other people, but this is about what's patently visible for brazilian consumer protection laws, not about whatever injustices Apple is hiding under the hood towards all it's brazilian costumers.
Apple got issued warnings from consumer protection regulatory bodies in Brazil, this does not equate to what Apple consumers in Brazil see as the biggest problems with Apple products.
Similarly, most of the questions made by congress in the US towards Facebook and Google CEOs have absolutely nothing to do with what US citizens are really worried about regarding privacy and security of their data... but it's done from a specific governmental perspective.
Ok, on to the arguments.
The cheapest iPhone charger available on the brazilian online Apple store isn't 20 bucks, but rather 200 brazilian reais. Also, iPhone 12 lineup is somewhere between 6000 (12 base model) brazilian reais and (12 Max Pro base model) 11000 brazilian reais, batship crazy price no one but the extremely rich in Brazil can afford. Most brazilians don't get 11000 a year in wage.
The market for latest model iPhones in Brazil is tiny. Apple's marketshare in Brazil is already waaaaay smaller than it is in the US... I think US is a bit over half the smartphone market, in Brazil it's somewhere between 10 and 15%, but it's composed mostly of older iPhone models. You can buy a brand new iPhone SE first model or iPhone 6 in brazilian market today, including in deals made with mobile networks. That's how far behind we are because of prices.
Again, this has to do with currency exchange rates, importation taxes, and other factors external to Apple's own will - but it means that for brazilians, an official USB charger is not a trivial purchase. With 200 bucks I can order something like 10 pizzas. I know 20 bucks is like a meal or two in the US, so we're talking 5 to 10 times more value.
I didn't even consider it being an USB-C charger in my original comment because I didn't know, but that makes it even worse... that 200 bucks cheapest charger on Apple's brazilian store I'm talking about is that crappy cheap USB A single plug charger. Not even sure those would work with an iPhone 12. 6 hours for full charge or something? xD
These newer MagSafe style chargers? Those are closer to 600 to 800 brazilian reais. I'm not making this up, you can go into the brazilian Apple store, it'll be there.
if you either have to get a USB A to USB C cable plus charger, or a charger that takes USB-C PD, from Apple... than we're talking about hundreds more brazilian reais.
Again, for reference, monthly minimum wage in Brazil is a bit over 1000 brazilian reais. Just so people understand how expensive those things are for brazilians.
I'm not arguing that the other afforementioned problems with smartphone flagship market, Apple anti-consumer strategies, and other problems that Louis talked about are unimportant or less important... because you know, a regulatory, governmental, law bound complaint against a company is just that - one complaint. It doesn't mean we can't have more complaints. Just because you have one of those questionings do not invalidate the need for other types of questionings, it's just that this one was clearer and easier to make from the standpoint of consumer protection laws.
I'm not entirely sure what is the status of stuff like right to repair, anti-consumer practices, and other issues with Apple products because... I'm not an Apple costumer myself. Probably never will be, even though I'm in the middle class more or less, you really need to be on the top of upper class here to afford Apple products.
But likely, those questions, if they were ever raised, comes from a very limited ammount of consumers, because the market itself is incredibly small. We don't have enough people with technical knowledge and money to raise questions on particular Apple products enough to make a consumer protection law level stink and petition for politicians to go against the company.
Heck, we barely even have enough physical Apple stores in Brazil... I think we have 2 or 3.
And stuff like that happens all throughout the entire scope of technological products... give an unrelated example close to myself, over a decade ago, Dell faced a class action lawsuit in the US specifically on their Dell XPS m1330 laptop because it came with an nVidia discrete graphics chip that overheated at high loads and fried the entire motherboard.
I know this because I had that laptop. There was no such class action lawsuit in Brazil, basically because I was probably among the hundred or so people who had one, and among the single digit people who knew that this was the problem the laptop had, and that US costumers went against Dell with a class action lawsuit for it.
What I'm saying is, the market for Apple products in Brazil is so small that you don't have enough traction for intricate Apple product related problems to ever pop up in legislation and regulatory bodies - unless it's an active, apparent, and mainstream discussion overseas.
As for other smartphone brands, laptops, desktops, and electronic products... I'm not sure how legal it is, but you can find people who repair electronics in Brazil basically everywhere. :P Even smaller cities will likely have a small store that fixes electronics. It often isn't worth it for flagship models, because you know, those parts also have to be imported, and they cost a lot, so people in repair often don't have enough of a stock to work every single brand and model, but they are out there (I had to repair both my Sony Xperia Z3 and my OnePlus 3 cracked screens because smartphone repair shops where I live didn't have parts, didn't want to risk messing with those brands and models, outright refused to do it - they'll mostly repair the stuff you find more regularly on brazilian market, which are low end budged smartphone models from Samsung, LG, Motorola, etc).
1
-
And so, you gotta look at what was the perspective of brazilian law to look at the lack of a charger as a consumer related problem.
I'm repeating my previous comment here, but just to keep it in both videos. The question that was raised against Apple is that taking off the charger from the package ammounts to selling an incomplete package that forces costumers to pay for a separate accessory to make use of the product as it was advertised, which would constitute something related to what consumer protection law in Brazil considers a "forced coupled sale" (venda casada).
It comes in question because we have strong law and regulatory precendent on this issue, we have a history of problems, laws and regulations to solve stuff like that. And consumer protection regulatory bodies are always on the lookout for this specific type of issue.
This relates somewhat with false advertisement, companies selling incomplete products that knowingly needs extra accessories to work as it was advertised, and related scams. Consumer protection laws in Brazil are overly comprehensive on paper (enforcement is another story) because you know, this is a country with a culture of corruption, dishonesty and scams all around. Businesses trying to scam costumers, costumers trying to scam businesses, and the law trying to cover as much as it can in as many details possible so that things are resolved faster in courts which are already overburdened with too many problems.
Now, there was an exception to this rule which US law I think also makes - batteries not included. But the regulations and laws were never expanded to include stuff like chargers, because you know, Brazil is hugely bureaucratic, our laws goes back to the stone age, it's more outdated than even US law, and it wasn't made to encompass newer stuff like charging standards, etc etc.
Still, with the differences I'm talking about, you gotta see how different the market for an iPhone 12 is from the US market for it. Electronics in Brazil are less of a commodity, and in the case of latest model Apple products, they are actually more like an insane luxury. The general population is much less likely to have a box full of USB chargers around, particularly well made chargers that comform well with newer devices, because these products that include or need USB chargers are incredibly expensive here. People do have smartphones and tablets, but they are mainly low end budget stuff, chinese brands, and so is the quality of chargers included or sold by 3rd parties here.
Apple also explicitly recommends using only official Apple chargers for their products, so you see where the argument for forcing an extra sale for the product to work comes from. Even Apple costumers in Brazil, who necessarily have lots of money, will not necessarily have a bunch of Apple chargers lying around. Because most iPhone users in Brazil sell their phones in order to purchase a new one.
eWaste coming from USB chargers in Brazil is not a major issue... we have eWaste, but you gotta think years back. Major sources in Brazil are still CRT TVs and monitors, VCRs, old washing machines, old desktops, stuff like that.
And so, the environmental issue regarding specifically USB chargers is not as big as it is in the US.
Another thing I need to say so that people understand the technological state of Brazil - most people don't have, potentially never even heard of, USB-C as a standard here.
This is purely annedoctal, but honestly - most people I know are still using smartphones with microUSB. My mom has had a USB-C smartphone for a few years now, because I buy her electronics... she had multiple occasions where co-workers asked to borrow her smartphone cable only to end completely confused by this weird connector that doesn't fit on their smartphones. :P Seriously. Brazil is always a few years behind in mainstream technology when compared to developed countries.
Anyways, all of these cultural, technological, regulations and whatnot differences needs to be put on the balance for anyone to understand why some stuff pops up regarding topics like that.
But in an overly simplifying manner, brazilian consumer protection regulatory bodies are saying Apple needs to include a charger with the iPhone 12 because brazilian consumer protection laws states that the phone must be an out of the box complete solution, as it's being advertised in Brazil. It's unfair to make an assumption and expect brazilian consumers to purchase an extremely expensive product, and not have it work unless they make another expensive purchase.
And honestly, given all that I've already written about how the market works in Brazil, I have to agree. For how much Apple charges for the iPhone 12 in Brazil, it probably should be closer to chinese brands that also includes wireless buds, clear case, a couple of screen protectors and whatnot. :P If it turns to eWaste, gets sold, or whatever... you paid enough for it.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
On one hand, this symbolic case is almost always remembered by people when the stupid suggestion of water drinking contest pops up for whatever reason... on the other, stupid social media dares and challenges are going rampant these days with all sorts of even more dangerous crap popping up or being resurrected without any remembrance of cases such as this one ever coming around. And I'm pretty sure the Wii case is on the brink of being forgotten too, as it's 15yrs old already.
And I guess now, the problem is that you don't have a Radio station behind to be taken to court and become a symbol of recklessness, just a bunch of social media influencers who never seen to take responsibility for anything they help spread. Brought up to how information and these challenges happens these days, any idiot could start a channel with challenges like that, and they would likely not even realize, research beforehand, or know about the dangers of it, until it's too late. Then, if the family ever went for a civil lawsuit, if they managed to win, it wouldn't make a story like this one, it would be forgotten in a week or so, and it wouldn't have the reach this one did... because the news environment is so fragmented these days lots of stories never get full national attention anymore. The perpetrators would cry about fake news, about persecution, and use the same exact excuses the radio company did - they aren't responsible because they got participants to sign waivers and whatnot - but they are much more likely to get away with it these days than back then. You can also bet that YouTube and Google would have no responsibility for it, or if they did the sum would amount to nothing to them, they'd promise to monitor better and control the platform better, only for them to not only do nothing to prevent this type of thing from happening, they'd also change the platform in a way that would penalize legit content creators instead.
This is something new generations will have to tackle at some point. As much as people hate and are glad that the old model of traditional media is gone and replaced by Internet based content, particularly social media content, the failure to notice that we've also lost imperfect but still there systems to attribute responsibility and regulate media properly will come to haunt us for a very long time. This is behind so many problems in current culture and information sourcing that I can't even start counting.
Kids getting sick with Tide pods, dying because of blackout challenges, the stupid original planking thing that ended the lives of lots of teens... this weaponization of the need people have for attention and competition, tied together with how people creating content steps over the ethics and moral limits in the name of clickbait, will produce a long list of horrible unnecessary deaths and sickness over the years.
1
-
Agreed on security through obscurity.
It's like most tools on security and privacy belt - it's good for some stuff, and not very effective for others. For most common scenarios, you'll wanna use it in combination with other measures, not as replacement.
The bad rep it gets is because of people that rely solely on it, for the wrong scenarios.
I can give an example that I've been discussing recently to think about.
Brazil uses offline electronic voting booths running a custom Linux distro, with software that is open source, for elections. But it's not exactly like traditional open source software, you can't really find the code published somewhere on the Internet - it's only given by request to specific entities who wants to audit the code. Say like universities, security researchers, among others - it's a pretty long list of entities, but still limited.
So, in a way, it incorporates security through obscurity as part of the security scheme. It's not necessarily foolproof - an auditor can always leak, or get hacked, and then the code is out, but it's still avoided to put it out completely. Staggering time to check the code and limiting how long you should have access to it also acts as a form of control - if the code gets out, you'll likely know exactly who did it.
I don't even know what sort of license it uses, if any. It's open source, but not like GPL or CC0. Can't really be used by others, copied, redistributed, etc.
But there isn't really an expectation that it'll be kept secret in order for it to work... it's just a measure taken to control exploitation at least up to some point.
I think that's a good starting point for thinking about security through obscurity. It can sometimes help you with mass generic attacks, and limited protection, but you can't count on it alone for targeted attacks and more specific stuff.
1
-
Slight correction for BBC - these radical Bolsonaro followers ALSO tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power with violent protests in other places... there were previous attacks that went underreported on international press that are now largely considered to be a trial run for what happened past Sunday.
This is what makes this attack even more egregious than Jan 6 US Capitol attack - these radicals have been planning and preparing for the attack for months in public view and without action of police forces, and of course with tacit approval (if it's not revealed later on a direct connection) from Bolsonaro, politicians that are aligned to him, military and police forces that are aligned to him, private businesses and whatnot.
These radicals have been camping out in front of military bases, planning out the attack, waiting for the opportune moment. They didn't attack the day Lula took power because they'd be massacred by the population who went to the streets to celebrate Lula's victory and Bolsonaro's defeat.
This is why Bolsonaro left Brazil at the time he did, why the demagogues who financed this travesty had easy access to the most radical portion of Bolsonaro followers to pay for their travel expenses to our capital, why security in the capital was inadequately low despite all the warnings, and why you see a bunch of policemen sympathetic to the actions of vandalism in Brasilia all throughout the videos captured. They've been preparing for this for months, and it happened exactly according to their plan.
If Brazil's justice fails to root out fast and arrest all the people involved with this, the danger of a repeat or worse won't be eliminated, as there are too many politicians, too many figureheads inside the police and inside the military, too many businessmen, and too many people with too much power backing terrorist attacks like this still out there planning for the next step.
1
-
Oh, that schema is still sorely needed alright... :P
The problem is when these things gets all dusty, filthy, disgusting messes. Starting it on high prolongs, even if it's just by a bit, the lifetime of fans.
Some 4 years ago I went through 4 or 5 fans that relatives of mine had in storage... summer is a killer there, and they kept going through units for some reason.
All of them gave a humming noise, but didn't start turning.
Man, I have never seen filthy stuff like that. Not even decades old desktop PCs that were never cleaned.
Grease turned to glue, hair everywhere, some hard to identify greasy stuff, and so much dust you wouldn't believe it fits in so little space... no wonder the thing wouldn't turn.
Of course, not a great solution to force start the fan motor when it's in that condition, but at least it probably lasted a bit more than it would. I think only one of them was burnt to oblivion... the other 3 or 4 just needed a thorough cleaning. Which of course no one does there.
1
-
I do wholeheartedly agree that slowing down is in general a good tip for most people living in highly populated urban centers, and that it'd be great if people would spread over more and whatnot....
But I imagine even he and his family can see the paradox of what he's talking about. It is similar to what we often see in communes and other alternate lifestyles of people and groups in modern societies.
See, you cannot get that car, the refuse of produce, and several other stuff shown in the video like the boat, the clothing, the kitchen utensils, the thermometer, the fencing and whole ton of other stuff without the logic of mass production, and of modern society in general. Not as cheaply and not as conveniently. And of course, people living in those conditions will always run to cities with proper hospitals when the worst happens.
Even if your lifestyle is mostly composed of the refuse of modern society, like getting the produce markets are throwing away, or building your home from industrial trash, and stuff like that - it is still fundamentally dependant on the very type of living that you are trying to escape from.
A modern industrial logic that depends on high ammounts of people to be functional, and a high degree of technology, research and processes around optimization, mass production, industrial processes and infrastructure.
So yeah, a sustainable lifestyle is possible for few people who are willing to go for it. But it doesn't scale, because it is only possible as long as the modern industrial logic is there to back it up.
Families like these, communes, and again, all these people going for alternative lifestyles with sustainability in mind gotta acknowledge that to some degree, they are not going against the trend - they are just a subset of it. The way they are currently living is only possible because most people are not willing to go for it. This isn't a revelation, and it isn't sustainable by itself.
Sure, more people can go without crap like social networks, smartphone addiction, constant internet connection, the overflow of information that is often quite shitty, among several other modern trappings.
But it is simply impossible for the majority of people to adopt a lifestyle like that. Just imagine a ton of families trying to live off of the fishes on that same lake, as an example. Imagine tons and tons of families around them going for the same thing. While it's just a few, sure, it might work. But say you have a dozen families trying to go for the same lake for fishing, the same market for produce that others won't buy, the same area for planting stuff... etc etc. It all breakes down.
It doesn't scale. The only reason why we can get to the current level of feeding enough people is due to industrial efficiency logic. Our race would basically be finished if the 7.6 billion people living in it tried going back to basically living off the land like that. People may see modern agriculture, farms, and whatnot as evil, but it's thanks to the modernization of those that we have enough to feed this huge ammount of people in the planet.
And yes, I know tons of people are starving in several regions of the world to this day, but it's not because of lack of food, it's because of lack of infrastructure.
1
-
1
-
1
-
You know, sometime ago - perhaps a decade ago - I used to think Elon Musk was so dirty crazy rich that not even his most stupid decisions would be able to bankrupt him... basically because he just has too much money and power to lose it all. Furthermore, some of his best stuff would be able to sustain even the most incredibly dumb ideas. It's so much money that buying an entire social network would be like a bad drunk purchase for us.
I'm just not so sure about it anymore. We might be looking at one very singular case of a crazy rich person going poor due to Dunning-Kruger effect. Everytime Elon goes in with this boneheaded I know it all attitude, he ends up losing money to someone more powerful, smarter, or both. The powerful part is pretty hard, though best lawyer firm and the government are both cases in which he already lost to, Twitter is a very exemplary case of Dunning-Kruger where he got it thinking he was going to fix it all, and just ended up screwing up several times worse than Dorsey, and now he wants to sue the law firm that turned his stupid gamble into a defeat?
It's the smarter part that is killing him. He thinks too highly of himself. I'll give it to him that he indeed is very smart in some areas, but man, there are some topics and some stuff that he seems worst than a spoiled brat.
And then, of course, the fact that it's people like him that are billionaires and at the control of social networks, plus Zuck, plus Bezos, and so on... it's just a sign of the end of time for US. You guys let sociopaths take all the power and money, basically steal the livelihood of millions of honest hard working people... for these billionaires to waste all their riches on bs. At some point it ends up distorting the entire culture and system of the country, even if it is the richest most powerful nation.
1
-
1
-
Awesome stuff! Greg always hitting my questions just right be them complex or mundane... xD
It's more or less what I expected. Older people, more traditional, families, or just people with a bit more time goes more towards traditional breakfast, kids eat whatever, people who have to hurry to work usually don't eat anything. xD And this just changes over the years.
I guess most modern societies works that ways... unless it's tied to religion, very strong cultural backgrounds, or some sort of more formal ritual, it's just the way it goes.
Here where I live, I wouldn't say there is a strong cultural breakfast of sorts since we are very multicultural, but when it was me, dad and mom it used to be bread, butter, piece of cheese, perhaps some bologna or ham, chocolate milk or coffee milk, piece of fruit. Sometimes oj, sometimes boiled egg, sometimes cereal. All pretty western. Very much what japanese hotels call western breakfast. xD
There's a southern states tradition that several hotels and some fancy bakeries adopted - colonial breakfast. It's basically overpowered western breakfast with not only the basics but also all the extra american stuff like bacon, eggs, jam, etc... plus some other brazilian stuff made of corn and cassava, plus all sorts of bread, cake, and whatnot.
But me living by myself, it's a cup of espresso, and a cup of lactose free milk (also intolerant here) and choco, with a whole bunch of stuff for health. Oat bran, honey, propolis when available, granola. It's less about sitting down to have a meal, and more about shoving the essencials in fast. xD
Coffee to wake up and satiate the addiction, I still need milk for calcium, oat bran regulates my gastritis, and the rest is for cold prevention. I only go back to really sitting down to eat breakfast when I'm visiting relatives...
Anyways, nice one Greg! Always interesting to see real everyday life stuff about people in Japan... it helps demystify things! :D
1
-
Agreed 100%. Well, rights to repair and the way these companies twist and bend the word of law and regulations in their favor, been agreeing with it from start, but I think Louis has an extremely important point there about mandating design decisions, and not conflating right to repair with separate environmentaly motivated arguments that might or might not be good.
While I do very much believe that charging and data transmission standards with standard connectors such as USB-C should be made much more clear and uniform for the end consumer than it currently is, I don't really think it should be mandated by law for companies to use a specific design component like that.
Because ultimately, this limits what can be done with it. For recent tech devices, what we had over several years is one company or a group of companies, a consortium, coming up with a better standard and then implementing in several of their products which forced the rest of the industry to follow.
And yes, we all wish we could have a single standard and keep it that way for as long as possible, but this disincentivizes innovation. And as much as people praise USB-C, or even lightning, Thunderbolt, etc... the truth is, those standards are far from perfect. And USB-C in particular was born fragmented and confusing as hell to the end consumer, and it's only getting worse, so it'll innevitable have to change at some point.
As our smartphones, tablets and whatnot gets closer and closer to being a full computer, we'll need changes in those standards to make better use of our devices.
I do understand the ammount of cables, chargers and whatnot are a huge problematic part of the entire eWaste cycle, but this needs addressing in some other way, like actual enforced working recycling and return programs by manufacturers, other labeling rules, perhaps even limiting flexibility a bit in order to reduce consumer confusion and the range of different chargers, external batteries, cables, dongles and other eWaste crap - but not by tying everything down to a single standard.
This is unfortunately one of those things that will be almost impossibile to monitor, so perhaps creating some sort of legal tool for consumers who feel damaged by arbitrary and opaque standards would be the way. It's a problematic thing because the vast majority of consumers don't really understand how technically messed up these things are. USB-C was advertised as a single thing that would unify everything the previous USB 2 standard had under the name. It never did. It has more versions, more different configurations, more optional features, and more compatibility problems created by this opaqueness than USB 2 had.
Yes, the connector is stronger and reversible, but if that's the extent of what people care to know about it, it's gonna be hard to really consolidate the whole thing.
When the consortium can't even convince companies like Nintendo to use the standard properly, it becomes really hard to take it seriously.
Anyways, rant aside, agreed. It's a step in the right direction, but we'll have to see how effective it really becomes. But I think it's good that we have momentum in this way... and you know, since these tech corporations seems to be going nowhere no matter how pressured they are, at the very least we have to keep creating tools to resist a bit on some of their bad practices. They already have too much money and too much power.
1
-
It shows one of two things that people should be really aware of:
1. Journalists, bloggers and whatnot from big media companies, like CNBC but not only it, mostly don't know shit about what they are writting, and they'll go for some of the worst possible "sources" to give statements. They are working on limited time, limited resources and specially limited knowledge, so ignorant crap is what often comes out.
This is specially true when it comes to technical stuff, electronics, Internet security, encryption, privacy, among other things. I've seen it enough times. They'll format it professionally, try to frame it as any other piece of journalism with sources, with a history check, with filler content... but the truth is, if they don't actually know what they are talking about, the most dumb mistakes possible will happen.
I don't even need to say how whoever wrote the piece commited one of the worst mistakes possible for a journalist to make while writting a piece - he didn't hear anything from the other side. So, that's not an article, that's pretty much Apple propaganda or fanboyism. It is just a heavily biased opinion piece at best, and at worst -
2. A paid piece. Someone from Apple just telegraphed him the talking points he should put up in his article and he obeyed like a good dog. I gotta say I dunno which is worse, because it becomes either misinformation due to ignorance, or a propaganda piece.
Well, I've already written about the dubious claims of 3rd party, generic, cheap chinese, and all sorts of underhanded attacks being put in labels against non-original batteries catching fire all the time, being faulty, causing accidents and fires, and all that.
I already questioned several places talking about this to give me articles, cases, and links to all these numerous cases of 3rd party batteries catching fire. So far, no one has returned me a single link. Not a single, proven, officially demonstrated one.
Which strikes me as odd given how we're talking about something that has a history of over a decade, with units being all around the world in the hundreds of thousands if not millions going into the market every year, and how a smartphone exploding always manages to get into local or even national news everytime it happens.
My own research, which was not extensive I might add so you don't need to consider it representative at all, has given me a few cases of Apple product related battery fires which didn't indicate if the smartphone had a battery replaced or not, a few cases where the battery was more than likely original because the device (iPhone, iPad) was relatively new, and a couple of cases where the battery fire happened inside an Apple store during repair most likely because the "Genius" repairing it probably punctured the battery while trying to open the device.
