cyd

joined 2 years ago
[–] cyd -2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Hot take: this is not necessarily a bad idea, and worth experimenting with. After all, Disneyland is an existing example of such a setup, and it's arguably better governed than other jurisdictions within Florida. And when Ron DeSantis flexed the state government power to transfer decision making from Disney back to the politicians, it was not an improvement.

[–] cyd 11 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Maybe, maybe not -- but I'm discounting anything the UK government says on Internet-related issues, so long as they're trying to insert encryption backdoors into everything. For all we know, this is just an attempt to blackmail Apple and Google over the encryption thing.

[–] cyd 13 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Pretty much inevitable. Nowadays there are so many robot vacuum cleaners from different brands, and everyone has more or less figured out the tech so they all work pretty well. (I have a Roborock, and have nothing to say about it other than it keeps the floors clean and doesn't cause me any grief.) There's no moat, so consumer market success is purely a matter of manufacturing and cost efficiency, and iRobot obviously would have a huge upfill fight against Samsung, Xiaomi, and a thousand other light consumer goods makers.

[–] cyd 5 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I mean, I don't demand an open source washing machine or dryer either.

[–] cyd 6 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

The idea isn't necessarily tied to oligarchy or fascism or anything like that. It originates in the early ideals of the Internet where people hoped its anarchic energy could be a force for freedom. Things have not really shaken out like that, e.g. the net ended up being dominated by tech giants rather than a profileration of small websites, and China's Great Firewall showed how states can put swathes of the internet under their thumb after all. But some of us still buy into some of that spirit (though the Network State idea itself is unrealistic). Heck, Lemmy and the Fediverse are a part of that.

[–] cyd 16 points 5 days ago

They have to put on a brave face, of course, but I'm not sure US intelligence is so easy to replace. The Europeans have let their systems atrophy by simply using the US offerings, especially in realtime targeting data and signals intelligence. The US has in the past encouraged this dependence, e.g. by strong-arming Europe not to develop a military grade GPS alternative.

[–] cyd 8 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Pokemon battle, 3v3

[–] cyd 4 points 1 week ago

Google search results are so terrible that at this point it's a mercy.

[–] cyd 38 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Alternative take: Li Ka Shing took advantage of the Trump bullshit to sell off two port operations at the top of the market, right before a global recession. CK Hutchinson's share price went up by a fifth when this deal got announced; Blackrock is down.

[–] cyd 15 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It's not obvious who is scamming who. At first glance it looks like the US is strong arming the Hong Kong company, CK Hutchinson, to sell. On the other hand, CKH seems to have unloaded its port assets at top dollar; they're getting paid an amount exceeding their current market cap of $19B. And right at the top of the market, possibly, given the chances of a global recession due to the trade war. The CKH share price is up a fifth since this announcement, and Blackrock, the US buyer, is down.

[–] cyd 10 points 1 week ago

It was like an episode of Veep except more obnoxious.

[–] cyd 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What plausible stick could the UK (with or without EU) wield against the US? Pull out of NATO or the Five Eyes? That would hurt them way more than it would hurt the US, and Trump knows they're too rational to let it happen.

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submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by cyd to c/world
 

He claims Trump would act immediately upon winning the election, before taking office. Which sounds legally dubious, but not that that's ever stopped Trump....

 

In the US, skyrocketing tuition fees are a major political issue, with pressure for student loan forgiveness, etc.

So it's interesting to see two East Asian countries having the opposite problem: tuition fees are too LOW, straining university finances and hindering the objective of delivering a good education.

 

Archive link: https://archive.is/vGKin

 

Complains about overproduction of green technology, because it's important we don't have too much green technology....

 

Always weird to me how France is so insistent on clinging to its colonial empire, two decades into the 21st century, despite the headaches that causes.

 

Climate change and inflation are both important, so we're going to make it as expensive as possible to switch away from fossil fuels.

27
submitted 11 months ago by cyd to c/japanlife
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