There are several other cases where reading into the case, it becomes pretty clear that it was not a battery fault. Crappy chargers, user error, physical damage (like bending the phone), are much more likely.
What it seems to me after looking into this closer, is that people who knows nothing about smartphone construction, parts, and how the lithium battery industry really works, are taking all the news of battery fires that happened in the past, and conveniently saying that all these cases were caused by 3rd party batteries. Which is simply not true.
Always remind people, the most notorious cases of battery failure that happened so far became notorious because of official recalls. Note 7 is probably the biggest one among smartphones, and that was because Samsung itself made and designed the batteries, and they were trying to do something completely out of the ordinary - trying to shove a battery as big as possible in a very limited space. So they cut corners and overlooked a design flaw.
One would think that if 3rd party batteries were so poorly made and had so many problems, by now we'd have at least heard about an epidemic of devices with non authorized replacement batteries going up in flames. But it's just not there. Because again, the economics doesn't make sense. Like I said on previous comments, mass manufacturing batteries is not like creating your own shoddy charger circuit. Even if your battery factory is not producing batteries for big brands, it is still a huge investment. It'd make no sense to risk all that investment put into it by cutting corners and producing batteries that would go up in flames en masse. The ammount you save from cheaping out on the product which could potentially make your batteries fail and go full thermal runaway is too big a risk for your entire business. It isn't worth it.
Further, it's always good to note that aside from Samsung, almost no other electronics companies actually make their own batteries. Apple certainly doesn't. Remember this people, an original Apple battery is just a battery from some other company with the Apple logo on it. Sure, Apple probably has several requirements for QA, testing and whatnot, but the batteries are really not theirs. There aren't a whole lot of LiPo companies out there making the packs specifically used in smartphones, tablets and some laptops because it is a highly complex process.
There are lots of companies doing packs for say... drones, hobby style vehicles, and then a whole ton making Lithium batteries that looks like your standard cilindrical battery like the famous 18650s. But specifically these batteries that goes into smartphones are just harder to do. Very specific processes to achieve the energy density required for them, very specific sizes and shapes.
Oh, about the article... Qnovo is a company that is licensing some sort of battery statistics and health software or system to brands like Lenovo and Sony. So yeah, hardly an unbiased source.
Of course he'll come up with a whole story about dangerous 3rd party batteries as he has a direct relationship on licensing a proprietary system that goes with oem batteries.
But I guess the journalist chose not to disclose that for some reason. That there is a direct conflict of interest right there in his article and the only source he chose to put in it. Weird how he doesn't even say what the guy is other than citing the name of his company. Weird that he didn't get any other source, like someone who works with batteries hands on, to say something.
To be fair, it could still be non-malicious bad journalism altogether. And I say this not to defend CNBC or the guy who wrote the article, but rather because I've seen too many articles talking about stuff in tech that are just plain stupidly wrong, not because whoever wrote it was paid to write a hit piece by some corporation, but because of the writer's own ignorance and lack of proper research and proper attempt to offer a balanced view.
It's kinda like international news coverage. Some of the worst examples of journalism I see passed as just regular coverage comes from that. And it makes sense that it's like that... tech journalism sometimes is a subject as foreign to people writting the pieces as the culture of foreign countries is to people covering international news.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Overly positive spin with small chances of working: stop over reliance on US politics to serve as example to other countries in the world.
If there's one good thing coming out of all the decisions of the current administration is other countries NOT following everything Trump does. EU countries have taken several stances that goes against US past decisions, they are going ahead on laws and agreements without US support, and other countries are leading on much needed efforts that the current administration is actively choosing to ignore. From environmental stuff, to privacy, to economic deals, to civil rights and other fronts.
This is of course an overly optimistic standpoint. For a globalized economy, it's actually a good thing to stop over reliance on super power politics because that forces the global economy to become more distributed, to attend the needs of other countries, to diversity and more properly distribute policies, responsibilities, key actors and general point of views.
As long as everything doesn't turn into WW3, or an environment that further creates the conditions to foster even more terrorist groups and radical thinking, as long as other countries don't fall into the trap of beligerence, nationalism, protectionism, and overall bullying Trump's administration have, the global economy might just come out of all this stronger.
I dunno about americans and making america great again, but there is a potential gain in Trump's politics of closing borders and isolating the US, putting it against everyone else.
Unfortunately, we also live in cultures that tends to elect a key figure instead of going the hard route and thinking for themselves. And unfortunately, several of the super powers in line next to US are worse choices, because even if Trump acts like he does, at least he'll be out in few years time.
Next in line for leadership are countries like China and Russia. Both are basically dictatorships at this point with a long list of human rights violations in their pockets. It's hardly an example to follow. If we are to have a country that represents at least part of the world's culture as an example to follow, I'd still rather have a democracy that is in turmoil and being tested to it's extremes, than a well functioning effective dictatorship at the cost of citizens' liberties, privacy, and human rights.
Not that there is any perfect utopic example of any of that right now. But you know... I'd rather live in a country where I disagree with government and can say f*ck them, voting for something better next time, than countries were you can get killed for it.
But this is more or less how history goes. Societies overall have to learn from experience, in practical terms. A period of peace is followed by periods of turmoil. Because people only learn the value of peace once they faced wars and turmoil. One can only hope that the current climate of nationalism, extremism, beligerence, and overall breakdown of cooperations don't end up being the last one. It's the problem of power. Humanity now has the power to end itself. We can't afford the luxury of another world war, because if we do, it'll be our last.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Necroposting, but sharing some thoughts.
I think the reality of it is that this had a few components to happen.
1. A social engineering component of sorts. Of sorts because apparently it wasn't the stuff you usually hear about social engineering, the example given by... Chuck?/ITProTV. Who knows what the truth is, but I think Marcus and Chuck are right given the timing, the way it happened, and the reports. And man, could this have been much much worse. It was as close to White Hat Hacking as it could be, almost unbelievably so;
2. Weak/bad/lose policies while handling sensitive user data... which is part of the vast majority of leaks and hack cases - Equifax, US Voter leak, Dow Jones leak, WWE leak, Verizon leak, Time Warner Cable leak, etc etc etc. And honestly, I think it'll take an accidental war and deaths for businesses to start thinking more seriously about this. If tech corporations that are directly involved with tech, have security sectors by necessity, and are directly handling throngs of sensitive user data on a daily basis, still can't think of basic stuff like that, let alone everyone else that isn't in that exact situation;
3. Exploitable platform. I didn't hear people questioning this point much, but you gotta ask if Twitter having an administrative tool that allows someone else, even if it's an administrator or Twitter worker, to publish messages (in this case public Tweets) on someone's behalf is a good idea at all. Personally, I think this is the most important thing that came out of this entire case. It involves all the hacking and leaking cases where a disgruntled worker was the source - Sony, Capital One, Grifffin Hospital, AshleyMadison, Marriott's Hotels, etc. But you gotta think about it. Not that it comes as much of a surprise, but it's too much power for individuals to have. Arguably, it's too much power for a company to hold.
It's already kinda been forgotten and there has been no public changes or further explaining on this, which is extremely bad in itself.
Thing is, in a sane world where privacy and security was really held up in high regard, this wouldn't be just a problem Twitter had - this would call for a total rethinking of the platform itself.
If those administrative tools still exist, there is nothing that prevents a similar attack from happening, with worse consequences this time, by more powerful people.
Contractual obligations, consciouness and righteousness be damned, if a foreign state or big hacking group gets a hold of some Twitter employee, they'll find a way of getting it.
And you see, that administrative tool shouldn't exist, really. Not with the power it has.
Perhaps Tweeting with a costumer account is needed to some level, but the platform should identify that it's been take over for x purposes automatically. Better if the ability wasn't there at all, to be honest.
Of course, in a sane world we also wouldn't be using Twitter or any other social network in official capacity for important people, ever.
Politicians, CEOs, celebrities and whatnot, none of them should be using a social network as primary means of giving official updates, announcements, information that is significant in any way for business or government operations, ever.
Because hack or not hack, it's a private service that is outside those peoples' control. The discrepancy is palpable... for you to borrow your mouth to say stuff for other people, there are all these procedures and barriers we naturally put forward. People even resist terrorist threats to go against something like that.
The Twitter hack just revealed how much worse things are. Not only they control the platform itself, they have the ability to put words in peoples' mouth, directly. They have tools for it, and multiple employees have access to it, and they are exchanging the methods to use it via another private service app, Slack. That's now two private companies with the ability to put words in peoples' mouth.
Insanity. It shouldn't take too long for a real major incident to happen, we're lucky it still didn't, or rather their worst side effects. Because you know, major leaks and hacks have already happened... there just haven't been a use case of information stolen that lead to catastrophic events just yet.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Ignorance or corruption, which for a justice system should be one and the same.
If you don't have the competence to understand very basic concepts on the case, you shouldn't be judging it period.
This guy shouldn't be in jail, he should be having his services recognized as a good thing for the entire community he lives in, and for society in general.
It's a perversion of justice. Inversion of values. This guy was helping to keep eWaste out of the environment, helping people to make good use of their computers until their real lifecycles came to an end.
Furthermore, Microsoft defense is complete absurdity. This case sets a horrible precendent which basically threats people who burn software in media to think twice about what they are doing. It goes against a huge part of what IT technicians do and have been doing for decades now, it threats a whole ton of jobs in the service for tech area, and it's such a ridiculous misinterpretation of law that I'm hugely inclined to think it's actually corruption, not simple ignorance.
Microsoft has been on a downhill since Windows 7. Whoever took charge there will be sorely remember for making Microsoft and Windows lose trust of tons of their clients, for making decisions that's forcing tons of people to reconsinder their OS of choice, and for some of the dumbest hard headed and narrow minded crap that I've seen in this company since I started using it back in DOS days.
The forced updated scandal, the braindead persistence on Windows Store, the studipidity what was and continue being Windows 10S, the complete failure of Windows Mobile, the attempts of copying and glamourizing their best branding of recent years (Surface), the absolute horrible quality control of Surface devices...
I will disagree with Louis on the company not innovating - they have certainly done some stuff right in the past decade or so. Unfortunately, most of the stuff they did right comes with a huge baggage of setbacks and failures with it too. Windows 7 was a good OS in the right direction. But since then they absolutely destroyed it by forcing a Windows Store no one uses, adopting telemetry crap, inventing crap versions no one needs (like Windows 10S), and just overall being assholes about the whole thing.
Since Windows 8 I have been learning and moving towards Linux, and the only reason I haven't fully gone just yet is because they have an iron grip on gaming.
But I don't discard a full migration because that's just how bad Microsoft has become.
Again, I've been using Microsoft since early DOS days. I went through multiple iterations of Windows, and I even think that at several points there was an unecessary overraction against the company.
Windows ME was really crap, pure and simple. Vista became way better after some updates, which is something all Windows versions did to a point. Most of Surface products are not bad from a design standpoint - for the most part, because SE was a failure and the company seems to have learned nothing from that experience - but availability and pricing is cost prohibitive for lots of us.
But in recent years, the company is in a downward spiral. I don't think it's gonna die because of how much of an iron grip they have on a whole ton of areas, including enterprise, and like I said, on gaming and some professional software suits.
But the goodwill is running out fast, and I'm downright disgusted with the company.
I used to have some sympathy with all the crap that was thrown at them, which at the time was mostly from ill informed people... but nowadays they deserve all the crap that is thrown against them. That has been the main difference in recent years. The vast majority of bad news going around the company is something that they have really brought upon themselves, they have no excuses for the sort of behaviour they are actively promoting inside the company, and they deserve to die as a company for their actions.
No jokes. All the past scandals from Microsoft have all been justified. Scummy tactics to force people into Windows 10, products no one asked for and no one cares about, forced telemetry that after all the outrage it generated still wasn't eliminated with some extremely flimsy justifications, a scandal of defective products coming from their prized and overpriced Surface line... the list just keeps going. The past few administrations have been ruining a company that while it wasn't all that great before, at least they had some standards. Now it's just bullshit one after the other.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
This will be an ever repeating occurance in Minas for the next century or more, mark my words.
With climate change and weather extremes, the fact is that several small cities in Minas are in the exact same position as both Brumadinho and Mariana.
Several of these primitive sludge dumping grounds are there. Refuse from mining operations.
All of the major mining companies, public and private ones that had some sort of relationship with the government in the past 10+ years activelly participated in corruption schemes on all levels. Easing up regulations, putting through laws that essencially weakened environment protections and security measures, allowing aberrations like these sludge pits to be built in the first place.
The current government might be in opposition to several things past governments did, but it will certainly not be against the lax regulations and deals with big corporations because it primarily needs to attract more foreign investment, create more jobs for brazilians, and strenghten the economy in general.
If anything, the current government is more in favor of dropping the protected area status of several parts of Brazil and opening those for industrial exploitation. Because ultimately what it was elected for and need to prove itself for is economic growth at any cost.
The current president himself is often talking in admiration of the times of miraculous economic growth in Brazil... which happened during the military dictatorship. That tells you enough how long he's willing to go.
For those who don't know about this, Vale is a huge extractor of iron ore... it's among the top companies in the world, tied to China and Russia and only losing to Australia. It cannot be stopped both from national and international standpoints. And no matter how many times Mariana and Brumadinho repeats themselves, they won't stop. Several other brazilian cities will see themselves under layers of toxic sludge and mud before anything concrete happens. Because the core problem is that Brazil is dependant on that source of revenue, we are a very weak technological country, there's no innovation coming out here, most other major sources of revenue are also all primary resources, and education was gutted all over the past decade and it's continuing to be gutted by the current government. Everything stays the same in banana republic, which Brazil quite literally is.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Sounds like a particularly extreme case representative in global problems for poor and developing nations... and several developed nations too.
In a case of twisted optics too, I should point out that this is what is happening in Argentina, despite the very different treatment in portraying it. Country economy going up, but poverty rates and wealth gap increasing. Large scale privatization of government owned corporations for short term gains, but long term entrance in the late-stage neo-liberal Capitalism system.
Economists have thrown a very positive outlook in Argentina's case, but the analysis is often blind to what is happening to mid to low income classes there, who have suffered the most with economic and political shifts in recent years.
I don't think it's very fair to take example from the US on how other countries should strategize on macro economics. Portugal is slightly better but not by much. US is quite obvious why - it's easy for any economic strategy focused on spending to work out when you have unlimited money at hands and a ton of very unfair powers related to both historical factors and other privileges - something that a country such as Sri Lanka just does not have.
Portugal is a former colonizer and EU member, it is also in a very different category.
Final thing that is notably missing in the analysis is Sri Lanka's relationship with China.
There is this entire myth about China building a port in Sri Lanka to take it over and use for it's military, which I often see in comments in videos about China's Road and Belt Initiative and construction, expansion or investment in ports of other nations, so called "debt trap", but a deeper look into it just tells you how much the west want to distort the story and use cases like this wrongfully to paint China as some villain, when it actually is offering better loans and better conditions in comparison to the IMF itself.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-sri-lanka-agree-more-investment-economic-cooperation-2025-01-15/
https://thediplomat.com/2020/01/the-hambantota-port-deal-myths-and-realities/
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/china-debt-trap-diplomacy/617953/
A huge part of Sri Lanka's recent recovery has to do with China - not the IMF, not western powers and countries. So it's a bit weird to not see it in the analysis.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
It kinda makes sense though... if you have a public transportation system that is this punctual, and not a whole lot of unpredictable situations to interrupt a commute or just going somewhere, punctuality becomes more important just by virtue of being less justifiable. xD
Of course, there is the cultural aspect of it definitely... here in Brazil, among friends there isn't much of an expectation of punctuality in the first place. But say for work related situations, you are expected to be punctual, but bosses and co-workers cannot get too angry if you aren't because everyone knows how chaotic public transportation and even regular transit can be here depending on where you live.
In my city, if it's raining everyone already assumes that people will be late. Because traffic jams and slowdowns are pretty much guaranteed. It's also kinda unpredictable, which is the worst part I guess. Like, if you knew that leaving an hour earlier would guarantee you to get there on time, it wouldn't be too bad, but reality is that you never know... slow downs, accidents, blocked streets, floods, etc all factor in.
Smartphones made this easier though... if you are gonna get half and hour or more late, you better get in contact. :P
1
-
1
-
I don't think there is a need to embelish the problems that will come from autonomous trucks and whatnot - it will eventually disrupt the market, lower truck drivers' wages, until it completely eliminates the category.
And you can say there's a current lack of truck drivers right now, but that does not excuse the fact that it's a huge category of workers (it's 3.5 million workers in some statistics) and a huge ammount of people that will be affected by this.
It's gonna be hard for lots of people, and it will eliminate one source of much needed jobs even if they are hard and ungrateful.
But the overall benefits of a technology like this might be worth the downsides.
This is true to most autonomous technologies that are being developed today.
If you look at our history, there are truckloads no pun intended of jobs that disappeared overtime because technology found a way to fill that space, and those jobs were mostly repetitive, ungrateful and low paying.
So, it wouldn't be wrong to say that history is just doing it's course. But we have to be very careful on how we move on as societies.
The important thing here is that we guarantee that all the money does not get concentrated in the hands of few, and that people don't get trapped in a future of no jobs, no work, no way to sustain themselves, at the mercy of soul less corporations. It's becoming more and more urgent to find ways of solving the inequality gap.
Arguably, we should've come up with ways of redistributing wealth and dilluting money and power through society better already, but once this wave of autonomous technologies comes for all the low paying jobs that still compose the absolute vast majority of jobs in all countries, then we either will already have ways of addressing the wage gap inequality problem, or we're looking at either totalitarianism, or a powder keg that will quickly turn into wars.
1
-
Yep, different situations, different requirements, and different pros and cons.
I got a tiny router/PC type thing and put OPNsense in it just to experiment a bit, I have nowhere near the requirements (or knowledge) most people here have, so much so that I'm now just considering a regular Wi-fi router running a custom version of OpenWRT to do the same job. Probably in a way that I'll just understand what is happening better.
It's like, right after I got this whole project going, I got myself a portable access point, started using it, and realized how much you can already do with OpenWRT alone.
So I'm kinda scaling back, and then I'll use the tiny PC for something else. Different needs.
1
-
1
-
Americans should vote these people out, and people aware of this entire travesty should feel more and obliged to vote on this election because this is about survival and protection of your own country, the people you love, and yourself.
That aside, we all know what is the problem here in this scenario. Throughout John's entire explanation, we had tens of de facto criminals that for whatever reason are still walking around free, without their scheduled day in court, if not about to take a representative position in government somehow, despite their criminal behavior.
I don't know how it doesn't dawn on the entire American justice system that there are limits to freedom of speech, for a functional democracy. We keep repeating this very simple idea that the freedom of speech of an individual stops the moment it infringes on the freedom of speech of others, but it seems at this point that lots of criminals are just exploiting how people just don't get this very simple concept to their own benefit - but more importantly, how justice does not act to protect this very simple, core idea.
Yes, you have the right to and can question whether the election system works or not, whether an election was legitimate or not, plus present your case to justice if you have evidence that there might have been fraudulent cases and whatnot.
But, and hear me on this specific point because this concept seems novel for American justice somehow, after justice has evaluated all proof presented multiple times, all of them amounting to nothing more than lies and bullshit for political gain, it should be a crime similar to libel to keep attacking the election and electoral system without proof, plain and simple. If you don't have proof of it, or your proof was rejected by courts already, any content you put out that says the election was stolen or some crap like that is a crime, period. It's incitation to criminal behavior, it's willingful and malicious attempt to smear public institutions, it's something that people should be going to court for.
To the point, candidates that keeps spreading all this conspiracy theory bullshit, that guy who made that doc, people who are using campaign money to keep attacking the past election - those people should be all in jail, period. There should be no freedom of speech protection for people who use lies and false information to undermine democracies. These people are traitors, they are criminals the moment they decided to spread a lie to the public.
This should function in the exact same way crimes regarding prejudice such as racism and sexism works, or crimes in direct attack to others. You can keep your opinions to yourself, but the moment you chose to share it in public, you have a responsibility for it. If you can't prove the message you are spreading out, and it is damaging to the system somehow, you should be considered a criminal and should go to jail, period.
This isn't an attack to a political party, this should be considered action to defend democracy. It's part of your obligation as a citizen under a democratic system, it's civic duty, it's a cornerstone of free democracy, to respect what has been decided by the justice system in a democracy. Without this, a democracy isn't a democracy anymore. It's not about attacking one party versus the other, it's about defending the whole. American democracy has been on a total downfall ever since channels like Fox News came around, and probably much much more that I dunno of because I don't live there. It has already failed on so many small to big levels that what is happening today is the fault of failures in multiple levels.
I'm gonna be real honest here, sorry if it scares people. But I think at this point, democracy in the US is so fragilized and damaged in multiple levels that it doesn't take much for it to fall apart. It needs structural changes that are not happening because half more or less of politicians composing it are not interested in fixing democracy at all. If US politics continues in the trajectory it's going, the fall is pretty much innevitable.
People, particularly candidates for public positions, should not be allowed to go on TV, Internet or whatever and keep lying straight faced all the time as if it was their role to do so, because when you allow for such things to happen, what you end up with is a system that filters out people who really wants to work as a public servant for the benefit of their electorate, instead putting on eminence the grifters, scammers and loud mouthed idiots that knows how to manipulate the public with lies and FUD. The entire movement of an entire political party aligning itself to a grifter and scammer for the sole purpose of votes because his lies and FUD works on half the country should've raised alarms years ago.
I think what democracies falling into cult of personality, authoritarianism, ultra conservative and far right crap these days lost in all these years of relative peace is the sense of importance, and treating seriously, mechanisms that are there to stop all these grifters, scammers and cult leaders from taking power. Justice has become too weakened and too bureaucratic to handle simple concepts like these.
There are core concepts that stops a democracy from going rogue that were completely lost over all these years. Secularism is one that I see more and more weakened over the years in several nations. People forgot why we separated church from government in the first place, and there are tons of countries nowadays whose political candidates are completely ignoring this part too.
I see all this stuff happening and start thinking if it is truly necessary for democracies to fall once again into theocracies, military dictatorships, authoritarian regimes and whatnot so we have to learn again the hard lessons that we already had several times over the history of humanity. Are we condemned to always go through a period of hatred, unnecessary loss of human lives, the will of leaders trampling over the needs of the people, and all this to once again become aware of why democratic systems came up in the first place?
Even when democracies were conquered with lots of bloodshed and suffering, even when entire systems were built to prevent a return to darker times, even when we should know better...
1
-
1
-
Nope, do your research better Vice, and stop sensationalizing things.
Paper straws are still better than plastic ones. Anything that is ever manufactured will of course have an impact by using raw materials, that is no reason to put that there as something evil - it's just part of the process. Plus, encouraging people to go with yet another thing - like steel straws - completely ignores the fact that those also have very bad processing costs, and could potentially have the same negative consequences if people buy them, and don't use them, or replace them all the time.
You should use tote bags or just plastic bags as much as you can, but one major problem of the flimsy market grade plastic bags is that they quickly turn into microplastics once they go into the ocean or landfills, which ends up in the food chain meaning you'll eventually be eating that. Tote bags take more water and resources to be made, but on average people already use it for longer and more, and they can also be recycled for all sorts of other things, so it is an overall net positive. No need to confuse people even more with specifics.
Aluminum can recycling do not happen in the same way throughout the entire world. There are lots and lots of processing plants that will take even crushed cans and melt them in the same way non crushed cans are for recycling. The plants that aren't should rethinking their sorting process, it's more effective than making people think that if they crush cans it won't be recycled somehow.
As for wipes, try the japanese route. Not everyone will get used to it, but believe me when I say most people will love it and will never look back to TP or baby wipes. What I mean by this is "intimate" showers, bidets, or those fancy Toto toilet seats. If you cannot get used to that, at the very very least - stop flushing TP and baby wipes. Or anything else that is not shit and piss for that matter. Everything that is not shit and piss... well, and other bodily fluids, should be going into a trashcan.
There you go.
1
-
I don't really have a horse on this game... probably getting neither, at least not this soon anyways.
And I'd likely go for Playstation if I was going for something, mostly because games. Unless Microsoft decides to leverage their most recent purchase to the upteenth level... xD Because I need mah Scrolls and Fallout.
But if there is one thing I'm very iffy about Playstation overall, is on Sony convincing developers to use extra hardware stuff.
Perhaps this time because it's in the gamepad and all it gets better adoption, but over the years, extra hardware stuff always seems to get burned.
See, I had the original EyeToy, Playstation Eye, and a few other accessories. I remember those motion controllers. Dualshock 3 touchpad thing.
This is far from unique to Playstation, to be fair, but it just seems these extra stuff always tends to get lost into a handful of games, mostly demos and games from the parent company, and for the rest of the console lifetime the feature is just there left unused.
Kinect 2, 3D in 3DS, Wii U tablet screen, motion controls everything, gamepad microphones and speakers, special cameras and sensors...
I've been out of consoles for a long time, so honestly, I don't really know how this is going nowadays anymore. Has it gotten any better? How's Playstation VR?
1
-
I think it's important to note there is a conflation and mix there in the interview on prices with and without insurance... I guess for effect?
Remains true though the fact that healthcare prices in the US are outrageous, and in Japan it's almost absurdly cheap. xD
I'm from a different country. I think every healthcare system is complex to navigate, but if I were to simplify things by quite a lot, it goes like this - we have a national all citizens coverage for a public, free, paid by taxes healthcare system. You need to register, but that's mostly it.
It's not great, but it's there. Everything has lines. For a simple basic check people have sometimes to wait weeks to months to get it. There are several times of the years, in several cities, that public ER gets packed to the brim to the point hospitals needs to refuse more patients, and then ambulances need to hunt for another hospital for vacancy.
This is more a consequence of poverty in my nation rather than anything else, the system has lots of hospitals, lots of doctors, lots of money invested in, but it's just hard to manage so many people all at once. Holidays are hell. Weekends you can also expect hospitals to be packed for most of the year. And it's a tropical nation, so you have all those tropical endemic diseases hitting hospitals constantly.
Parallel to that, we also have a private healthcare system for which you either have to pay from your own pocket for everything, or pay for private healthcare insurance and plans. It's fairly expensive to go that route, but I'd say it's at least some 10x less expensive than private healthcare in the US, both the raw prices and the private plan prices. Private is also better in general than public healthcare. From diagnostic tools, to professional qualification, treatment, and several other factors - if you have the money to pay for it, you'd want to go private. Mostly not to get stuck in lines though, that's kinda the main issue really.
As for private plans, we have mostly the same issues that every country with private healthcare has - hospitals that don't accept people from x or y plan, private healthcare companies trying to swindle costumers out of certain types of treatment, corruption scandals, all of those things. Even though government and justice has been slowly advancing on this, prohibiting dirty schemes coming from healthcare companies of not covering their costumer needs, but it's a constant battle.
And then, you have the final equation on this that wasn't in the interview - price of drugs, medicine. This I think is a huge indicative of how US healthcare system is bankrupt, with people going to Mexico or Canada to buy medicine.
Well, in this case I think US' case is fairly unique, my country is mix of what you can expect in other nations.
Other than drugs made in private labs, government has a program of national coverage of subsidized medicine - but this only covers few of the most commonly used drugs. So, stuff used for treatment of most common types of diabetes, heart disease, that type of stuff.
It also has a program of breaking patents of several drugs and allowing labs to make "generic" versions of them, to be sold cheaper. It follows very strict regulations, so it's pretty safe. This covers lots of drugs, but it kinda takes time, so you don't have it for drugs of more uncommon specific treatments, or drugs that are too new in the market.
So we're kinda like, in between US and Japan. xD I personally think the system itself is pretty good, we just need to work on general wealth inequality, work on some kinks and details, and keep regulating the whole system well enough. The rest is more a matter of solving poverty in the country rather than messing with the system.
1
-
1
-
1
-
"there's still time to save the world"... something something is bad for the planet...
It needs repeating so often that it's starting to sound like pedantism, but the world, the planet needs no saving, not now, and it won't need it for a very long time. It has gone far worse in both extremes of hot and cold in comparison to this tiny, insignificant climate change effect deviation.
It has survived conditions, impacts and destruction levels completely out of any imaginable scale.
In fact, in a way, climate change could even be seen as a way for the planet to get rid of it's current source of fast changing conditions - us.
If the planet was a person, we wouldn't even register as a sickness, or disease. Perhaps a tiny itch that needs some scratching at most.
The only thing that needs saving are us, the human species, because we are fragile lifeforms that were made to live in very stable climate conditions. We are way more fragile and depend on way more stable conditions than several species that occupied this planet before us.
Stuff like how long it takes for plastic to degrade, or the half life of nuclear waste might sound daunting to us, but for the planet it's just a blip. Some weird rearranging of some of it's component parts that are soon to be back to it's regular high entropy state.
Few hundred thousands of years, which is much less than a single geological era, will be enough to get rid of everything mankind has ever produced.
So yes, cleaning up the planet and going for green energy solutions, sustainability, and all that, should be seen as purely selfish, self-preservation measures. The planet won't suffer because of changes we done to it. We will.
It only affects our own ability to survive, nothing more. Comprehensive, methodical, all encompassing changes are necessary not to preserve the planet, it's necessary for us as a species to prove we are capable of being around longer than a whole lot of species that came before us.
Our ability to put several other species to extinction also isn't a big thing for the planet itself. Most species that ever roamed the planet went extinct one way or another because of changing conditions, this isn't a new thing for the planet - the only risk there is we being added up to that list sooner than later.
Even more, preservation is only necessary for us to survive at current growing pace. If we fail, what will most likely happen is for a big portion of humanity to die off, and should a part survive, we start things over again. And if we don't, the planet will go on without us.
And let me tell you, we are still far far faaaar off. There are lots of fishes, some insects and some other animal species that stayed around from hundreds of millions of years to half a billion years. We've only been around for some 200 thousand years. It's close to nothing. Several dinossaur species lived 10 to 1000s times more than we have up to now. Compared to some other animals who roamed the Earth, if we were to survive as a species for as long as they did, we're still on our infancy, taking baby steps.
Of course, if we keep going at current pace, we might be the cause for the entire human species existence to be a tiny, insignificant and undetectable blip in the planet's history.
1
-
Why is the IOC so determined? Same reason why they are always determined: Money, obviously. Why big TV networks meekly talk about the subject, always talking how organizers are taking all precautions but not how all precautions have never been enough to totally contain the virus, particularly in sports events and mass gatherings? Money, obviously.
Because the Olympics haven't been known for all the clandestine gatherings, the pub crawling, the partying, the activities and proclivities of athletes, because it's small enough to monitor and contain, because testing is 100% accurate, because a pandemic surely gets better if you put people from all over the world in the same place...
Why if there is a spike and lots of japanese people lose their lives the IOC won't be blamed, hosting the event at such a bad time won't be mentioned much, and measures previously deemed essencial getting ignored won't be criticized as much? Money, obviously.
Why in these particular reports there seems to be no mention of the extremely low vaccination rate in Japan, how an introduction of tons of foreign people in the country will disrupt the containment measures, how are the chances of a Covid 19 variant slipping through the cracks, and how vulnerable the country is for a fast spread. Money, obviously.
The sponsors and the financers of the event, particularly TV conglomerates that will have all the audience, are all taking calculated risks of not being completely against, but also not being blatantly in favor. It's a way to move ahead anyways even though they know full well the risks being taken.
But really, you are not fooling anyone, it's highly hypocritical and goes against everything you have been preaching so far. And it only serves as fuel to conspiracy theorists and negationists. Not only this will be an undue risk for the japanese population, you are proving conspiracy theorists that when money is involved, it's pretty much f*ck people who are worried about their health and lives.
Talking about clandestine gatherings, parties and whatnot, putting people in a bad light, blaming the spike in cases and whatnot is fine. But when it comes to huge events that will no doubt provoke mass gatherings, with people from all over the world, that will not all be vaccinated... basically the worst possible case scenario for a pandemic like the one we're dealing with right now, because of the MONEY involved, oooh, they'll be taking all precautions, smaller events have been held with success, yadda yadda.
F*ck the Olympics and the IOC. Whatever was left of the spirit of cooperation and respect that this event once had, has now died in favor of greed.
1
-
1
-
If the world hadn't been so cheap in helping nations in the African country to power up and have it's essential infrastructure propped up for the modern era in poor nations, we might not even need to have this conversation... solar farms could be built in deserts, and it'd have enough excess to export to several other nations.
The crazy amounts of money spent on sh*t and stupid cr*p no one needs would be more than enough to have all these infrastructure interconnects at least started up to a reasonable degree.
And it's exactly those types of projects that can bring jobs, better the lives of people, and level the playing field better in terms of geopolitics and whatnot.
In the end, it just seems we won't be able to change our ways in time for major problems to happen. We'll likely have more than a few wars, genocides, and major humanitarian issues directly related to Climate Change, fossil fuels usage, and stuff like that, until we really have enough interconnected power, water and whatnot with backups that we'll truly need moving forward.
Until then, it's more of the same. The rich won't suffer because they'll be able to build backup for themselves alone. The poor will remain dependent on unreliable infrastructure with no backup - if any at all.
I mean, it's already happening, you all know this. How many videos of YouTubers making their own grid independent solar power local system you've already seen out there? This all might look cool and interesting from a tech perspective, that someone with enough money can create a grid free backup nowadays, but if you look at this from a different perspective, it means yet another divide that privileges the very few. It's yet another individualistic privilege based phenomena that takes power away from communities, collective, and those who cannot afford such projects. If I have guaranteed backup power to myself, I have less reason to demand a strong collective infrastructure from representatives, power companies and governments. Doesn't matter if the national or state level grid is crumbling and failing, I always have my backup to prop it up, so it's less of an issue.
Anyways, back to the video. I agree. A global super grid is an almost inevitability that needs to happen sometime in the future. Which will become more and more pressing over the years, I'll add. We should have started this a long time ago, but we likely won't seriously start considering the whole thing until major catastrophes start happening.
It is just a component part of the challenges that Climate Change will bring.
The question is if we'll be able to unify and work on those challenges while also dealing with all the problems that Climate Change will bring. And on that part, I'm not too sure. We're still on the global late-stage capitalism era with small percentages of the population having the most resources and power, and that model is fundamentally incompatible with the politics and diplomacy necessary for something like a global grid, or Climate Change reversal super projects. So it comes down to maintaining the status quo and going extinct (or losing huge portions of the global population), or changing directions to have a fighting chance.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Yap, nicely explained! :D
In comparison to past accidents, not only more modern nuclear power plants are closer to an onion with several layers of exhaustive protection and prevention, you basically already have a sarcophagus pre-built there for the worst case scenario.
Most nuclear power plant incidents in history happened due to a long and frankly jaw dropping chain of incompetence, incredibly poor practices, corruption and sometimes ignorance too. Given the situation of the USSR and Chernobyl, plus it's era and place in history, people don't get too surprised to know the chain of errors that happened.
But I think international press and just general perception made a poor job explaining the chain of events that led to Fukushima.
Of course, an unprecedented off the charts earthquake followed by tsunami hitting the plant directly played it's part there, and I guess it's the focus of most coverage due to the devastating effects of the combined catastrophe - but it was only because of a chain of corruption, hubris, bad decisions fueled by bad corporate/government culture that the meltdown really happened. And in some way, people were already biased against seeing that side of things - how come Japanese culture so famous for it's... supposed correctness lead to something you'd expect from 80s USSR or something? Well, it so happens that these sorts of corruption problems plus chains of incompetence also do exist in Japanese culture, politics and private enterprise.
There had been at least 10 years of ignoring recommendations of extremely basic structural adjustments which would have specifically prevented the meltdown.
The one valid criticism that I can always agree with to people adamantly against nuclear power is this: Can we ever 100% guaranteed eliminate those (corruption, hubris, incompetence, poor practices, etc) from big projects such as nuclear power plants? I don't think so!
The way I answer this to myself is - almost every single big infrastructure project that lots of people rely upon, asks themselves the same question at some point. Dams, bridges, buildings, roads... people who watch Plainly Difficult will know. xD
But, it is not only about the potential for failure, which every single power plant type in the world inherently has anyways - it's about the balance between what it offers versus what risks are acceptable.
Nuclear power has a particular image problem that is like planes falling from the sky taken to it's absolute extremes.
Almost everyone around the world knows about Chernobyl and Fukushima, sometimes down to the tiniest details. Almost no one knows how much we already rely on nuclear power, don't know how many of those plants have been working with zero incidents for several decades, and how much those power plants offset the need for exponentially more fossil fuel plants. It's also poorly understood how many current renewable sources infrastructures would be needed to cover what a single nuclear power plant can generate. Current tech considered, we just cannot scratch the surface yet. You need to look at statistics for that... how much is generated by each type of power plant proportionate of how much infrastructure we have on each plus money put into. Then you start understanding why we still need nuclear power.
I think we all hope that someday tech advances, building technologies, optimization in usage of power and other factors develop in a way that we can cover all our needs plus a large safety net with renewables alone. It's just that, for the time being and the near future, we just can't get there yet. And we're running out of time to bridge that gap.
1
-
1
-
Obvious radical. But it's all about perspective, isn't it? Defiant and inconsequential in russian courts, a hero. Defiant and inconsequential in ukrainian politics, a traitor or suspect of terrorism.
That's just the way it goes. Some people don't change. I see this everytime in politics.
People think that just because they see their country in "dire straits" or some bullshit because of reactive sensationalist media, they need a strong hand, a populist, a proto dictator, people who constantly talk crap without thinking twice, people who have no measure of consequences for their actions, to accelerate some sort of revolution. But then, once they are elected and start acting on their promisses, crushing minorities, causing genocides, tempting wars, draining public funds to arm themselves and put the country against previously allied ones, then the same shitheads who put him or her there in the first place starts questioning why they did it.
They'll be laughing on top of whatever mass grave you'll be burried in, people.
1
-
Ok, lets add some stuff here that didn't make it to the video...
1: Airsoft players... I guess it adds some flourish to the piece, but it's not really different from airsoft in any part of the world, and it's been part of the culture for a very long time now. These guys usually talk big, are all filled with testoterone and think they are preparing for some war, lots of them have nationalist tendencies, but ultimately they'd be the first to die in real war. I'm not saying all of them are like that, and the sport/hobby itself can be plenty cool and interesting in itself... it's just that it sometimes attracts the sort of immature people who don't know anything about war yet they think they are some kinda supersoldier or something. It's mostly a niche with some hardline hobbyists and all, but it's far from being representative of a big trend in society. In fact, it's probably even less popular than most other countries;
2: The islands are not the sole reason why nationalist politicians in Japan got some traction. I haven't been hearing about recent cases lately, fortunately, but over a decade ago there were several attacks against japanese estabilishments in China because of nationalist chinese groups. The dispute remains unsolved, but the heat has died down in recent years. Back then, an embassy in Beijing was attacked, commercial estabilishments with japanese brands also were, and I think even japanese people either visiting or living there were also attacked by groups. Those were related to the islands, or because a supposed failure to recognize Nanking massacre and other WWII war crimes (this is still highly debatable - not that it didn't happen, but that there's a failure of recognition), but they were forms of direct attack. But again, this happened over a decade ago, and there hasn't been much stuff to talk about in recent years... quite the opposite. Chinese are first place in number of immigrants in Japan, and there has been a whole ton of cultural exchange in recent years;
3: Despite the title of this article and some stuff implied in the video, the fact is that JSDF (Japan Self Defense Force, the japanese military) has been, since it's inception after WWII, reasonably well funded and equipped. The law about defense of allied countries is new, but JSDF has been involved with multiple UN Peacekeeping deployments, including in Iraq. So, it's not by any stretch of the mind "rebuilding" it's military for the first time, and having military vehicles and equipment that could be used for attack instead of defense is older news than anyone in that video. In fact, a whole ton of military vehicles that could supposedly be used for attack came from US itself, to equip the JSDF around a decade after WWII, with the condition that it was going to be used for defense only. If a ship that could be upgraded to attack capability rather than defense was something to be worried about, that worry should've started during the cold war, when the US ceded a whole bunch of destroyers to the JMSFD (Japan Maritime Self Defense Force);
4: If anything, the peak of nationalist sentiment, actions, politics, movements and whatnot happened a bit over a decade ago. It's also pretty well estabilished that extreme right wing groups in Japan, so called japanese nationalists, are a fringe extremist minority. Vice might have given some impression that this group is big, but it's actually not:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippon_Kaigi
The group has gotten some attention in recent years because of supposed ties with the prime minister and some alignment with his ideas, which is unfortunate, but I don't think it'll survive for long. Because they are seen by several japanese people as lunatics, warmongers, in a cult-like status. Not so dissimilar to white supremacists I guess... only I don't think a japanese Trump would ever succeed there.
So there you go. Unfortunately, no country is free of having people like that. And it's not impossible for Japan to make a turn to the worse, specially with countries like China and North Korea forcing their hand like that. But fortunately, I think most japanese people don't want Japan to become a military country, and there's a very strong sentiment there that this is not the route for the future.
1
-
1
-
1
-
First time in history? Let's talk about first time in history, Peter.
It's the first time in history that the US had such a morally bankrupt president.
It's the first time in history a president paid to make a porn star shut up about her relationship with him.
It's the first time in history that an entire political party was so dominated by lunatics that it ended up in a violent attempt of taking over Congress to stop a legitimate transfer of power, which resulted in deaths, damages and destruction, with hatred incited by the president.
It's the first time in history a news network was caught producing lies with the explicit reason being profit, working as a propaganda machine for a rogue government.
It's the first time in history that a party is so desperate to cling to power that they need to keep using nonsensical boogie man words that even they cannot explain such as "woke marxist left", repeating the same mistakes done during the Red Scare.
It's the first time in history that a political party has to lower itself down to grifting, weaponizing FUD, weaponizing conspiracy theories and fringe radical groups, and playing the victim of surreal conspiracy theories, because they cannot admit the multiple mistakes they did.
It's the first time in history that people around a political figure has been this disrespectful towards democratic values and justice.
It's the first time in history that an ex-president and multiple people around him were prosecuted under such a diversity of crimes, not because of some imagined persecution, but with actual concrete material proof, verified recordings, messages, speech, often published by themselves.
And so, hopefully, it'll be the first time in history justice will make all of these people pay, including yourself. You were the enablers of the people who just got long sentences in the last few days. Your sentences should be longer than theirs. Not because there is some sort of political persecution. It's because you deserve it.
1
-
Yep, happening down here in the other hemisphere too. Brazil southern states have never gone through such a long uninterrupted period of draughts after draughts, water reservoirs of several states have been in low percentages year after year, and water rationing schemes are running for longer periods of time and affecting more and more regions. We are also getting more fires all around, climate is tending towards the extremes, and just last year the first time in recorded history we experienced in some parts of the country the type of dust storm that I know happens in Australia, day turning red, big dust wall advancing towards cities.
But mostly, it's not that we never had those here... it's about the frequency and duration. Water reservoirs for my state, in the past half decade or so, went bellow 20% capacity a few times already. It is too close to total draught to comfort. And mind you, I'm not talking about a single water reservoir... I'm talking about all that serves multiple states.
This all considering Brazil has some of the biggest underground water reservoirs in the world... And our economy is still heavily reliant in Agriculture and cattle ranching. The future is dire here. Even if we did something about Climate Change today, the effects that are already guaranteed to happen will wreck havock in this country, the likes of which I'm not entirely sure about the survival of our economy.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Yeah, there is a fundamental problem with all this buddy buddy relationship between Russia and China that just makes it intractable one way or another - we're talking about two totalitarian dictatorships here, those alliances are only formed out of self interest, and they are as flimsy as the wills and moods of respective dictators.
See, the thing is that the Russia-China alliance is one of convenience, of fighting against common enemies. They are doing this because they consider NATO and the western democratic world a threat to their respective dictatorships. That's their shared cause. Along with North Korea and a few other nations.
But if it wasn't for that, Russia and China could be going at each other's throat. It's just prioritization of what is most important for both nations.
It wasn't all that long ago, back until USSR fell, that China had a huge border dispute with Russia.
With all this idea that Putin has of restoring Russia to USSR prowess days, if it wasn't for this dispute with NATO, western allied nations, and how powerful China has become, they would definitely be very wary about Putin also thinking of reactivating the border dispute. China is only allied with Russia because Putin is advancing towards the west. And Putin is advancing towards the west because it can't advance in other fronts without angering allies or relatively neutral countries.
In this, the idea that China would just do whatever to keep this war going while pretending to try to pacify it also makes sense. Make NATO spend as much resources on Ukraine while preparing to invade Taiwan.
On the other hand, we have to keep supporting Ukraine as much as possible because this also takes power from Russia. Putin has given clear signs that if his campaign was successful in Ukraine fast, he would've advanced towards other nations to continue capturing more territory.
I think lots of people underestimate or misunderstand the importance of Ukraine being able to fight back the way it's doing for things not to become even worse in Europe in general. It got into this conflict with Russia with Russia being the unprovoked unjustified aggressor that was trying to lie through it's teeth while preparing a surprise full force attack on their borders, and it showed the world that Russia's military is not all it was poised to be.
It's completely humiliating for Putin and Russia their complete incompetence on taking over Ukraine. And perhaps this is a good thing for China to also note... it's the second most powerful nation in the world with an also famous military, with the CCP considering invading Taiwan, but does the country really wants to put things to the test? Would that really benefit the country in any way? Is it worth leaving more bloodshed as a legacy of CCP control?
I think the world is plenty fed up with wars already, and Chinese people are no different even if they live under CCP control. Chinese people revolted against overbearing Covid measures, they could perfectly as well revolt against a government that causes yet another unprovoked war. I think a lot of CCP power rests on the fact that it has managed to maintain peace and prosperity for several decades now, and things could turn around if the CCP starts becoming belligerent or putting the burden of war on citizens because of Taiwan.
Plenty or Russians fled the country or continue operating underground there against Putin's regime. Russia is fast becoming an isolated nation such as North Korea, it has a president that is labeled an International war criminal joining the ranks of terrorists, radicals and whatnot.
Xi is still a dictator, but I think or at least hope he's a more measured person, or wants to be seen as one.
1
-
As someone who is currently researching for ways to get from a mid sized city and a capital city to a small town in a different state via different regional airports, this videos talks A LOT to my experience.
I am having to go one by one option of flights and mapping the distance from the airports to the town and building up an entire spreadsheet with prices, distances, connection wait times, time of departure, arrival, optimal days of the week, plus a whole ton of other data just to figure out what are the better options given a ton of different factors.
I feel that there should be ways of doing this better and that it seems something trivial for computer software to do, but there simply is nothing that can really do this, at least not that I know of in my country. You'd need a travel agent working perhaps a couple of days or so to get there, and I'm not sure if it would really result in optimal routes, and I wouldn't be able to see the process that they used to get to the conclusion, so for trips my family needs to make to visit relatives, I decided to go all in and figure it out by myself.
The whole thing is so confusing that basically, in order not to deal with this whole mess, what some people in the family has been doing is just endure the bus or car trip, even when it takes almost a full day to get to the destination whereas a combined flight plus bus or rental car trip could be a 4hr journey.
I often throw this down to just plan maliciousness.... it's hard to figure things out because if you have an emergency and pass it off for the airline to solve, they'll shove you the most absurd prices possible and sustain the business that way. Which you know, might be a component part of why these systems haven't been updated to this day.
But it seems it's also largely due to just plain incompetence. Using outdated tools not made to handle current reality of the sector.
1
-
If Beijing is saying rules should be brought in on a "scientific" basis, then this is fine. The pandemic isn't over, China changed their rules recently around restriction measures, it is going through a Covid surge, so it is actually scientifically correct to limit and restrict arrivals, enforce testing and either put in quarantine or refuse entering based on diagnosis.
This is what science will say needs to be done to stop global spread, period.
Also, China should deal with the fact that no western nation will ever trust their government generated official statistics anymore, both because China keeps lying on observable facts on their grounds, and don't have the capability to maintain accurate data on their citizens one way or another. Don't think for a moment that we have forgotten about the Chinese doctor that sounded the alarm early only to get censored by Chinese government officials. The pandemic could've gone a very different way if it wasn't for that.
No country is forced to keep dealing with your bs data peddling. Once the CCP can prove it's being fully transparent and accurate with Covid data, then they can complain. Until then, no country should feel any guilt in treating a lying government with suspicion.
That said, this is no reason for the multiple racist comments that always pops up on BBC News comments everytime this subject is brought up. Neither the UK, nor the US or most other nations have much of a higher moral ground to be standing on here. If anything, it's Chinese citizens who probably sacrificed the most out of citizens of all other nations to keep Covid from spreading, having their human rights violated to do so.
1
-
Seems like the higher up in the chain people are, the slower it is for simple concrete visible truths are to put on paper, and the more daring the witch hunt declarations become.
Boris is "bewildered"? By what? That it took this long to reach this obvious conclusion? Or that his position didn't shield him from justice?
Look people, this isn't the gossip era anymore, and I dunno why press just don't use their archives to show things clearly instead of this useless he said she said. You are not being political by simply displaying material you have that clearly shows what happened.
BBC has the images. One, of Boris saying straight faced that there was no party in Parliament, no violation, and then the photos and tapes of the party in question. It's 1+1. He participated in the thing he later on said never happened. Worse yet, everytime it was revealed the party did happen, he kept trying to misdirect and warp things to justify his previous lie. It happened multiple times over. He tried all routes. From semantics all the way up to his own personal interpretation of the English language. It was so ridiculously flagrant that it's just shameful, and quite frankly, very insulting to the public and his peers.
He can't claim he didn't deliberately lie because you'd have to suffer from mental illness or be completely senile to lie about something like that so straight faced without intention. So yes, it was deliberate.
1
-
1
-
I partially agree with some stuff you said Louis, but there are also several caveats there...
First, a matter of who is leading this. I don't believe at all that Musk will really get into making his own phone if Google and Apple decides to block Twitter on respective app stores, unless he's even more of an idiot than I already think he is, which is always possible since the bar is getting lower and lower everyday... one way or another Musk is, like many with his mentality, not actually a "freedom absolutist" as he so much preaches, but rather a "my freedom tramples over the rights of others" type guy.
So, he wouldn't vouch for a device that just lets people reach Twitter... he'd vouch for a device with a walled garden taller than that of Apple and Google, that aligns itself with his own political and ideological views, while trampling over everything else that goes against him.
Twitter is already a shinning example of that. He's not for the freedom of everyone, he's only for the freedom of himself and those that aligns with him - that's the truth of it. He wants to talk sh*t without consequences, he wants platforms that allow him to do that, and he wants everyone who is criticizing his position to get banned, censored, fired, or just shut up.
Other than that, he just doesn't know what he's talking about yet on building a phone and handling an app store by himself, much like he didn't know how to handle Twitter better or how it really worked when he announced he was going to buy it. Not sure if he learned a lesson there though.
Now, as for apks, we already had a pretty clear example of what happens with that going on with Epic. There has been much back and forth in this case, but we have a clear example of what happens when a big app goes outside Google Play Store with the developer explicitly telling people to install it as an independent apk - this is the case of Fortnite. Back sometime in 2018 Epic voluntarily took Fortnite outside Google Play Store for disagreements on the 30% imposed Play Store tax, telling people to install it as an independent apk. What ensued after that was:
1. A huge drop in people playing Fortnite on Android. Because most people can't bother, don't know, don't care or simply don't want to install apks for a given functionality. Mind you, this was the most popular game on Android back then, period. It was one of the most popular mobile games all around;
2. Epic getting flooded with complaints about the apk not working properly, malware problems, etc. Which the security community warned would happen, of course it did;
3. Fortnite quietly coming back to Google Play Store in 2020, with Epic still complaining about the whole deal, not admitting they were wrong in their decision, because now they have an ongoing lawsuit.
I'd put sources here, but don't trust me, check for yourself.
What is the essencial problem here? Well, I'm also old enough to remember the times of WinXP and back even further, when I was a kid the OS of choice was DOS. xD
So... the problem here is that the exact same thing that gave unreasonable control to big tech, is also the thing that made these OSs so convenient to use, and attracted so many people to use them. To the point that potentially, the vast majority of people using smartphones these days cannot operate on a level that WinXP days demanded. We want for people to be more aware on these things, to do their own research, to understand how to operate outside walled gardens, and for the domination and control of big tech to diminish somehow... I do too, on this level I agree with Louis. But at the same time, we cannot be blind about people who simply don't want to deal with any of that, and I fear that it's simply the majority of people. It's a tyranny of the majority situation. They want to trade control for convenience, even if this control is at the hands of arbitrary big tech decisions.
On this part, Musk is probably unintentionally right when he says he'll just do a phone on his own... because the absolute vast majority of Twitter users wanting to use the app won't be able and won't care about installing apks, installing custom ROMs, installing alternate app stores, etc... the better strategy there is for Musk to sell a Tesla phone or Twitter phone that comes with everything pre-installed. Problem is, if Musk is already at odds with Google on this, I'm not sure if Google will get in a contract with Musk for those. And then you have a phone with Twitter pre-installed, but not Google Play Store, which is the problem Huawei has nowadays on selling their phones in the western market. I'm not sure if people wants Twitter so much they'd pick a phone that doesn't come with Google Play Store with it. I mean, some will, but probably the vast majority wouldn't.
But let's say Musk somehow manages to make a Twitter phone with the app pre-installed and also get Google to sanction the device... at the first sign this phone isn't getting security and regular updates, that it's kind of a crappy phone which only advantage is having Twitter on it, and that Musk only did it to enforce his personal political views on the thing - well, it's not going to be able to really compete with anyone else, right? I guess it sends a message, but I really doubt a Musk phone would be competent in any bullet point a modern phone is supposed to be.
So in the end, it'd go the same route that Twitter is going. Perhaps it won't get outright killed, but it's relevance will just die down once all the scandals are over. I do agree that it's a marginally good thing to expose the level of arbitrary control that big tech platforms have, but then again, I lost count on how many examples we had over the years of arbitrary control that big tech platforms have with none of those having any effect on what people are paying for. With Twitter, if the argument becomes completely political, it'll be a 50-50 split more or less, and then it has even less chances of really being a thing that most people care about.
And let's be honest about it here - with how chaotic the situation currently is at Twitter, with rampant false impersonation, scams, exploitation and whatnot going on without moderation and without control, is it really wrong for Google and Apple to impose the same sanctions and restrictive policies on Twitter based on the same rules that they imposed against other apps like Gab, Parler, Infowars and whatnot? I don't personally think they are being inconsistent there. They didn't ban Twitter just yet, but depending on how things go, they are saying they might, because it could end up violating the exact same terms of services that other banned apps did.
So... I dunno what to say more here. It seems like as so many other Musk tweets, this is much ado about nothing.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Good general cover MKHB, way better than most videos and articles I've read so far.
The final comment is specially relevant... I won't say it's the case, but this all could potentially be yet another ZTE-like move. Remember how fast that was reversed?
I'll just add something that most coverages about this case are leaving out so that people have a clearer understanding of Huawei itself.
We, on western countries, tend to think about Android as Google, because that's our experience.
But here's something people might not think much about at first - US really hasn't been a huge market for Huawei. Afaik, internationally, India, Russia, countries in South America and Europe are bigger markets for the company. But even considering those, again, as far as I know, Huawei's growth, biggest marketplace, and where they have really been selling most of their units is... in China. Not in western countries, not even in other asian countries, China itself is it's biggest market.
When you think about chinese companies that really have a foothold in US, you should be thinking about OnePlus and perhaps Motorola (the smartphone division only), which is now owned by Lenovo. That's it.
Now, about the chinese market. As some people will know, a whole lot of american companies already cannot operate there because of the great chinese firewall. US devs and services have been struggling for decades to enter and get a foothold in China even when they have to comply with chinese government censorship because what effectively happened over the years is that chinese businesses and corporations propped themselves up to replace each and every western app and service counterpart.
For your average chinese smartphone user, this US ban matters very little. With the obvious exception of expats, international minded people, and just overall the chinese people who do use some US based apps, of course.
Since not many people know about these, I'll just dive a little bit deeper.
The top ranking apps in China are all chinese. Most smartphone manufacturers in China plus the giant chinese telecoms have their own app store - it's not like the west that relies heavily on Google Play Store. Some names to learn about: Baidu everything, WeChat, Youku, BiliBili, QQ, Weibo, Alibaba everything, Tencent everything, Didi, etc etc. Maps, ridesharing, microblogging (Twitter), social networks, online payment systems, cloud storage, video streaming services, review websites, eCommerce in general, dating websites, browsers, gaming portals... anything you can imagine being used on a daily basis, they have an app for that.
Arguably and funny enough, it could be said that China has a bigger diversity too... more than a single monopoly for each of those. Duopoly, olygopoly perhaps, but still more diverse than the west overall.
So, yeah, it is a huge hit for Huawei to lose business with Google, Intel, Broadcomm, Qualcomm and other american or american partner companies. But it is also good to keep in mind that despite the hit, what Huawei is mostly potentially losing is the international market, and will potentially have to spend lots of money and downgrade things a bit in their devices with replacement for chinese chip makers and chinese developers.
It's not by very far too. We know mostly of the american hardware companies, but there are actually plenty of chinese hardware manufacturers that are very up to par. Huawei's own HiSilicon SoC and chip maker is just one example of that. But if you even had contact with other chinese brands that are less known in the west and uses more chinese components, you'll know they aren't very far behind.
I don't wanna diminish the impact of such a thing, but it's important to know that Huawei is nowhere near closing doors even if this entire thing comes down to it's worst consequences - complete irreversible blockage.
It's a showstopper for doing business inside the US, it is a huge hindrance for Huawei to do business internationally... India, countries in South America, Africa, Europe, and even Asian countries, afaik, still have a somewhat big reliance on Google services. Huawei would need to either convince all these international users to switch to Huawei store or some other independent store, trust in the app database... or some other strategy like sideloading, rooting and all that stuff we had to go through sometime ago. Any of those would have a big impact.
But probably, the main Huawei market remains unaffected. The growth of the company has way more to do with the growth of chinese economy.
The thing that worries me the most is if this trade war keeps escalating like this. It's gonna be a huge hit for chinese businesses, and it's gonna be a huge hit for worldwide economy in general... but I still think the one who has the most to lose in all this is actually the US itself. I can't even imagine the disaster that would be chinese government responding in kind and passing some measure that says chinese companies cannot to business with the US anymore. I don't think the US administration has a good enough idea of what that would cause. The ties are way bigger and waaaay deeper than most people think. Just losing business with a single chinese company - Foxconn for instance - would probably kill most of Foxconn itself, but the damage to american businesses would be far worse.
People don't get this, but mass production at scales that US consumption needs can only be met by chinese companies. It's not a matter of going to other asian countries or mostly other countries that are in development. China has almost 5 times the population of the US, the workforce is massive, the infrastructure that they build there for industries and shipment logistics is incomparable to anything else in the world, and the technologies and strategies that chinese companies build around massive demand from developed countries is unique to China. This obviously can be seen as a good and bad thing, but the thing people have to understand is that it is sort of a miracle built upon several factors. It isn't something that any other country will be able to replicate in short time. Even the couple of decades that China took to make this change happen was miraculously short.
Anyways, I already rambled too much. Just to give a different outlook.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Pretty much the same... but I think I'd like P30 camera setup on the back instead. Agreed on pretty much all the rest.
Oh, and some stuff that don't exactly exist on current phones - closer to Asus ROG number of accessories and capabilities of using the ports for. More physical buttons, more ports. Potentially some stuff borrowed from the Razer phone too (remember that laptop shell powered by the phone?). Because with that kinda setup, there's a whole lot you could actually do with the phone that's kinda wasted potential.
But that would require an OS that is better fit for laptop/desktop usage, ability to switch to different modes (like a TV mode, a desktop mode, a tablet mode, a laptop mode with required accessories and apps), etc etc.
But you know, this is something I've been asking for, trying to hack phones, and testing all sorts of dongles, adaptors, half way solutions and whatnot since.... well, since I got my first smartphone back in the Xperia Z3 era. Something I came to accept we're never truly getting, not because it's impossible, but because it works against smartphone companies profit logic.
1
-
Alec basically already answered his own question. Why would people like the Zoom better? Because it's smaller. Potentially also brand recognition... even though both brands have been around in the market for a very very long time.
I think Tascam also has a smaller model closer to H1n.
Back years ago when I was personally shopping around for a recorder, Zoom came with the first H1, which was incredibly cheap for a digital audio recorder, way cheaper than the competition, and it was also smaller than any recorder in the market. Zoom also already had lots of fame for external audio recorders with the H4n's success, plus the history for musicians.
That gave it a huge boost in brand recognition for the category, lots of YouTubers and general videographers got one if not to use as main gear, at least for B-roll.
I got myself a Tascam DR-07 MkII.
The other thing is that usually, for a studio setup, videographers tend to go for the box style mounted between the camera and tripod XLR boxes, so the portable recorders are bought with portability in mind, where size and weight matters.
I think you should go with what works for you Alec. Personally, if I needed one right now, I'd have to do a full research into it according to what I needed for. Lots and lots of good options nowadays, not only for recorders, but also for microphones and whatnot. These product lines and brands have truly grown in recent years.
1
-
1
-
I don't think I'd want a wristband/watch/bracelet thing personally, but I can see it being a great product for lots of people... the main problem with achieving this concept is getting mass production for flexible batteries. And I say mass production because we already have a few prototype stage flexible batteries.
But the foldable tech still makes sense to me both for a closer to production idea, and a more distant one. Closer to production would be something like the Xiaomi concept... a standard sized tablet that could fold into the size of a smartphone. Because for my personal case, that would mean combining two devices I use on a regular basis into one.
The simple fact that I'd have to carry less stuff during trips and charge only one device is already enough benefit... so the problems now are pricing and durability.
The more distant idea one I'd also be interested in would be a scroll like device. Something like a thick pen shaped smartphone which you can pull the screen out, up to the size of a smartphone screen, or up to the size or a tablet screen.
That one is further out because we'd need to miniaturize electronic components even further, and have an even higher density battery to power it, plus have flexible oled, durable screens that could withstand such stresses.
But then, further than that would be just having smart glasses the size of regular glasses (which I already use) that gives you virtual screens of any size, plus stuff like AR and whatnot.
This I think might be the real conundrum. I'm not sure which fully realized paradigm we'll have first.
Prototype stage of both are already here. I guess now it all depends on where the market goes. If the Hololens 2 gets highly adopted in industry and tons of money is poured there, we might progress fairly quickly there.
On the other hand, if foldable smartphones sells a lot and smartphone manufacturers see it as a trend worth switching to, tons of money could be poured into R&D and mass production into those.
Perhaps we end up having both. A foldable phone that can wirelessly send images to your AR enabled glasses. Perhaps we end up having none. xD
1
-
1
-
Good subject!
Down here, while I do think we have an election system that is more straightforward, it also falls into similar traps and is far from perfect due to side effects it has, plus cultural problems. Of course, personal opinion.
Though to be fair, I don't think there will ever be a "perfect" election system ever... it's just pros vs cons all the way.
In Brazil, voting is obligatory (though there are several ways to justify not voting), direct (you vote directly on candidates), two-round system. It's framed as a civic duty.
But, as Brazil often mirrors the US and UK, polarization and cult of personality are still here. We might have multiple candidates from multiple parties running up, but with polarization and cult of personality, it effectively became a two party system down here too - with tactics from both sides so comically mirroring what is happening in the US it often makes zero sense.
So, like, on one hand.... we don't have gerrymandering, or anything similar to that. Because every vote counts and there is no proportionality involved. There's also no possibility of a popular vote not coinciding with who gets elected, because the popular vote is the only vote. There also should be no doubts about the power of the vote because each vote counts as one and is obligatory... though actual numbers are more around the 70 to 80% of the population.
I do think the voting system itself is something we have to take pride of. We have electronic voting booths that are in the process of all being equipped with biometrics.... they are offline, voting can only be done in person, and there are so many auditing and security steps involved that I'd have to write a whole other lengthy comment to explain what I know about it. It's also an insanely huge operation that involves an insane amount of people, vehicles, places and institutions... ranging everywhere from helicopters to take people from one place to another quickly, down to election workers going into boats to take voting booths to the most remote corners of the Amazon rainforest. I don't think there's anything quite like it in terms of logistics.
Anyways, what are the downfalls? Well, because people vote directly in candidates, it's a popularity contest. There is too much cult of personality, celebritization, tokenization, and all the bad crap that comes with putting people on top of a marble pedestal. Politics take a back seat, actual proposals take a back seat, evaluations on what an elected representative actually do when they are on the seat also takes a back seat.
Political advertisement and what candidates say gets so diluted, so superficial, so generic and so attuned to what electors want to hear that it often amounts to nothing. Propositions for actual change often gets put down, which is why polarization happens. All candidates are supposedly working against the worst perceived national issues (corruption, poverty, unemployment, yadda yadda), all candidates are supportive of minorities, all candidates will make Brazil better... blah blah. It's all overly generic and without any solid compromises.
More dangerous and more insidious perhaps, is the fact that people ignore everything in favor of electing charismatic leaders. It's not about compromises made by candidates and their parties anymore, which is why there is no focus put in that, but about the personality in front of the TV. I don't have to tell you how this is a half step towards autocracy.
So, it's an even further problem because this also means it's hard to evaluate any representative that is getting in. If they are not hold to stuff they said they'd do in very specific terms, you can't evaluate what has been done... which is particularly bad in the election we are in the midst of, because runner ups are the current president up for re-election and a former president with two terms in his bag. This focus on a candidate and what he or she represents rather than a party with a list of propositions also generates all sorts of side effects that are not only distracting, they are actively malicious. For instance, there is much more focus on FUD, mudslinging, direct attacks, digging skeletons out of a closet, and stuff like that rather than discussion about politics. We have alliances between parties and people who wouldn't see each other in the eye otherwise. There seems to be no ethical boundaries anymore, no morals, no questioning about certain political moves because it all circles around the figure of single people.
Long forgotten is the idea that a president, a mayor, a senator, a congressman, all there political representatives are there to be public workers, people who are there to work for us, to represent us, to make decisions for the country. Instead, it looks more like some insular fancy country club where people rich from taking money out of public coffers discuss what they think is best for the country in their own opinions while spending tax money into fancy dinners, travels and whatnot.
Which of course tends to attract the worst types of people possible. Everyone wants to be in office not because they think they have the better ideas to make the country better, but because the privilege of the political class in Brazil is so surreal that it tramples over the reality of the population with ease. It's a lottery, if you win you are guaranteed for life, even if you do jacksh*t while you are there.
I do think there needs to be change to take attention out of single candidates and put more on party propositions. It might have it's own problems, but at least for a period, the ideal is that we'd change things for a while to recover the real meaning of being an elected representative.
But much like in the US, we are stuck. There is no way this is gonna happen anytime soon, save for revolution which I highly doubt will happen - and if it did happen it'd probably be to the opposite direction, which is a dictatorship, which is the last thing this country needs.
Fact is, politics in Brazil is dictated by politics. Reason why it's so corrupt, so bloated, with wages and privileges incompatible with the reality of the nation, with the worst type of people trying to get in, and all the other aforementioned problems. The barrier of entry has been continuously put down too, because of course everyone wants to get in. And because of cult of personality and the political divide, people keep voting for the same old parties and getting into the same old fights instead of trying something new. There is too much propaganda, paranoia, FUD and whatnot in the discussion, and people are too politically ignorant to see this. It's like McDonald's and Burger King fighting on national television on who has the healthier food... because all other options have been eliminated. We always end up having to choose which is the least worst or something.
Anyways, rant over... just thought of sharing.
1
-
I'm sorry, but Facebook, Google and Twitter are private companies offering service for free, and they have zero obligation to serve as public announcement service or news sources of any type, and I challenge anyone to prove me otherwise.
In fact, I wish Facebook did the same thing in all countries, it'd be better for us all.
Instead of posing as populist idiots and mounting this entire bravado against private companies, perhaps these politicians should shut the fuck up and start working on actual official platforms for public announcements and communications, instead of relying on private companies of other countries. This was never right from the beginning, and it continues not being.
Both privacy and security advocates have been warning from the beginning not to use and not to rely on these american tech giants for stuff like public service, news, official communications and whatnot. We keep wasting time with these things because this has been wrong from the beginning.
Social networks should be a place to share photos and some communication between friends and family, period. Not more than that, particularly not being relied upon as source of news and/or anything official or serious.
The real deal about Facebook and Google here is that over the years, people have come to trust and rely on the services they provide too much, well over the scope of what these services should be about, and now we're paying for the consequences of such stupidity, because people cannot be arsed to do what is right for once.
And I'm sorry if people are angry with this, but it's just the way it is. It was never the objective of these platforms to serve as judge, jury and executioner of any country and any society, but that's what governments are asking them to do, not because there is any expectations that all private companies should do the same, but because people became over reliant on it. What sort of mob rule excuse is that?
Fellow Autralians, turn this around and you should see it as a blessing. If you fell into the trap of seeing Facebook as a news source, just take the opportunity and stop it now. I don't care if you have to go back to buying newspaper at a corner stand, watching TV or whatever - almost anything you used before Facebook is more reliable and trustworthy than it.
If you wanna keep up with times, perhaps go back to RSS readers, news letters, news groups and whatnot. Obviously, don't rely on a single source... it's just baffling how people will say that they'll use a single private platform as a source for ALL their information. No coincidence that shit like extremism starts happening everywhere.
As for emergency services and public announcements from governments and other institutions, if they don't have direct channels, you should demand it, because they are not doing their jobs right. Channels outside services owned by private corporations outside the country, that is. A webpage with constant updates is more than enough, but depending on the service, it should also have plain messaging updates and whatnot.
So there ya go. May it be a lesson to all governments and countries. You keep feeding the monster, don't complain when it bites back.
1
-
1
-
As I see on comments and I'm sure Devin will receive tons on this, the only snag is that... down here in Banana Republic Brazil, we can still vote for "None of the Above"... as long as you show up. xD The "obligation", with major exceptions, is that you have to show up on election day and vote... but ou can still vote for no one.
It's also an incredibly efficient system with voting happening always on Sundays and tons upon tons of voluntary citizens working in tons of voting places in every city... it's such a huge endeavor that at least in the past several election days I remember I didn't have to wait over 5 minutes in line to vote, and at most busy times you probably won't have to wait over an hour to do it - though there are places in Brazil that conditions are definitely worse.
Things got simplified even further after the adoption of electronic voting systems, but historically, other than voting for candidates, there were two other possibilities - voting "blank" and voting "null" or invalidating your vote by error or by voting in some non-existent or pretend/joke candidate/party.
It used to be that if you voted "blank", you were just "going with the majority"... because in effect your vote didn't count and so it meant you were satisfied with whoever was elected - you effectively gave up your voting power to the majority.
If you voted "null" you were specifically saying you are against all choices. Something like this. Perhaps it's the other way around.
Other than the difference for statistical purposes, which still exists today, this was used mainly in a specific situation where parties needed a number of votes to elect legislative representatives... but the legislation has changed since 1988, and now they are directly elected.
This all changed definitively when we adopted electronic voting systems, for practical purposes. Nowadays in practice everything other than a valid vote is considered "blank", though the two former options still exist - electronic booths all have a "blank" button so people can nullify their votes by pressing that, or you can press a bunch of zeros or numbers for candidates that don't exist and vote for that if you want to vote "null", they will be counted like so, but in practice it's just a plain majority vote, so a candidate will be decided either way. It's heavily discouraged to do so because in the end you are just relegating your voting power to the majority, so better to chose someone even if it's the "least worse"... which is what most of us sane Brazilians do every 4 years anyways, nevermind the fanatics and cultists. :P
Oh, a more complete description of what happens if you don't vote here. First of all, you can justify not going to vote before, during or after the election, up to 60 days after - or 30 days after your entry in the country if you were traveling abroad. The base justification is that you were away from your designated place of voting... in practice, since I've never heard of this being checked in any way, it can be an excuse for anything... so if you don't wanna vote, you just say you'll be away at election day.
These days you can also justify in presence at relevant public service buildings, by mail, or using the official elector app available both on iOS and Android, as long as it's during those valid days - before, during, or up to 60 days after.
If you do none of that, miss the period, and don't justify... then when you finally do, you'll have to pay the measly fine. And then if you skip 3 elections not justifying nor paying fines, then your voter ID gets cancelled. Oh, BTW, the fine considering current currency exchange would actually be LESS than a buck... xD It's like, 70 cent.
Getting your voter ID cancelled has a bit more consequences than just having to do a new one though... but only if you work for or depend on the public sector. You can't renew an ID or passport, you can't apply for nor receive wages for a government tied job, you can't be a candidate for any election, you can't get a bank loan and you can't run for government contracts - and that's basically it. You can always pay the fines and renew your voter ID though.
Just to give a general idea how it is in practice though, let's consider the last 2018 presidential election (we have an upcoming election next month currently in 2022), the first round only because we had two.
Over 20% of voters in Brazil did not vote, that's almost 30 million people. We had a bit over 3 million "blank" votes, and a bit over 7 million "null" votes, put together almost 9% of voters showed up and either voted wrong or purposely voted for no one.
So yeah... I guess even though in Brazil voting is obligatory, and seen as a civil duty, for the most part if you don't wanna vote, there are just tons of ways of not doing it, including opening an app on election day and saying you won't be able to make it. :P
1
-
1
-
1
-
Look, I'm not a lawyer, but to oversimplify things, here's a very basic premise which I personally think should be at the core in all of this- you cannot have Constitutional protections used as defense for actions attacking the entire American democratic system, period.
If the conclusion does not get down to this, then the system already has a massive flaw that people will exploit towards it's end.
See, ill intended people are using the Constitution as a shield to protect themselves while they are attacking democracy. This should not be allowable, it shouldn't even be up for discussion, and because it always gets into this murky legalese waters, it ends up being a perfect target for exploitation.
Constitutional protections, the 1st amendment, these mechanisms for the good functioning of politics and society, they were created as a mechanism to protect law, protect the rules, as the foundation for society.
The concept of freedom of speech in particular was created to protect regular citizens when making fair criticisms against the government, in a lawful manner. It wasn't created to protect rich and powerful people with followers crazy enough to commit crimes in the name of they project of power.
It is evidently bad in face that Trump not only used all legal recourse, but also abused it. And then when his abuse of legal recourses didn't bear fruit, he then turned to illegal means. You simply cannot judge things this punctually, the whole escalation needs to be up for consideration.
If the constitution and laws continue being unclear in all of this, they should be updated, amended and changed in order to better reflect and be clear about such possibilities.
Let's make a clumsy analogy here just to drive the point. You know how in sports matches you can have players protesting a fault or some other judge decision? This can only get to a point, or else the player will suffer a penalty. A player will protest, judge will reaffirm his decision, and it ends up there, or the player will get a penalty for it - soccer a yellow card, for instance.
You can't have a player protesting indefinitely, doing illegal moves on the field, punching, cussing, telling people to go after and inciting violence by other players, by spectators, and whatnot. At that point the player is attacking the game itself, not only the judge, the other team, or whatever. He's an impediment to the sport, and everyone is losing with his actions.
Similarly, you can put out your opinions about someone, a business, or government itself in public only up to a point, which is when libel comes up. It's the limit between you having rights to freedom of speech to say whatever you want, up to the point when it starts curtailing the freedom of others. Because the concept of freedom of speech in a democracy only works when it's for everyone, not only for a few select people.
What the far right really is, not only in the US but in several other nations, are a group of terrorists unfit to live in democratic societies. And that's fine, I'm all for them learning the hard way by moving into a theocratic, fascist or authoritarian nation. Just don't do it where I live. Don't trample on my rights to live in a free democratic nation.
1
-
Just a warning about this phone and Nokia in general so that people don't spend money to end up disappointed.
Nokia was sold to Microsoft, then re-sold back to HMD Global when Microsoft finished failing with it. HMD Global is supposed to be a company that spun off Nokia Mobility, so it's supposed to be a kinda come back to origins, or so this is the story that was sold off to the press.
In actuality, Nokia phones situation these days is kinda like the exact same situation that Motorola is. Motorola is an empty brand now, the company that actually develops and produces Motorola phones these days is Lenovo. Lenovo's mobile division was merged with Motorola mobility after the buyout. There are no Motorola phones anymore, it's just Lenovo phones rebranded. Lenovo made a reasonably good job in copying Motorola past IPs, much like it did with the Thinkpad brand, but make no mistake, those are Lenovo phones.
For Nokia, HMD Global acquired parts of a company called FIH Mobile, which is/was a Foxconn subsidiary, to assume mobile development. You never heard about any phone branded Foxconn or FIH Mobile because it was a company that developed phones for a multitude of other brands, generic ones.
So, that's the reason why you see SoCs like Unisoc Tiger, sometimes a MediaTek SoC, instead of Qualcomm or Samsung. Chances are, the Nokia G22 is simply a reworked white label phone designed and produced by Foxconn.
This is why it's so cheap, and to a point repairable. You know how cheap generic low end phones from China from about 5-10 years ago still had plastic backs and replaceable batteries? That's basically what this phone probably is.
This Unisoc Tiger T606 SoC is worse in several aspects when compared to a Snapdragon 835... that's Samsung Galaxy S8 or Google Pixel 2 territory. I'm trying to be generous here, because really, that Tiger T606 SoC is running on 12nm tech, whereas the other two I mentioned were already on 10nm tech... the current Snapdragon SoC tech is at 4nm.
The sole advantage here is that it comes with Android 12... it's quite possible that it does not come with Android 13 simply because the OS won't run with that SoC.
It's not only the low specs too... that SoC was launched back in 2021 as a mid to low end offering by Unisoc. Unisoc itself has better SoCs in Chinese branded phones, including ones that offers 5G connectivity.
So, tldr version, the Nokia G22 uses a low spec SoC from a low spec lesser known brand - Unisoc, it is quite likely a re-hash of Chinese white label phone from a couple of years ago, done by a former Foxconn mobile subsidiary that is now owned by HMD Global, the current owner of the Nokia brand. Repairability is merely coincidental, seems to be on the same level of repairability of all Chinese low spec white label phones from years ago.
Of course, this is not bad per se depending on what you are looking for, but it's information people should know before buying the device. I find it very deceptive that Motorola and Nokia are selling these phones now... it's more or less just a disguise to sell Chinese phones in western markets, following a different route that OnePlus did, but to the same effect.
1
-
It should be obvious from BBC reports themselves why it's not working.
Reporters on the streets still persist on not using masks, which sets an example for everyone who is watching. I don't care if you are respecting social distancing and whatnot, it's about the message, the image you are putting out. Technical reasons do not matter, you need to show, even above the usual recommendations, that you are willing to go above and beyond because the situation is serious enough.
All of your staff on grounds in public spaces should be wearing a mask, period. And it would be even better if they were using face shields above it.
Other than that, agreed with the whole thing. It shouldn't be a penalty system if rules are broken, particularly when the government keeps saying things are "under constant review". If it's under constant review, no one knows what the case is at any given time, and they can use an excuse of the message not being clear to act however they want to.
And finally, agreed with psychologists. What is needed is not a system to punish those who don't respect constantly changing, weak restrictions, at their own financial and economic demise - what is needed is incentive for those who are willing to respect it. You are asking for extraordinary action in extraordinary times, if the government isn't willing to act extraordinarily, people don't get the message.
The entire idea of it is, if governments are not willing to put their hands to the fire with financial incentives for those who are respecting lockdown restrictions and whatnot, why should citizens who depend on going out to keep their finances afloat should do it? It signals the government is weak, and doesn't warrant respect, because it seems that during emergency situations such as the pandemic, it's to each it's own. People can't feed and prosper on strong worded messaging alone.
This is how it should've been seen from start you know? Pay for people to install tracking apps and stay in lockdown. If you are serious about it causing too much damage to NHS an government in general, you need to show it. And money spent on other types of policies is money wasted.
Government needs to understand - this is taxpayer money, not your pension funds. Your job is to administer it as best as possible, given the situation - it's your job, your obligation, what you were elected to do.
Governments that can't see how putting the money out now for citizens in need, how this is the only effective way of asking people to respect pandemic rules, in the end will be the economies most affected by the pandemic.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Funny thing is that despite Kpop being huge and dominant worldwide today on the concept... it shouldn't be something surprising for most people, as it's taking a fairly old concept to a next step of sorts.
Jpop groups comes from the 60s, and specifically idol duos and groups are from the 70s and onwards. Another thing people seem to forget about this entire concept is... boy bands.
In terms of an "artificially" created group (at very high costs I might add), Jackson 5 comes immediately to mind... specially after we started learning about how harsh things were in terms of training, schedule and whatnot. Arguably, The Beatles were just that.
Couple of decades later in the 80s all the way up to 2000s we have all these names everyone will know about... New Kids on the Block, Menudos, Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Jonas Brothers. Interesting that it was mostly about boy bands, not girl groups.
Obviously, if this isn't about group training, idols, or music made from top down instead of bottom up, terms like popular korean music in Kpop and whatnot goes even further back, with other genres and other types of band compositions.
But I guess Kpop and Jpop idol groups are the ones that took the entire concept to the next level. I'm not personally a huge fan of the concept, but I have no problems with people who do like it, and it's just overall interesting.
1
-
Hey people looking for bidets or a fancy japanese toilet seats - you don't really need those... there's a thing called either intimate shower, or bidet shower, or hand shower that you can install for the job, usually pulling a line from your restroom sink or something. Because even though it's a staple in Japan, in western shores it became a luxury item and super expensive because of that. :P I almost brought one back from Japan 12 years ago when I went there, but you know... different sizes, didn't know if it was gonna fit, etc.
You loose the automatic aiming, the heated seat, the heated water and some extra features of modern japanese toilet seats, but it does the job, and it's better in costs and for the environment and your sewer pipes than wet wipes. Not sure if people know but a whole lot of your tax dollars goes into pulling out a thing called fatbergs out of sewage systems which is basically a mixture of grease with non biodegradable wet wipes clogging sewage pipes.
Also, fully agreed with Louis.
1
-
Mostly Win 10 with a planned migration path towards either Linux Mint or Fedora. Probably Mint as I already tested it and seems to work well for my needs.
But if you count several other devices... Android on smartphone, custom version of OpenWRT on a router, TrueNAS Scale on the relatively new home server which I will change the entire hardware at some point to something that spends less power, DIskStation Manager on an old Synology NAS... that will become my backup away from home soon.... I think that's mostly it.
Also still using Android via Samsung Dex for portability. But I've been looking for a TV and touchscreen friendly Linux distro together with either an N100 portable device or a portable gaming PC to replace it. Not only for personal use case, but also for other family members.
The idea for me goes more towards a portable gaming PC because I want to have something to carry around the house to watch stuff while doing other tasks, plus on trips and whatnot. I considered to get multiple N100 devices and screens or touchscreens to distribute at fixed points around the home, but in the end a portable thing to carry around just makes more sense. I had an Android tablet in the past to do this. Just need to consider a better way of carrying it around and fixing it at strategic point so it doesn't suffer the same fate as my old Android tablet - face down on the ground with a cracked screen. xD
Priority for family members is different - dead simple touchscreen controls for media consumption and daily stuff such as reading mails, chat apps, video conferencing, etc. Priorities are ease of use and just having a bigger panel to help with accessibility.
I dunno if there are any Linux distro focused on that, but Android wasn't good enough, Chrome OS also won't work, iOS is out of the question, and Windows is already being used non-optimally.
So I really need something I can customize to a very high degree. Need to think more like a home automation panel rather than a full OS. Big buttons, simple controls, fixed functionality. Preferably with support for physical controls such as dials, physical buttons, etc.
Not sure if this is even doable. But you know, long term project. Been going on and changing for a full decade now perhaps. Very case specific. It's an extremely hard problem to solve if you think about the solutions we have nowadays. Everything is just too complicated due to extra features older people won't make use of, and you usually have no way of really customizing interface down to it's core functions.
Imagine someone with no experience with computers, that can only use a TV if it has clear physical buttons to change channels and control volume, making something that fits this logic to read e-mails, use social media, use streaming services, among others - in a big enough interactive panel so that text is big and easy to read. Been trying for a while now... there is always something that gets in the way.
Anyways, fairly complex but well thought out setup Chris! I also had an offline Win 7 desktop for a time here... mostly for fixes and tests. But as I don't have a channel to run, and ended up not needing to do much repair and tests - parts of it became my NAS. Just that it's too power hungry, so I've been looking at some N100 NAS solutions to replace it.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Here's a response for anyone to use when confronted with "The climate is always changing" flavor of denial -
Yes it is, the climate is always changing, it has always changed, and the planet handled fine. And truthfully, the planet probably can handle the current rate of change - it's WE who cannot, and it's WE who are causing it.
Extending the explanation... Earth has been around for some 4.5 billions years more or less. The very first ancestors of humans have been around for more or less 6 millions of years. Homo Sapiens, our species, have been around for 300 thousand years more or less, and so far we have evidence of big scale civilizations coming up about 6 thousand years ago.
It's hard to visualize this sort of scale, but think about the difference between 6000 and 4.5 billions. Our existence in this planet is insignificant, it doesn't even register.
At those large scales, yes, the planet has become waaaay hotter and waaaay colder than it is today. In fact, the worst case scenario for Climate Change wouldn't even scratch the surface of how hot our planet has been historically. But our entire stint of existence, again, insignificant when compared to the age of the planet, lies in this tiny stretch of time where the Earth's climate has been super stable at the exact range we humans need for survival.
It is also the case where most super hot and super cold periods the planet went through happened in a gradual shift spanning millions of years, apart from when it was caused by mass extinction events such as super volcano explosions and meteor impacts. This should tell you something. Sudden drastic changes through the history of our planet has often meant a mass extinction event. And some of them happened more gradually than the current Climate Change.
So, when you think about periods that life adapted to when the planet got hotter or colder, this happened over the span of hundreds of thousands to millions of years... not a few centuries or decades.
And so, in turn comes the problem - it's not really about climate or temperature or getting hot or getting cold. It's about the speed of the change - kinda like a car crash. It's not about the speed, it's about the sudden stop. xD
During the span of human existence, we have never experienced such a dramatic shift in global climate... and during way more time than that, this has never happened "naturally". It's a very huge and sudden spike in temperature that only seems to be getting worse, with no natural processes justifying the change, with the best explanation coming from all areas of science pointing straight at different things humans do - by which I mean, it's man made. There is nothing else happening on Earth, the Sun, the Universe or whatever at micro to macro scale that justifies the spike in temperature other than human activity.
Mind you, in a serendipitous kinda way, we are fortunate that all this stuff we did is making the planet hotter... if we had this rate of change for colder things could be even worse. Hotter we can still run to the hills and towards the poles if things gets too bad, colder we'd end up in snowball Earth with nowhere to run.
One way or another, it's still extremely bad for our survivability. Again, we had mass extinction events changing the climate more gradually than what is happening now, and speed of change is the key issue.
So, the efforts are towards stopping emissions, which is the main mechanism that is causing Climate Change, which I'll leave it to you to find an explainer for - there are plenty out there.
Given all that, I think the inclination of lots of people would be paralysis... if it's this bad, there's nothing I can do anyways, so whatever. But think about it. Doing nothing is the end of it all, so why not do something, anything, for whatever chance we have of turning things around? Doing anything would at least prolong our time here, which is always desirable. I dunno if we can ever reverse things to a pre-industrial age, or if some runaway process won't happen first and kill us all, but all we can do is try. And another serendipitous thing about it all is that what humanity really needs to do in the end is clean up it's act. It's not like we have to do something contrary to our life expectancies and whatnot... it's basically by cleaning up our acts and making things better for ourselves, doing things that will make places better to live, free of pollution, free of trash, cleaner, better, we can also avoid a mass extinction event in the process. There is nothing negative about that. So we basically need to change things faster to make our lives better, doing the sacrifices necessary in the process.
1
-
I'm not sure how to present this delicately so as not to offend or incense the fury of others, so I'll just say this is a personal opinion of a 3rd generation japanese descendent that has looked a lot on the culture of Japan, and has been talking a lot about this subject for a long time, and I'm sorry if it offends some people, but that's not the intention.
But I'm not japanese... I'm descendant 3rd removed, and I'm also not a scholar or specialist, just your regular armchair nerd that spent too much time reading, and tryiing to understand better. :P So don't take it too seriously, and don't use my pov solely as a source.
Ok, here we go. This subject is extremely complex and no single article, video or paper will really portray what really happens there... it involves everything from how politics is viewed in Japan to how school works there, to culture and societal values, to a ton of other stuff that is largely unknown in western countries.
Not talking much about evil deeds your country did in the past is a common thing in how history is taught in almost all countries.
Germany might be an exception in regards to WWII, but it's just that, an exception. It's also an easier one to do, interestingly enough, because the Nazi party defined itself so clearly as a propaganda tool of sorts, so it's easier to separate what the party did, from what Germans should do.
War crimes are horrible and should never be overlooked, but just as an exercise in perspective, try searching a bit about the war crimes your country has commited in war, and think how much you heard about them in school. You might be surprised about how much you didn't know, or perhaps you already learned about it after school, because you are in a priviledged position to look for this information about your own country... but not so much on others.
You also see how hard it is to separate bad actions from good actions when you have historical figures that were founding fathers and key leaders, but which also commited attrocities in the past.
On the other side of things, people living in western countries must also understand that the way WWII is portrayed in our schools is also extremely extremely skewed towards a heavily romanticized, American centric understanding of the war. The dimension we give it in comparison to other wars and other tragedies comes from a western centric culture.
Perhaps to the point it makes it hard to understand how or why other cultures can care much less about all of this. You grew up with a constant reinforcement on how WWII was important, how big it was, and how it should guide you around a whole ton of subjects.
Particularly in schools, it's also heavily influenced by the Cold War, reason why you don't get much about the role USSR and post-war communist countries had in WWII.
The way certain countries sees world wars and the importance they attribute to them tend to vary quite a lot...
When you see weird cases about asian countries (not only Japan) using Nazi iconography for the most ridiculous stuff (like a bar theme, or a pop idol group uniform), this is when you see a glimpse of the difference in importance different cultures make out of events like WWII.
Even considering more modern retractions, revisions, and retellings without the heavy romantization of books, movies and whatnot showed just a few decades ago, the way western countries and particularly the US views, culturally, the WWII is still very much black and white, very much from the winning side.
Heck, I don't even live in the US, but because my own country's culture and history is heavily influenced by the US, I also get how skewed it is.
If you don't live in the US, think back to history classes in school and what the history books tell you about wars your country had with neighboring nations and whatnot. 9 times out of 10, you will have either a skewed version where your country was right, or very small passing mention of how it was wrong and did bad stuff.
Considering it's a different country than yours with a different culture and perspective of wars, do you feel entitled to dictate how many pages a history book of that country has to dedicate on a war you find important? How many? How many pages your country's history books dedicates on the mdidle east? Latin american wars? Asian conflicts? African?
Give you a personal example, I live in Brazil, I barely heard in school about the war with Paraguay, a neighboring country, despite my hometown having a frontier with it. It was only later in life that I learned about the attrocities my country commited against our neighbors, how much damage was done there, how much of an uncalled for massacre it was.
And even then, it's often framed as a war that was forced upon us because our alliance with the United States. Which is also totally skewed. Sure, the US certainly might have had an influence on it, but it is totally Brazil's own fault for going for it. There is always this play on scapegoating and trying to paint yourself as a victim or not the main culprit.
If you are an American, have you ever heard about this?
Now, back to Japan and why I'm saying it's far more complicated than people think.
Contrary to most countries in the world, Japan has a history that goes back over two thousand years continuously, with not a whole lot of foreign contact.... or at least waaaay less foreign contact in comparison to even ancient european cultures.
If you can stop to imagine the difference this makes to a country's understanding of it's own history, in comparison to a country that was founded (or claimed) in the 17th century and onwards, do it. It's hard to imagine because it's quite an unique case.
Japan had some 150 years of warring states period when it was divided in several regions that were constantly at war. This period, as well as the unification of Japan is covered more extensively in japanese schools, and yet it is also heavily romanticized in japanese media.
Generally speaking, japanese education goes less on accuracy and discussion, and more about turning it into a cultural lesson. The general lesson on WWII, atomic bombs, war in general is to build a society around peace. You could say that not focusing much in WWII is denial, but you could also say that given the entire history of Japan, it's unproductive.
Ok, with this is mind, let's think a bit about WWII and Japan's involvement in it. While Germany had a more ideological approach to it, Japan came in with a more religious nationalistic centric one. The emperor was God, soldiers on a mission to expand japanese territory in obedience to their God.
The horrific cases of Nanjing Massacre and "Comfort Women" scandal, war crimes, and human experimentation that Simon mentioned happened in a context of World War II, but they actually don't quite line up perfectly (invasion of Korea was going on before WWII started)... because this was happening detached from being an Axis WWII thing, just a Japan militaristic colonization/invasion/expansion thing.
Which doesn't make it any better, but just to adjust the context and perspective because badly informed people might think Hitler was asking Japan to do these things. He didn't. Japan's decision to become an Axis country was much more about convenience rather than ideology. Of course there were ideologues and ultra nationalists in Japan and japanese government too, even the US had nazi supporters back at the time, but ultimately it had more to do with tensions regarding the USSR.
As some will know, Japan was, and still partially is, an extremely isolated culture. It still has a very uniform population to this day, and with this it tends to look much more on itself rather than externally when it comes to history.
The problem here is that with cultural, language and source barriers, for a very long time it was plenty hard for Japan, japanese people and by extention education to look significantly to other countries when it comes to history. You could say there wasn't much reason to do it too.
Foreigners who live there will know this well. It's not just about WWII, or whatever - in general, Japan just doesn't know much about the rest of the world, period. Which might sound extremely bad to a modern, affluent, cosmopolitan citizen of other countries nowadays, but again, you are coming from a very particular point of view - you can't expect a culture from another country to align with yours perfectly just because you think your culture is superior to others or something.
Reversing this, people should also see how much they really know about japanese history, culture, and society. Other than the superficial crap you were fed by international media coverage, I mean.
The more you look into japanese history, the more you hear on how japanese people see themselves and their own culture, the more you start getting that the way other countries chose to cover stories about Japan is just, if not more, biased than what people accuse japanese history books of being.
There is very often a layer of racism, a certain prejudice, a tokenization and fetishization, a seek for weirdness and otherness implied in international coverage articles that tells you something about how western countries chose to see Japan as a country and culture.
It starts becoming very hard to judge and criticize what is taught in a school in another culture when you start understanding all the biases that happen not only inside your country's own schools, but also in news coverage and supposedly serious documentaries for adults that your own country produces.
Ok, switching gears, let's talk a bit more about modern Japan, politics, and a few other things that this topic touches.
It's totally right that recently, some japanese school materials, posturing towards other countries, and some other stuff have been surfacing with revisionist and denialist tones. But do understand, this isn't the general japanese sentiment... it's politics.
1
-
In case people didn't know, the recently resigned prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is a conservative politician with well known ties to an organization known to have a ultra-conservative, right-wing, far right posture.
So, even though political institutions in Japan are pretty strong to oppose certain lunacies coming from this organization, and even though Abe himself was very smart and careful not to enact policies on the extreme of the party, some stuff still always popped up.
Nippon Kaigi, the organization, has some pretty awful extreme views on politics. It's not all they are, but they got a pretty bad rep for some of their ideas. They are revisionist, with a posturing of denial regarding Nanjing Massacre, and that Comfort Women were just prostitutes during war times, which is patently false and as moronic and idiotic as holocaust denial. They are also in favor of return of militarization of Japan and reintroduction of firearms to citizens with constitution revision, general nationalism, even more revisionism of history, against LGBT and gender studies, against feminism, etc.
You know, your typical far right group, or something comparable to it.
Again, understand it's not exactly the same thing, but it's the closest cultural translation.
The difference is, Shinzo Abe, despite having links with this organization, wasn't completely stupid or populist. His politics didn't match up entirely with the organization's agenda.
Yes, he was in part the reason why the current crisis with South Korea came up, and he probably had his hand in trying to interfere in how japanese education works.
Thing is, be it because of other politicians, or because Abe was wise enough not to force Nippon Kaigi ideals into politics, the general philosophy of the party never quite caught on. From him directly the only thing I know is that he tried implementing a plan and policy for gender equality at work. There have also been considerable progress during his term regarding stuff like crime groups, suicide rates, and general work relations and rights.
He was also extremely diplomatic, reason why his links with the ultra conservative group sound kinda weird. He made significant progress towards making the relationship between Japan and China, and Japan and South Korea, become better over the years, depite recent problems. He has been on and off the prime minister position for over a decade, and despite recent spats, the overall results of his politics has been of friendship and reapproach with all other nations.
But also, politics has been pointing more towards progressive among politicians - by which I mean not only the national government, but also actions inside prefectures and cities - and among the population. Transgender and LGBT rights are slowly but surely gaining ground, militarization is opposed by the majority of the population, revisionism of history is mostly seen as lunacy by an extremist party.
Japanese culture works in a different way than general western ideals. Collectivism trumps over individualism. Younger people are less likely to be interested in national politics and broad ideals, and more worried about the local happenings and things surrounding them - work, family, local stuff.
I won't judge if this is a good or bad thing, I'm not japanese, I don't know enough of the modern culture and modern problems, so I don't feel the right to say whether they are wrong or right.
But I certainly envy some of the stuff japanese society achieved, that I do.
Do understand though, I'm far from saying Japan is perfect or something like that, and that their country doesn't deserve some criticism on matters like the lack of recognition regarding Nanjing Massacre and Comfort Women among other war crimes. It's just that things aren't as black and white as some might think.
South Korea and China are far from being completely at odds with Japan. There have been a ton of cultural exchange over the past decades between these countries. The majority of immigrants in Japan comes from those two countries. Tourism in between the three countries dominate all other nationalities. Look it up. If you have ever been recently vising Japan, you totally know this.
By comparison, regarding the general population sentiment of countries, I'd have to say for instance, that the US has a far more difficult relationship with Mexico than Japan has with South Korea.
With China it's more problematic, but this is more because of current standings rather than history itself, even it being ugly as it was.
Anyways, I already wrote too much. Passing on some of the stuff I learned over the years.
1
-
Sure, chinese government will try to change the narrative to say the disease didn't start there, as any government would try to avoid infamy like "Spanish Flu" that wasn't spanish at all. And yes, they are also infamously opaque, manipulative, and uncooperative.
But it's always good to remind people that there have been multiple unconfirmed reports of the virus showing up in sewage samples taken in multiple countries from early 2019 on, way before it showed up in Wuhan, and none of those had chinese government involvement. Local university and researchers testing of wastewater, that is collected and dated for this type of diagnosis.
They happened in Spain, Brazil and Italy, some samples going back to March 2019.
Mind you, the studies are still not peer reviewed, they could simply be false positives, the virus count was low in most cases, these has been no correlated worsening of pulmonary disease which should be expected if a breakout was happening, and there needs to be much more study and research to take any conclusion out of it.
But also, yes, there are still some chances that the pandemic didn't start in China.
It just so happens that the Wuhan case fits a bit too well past coronavirus manifestations, so it's a primary suspect. Bat virus passing to another animal, and then going to humans. This is similar to how Sars and Mers started.
Do a simple Google search and see for yourself, search for "covid found in sewage before". It's not chinese state sponsored news saying anything like that, it's big publications in several western countries, multiple articles talking about the myriad of discoveries.
Truth is, we might never know. Between chinese government opaqueness, potential for manipulation, lateness to let investigators in, and deteriorated conditions to find any evidence, and then these inconclusive reports of the virus potentially showing up in sewage in other countries almost a year before it became an identified pandemic, it's gonna be almost impossible to draw definite conclusions.
1
-
Shameful that the BBC would put someone to shift blame on a crisis that every single South Korean and other nations in the region is facing, as well as Ukraine. None of that makes sense to justify a declaration of martial law that is coming out of nowhere with vague reasoning and savior complex declarations.
Even if everything that the interviewee said is true, which it is to a point, or what Yoon himself said, that there is an active legitimate threat of North Korean forces using an influence campaign against South Korean government - this is not the way to declare martial law, and it is not the way any president with a hint of competence would've handled the situation, period.
Like already said, everyone was taken by surprise. South Koreans, other politicians in South Korea, other nations allied to South Korea, and we'll soon see who else. Probably even North Korea, Russia and China too. Western nations should not use his speech to amplify jingoism, nationalistic rhetoric, and accusations against other nations. Look at what has happened first.
This automatically means that if there was an active threat against South Korea, the president managed to somehow not alert anyone else of such threat, and not explain properly why in his declaration. Single sided martial law declaration that is taking everyone else by surprise mostly happens in coups.
The only justification along those lines for martial law was if South Korea was getting actively invaded by North Korea military forces right now, and that should've been included in the declaration. Other nations should've been simultaneously warned about it, and other politicians would also already know. So there is absolutely no path where this would be reasonable.
It was a prepared speech, since it was televised, so there is no excuse for it happening the way it did.
1
-
I know lots of people, particularly sports fans and Olympics fans, dont wanna hear this or turn a blind eye to this, and I do understand why, but it needs to be said - the Olympics is a country ruining event. Sorry not sorry.
I understand the spirit of the event, the attention it gathers, its world uniting and diplomatic powers, the attractiveness and charisma of the show itself, the inspirational power and all that... but in it´s current format, I just cannot throw in my support anymore.
Let me be clear about this - I´m all for an event like the Olympics, but the current Olympics as it´s being done is plain corrupt, catastrophic for host cities and countries, unecessary in it´s scope, ridiculously overscoped, and an ostentatious overbloated corpse of what it should be.
Grece might be a symbolic example because of the history, poignancy with origins, and then the entire EU and bankrupcy news that came afterwards, but it´s really far from being a punctual unique example.
I can´t tell a whole lot about other host countries and cities other than what I read, but here in my country the city where the Olympics happened has been on free fall ever since the event.
And sure, it was already a city full of historical and current problems, but it´s pretty obvious that hosting the Olympics only made it worse.
Investigations about corruption scandals from beginning to end still ongoing, the same problem with abandoned venues that seems to happen in every single country that hosts the event, build up for the event running several times overbudget that I don´t really consider normal in any way, because it´s several times overbudget even in comparison to other big projects, little to none of the promissed infrastructural reforms that would benefit the population done, boost in the local economy seen nowhere... it was just a shitshow, bread and circus, a party before the storm.
Fans will have fond memories of the event, forget about athletes swimming in raw sewage, and a whole bunch of other literal crap that happened during the event, but they close their eyes and years of how much public money and how many broken promisses happened during it.
And then they can blame the corruption and problems on everywhere except for this oh so pure and noble event.
I´m sorry, but I just don´t buy it. And like I already said, I am NOT against the Olympics as an event, and equally, I´m not against the World Cup as an event... I´m not a fan of sports in general, but I´m also not against the realization of those events. I´m just against the way they happen today.
I like the idea of the world uniting for events like those, but not built on a foundation of corruption, destruction, and excess.
1
-
Hmm... I think solar panels in space is jumping the gun at this point in time. It could happen in the future, but other methods are preferrable.
The biggest problem with it is, like Joe said, conversion. Every conversion with current technology translates to major losses, which is already the biggest problem in all green energy solutions.
We should at the very least wait for solar panels to reach their theoretical efficiency limit before putting them up in space. Of course, tests and trials are fine, so perhaps the right time to further research at a reasonable pace is... right now.
Question is if we're getting there first, or we're getting highly efficient, cheap and non-toxic battery technologies first.
The other problem I see with solar panels in space is about monopolization of energy. Unfortunately, I think the only route for survival of humanity in the future is for the power that is currently highly concentrated in the hands of few to be spread out and people take back individual action and responsibility. We've gone past the point of sustainability in this aspect.
This whole problem all stems from us, unfortunately. You know what another ideal scenario would be? A global scale power solution. Much like the Internet, we should have a worldwide network of power transmission. That way, power distribution could be equalized through the day/night cycle. But this again requires a degree of collectiveness, cooperation and empathy that humanity currently does not have.
So, it's not gonna happen anytime soon... too much politics, too much infrastructure needed, too much greed involved. And currently, international relations are a mess. The inverse is probably gonna happen first - divide to conquer. Throngs of people with solar panels in their homes connecting to each other forming independent grids that will slowly become independent from big energy corporations... in a planet ravaged by extreme weather events.
Climate change will majorly force us to live and survive by ourselves in the coming ears. I don't mean like hermits or anything like that, but entire cities could become isolated because of constant barrages of extreme weather events we're not quite prepared to take.
Lots of countries will have to take huge influxes of climate change refugees. If we don't completely turn this into self destructive wars, genocide and whatnot, we'll have to come up with ways of locally supplementing power requirements in some way or another.
It also seems we can't think long term much, so the type of green energy most at reach and becoming cheaper and more easily accessible right now are solar panels. In the sense that individuals can take action by themselves.
1
-
I think you are conflating a few different things and assuming some slippery slope scenarios that are not quite the same thing there...
If we're talking about Smartphone app stores solely, the only company that this will really affects is Apple. Because Android allows for other app stores to work, be installed and compete with Play Store, plus the fact that Android itself is an open source OS, sideloading is a possibility, there are no risks there. Even if western countries are fairly used to Play store, other countries use other app stores, there are open source stores available, and cases like Amazon with it's own Android fork.
This approval for lawsuits to move forward is very specific to this case alone and unlike other types of SC decisions, it doesn't exactly set strong precedents to unrelated anti-trust decisions, basically because Apple in this case is in a fairly unique position different to competition.
I don't see how this would stretch to game console systems, or other tech giants as cited - those have fairly different dynamics going on. For instance, the example given with Xbox, while it's true that a digital only console might seem like a similar thing, it just isn't. Games could still be sold outside Xbox Live store or whatever through activation keys and whatnot. The format (physical or not) ir not the problem per se, it's when you don't give devs any alternative to sell games in other than a store owned by the same company that makes the hardware itself, which isn't a common practice for game consoles. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all sells their games, physical or not, on stores outside the consoles themselves.
There is indeed a movement to break up tech giants, but if it ever happens, it doesn't seem like this case would be significant in the process.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Every country has, had, or will have an Evergrande... :P It's like the real estate development market system is set up to go that direction, eventually. Particularly during booms.
If you look enough, you likely have one or multiple cases like that in your country.
I happen to know of at least one case because my mom used to be a real estate agent, she wasn't involved in it, but we heard the news via her job network.
It was practically the same situation as Evergrande. The company was huge, it had constructions going on all over the country, and it borrowed a ton of money to build them, sold everything before completion, and the real estate market was superheated with a ton of people buying their first home, plus a ton of investors putting their life savings in it.
And then the whole thing collapsed. I think a bank got too worried about the company's reckless borrowing and spending, intervened into the company to see what was going on, a government led investigation into it happened, and then a cascade of problems went on until it went bankrupt. I think some 700 buildings were left unfinished, tens of thousands of employees left without payment.
It's not quite crazy Evergrande levels, but it's kinda weird how the dynamics are similar.
1
-
Another timely and very relevant subject Alec, thanks!
I live in a country where smoke alarms are almost non-existent.
There is some usage in commercial installations and residential buildings, but it's just far from ideal... it's basically all left for firefighter inspections to mandate if necessary, and that often doesn't happen.... lax regulations and corruption gets in the way.
So I've been thinking of doing this by myself at least where I do have control... inside my own apartment, my mom's, etc. This info helps a lot.
Anyways, related separate question, have you had a chance to check air quality monitors? TVOC, HCHO, PM2.5, PM10, BTX and all this stuff.
1
-
Bruh, the dictionary attack on passwords made out of random words... I called this thing like 10 years ago or more. Perhaps 20. Just sayin' xD
The first time I read an article using XKCD's famous Password Strength comic, a dictionary attack was the first thing that came to mind. Made several comments on this on whatever blogs I was following back then, discussed things a bit with some people, left it at that.
And that's just to point out how old the technique is... I remember discussing cracking passwords with brute force using dictionary attack on a mIRC channel of all things. :P
It's not like you can't use the strategy anymore, but perhaps mix it up a bit.
At least for brute force, the weakness of a dictionary attack is that the dictionary needs to contain all words in your password... so if you include some numbers, special characters, or perhaps a foreign language word that might not be in the dictionary... the attack ends up being ineffective.
Well, unless this new research has some novel hybrid approach. But if it's plain brute force, then the tip is valid.
So, instead of correcthorsebatterystaple, you could use something like correct4cab@lo!bateriast@pp!e, get what I mean? Perhaps mix an unusual name in too. More things to memorize I guess, but stronger. Probably better not to use some standardized leet speak because it might be covered by the dictionary. :P
In the end, it works exactly like regular brute force, but with words instead of characters. So, the attack needs to limit the word count number or else it also becomes too slow to execute. If you count letters uppercase lowercase, plus numbers, plus special characters... adds up to 100 something characters, so that many permutations per digit.
There are far more words in English language, something like 170 thousand words, but since passwords will only have 3 or 4 words, instead of say 20 random characters, the attack makes sense... but only if you limit the word count. So you can't really have tons of words in several different languages.
Not sure if I'm explaining this well.
1
-
Just so Americans know, these sort or card skimmers are around a decade old now... even older if you count the magstrip skimmers. They range in shape and size from small POS machines all the way up to full front ATM replacements.
There are several ways to defeat those, but it's reliant on bank and credit card issuers action and spending on the matter. They do a calculation on how many cases are happening and how much money they are losing for that sort of fraud and then compare with the costs of implementing it. I'm generalizing things here just to give an idea, there are several other factors that influence this decision, but it's extremely costly for them to replace everything, so they only do it when absolutely necessary.
US in particular is extremely slow in adopting new tech because this type of fraud didn't happen a whole lot, but in countries like mine - Brazil - a bunch of different things have been implemented because Brazil is a hotspot for this kinda fraud.
For instance, we switched to chip an pin scheme 20 years ago, well before the US started using it, because magstrip skimming was rampant.
Seeing as the skimmer used there was collecting magstrip information, that skimmer tech could be 20 years old... there are already far more advanced stuff these days.
A bunch of our banks already implemented biometric authentication in ATMs as well as contactless chip reading reinforced with encryption schemes plus other methods.
The latest thing I've been seeing now is that banks themselves are offering a virtual credit card service free of charge for online shopping - because the most prevalent form of fraud currently is stolen credit card data being used for online shopping, and we don't have unified trusted middlemen services such as PayPal that works almost universally here. It's like, we have a bunch of them, but most online stores won't accept them... they'll all take credit card though.
Direct payment has been replaced with our relatively new digital payment system (Pix) which uses QR Code in a smartphone bank app plus pin or biometric authentication on the smartphone, but when you want to buy something in installments, you still have to use credit cards.
The only thing you can do is to always keep an eye on every single charge that is done in your cards, giving a tug in every POS and ATM you put your card in to see if there are no lose parts, cover the keypad when you are typing passwords as much as possible, and look around to see if there is no one looking over your shoulder while you are paying for something.
Because other than those, it really depends on the banks and credit card companies to replace the systems and enhance security.
But good for her being able to identify the thing right there.
1
-
If people here care about this, I'll add a bit more information so the whole case becomes a bit clearer for everyone, because it's kinda complicated and didn't started with this case.. it'll be a long comment.
Disclaimer: I don't like Apple, don't have any Apple products, and I won't try to defend the company. I also don't like Google a whole lot, despite having Android products. I am a huge gamer but don't like Fortnite, despite liking some of Epic's other older franchises. I have partial knowledge on game development because I did a post graduation course on game development years ago which I never finished. But I follow gaming, gadget and electronic news very closely for the past couple of decades or more. This is only a opinion piece, I am a journalist not working in the area right now.
This entire thing about Epic acting as the defender of game developers, or faking it depending on how you wanna look at it, started back in 2018 when Epic launched a campaign against PC digital game store Steam, plus Google's Play Store.
The Steam store side of things became pretty famous... Epic pulled out Fortnite out of Steam, built their own digital store with claims that the 30% cut Steam got from Fortnite microtransactions was unfair, riled tons and tons of gamers, publishers, developers and whatnot with them, started paying developers for timed exclusives and gave a bigger cut for them, taking out only.... I think 12% is their fee, etc etc.
On Google it was a bit more complicated. The complaint was the same because Google Play Store also takes a 30% cut, Epic pulled out Fortnite from the store, recommended people to go to their website, download Fortnite's .apk for free (Fortnite is a free game that profits out of in-game microtransactions), and install it on their Android phones/tablets outside the store.
This resulted not only in crippling bugs on initial releases, but also an insane ammount of people installing fake Fortnite .apks with malware, bugs and whatnot - which btw, was exactly what Google warned was going to happen.
After some 18 months that Epic pulled Fortnite from Google's Play Store, they quietly and beggrugingly got back into Google's Play Store. Reason: The game tanked as a sideloaded .apk, particularly after the initial disaster, and Epic rolled out a press release saying how Google employed unfair tactics to stop apps from outside the Play Store to be installed, like security pop ups, configuration toggles that are hard to find, and extraneous permissions.
Which personal opinion, is an extremely lame excuse. Android makes it hard for people to install .apks because it has caused a ton of problems over the entire history of the platform, it has nothing to do with Epic.
Even then, after just a few months, together with the Apple App Store action, Epic also did the same in Google's Play Store causing the app to be booted there too.
I am saying "action" because one thing people need to understand about all this is that these campaigns were all pre-planned, coordinated, and executed according to Epic's own time scale. It didn't happen without warning, Epic always knew what was going to happen.
With Steam and Google the first time, it was less flagrant but it was still quite obvious that together with protest, there was an obvious diffamation campaaign going on to also promote their side of things, like Epic Store.
Because obviously, you don't spring up things like a promotional/protest video, a digital store, and in game related stuff without pre-planning it.
It's guerrilla brown press tactics, with a white knighting approach. We are doing this for the poor devs that gets exploited everyday, boohoo! Nevermind these actions always targetting Epic getting a bigger share of the cake.
Ok, now, let's talk a bit about how the game development market works. If you think Apple taking a 30% cut of app sales or microtransactions is a bad thing, hoo boy, you are some decade+ late.
I'm sorry to break the idealistic minded gamers out there, but a 30% cut from digital game store sales has been the absolute norm of the industry for over a decade now.
That's why Steam took a 30% cut. Nintendo takes a 35% cut out of games sold on Nintendo consoles and portables. Sony takes a 30% cut from games sold on Playstation consoles. Google takes a 30% cut from Play Store sales.
There are exceptions, of course... Microsoft tried taking a smaller cut on the Windows Store and Windows Mobile Store to attract more developers, down to 5%. Several Steam competitors that were around a long time before Epic Store ever became an idea were offering to take a smaller cut than Steam without all the fanfare.
Is it fair or not? I won't be the judge of that, it probably depends on case per case. But you know, that's the basic structure that allowed for the industry to grow the way it did.
Every now and then you do hear some developers complaining about this cut, and yet I never see they going too long for alternatives.
Epic Store? Outside Epic's own games, practically all developers that launched there signed only a timed exclusive. They eventually all come back to Steam, without a peep.
You know why? Because there's much more value in that 30% cut than people think or care to admit.
Even the basic stuff people often underestimate how hard it is to prop up. Go look at the Epic Game Store and do an unbiased comparison to Steam. It's just ridiculous. One is a generic, extremely basic, with very few titles and costumers, store app that doesn't get much above a webpage wrapper. The other fundamentally changed the relationship between indie developers and gamers, and revolutionized the PC gaming industry, but also created and maintains a long list of tools and functionalities that no other digital game store does, and they handle orders of magnitude more devs and gamers everyday, worldwide.
The scale of infrastructure backbone can't even be compared between them, Epic Store can only be properly compared to other Steam competitors... like GoG, Direct2Drive, Origin, etc... and guess what, Epic can't even beat those in size and functionality.
It's kinda wrong to call Steam only a digital game store these days... if you include community stuff, hardware projects, standards definitions, and tons of other stuff that Valve propped up under the Steam name over the years, it's like saying Sony is a game console maker.
Anyways, back on topic. This was about the complaint about devs getting a 30% cut. Now, on to the complaint that Apple does not allow competitors to the Apple App Store.
On Apple's side of the argument there are worries about security and privacy problems arising from allowing 3rd party stores inside their walled garden, and this being contrary to Apple's entire strategy of providing and enclosed, proprietary but also safe and well monitored space for their costumers. I dunno how much you buy that, but there are some very legit reasons to do something like that.
See, it's not only about Epic will do, it's about opening up iOS's ecossystem to 3rd party sales. If control into these alternative stores goes to 3rd parties, it cannot be vetted by Apple, and so it becomes plenty easy for stuff like scams, malware, exploits and whatnot to get there.
Nowadays, everytime malware and bad apps pop up, we complain to... Apple. They take the brunt, they have to respond, they will do the bans, vetting process changes, policy and contract stuff.
If other stores are allowed, Apple cannot respond to it anymore. It's outside their hands, and this is something that clearly, Apple does not want to deal with. The entire reason why the company has been investing so much in making their own hardware components, and even stuff like the anti right to repair boneheaded politics can be at least partially tackled at Apple trying to control everything in it's products lifetime.
Another side of this people have to think is this one: Why didn't Epic make an Android Epic Store during the entire fracas with Google? Why are they so mute about Google in this recent case? Because Android certainly lets anyone build a 3rd party store on Android, it was never a problem. But they didn't.
My guess is because, like I already said, building an app store or a digital game store in any platform is harder, most expensive, and more time consuming than people think. I mean, for it to be successful. So they don't really wanna do it. The number of gamers they would get to install an Android Epic Game Store to play Fortnite there isn't worth it. The userbase just isn't there.
At bare minimum, a 3rd party store needs at least an extra install and an extra account. People don't want that, much like tons of gamers refused to create a Epic Game Store account on PC just to play Fortnite.
The value isn't even in the platform itself, it's the userbase, realistically speaking. Reason why Windows Mobile failed, reason why the number of Android users that actually uses alternative stores is so low, reason why Epic didn't do it.
1
-
Ok, now that I talked about both big points on Epic's lawsuit, let's talk about consequences of all this, because this is the most important part.
Who do you think is gonna pay for the revenue loss caused by an Epic win in courts?
Be it because this 30% cut becomes regulated and stores are forced to pay more for hundreds of thousands of devs, be it because Apple is forced to allow 3rd party stores to become available on iOS diverting profits from all devs to chose to migrate? Again, I ask, who do you think is gonna pay for that? Apple? Google?
Those are all publicly traded companies. Their responsibility when it comes to profits is not with devs, not with costumers, but with shareholders, investors.
Sure, perhaps some small devs that deserve a bigger part of the cut will get paid better. But it's not gonna come out from these companies pockets, I absolutely guarantee you. The lowest common denominator that always pays for these things is you, the consumer.
The companies targetted on the anti-monopoly lawsuit will come up with a miriad of ways to compensate for the loss. Fire a bunch of people. Exploit and sell user data. Add extra charges for developers and consumers. Reduce R&D costs. Raise hardware prices. Raise licensing prices. Turning free services into paid ones.
Making things worse, if the court decision becomes a standard to apply thoughout the industry, think about how far reaching it can be.
What is the broad target here? It's not Apple or Google, it's the business model. A business model that, as I already explained, has been a structural standard for over a decade now.
This is about the owner of a hardware device, creating an exclusive digital store inside their platform, able to arbitrarily charge other developers to publish their own apps inside it, currently at a 30% cut.
This describes not only smartphones, but also game consoles and portables. Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft will also be affected by it. Probably a long list of other companies I'm not even aware of. Proprietary servers? Medical equipment? Surveillance systems?
These are the potential results of Epic winning their lawsuit. It's not devs will take more of the share, or Apple will have to allow 3rd party stores on iOS, and pronto.
Epic of course won't take responsibility for negative changes. It's why they are going to court - if the court decides on their favor, and this has severe negative consequences even if it's only for Apple, they wash their hands - it's the court's fault.
But obviously, that's not Epic's target. Given how planned and staged the whole thing was, if it wasn't done by a bunch of ignorant morons, what Epic probably wants is a settlement out of court for them to get a bigger share of the cut, period.
That's just it.
But for that, they made this entire hullabaloo. What is worse in all this, is that when the tech press, gamers, and people in general takes Epic's side of the battle and starts shouting against Apple on this, it only proves to Epic that this sort of exploitive tactics works.
It was proven with the entire Steam shitstorm, and now it's only getting worse.
This is not the sort of scenario we wanna see in the future. It tells these companies that people are gullible enough to fall for these sorts of guerrilla brown press tactics.
But you be the judge of that, this is only my personal opinion. I do think most people have at least a bit of a creepy weird feeling on how this entire story went though. It's not that I like any of the companies involved, the tactics, the policies and strategies. But people have got to be less idealistic about it, and start thinking about actual consequences.
1
-
1
-
Sounds like a problem if it's unregulated and butchering inhumane. Other than that, I can even see advantages to it.
See, if it's about being cute or domesticated animals, that is dependent on history and perspective. I can't say straight faced that cows, chickens and pigs should somehow be considered less cute or less domesticated just because I personally think they are - that's just opinion. Western countries do have a long history of cat and dog domestication, sure, but it's unfair to expect other cultures to follow your perspective on the matter.
Same way I think you should be allowed to take care of an animal as a pet as long as it's not a protected species and you know how to handle it properly, if I am carnivorous (and I am), I don't feel I can judge what type of meat others eat as long as it's not illegal, a protected species, or dangerous to human health.
Btw, I have tasted horse meat, frog, and a few others considered "exotic". Not part of my regular diet though.
Now, here's the thing - I could adopt a posture of limiting animal species to be eaten by humans, but there is an inherent problem that comes from that.
Overreliance on cow, pig and chicken meat causes a whole ton of problems. Heck, you see problems even on taste for particular kinds of fish. Overbreeding, huge tracts of land used for grazing, horrible conditions in pig and chicken farms, etc etc. Perhaps, if the types of meat people ate was more diverse, we wouldn't have so many problems around those. Add to that insects and other sources of protein.
Other than that, the overspecialization and lack of diversity in meat production also gives rise to problems regarding lack of options. When you have farm animal related diseases, you end up with shortages and mass killings. Avian flu, mad cow disease, swine flu... you probably heard of some of them. We are currently facing a human pandemic, you can see how badly administered it is. You know what happens when farm animal epidemics happen? The solution is often to kill all animals potentially infected. And because we are so overreliant on few species and variations, this translates to hundreds of thousands to millions of dead animals.
So, in a way, the fact that dog meat is an option at all might be benefitial for meat production in the future. Diversification of sources.
So, in general, I am in favor of diets with less absolute quantities of meat. What meat it doesn't matter much. But for this specific South Korean debate, I think the best argument against dog meat is the lack of regulation. If it is to be done, it has to be properly monitored and properly regulated, as I'd also be against cow, pig or chicken meat if it was unregulated. Other than that, I won't judge, nor feel entitled to. Realistically speaking, people who eat dog meat are probably as separated from the butcheding of dogs part, as we are from butchering of cow, chicken and pigs. By the time it gets to them, it's just food. That whole deal of not looking how sausage is made.
1
-
Rough... well, the set will have even more character now.
I was surprised to see so many of it was ceramic still... I really thought it was mostly plastic stuff with the world famous plastic display food! xD
The whole thing about making things ready for an earthquake is also fairly counterintuitive... at least building wise, perhaps even for stuff like interior decoration. You'd think having everything tied to walls and made of strong materials is the right way of doing it, but it often ends up resulting in other types of damages because of how violent and sudden the shaking is.
It's an insane amount of energy to dissipate somehow, to the point that if, for instance, you tie electronics too firmly to a wall, it might end up more badly damaged than if it had just fallen from a stand or shelf.
Anyways, glad to see all of you guys well... shitty aftershocks incoming, but hopefully the worst has passed.
Also... very close to 11yrs after Tohoku. Wish you guys well, hope the coast didn't get too badly damaged this time...
1
-
1
-
I wouldn't pay for any alternative form, but yeah... I'm also more interested in the rollable now, and what might come from other companies around the same idea.
Just that, I think at this point, in this stage of the evolution of it, there must be some pretty harsh limitations of what you can actually do with those displays...
Here's the thing about flexible displays in smartphones - I've been hearing about them for years and years... half a decade or more? And I wasn't expecting to see a functional consumer grade product for at least another half decade.
I was wrong.... but not completely so. xD They are indeed out, insanely priced, and kinda prototype-y still.
It's almost like these companies decided to push that incremental design and development to the public instead of keeping it under wraps. You know kinda how products like gamepads and tablets often have 10+ design iterations and whatnot? Put it out and let the public test and partially fund it.
Then again, the biggest barrier that always showed up on CES prototypes is about those flexible OLEDs being extremely fragile and transforming into a mess of dead pixels by the end of the show. Amazing that they solved that somehow. It was an extremely hard and harsh barrier that endured for years, getting ever so slightly better in every CES they showed a new prototype.
Anyways, dream of a perfect phone with the tech as one must, for me it's all about functionality. So what I imagined was a phone that can get even smaller than what we currently have while not in use, or in phone mode only (which people don't even use anymore), getting to smartphone size for one mode of operation, up to a 10" tablet in another mode of operation. I did the math, my 10" tablet has a screen size of a bit over 3 of my smartphone standing vertically. It's almost perfect. :P
Dumb as it may sound, it's only because that's how I use my devices. My generic trip tech kit includes a smartphone and tablet. It used to include a laptop, but I'm getting more and more used to only smartphone plus tablet while on trips, particularly now that the usability of those devices are getting better and better.
And so, the idea was to have a screen entirely folded into a cilinder shapped phone, or slim shapped phone like the unreleased last Essencial thing, that could be pulled out to regular smartphone size, and then 10" tablet size when needed.
That's the dream, and.... Xiaomi was it? Went to a closer direction with that rollable prototype/phone?
Problem is, in betweens don't make a whole lot of sense to me. Mainly because until you get this design perfectly right, it's actually worse than the standard brick phone. It's more fragile, losing years of gorilla glass development. It has less internal space, so less battery. It'll keep being too expensive because there's not viable insane mass production for it, costs too much to be done.
And don't get me wrong, I love that they are trying and it might be the only way to do it... keep releasing phones, keep testing and teasing the market, etc. But realistically? I still think we're half a decade or so from me taking the jump to get an alternative design phone that is an improvement of the standard brick form factor I use today.
And then the whole question I always had about these new device pops up. If the problem here is only screen size, will such an intricate complicated perfect solution come out first, my needs will change eliminating my interest in it... or, and get this, will the need for different screen sizes disappear altogether with a release of some AR glasses the shape and size of regular glasses?
Because that's really the ultimate solution, right? You have your computing unit in whichever form, potentially one portable to carry around and one big hunky one to keep at home and/or work, and the screen size doesn't matter because it's right at your face, and you can make it as small or big as you want.
It just needs to somehow solve the comfort problems, get to a high enough resolution and refresh rate, and not make you look like a dork.
A series or pretty huge problems, but you know, I'm talking about half a decade.
Not only that, glasses that can be used as a screen for any device is way more portable than any other solution, it's hands free (meaning you don't have to deal with a gunky fingerprinty mess), it'd finally separate screens as hardware from their fixed function parts (video game, TV, desktop pc, etc) and individualize the experience - you can still share stuff, but everyone who wants to see something will need either their own glasses, or a shared screen of sorts.
There's another foundational piece of this tech that has been slowly and quietly evolving during the years which I have been following around - screencasting. Setting Chromecast and Android TV aside, years ago I got myself a ScreenBeam Mini 2 dongle. It was kinda slow, didn't work with most devices, got uncomfortably hot, and eventually it gave out. Just stopped working one day and died.
This year I got a generic chinese 4K Miracast dongle. It's fast, and works with my tablet, smartphone and laptop. Instructions on how to use it pop up on the TV as the standard wallpaper. It also got smaller, and gets less hot... like warm instead of uncomfortably burning hot. And so, if there is a big screen with accessible HDMI input wherever I'm going, I already have means of using it as a screen for all my devices... but the Nintendo Switch, because Nintendo is always behind in those things even when it didn't need to (the Switch is essencially an Android tablet after all).
Anyways, long comment, mind flush. o/
1
-
1
-
1
-
This has to go forwards... carefully, but still. Much like you know... the rest of medical research. As for Friends of the Earth's idea and callout, I have to say sorry, but this message is coming at least a few thousand years too late. And honestly, people like these should just shut up and go live in a cave or something, get eaten by a bear if it's about having the least impact.
We have been "permanently altering nature" since we first stepped on this world. It's what we do. And we're only still here because of it. We only thrived because of it. And we will keep doing it while we are here. We can be 100% passive and neutral when we are dead.
We've altered the proportions, nutricional value, and prevalence of all sorts of foodstuff by selective breeding and other techniques... this is way before GMOs btw.
We started changing ecosystems the minute we started building structures to live more permanently in communities.
We have and are still erradicating certain species and certain organisms from certain environments for our own benefit. And while I do agree that it is extremely bad to drive animals to extinction only because of greed, the fact is that not doing exactly that in early stages of human development, or not doing it for certain parasitic species and populations that have gone out of control, would pretty much mean letting the human species die off in certain parts of the world.
But perhaps more importantly, sure, if we have less risky ways of doing it, just present it to us then. Make it happen. Stop wasting time questioning what is being done, and present the ideas that are less risky and supposedly better. Kids won't stop dying just because of vague ideas that there must be some less risky way, you gotta prove that it can be done and start doing it.
And it's such a hypocritical argument too... dude, if you are living in modern society, you are already prety much permanently altering nature and contributing others to also do it in very major ways, with most of your money and time everyday.
1
-
All that people need to know about geoengineering and the multiple proposals that came up is that ultimately, Climate Change IS geoengineering itself. It's human made injection of artificially produced substances in an understudied and uncontrolled manner that put us in the situation in the first place.
Someone with a PHD, or even multiple scientists is still far from enough to implement something like that because the potential for multiple negative chain reactions far surpasses any chances of it actually working to reverse the problem, to the point I'd call going forward with something like this complete blind optimism, almost to cult like levels.
And a very big component as to why it's a problem for us and other lifeforms is the change part. Because we and other organisms currently inhabiting the planet are sensitive to stuff like temperature extremes, general instability, fast changes.
You see, I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything, but people really should consider the alternative. I think we should just continue slowly working to reverse trends. Humans and societies in general are slow to change, but it is what ultimately is needed. And yes, this is even considering the horrible costs we will have to deal with. It is likely that objectives won't be met, and even with the most optimistic scenario millions of people, animal and plant species and entire countries will die off in the process. We will have wars over this. The potential for extinction isn't nil. It's a bleak scenario that has already started.
But there is nothing that can't get worse, and my personal perception tells me that there are far more chances of things getting even worse with geoengineering than getting better. It's only a personal opinion though. And you can be sure that as the situation aggravates, there will be more and more people in favor of shortcuts like geoengineering. It is bad enough that people are considering the option at this point.
1
-
The thing that infuriates the most about all of this is not even the cult-like mentality, the surreal and outlandish conspiracy theory narratives, and how it often tends to target minorities with guilty by default and guilt by association claims... it's how people who believe in all this crap become so incredibly blind to what is happening all around them they don't even realize that not only they are fighting the wrong people, they are actually also shielding and giving space for actual criminals to thrive.
It's like, does anyone in the far right even get that one of the biggest, most obvious and most scandalous sources of so called "child grooming" is their own beloved Catholic Church? The same Catholic Church with so many followers and so many sects that uses these narratives to go against LGBTQ groups accusing them of something they are famously doing it themselves, with everyone in the chain of command and leadership of the church also famously covering each others' back and doing nothing about the cases?
And then there's the fact that the absolute vast majority of child abuse cases happen inside the child's own home, with the abuser being part of the family or a relative or friend of the family, or the priest that attends that family?
How can so many people say they care about something so much to the point of harassing others and comitting crimes themselves to forward their own agendas, but actually do no research on it at all? I swear if there is any class of people more likely to be victimized by conspiracies, scammers and grifters, it's exactly these people who seem so preoccupied with those they don't even understand how vulnerable to them they actually are. Reason why, of course, it keeps happening.
Of course, I understand that these people are not guided by any data, statistic or reality itself - they are guided by FUD, their sociopathic cult leaders, and then the loudspeaker and ecochamber effect... but at some point you'd think people would at least try looking these things up a bit, be a little skeptical about stuff. It's not like the US is a poor nation with no access to education or whatever, how has such a large portion of it's population become this dumb and this gullible is something that I'll never understand.
It's these social networks groups and chat groups that are isolating people inside radicalized cults without needing a physical presence anymore. It lowered the bar too much for wannabe cult leaders, grifters and scammers to do their jobs easily like that.
At some point, democracies will have to take these cases more seriously and stamp down on the people who are getting rich and powerful by exploiting people like this. I dunno what the threshold is anymore as so many things are being allowed to happen, but at some point these groups will get radicalized enough to commit grand scale acts of domestic terrorism which will force people to take a harder look on it.
1
-
1
-
Hope the best for him and thanks for sharing it too, because not many people would be willing to do it.
I'm just curious about a side thing perhaps. How the heck he didn't develop major major deficiencies in nutrition that resulted in some sort of sickness? xD
I'm not all too familiar with american mac 'n cheese... yes, I know what it is, and my country has a counterpart to it, but afaik, it lacks several vitamins and components that are kinda essencial for health. I imagine the stuff is enriched a bit like several other types of food, but... does it have it all?
Perhaps a good way to convince himself to change is the most obvious apart from therapy - a full health check. Blood test and whatnot. He did say at some point that perhaps it was better if he was given a more stern warning, doctors are pretty good at that. :P
I know the body is flexible to a point from experience... I went through several months of very light eating, mostly another very unhealthy thing - noodles. I lost a bunch of weight, which was the objective, but because of how I did it, when I came out of the "diet" I quickly regained and then doubled because of it. I was mildly overweight, then I got close to a more ideal weight for my age and height because of... close to a year of that diet, and then I went straight back to overweight but shoot through to almost obese. Because the body compensates for your diet, when I started eating normally again, it all went to fat storage of course.
But even if I went to what I personally consider extremes on this, I still cannot imagine surviving a diet of Mac and cheese for 17 years straight. Not because I dislike the stuff or anything (I'd most likely get tired of it if I ate for too long), but because of vitamins and minerals the stuff does not have.
I do understand it being related to PTSD though. Hope he gets better and achieves his objectives.
1
-
Nice video!
I'll just put some corrections and information here... not to be contrarian, a troll or anything, but I think it adds to what was said.
Oh, let me present myself first... I'm japanese descendant but actually brazilian, writting english on a foreign in Japan video? xD I've been to Japan twice, don't know the language a whole lot, wish I knew more. :P
So... big cities like Tokyo, Kyoto and others might give an impression that lots of foreigners live in Japan, because relatively speaking in these big cities there are a reasonable ammount of them.
I think tourists might give that impression, because tourism to Japan is big and exploding in recent years. I really mean exploding, if I'm not mistaken, Japan is the country where tourism has been expanding the most worldwide in recent years.
But actually, foreigners living in Japan is still not a big number.
Ok, relative to what? To give a better idea. Well, in comparison to almost all developed nations worldwide, Japan still has a very small immigrant population both in absolute numbers and percentage relative to the japanese population. This comes both from the language and culture barrier, the geographical barrier, and then immigration policies barrier.
Put this in numbers to give a better idea.
According to the most recent surveys, which is statistics from some 5 years ago, the immigrant population in Japan composes some 1.75% of the population. Tokyo has a higher number, but it's not by a whole lot, at 2.9%. The population of Japan is a little over 98% ethnic japanese.
So it's something like 2.something million in Japan as a whole, less than half a million in Tokyo alone, given that Tokyo is the densest urban center in the world (Tokyo has almost 14 million people).
These are very approximate numbers because they were taken from years old statistics, but still (you can find it all on Wikipedia).
How does it compare to other developed countries? Most are close to or on the double digits. So, several countries in Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, etc... they all have 10 to 20% of the population as immigrants/foreigners.
Developing and poor countries are kind of a mix because you usually have negative numbers... more people going to other countries than getting in, becomes kinda complicated to do the math.
About why and how japanese people get surprised... it might not only be about a foreigner speaking japanese. If you guys watch other channels with foreigners living in Japan you will probably already know this. But here are some other things that may... surprise, cause a different reaction, for japanese people - speaking loudly, the entire vlogging thing, weird intonation/pronunciation/accents, non-verbal language.
And really, if you think carefully about it, that would probably be the case in your own country too. There usually is a collection of local habits, cultural behaviour and whatnot that, when not detected, would cause a reaction too. xD
Obviously, for a country that has such a homogenous ethnicity, looks can surprise too. But I think other factors play a bigger part than people might think.
Anyways, fully agreed with the rest. People who intend to visit Japan someday, I highly recommend taking time both to visit the big cities, the big tourist attractions, but also see if you can find sometime to visit smaller towns, more rural Japan.
I'm gonna cheat and say I love both. In fact, I kinda dream of living there someday, and my neighborhood of choice (ideally of course) would be somewhere between 1 to 2 hours away from Tokyo... surprisingly, that's far enough to be away from all the noise, rush and fast living of Tokyo, because the city is very packed.
On my first trip there I stayed half way to Saitama, and the second trip I stayed in Chiba, close to Narita station.
Personally, I have to say that while I enjoyed Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and big cities a lot, it's were we stayed most of the time, the places I really felt a connection with the culture were outside the urban centers... empty streets, well maintained (but not like, super well renovated and whatnot) old buildings, places not as well prepared to receive tourists.
That side of Japan is slowly going away unfortunately... partially because of the increase in tourism, opening to more immigrants, part because of aging population, and how parts of older traditional culture are being lost with the aging population.
Japan still does a remarkable job to keep traditional culture alive intermixed with modern culture, but it's hard to keep it going given the situation.
Anways, wrote too much already... thanks for sharing!
1
-
Here's something no one wants to hear: we all paid for this, and much worse things in recent chinese past.
Does the world have any right in demanding fair treatment of ethnic minorities inside China when all these developed countries now reporting these supposed injustices actively financed an industrial revolution level genocide of chinese workers, including borderline slave labor and kids being forced to work in horrible conditions to attend developed countries market demands?
Would news even give much attention to the Uyghurs plead if instead of this happening in very visible government sponsored concentration camp style brainwashing centers, it was happening inside private chinese companies that were producing all the products paid by and made for american consumers?
I'm sorry if I'm not part of outrage culture, but considering how developed countries outright forced China's hand on behaving exactly the way it is now, through decades so that it becomes the slave labor industry of the world, that it would end up like this.
China is a country with no worker rights, no industrial regulations, no basic human rights for it's own people, because it needed to sacrifice their own citizens to prosper financially, and at the increasing demands of developed countries. Why does it sound so surprising now that they are willing to do the same with ethnic minorities. The entire population pretty much went through the same thing not so long ago.
Quite honestly, I'd fully expect things to be even worse. Like Myanmar Rohingya and Kashmir for instance.
Sure, for our standards, and I'm not sure how long that's gonna last the way it's going, brainwashing internment camps might sound like an atrocity, but at the very least these people are still alive. Other victims of genocide and ethnic cleansing around the world have not been so lucky...
Obviously, I'm not saying any of this is right, and I'm not saying things related to chinese government are good in any way, but perhaps the world needs to set better standards instead of just pointing fingers. Countries are feeling empowered to do their worst exactly because it's not that much different from what other countries are doing.
Are these military brainwashing camps worse than just outright bombing the shit out of muslim countries, or throwing illegal immigrants inside subhuman condition cells separating parents from their children and giving PTSD for everyone involved? Or perhaps adopting segregationist policies that will surely divide politics and people further killing entire sectors of an economy an throwing tons of people out of jobs?
What I'm saying is, it's easy to attack the scapegoat. But moral high grounds are crumbling over. We need to stop telling others what to do and start leading by example. How is your country treating your minorities these days? How should they be treated giving your current economic status and conditions?
1
-
Ever since I first heard of "The Game" - which I think it was back a few years before this video came out because I don't think YouTube existed just yet, because it was on Internet forums -, I either didn't fully get it, or just for some reason immediately associated with the 1997 David Fincher movie of the same name, featuring Michael Douglas and Sean Penn. xD Which I loved, so perhaps that's why.
Weirdly enough, if you think a bit more about it, the game in the movie The Game... wasn't a game at all. It was more like... it's just a prank, bro! Which... doesn't make it a game, does it? Or is a prank... a game? Hmmm...
Similarly, is Total Recall a game, a prank, virtual tourism... or reality on a fictional story?
1
-
Oh, the bit about Brazil, I can give some input despite hearing it first here! Thanks guys!
So... I can imagine why this came out. Basically, our past president who used our governmental intelligence agency (ABIN) to do the spying was a far right nationalist asshole who was basically mimicking Trump, with direct connections with the MAGA crowd via Steve Bannon and the like. He's there in the US right now btw, ex-brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, DeSantis can keep him for all I care.
I also don't know for sure but can imagine that the tracking was limited probably because he was specifically targeting political opposition, protesters, probably some journalists that didn't give him a favorable coverage, a large part of the judicial system that was constantly after all the crimes he and his family members committed before and during his administration, and stuff like that. You know, as this is what proto-dictators do.
He was voted out, and we had a mirror of Jan 6 here too from his most fanatical followers, basically Brazil's version of MAGA, but the current president is replacing one by one every single stooge the guy put in government related and public organizations positions... which is likely why this information only came out now. Our intelligence service probably had it's leadership replaced and people finally felt comfortable whistleblowing the information.
Much like it happens in the US with Trump, we are expecting to spend years hearing about all the things Bolsonaro did while in power behind the scenes, lots of them being crimes. His government was opaque, there are lots of obvious corrupt things he did openly for all to see, and then there's likely a mountain of things that he did that people still don't know, because he put a whole ton of his stooges in positions of influence and power, and he did a whole lot of his meetings and strategic planning behind closed doors.
But we'll get to those eventually... and he might be spending a very long time there in Florida, where apparently he is even going to MAGA events to talk about his great presidency down here, and cuss at woke culture and whatever sh*t they do.
Anyways, just for the curious.
1
-
That would be a nope. xD
I spent my entire childhood in a pretty big house with big garden front and back, moved for a year into a 40 something square meters apartment with an aunt aged to be grandma (studying for university entrance exams), back to the house, and then moved cross state into another 40 something square meters rental apartment, and then on my own 70 square meters apartment.
Live comfortably by myself? 40 square meters will do, as long as I'm aiming towards the upgrade to 70, which I can then live very comfortably.
Over that I don't really need. In fact, I really just don't want. Despite living my entire childhood plus teens and few years of adulthood in a pretty big house, I have no dreams of living in mansions, palaces, having a country villa, beach house, and all of that stuff lots of people dream of when retiring or something. xD I'm utilitarian almost to an extreme... enough space to have my stuff that's easy enough to clean up. :P
I also want to eventually get rid of a whole ton of personal stuff that occupies lots of space... books, paperwork, collections. Sometime ago I was trying to become a minimalist, but it conflicts too much with my personality. In fact, if there is one thing that flies off minimalist inspirations at all, is that I kinda wanna have a full tinkering space at home... a place to store and use tools, do lotsa noise, etc. That won't fly on apartments at all.
But something the size of a capsule hotel... erm... room? Bed? That is pushing a bit too much. xD
I'd still like to have a few different places to sit, a big TV/monitor, comfy sofa, workspace, my own bathroom... asking for too much already, aren't I? xD
But I guess more than the space, the real problem for me is all of the rest being shared... that's harsh. I'm very much anti-social. :P
Now... we did stay for about 20 days on vacation in one of those tiny APA hotel rooms, if that counts. You know, if that's what it takes visiting Japan - sure! It's all about the pros and cons, plus details, right? Well, as long as you are not claustrophobic, which I'm not. Claustrophobics will see that as worse than a coffin... xD
1
-
1
-
Here's how I see Super Size Me, the movie, after all these years...
The idea of the experiment wasn't bad in itself... it was pretty interesting to see what would happen to someone's health if he ate only fast food for a while. A worthwhile pursuit perhaps, just out of curiosity and self learning - again, on a base level idea.
The problem with it is on the messaging, the methodology and the framing... not particularly on the movie itself, but on how people interpreted it.
I mean, there were several problems with the movie itself, but the biggest problem was on perception, reception, how it was portrayed, what people thought of it.
Even worse, what lots of people "got" from it without even watching the damn thing.
I'll just go ahead and say I did watch it, but back when it was released... so forgive me if I'm not remembering things right.
But I think it was in the doc itself several caveats, several counter examples of Spurlock's case, including some guy who had been eating at McDs regularly for a good 10 years or more with zero ill side effects. This was on the movie itself, wasn't it?
What happens in annedoctal sensationalized experiments on extremely complex subjects is that once it goes mainstream, it creates cultural FUD, which in turn ends up creating generations upon generations of Dunning-Kruger effect type "experts", who are ready to give recommendations, write books, build programs and whatnot based on their own personal experiences, annedoctal evidence, or even less than that.
People would be better off thinking that you should eat less and exercise more to get healthier, period. That and that alone.
The rest just added to confusion and arguably created entire industries that feeds on the original FUD to fill their own pockets.
Here's the truth no one wants to hear about nutrition, diets, what we eat and how we processs it: it's extremely complex, like you just cannot fathom how complex it is, and we still know (as in really know, scientifically) very very little about it.
If someone says he or she figured it out and will explain to you in some simple steps, he or she is lying to you pure and simple. Or, again, Dunning-Kruger effect.
See, how we process food is influenced not only by the multiple factors around what we are eating, on subject fast food, but also on all the complexities of our individual organisms. Just about everything you can imagine has an influence on it. From metabolic processes, enzime production, mood, our current status around muscle mass, DNA, day to day habits and whatnot, all the way to this incredible thing everyone has different from one another that we call our gut flora. But not only the gut flora, but the flora of all organs food interacts with.
You take the multitude of variables that our own organisms provide, mix with the multitude of variables that food provides, you get something as complex as deciphering and figuring out as... a weather system or worse.
You just cannot map it all out. Too many things interact with each other, every single interaction having it's own consequences.
So, if you ever hear someone talking a bunch about nutrition in an authorative manner telling what you should or shouldn't eat to have this or that effect, be very wary of it. It's not that the intention is always bad, it's not that people are always trying to fool you or sell you some snake oil, it's just that most people are not aware how little we actually know about it, how little we can assume, how little one's experiences translates to another.
Of course, we do know some very general stuff because over decades science has studied and observed effects. We do know, for instance, that out bodies do not produce everything it needs to work properly, and thus the need to consume food with certain properties and whatnot to stay healthy. Vitamins, calcium, fiber... that kinda thing. And even that often gets distorted to sell crap like supplements to people who don't even know if they really need it.
Ammount of calories recommended per person per day, this gets more into a fuzzy area... as people will know, different countries have different recommendations. Because again, it's not exact science, this varies from individual to individual.
When it gets to type of food, it's even less certain. The more you look into it, the less certain it becomes.
Even setting annedoctal crap aside, health magazines, celebrity crap, the "healthy food" industry in general - there is likely no area of science, hard science, more controversial than that related to nutrition.... people that follows scientific research news will likely have noticed it.
Sodium is bad for you, actually it isn't, eggs have bad cholesterol, actually they don't, coffee is bad for you, actually it's good, alcohol is poison, but you should drink wine in moderation, chocolate makes you fat and sad, actually it enhances your mood, yadda yadda yadda. It goes on and on and on with contradicting study results and recommendations. Guess what? This is squarely because of how complex it is, plus all the conflicting industry interests, how hard it is to prove anything for the general population... most of those studies are observational, they don't get to the core mechanics of it because they are too hard to map out.
Even fast food, let me tell you something - perhaps it's crap in comparison to fancy dining, taste wise I mean, but because of liability concerns, sourcing, and whatnot - you will likely, in several parts of the world, eat healthier in a fast food chain than in a mom and pop corner shop.
The exact same thing that causes dread to some - industrial processing, preservatives, standardization and whatnot at the very least guarantees some level of safety and sterilization that you might not get in a cheap-o joint. On the other hand, when something like salmonela hits the supply chain, everybody gets the bonus uniformily. xD
In any case, what should you take out of it? That the relationship with food is very individual, and wildly varies from person to person. So, you should absolutely experiment what works and what doesn't for yourself. Don't trust people who keeps using authoritative tone to tell you what you should or should not eat, and in general, if you are looking to get healthier or stay healthy, simple and clear is just better - eat less in quantity with more variety, exercise more. That's what you have to worry about the most, and there are no shortcuts to it, at least for now.
Of course, this is an authoritative tone, so you can doubt it too...
1
-
Weird, I never understood this supposed problem. Didn't the fellowship ride, run, walk and then sneak towards Mount Doom the way they did because they were trying to do it stealthily in the first place, avoid the Eye of Sauron? Giant eagles riding straight in the "eyesight" of Sauron would've gave them away straight up. In fact, any alternative method that was big and showy would attract Sauron's gaze and make things harder. This is also why the fellowship didn't go with a full army prepared for any situation that might come up. It was, if not the whole reason, a major part of why hobbits were chosen to play the major part, despite being a race of peaceful small stature people - because they wouldn't attract the Eye of Sauron gaze.
I though that was the entire logic of their journey... to avoid the attention of Sauron until they got there. From that point on, I think it was even understood by the fellowship that all bets were off... once Sauron found out the intentions and imminent defeat, he was going to do everything to stop it, and it was likely that they would all be in mortal danger, scrambling with whatever they could to get to Mount Doom. It was a huge bet, a bit unlikely even.
In fact, wasn't the final battle at the Black Gates also another point to distract the Eye of Sauron? This is the whole deal... lots of actions in the entire story are there to distract the Eye of Sauron, it was all a ploy for the hobbits to get to Mount Doom undetected.
It makes sense for unrealistic supernatural eagles to come up only later on when Sauron was already defeated, for the rescue, because there was no need to avoid his sights anymore.
Or am I missing something? It always sounded like an argument made by people who didn't understand the purpose of the journey in the first place, and it's right there in the movie, let alone books. It's decided when the fellowship is formed. It's why Boromir is arguing with "one does not simply walk into Mordor" meme. :P The idea was ludicrous, but there were alternative hidden rough routes that they could try on foot, and it was basically the only chance.
Of course, this is all to favor a fantasy story after all... or else you could argue some of those powerful magicians should've come up with a contraption to shoot the ring straight into Mount Doom, with no need for fellowship, or whatever. Create a mini volcano right there in the Shire and throw it there. Neutralize Sauron's evil and ring with powerful magic. Take it to Valinor or some supernatural land where Sauron or Nazgul would never reach... there are tons of excuses and options you could go for while still not straying too far from the fantasy realm. But the journey is the story. It had to happen the way it did because it had to happen that way. xD
1
-
What I think would happen - denial would happen... conspiracy theorists and whatnot would pop up.
Not as much as in relation to pandemic and climate change though, simply because it'd lack the element of profiting out of the demise of others. There would still be the element of keeping the status quo for lots of people, so it'd still be there. Conspiracy theories and denial of stuff like pandemics and climate change nowadays are not just about mental health issues, distrust in government and distrust in science anymore - it's political, has cultist/faith elements, has profiteering elements, and power ones.
But it'd take too long to do something about it, so instead of being a rush to avoid it, it'd be a rush for survival after impact.
Rich and a few middle class privileged with early information would scramble to move away from areas that will probably get devastated. As the time came, chaos would ensue in several places.
It all of course depends on several factors... how visible the thing would be in the sky, how fast approaching, how big, where it'd hit, how much of a forewarning we'd have down to details on where it'd hit, how devastating effects would be. Every single detail of it changes the dynamics.
If survival after impact was just plain impossible, then it'd be a completely different thing in comparison to it destroying a single city or region, for instance.
As I understand, past a given size, we'd pretty much be screwed... not because of the impact per se, but because of aftereffects. Asteroids are on the full on extinction event class, right? Meteors we could even survive, but asteroids, it's kinda the end. Not even going into a deep nuclear bunker would solve it. It's kinda like full on nuclear war with the major superpowers... a nuclear bunker could protect people from nuclear weapons of the post WWII era, but they are meaningless for strategic nuclear weapons that we have today.
Anyways, it's an endless topic.
1
-
I dunno how things are where you live and in your environment, but I have to say that where I live and the conventions and groups I used to be a part of when it comes to anime, cosplay and this side of fandom... one of the things that attracted me to the whole thing was all about acceptance.
Obviously, prejudice and racism is everywhere you go no matter how forward thinking people are, but the specific conventions that I used to go, one of the aspects that always brought me back was inclusivity... not only around skin color, but also gender, people with disabilities, wide age range, no niche tastes or interests excluded. You be you, we´re all here because of the shared interests.
Which is something a bit weird if you think about it... fandom often times tends to be exclusive rather than inclusive. But I think it has a lot to do with the messaging of most mainstream anime titles.
The only thing I have to unfortunately disagree with a bit on the interviews and whatnot, is the bit about authors knowing about their audience...
I might be wrong about this, but afaik, the absollute vast majority of anime and manga to this day is done mostly from a japanese exclusive point of view, targetting a japanese audience mainly. And more than that, it might be what made it explode in popularity in the first place.
The lack of representation does not come from a discriminatory standpoint, but mostly from an ignorance standpoint.
Japan is still something like 98.something per cent japanese people. Number of immigrants grew up in recent years, but the numbers are still... world record lows. Not sure if theres any other country in the world with least diversity in the population. Japan remains a country that is mostly uniform, and the majority of people there will experience a life where they only meet and get in contact with japanese people.
So the reality of it is, apart from very few manga and anime authors, they just don´t know enough about black history, other cultures, and pretty much anything outside Japan. What they do know comes heavily filtered by international media coverage and cultural products, which is exactly the same way we consume japanese culture - it´s heavily distorted, superficial, clickbaity and warped.
People are gonna say that there are animes with foreign country themes, trying to portray other cultures, and whatnot - particularly european countries... but if you pay real good attention to it, you´ll know it´s a portrayal of another culture as shown in japanese mainstream news or subconscious - it´s not really all that representative, as perhaps the idea japanese people have of another country, superficially, in a heavily romanticized manner.
Now, here´s the dilemma on all of this. For me, a 3rd gen japanese descendant born in the other side of the planet to Japan, the whole reason I became an anime fan had nothing to do with my ancestors origins, but because anime is produced with such an unique perspective on things.
It´s kind of a cultural perspective and portrayal that is unique to it´s own situation.
It´s part naive part disconnected from all the regular western problems and history, which might at times come off as ignorant and non representative, sometimes outdated, sexist, problematic and whatnot, but also sometimes more focused, following a different set of rules and constraints, less related to the barrage of sensitive topics western authors have to constantly worry about.
It cannot escape the outlook of fans and cosplayers that, most mainstream titles they love and are fans of, do often times display a degree of ignorance around gender portrayal, roles and whatnot. And yes, most mainstream anime titles are made by male authors targetting young male demographic, that remains true. But perhaps the richness in manga and increasingly in anime is that you can shop around for an incredibly high diversity of standpoints and outlooks. There are manga and anime targeted for young male audiences, yes, but also young female, adult female, and a whole bunch of other audiences, in all sorts of genres and subjects.
I don´t personally think inclusivity is a bad thing per se in anime and manga, but I also don´t think it should be forced.
Number one, because I don´t think it´s right to demand japanese authors to write about something they don´t really know, understand, or that has been part of their culture and history - nor it´s really desirable. I really don´t think it´s the right way to go. Anime and manga will overtime become more inclusive as Japan becomes are more culturally diverse country.
Number two, because if I´m honest about it, that´s not really what I´m looking for in anime all in all.
I mean, it´s great if anime can have a messaging of acceptance and against prejudice overall, but in a way, I think this type of messaging is already there - it doesn´t really need to become more explicit or specific about it.
Weird as it may sound, the absolute vast majority of anime don´t come off to me as character designs being representative of real people. They are more like abstractions. What I see represented are feelings and ideals. Moral concepts, ways of living, personality traits, story.
If you think about it, for the vast majority of characters in anime, there is a representation that is often lacking looks wise - that of japanese people themselves. There are exceptions of course, but in general, you really don´t see a whole lot of specific japanese looks in anime, and when you do, it´s treated differently as to "regular characters".
This is no coincidence, it´s because anime and manga authors are not thinking about representation in characters through looks most of the times. Looks are abstracted on purpose. They are also not aiming at caucasian, white people, etc - as some people often mistake it to be.
It´s more like an absolute abstraction - anime characters look like anime characters, any character that reflects a specific culture, skin color, or whatever is treated as different or special in the stories.
People often get into fights and discussions about this, but to me it has a pretty straightforward explanation - anime characters, unless explicitted, are not made to look like any specific group of people, nationality, race, skin color, etc. Looks are generally abstracted. You have general tropes, standards, but that´s mostly it.
Reason why you have a bunch of anime where characters all kinda look the same - wide eyed, huge head, samey look, or that you sometimes have animes where it seems characters are as unrealistic or physically impossible as they might be. Super deformed characters, anime that have sketchy look art, etc.
Because looks are treated as secondary, what is important is personality and other traits that comes through from that - the internal monologues, the way they react to the situation, etc.
And so, comes a personal opinion that is sometimes at odds to other anime and manga fans. I really don´t want anime and manga stories to become more like Hollywood, more like american TV series and dramas, more westernized, more worried with representation, more this or that. I want them to keep being a different thing.
A product of japanese culture, not a westernized or artificially inclusive thing.
And I know a whole ton of peole will disagree with me, but that´s fine, it´s just a personal opinion.
And do understand, I´m saying this as an anime and manga fan that has been consuming both for around 20 years now... the number of animes and mangas I´ve watched are on the thousands. I became a fan pretty late in life actually, when I was around 19... and never stopped apart from a few burn out years. xD
And yes, after a while it gets very samey looking, with lots of tropes and plot devices that do get tiring after a while, honestly. Which is not all that different to several other mediums, including Hollywood movies, TV series, western comics, and whatnot, which I´m also a fan of.
But this doesn´t mean I want it to change.
I want those anime characteristics to still be there for other generations to enjoy. It´s a different perspective on things. A very important thing anime and manga has to offer is an outlook that comes from a different culture and perspective. Reason why I treat manga differently than I do manwa, manhua, and other variations (south korean origins, chinese origins, etc). They have different backgrounds and comes from different cultures even when they are trying to copy japanese manga.
I could go on and on about this, but you know.
Anyways, back on topic, cosplayers of the world, do not feel intimidated to portray your favorite characters, and your skin color, nationality, backgrounds and whatnot shouldn´t matter. Critics, racists, sexists and assholes are everywhere, but do know that there is a large portion of anime, manga and cosplay fans that do not discriminate - we share the same fandom, and there´s nothing wrong with that.
1
-
Yep, this happens in nations all over the world, and it's just sad...
Here in my country from time to time you get reports like these... it's always botched Botox with unlicensed doctors, or silicone injections done in the most horrific conditions imaginable.
I remember watching a news piece/doc on the practice back before Covid that had poor people paying not a lot in comparison to licensed clinics, but still a lot for them, to essentially get industrial grade silicone injected in their butts or something.
You know, the stuff you buy at a home center as sealant.
Some of the places where this happened which were uncovered I wouldn't say they were clean enough to even serve food or stay for long, let alone do those injections.
A whole bunch of deaths, disfigured people, permanently disabled people and stuff like that.
And yet, this isn't the first time, and it won't be the last. It's a regular trend. A huge report like that counting many deaths and many people who endured months to years of hell in hospitals with huge bills getting out permanently disfigured or disabled, the trend dies down for a few months or years, and then it shows up again.
My position on this matter for whoever asks me is always - if it isn't a life-saving measure, if it's not about recovering from an accident, if the condition you have is not something a doctor is directly recommending you for plastic surgery with proper reasoning to do so... just don't do it. And if you need to do it, never cheap out on it. No matter what those around you are saying.
The reason is practical - medicine has not evolved enough, and is not democratized enough to enable recovery of botched procedures and bad crap made with the constituent parts of your body shape - skin, fat, bones, muscles, etc. All we have available today is remediation measures. That's not to even mention the risk of death.
The bar manager in the piece was actually lucky, things could've gone much much worse there given the extensive necrosis of the tissues in her face. Botched Botox cases often ends in death, period.... we are talking about one of the deadliest bacterium of Earth after all.
Anyways, other than extreme cases, cosmetic surgery shouldn't be this much of a thing... people don't need treatment for that, they need mental and social help to understand that beauty is relative, obsession with it always end up badly, and that there are more important things to care about in life. Perhaps more importantly, that this is an artificial creation that exists to maintain the status quo of some, and reduce things into exclusivity clubs.
You don't need nor want to be part of it, it'll only make your life miserable. When relationships you build and the people you surround yourself with are all built upon this beauty status, it all tends to be empty and hollow because it's all sustained by fragile foundations.
This is something that unfortunately will only get worse overtime... as people look more into screens and live in a world that is dictated by fantasy, we get this warped vision that in order for you to have success and do well in life you need to be plasticly beautiful, artificially manufactured, live a life of the Instagrammers, TikTokers, influencers of the world. But that's just not it. Those aren't your friends, your family, your social circles. Those are fantasies created for you to consume. Life is what you have all around yourself.
1
-
Not falling out, it's just the usual problem of Trump being an asshole - which everyone already saw in his first term.
And it's not only with Japan too, it's with all nations. The only ones that get to benefit from Trump being in power are the "strong men" he admires, and even then it can quickly backfire putting too much faith in that - reason why everyone will be on edge with the convicted felon.
In other words, when it comes to diplomacy, Trump is the equivalent of a fickle petty man child. People who like him are the ones who either see themselves in a mirror, or think they can use his personality for their own gains.
There will be lots more problems this time because there is no one left to stop Trump's impulses in government or justice anymore, and patience of some global leaders is obviously running low. You can see this with China ramping up direct responses to US sanctions. On Trump's first term China didn't respond this directly to bans, like the Huawei ban, plus a few other stuff Trump said publicly. This time with Biden's final days and looming Trump government, China already started going tit-for-tat in the trade war.
For Japan specifically, things are less likely to go as smoothly too as the LDP is losing power, which is a different situation compared to when Abe and Kishida were in power. Japanese conservatism is quite different in comparison to the US, being closer to old Republicans, but they do have some common points.
With Ishiba in a hung parliament and minority coalition government, it's just not as simple as when LPD had total control.
All in all, I don't think there is a real diplomatic risk to entirely cut ties. But it will be fraught.
Which isn't really a surprise. Trump is already getting at odds with UK, EU, Canada, Denmark, Mexico and several other nations. He has the tact, with that stupid ass Musk behind him, of a LEGO piece lying on the carpet. People who saw his first term through know pretty well how much of a great diplomatic figure he is.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Yep, you know what this is called? Terrorist fundamentalism.
It's time for people to stop pulling punches there and call a spade a spade.
You know the terrorist organizations the US has been supposedly fighting against since 9/11 or even before that? What Tim is describing there is exactly how they recruit, operate, and their worldview. It really is no different if you go at the root of several religious terrorist movements that you find spread around all over the world.
People are out to get them, the world is ending, their way of living is being corrupted by foreign agents, their superior or chosen by God race is getting crushed, they must act in any way possible to fight the enemy and guarantee their place in heaven.
The only real thing that separates this so called Christian Nationalism and muslin based terrorist groups is how much control they think they have over their own governments, or political control over what they see as their God given rights.
So, what you have now is a situation where a fundamentalist religion either gets a place in power, which was supposed to be a secular democracy I might add, or they'll see their apocalyptic predictions come true, at which point they will turn to violence as any other disenfranchised fundamentalist religious movement always do.
That's what is currently happening in the US. The thing about this type of terrorist fundamentalism, is that once you get the ball rolling, you are no longer in control. All these politicians who have weaponized religion for political gains, they don't know what they are dealing with. And given how morally and ethically bankrupt some of them are, if it gets to the point of violence which it is already getting to, infighting will happen.
Why was Trump elected to be their prophet given how morally and ethically bankrupt he already is? It's because the leader's morals and ways just do not matter. It never does.
In fact, if you check the origins, the history, the path that any fundamentalist leader walked through to get to his or her position - it just seems to be some of the worst stuff a supposed fundamentalist religious leader could never get away with.
It's because sanctity is not required for scamming. It actually gets in the way. Fundamentalist leaders require a degree of greed, a lack of empathy, and a worldview so distorted they cannot see the consequences of their actions. If you have any of those, you would not be using radicalization and hate speech to get to your objectives.
The way there are still not enough American people who cannot see this clearly as it is, means to me that it's all already over. The doom of the doomers will come not because of "wokeism" or some word salad they invented and don't even know how to define, the doom of the doomers is coming from doomers themselves. It's what they have in their own heads, that is being brought to life for money and power, by people who knows how to exploit this.
And it is amply exemplified by Tim's description of his father's funeral.
Was all that antagonism necessary in such a disrespectful manner in such a fragile time?
Of course it wasn't. But the fact that people in his own community found it acceptable to behave that way somehow, whereas years ago this would be unthinkable, means the mentality is already so corrupted that no peaceful solution will be found until the next national flashpoint happens.
And the flashpoint is defined by the scammers, remember that. It'll be the next presidential election.
1
-
1