aclsid

Let's see, Signal is based in the US. Wechat is a Chinese system with a great UX that is based in China. Telegram used to be based in Russia. Whatsapp is owned by Facebook.

I think it is pretty self-explanatory that in all these countries, governments haven't been exactly subtle when it comes to their efforts to intercept communications. In my mind, Telegram is the only software that resisted such interference in an almost heroic way and ended up having to move out of the country.

You are assuming that only metal pipes exist. Nowadays most pipes are made by either concrete for the big ones (canal like) or plastic connected with glue that is rated for hot or cold water.

Lol, thanks for the JavaScript joke. Had a good laugh.

The thing is that building in China is way cheaper than in the US, so for them it makes sense to just keep demolishing stuff and build new stuff. I saw it happening several times all over China. In Shanghai for instance, they are building a new Maglev station next to the old one, so there is no upgrading old stuff there.

Right, who has even heard of amphibious landing ships. Not like they need them in any case, since they happen to have the fastest amphibian armored vehicle in the world.

But you are either trolling here or way too deep into conspiracy theories to care for facts.

But I believe you fail to see that this is just like watching somebody throw trash at a neighbor lawn and then go on thinking, well they did not do it in my lawn.

At this point, everybody knows that the data mining operations run by Google and Facebook are detrimental to society as a whole for a lot of reasons, but more importantly because they represent a big brother operation without having elected officials.

What is going on with Android nowadays is beyond comprehension in the privacy aspect. Unless you go really technical, it is incredible the amount of apps that will fetch your contact list, location, phone number, etc. The fact that the apps do not work if you do not consent to some of that stuff brings into question some of these business models.

Wait until you go to China and you will love Bing. That is unless you enjoy turning on and off VPNs

Not all of them, check out the Xiaomi Mix 2. Pictures are ok but otherwise great phone and no notch. To use the front camera you need to turn the phone around though, but for me that's a better compromise than the notch.

Anybody else felt that the study is kind of too broad and they kind of say, yes it is partly because of the opiods but at the same time there is another study that say it isn't. So I feel I literally read noise.

The Hunt for the Red October was Tom Clancy's side project and look where that took him.

Sounds like somebody participated in an accelerator :)

I think you are misleading yourself by recycling policies and waste management that takes the trash out to a place where you cannot see it, precisely the point of the article. The amount of trash a person generates in a country like the US is astounding. One person in the US generates in average 4.4 pounds of trash every day, and that makes Americans the top polluters in this sense.

Having lived in North America, South America and China, I can tell you the main difference is packaging. The trash can itself is huge in the US, while in South America people use something closer to a small paper bin. A lot of the trash is organic, but in general, waste management and wastewater treatment in Latin America is awful.

China on the other hand has a big wastewater treatment problem, especially in provinces like Sichuan from what I saw. One village I visited had its main creek contaminated in our generation by a nearby factory. waste generation is also low over there.

https://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/trash-number...

Ok I should have said was loved, because that was certainly the case for me. They loved explaining entity objects, factories and others in Java. But I think you are right as far as Python taking over.

I don't understand the downvotes for the comment though, jesus, it's like I insulted somebody's kid by giving my opinion.

That was always the core issue with Java for me. No matter how hard they tried to sell me that they finally fixed UI with Swing and whatnot, it always felt like Java apps lived in their own bubble, consumed massive resources and we're slow in general.

The best approach so far is Android and even then, I would say that the big difference between iOS and Android is precisely when the garbage collector kicks in and you get to see a phone with hiccups.

But of course, the Java language itself is loved by the academia as it conforms nicely to everything that is taught in proper architecture (even if it is verbose like no one)

I think it is a good example because cryptocurrencies solve the confidence issue people have in the local currency and takes away control of a single government to impose controls and depreciate the currency. You also get to bypass the notoriously bad banking system and since bank transfers cannot be reversed here, it's actually safer to trade bitcoins to bolivares than it is to trade bitcoin to USD using Zelle or PayPal.

With an exchange that transfers money to your local bank account? I know at least two that do that for Venezuela.

You can use localbitcoins.com or localethereum.com and somebody will buy your cripto and give you bolivares in your local bank account. That way you save a trip to the US to open an account, which most people can't afford anyway

Well the thing is that cash is nowhere to be found so you just go around with your debit card and you are fine.

The other part is that we Venezuelans never walk anywhere. Going somewhere without a car feels dangerous. Oh and in big cities, if the car is armored the better. Plenty of shops now to convert your SUVs.

They have a national registry that you need to subscribe to if you are a miner. That and you also need to keep in handy your customs paperwork to prove that you paid entry duties for the equipment. Otherwise you open yourself to police extortion.

I'm sorry but I currently live in Venezuela and what you are saying is wrong. Very few places in Caracas or hotels will actually take USD for payment since it is considered illegal unless you go through the regular channels with the idiotic govt exchange rate.

Bitcoin not only thrives here and allows you to bypass the whole craziness with the economy by using exchanges like localbitcoins.com where somebody would deposit the amount of bitcoin you sold to your local bank account. This way you just keep your money in bitcoins if you want. This is specially true with miners.

I don't think Wikipedia should be used for political activism like this, especially when one does not even live in the EU. I find this a bit offensive since if Europe ends up being a media dictatorship, why on earth do other people in the world have to endure the problems of that part of the world?

Although I'm a big fan of Linus, it is unfair to say that he created the whole platform. I would argue that there is a big percentage of US contributed code to it and don't get me started on the GNU/Linux thing

Just get a Vega 64 AMD and see how you fare. Oh and no AMD wattman for you either.

I use Linux, but it does have limitations, especially when it comes to compatible hardware (mostly due to the manufacturer releasing no/bad drivers) and gaming.

I know people hate to admit it and create these fancy terms for ages old behavior. Procrastinate is being lazy,as simple as that. Reading news and watching YouTube videos while you are getting paid to do work is being lazy with a capital L.

So yeah, please stop coming up with excuses if you procrastinate as if it is some sort of disease, drop the distractions and just get to work.

Can we all agree is bad form to share paywall links here? No, I don't want to resort to any hacks since it is stealing but this is literally advertising for the WSJ at this point.

Same here. This should not be allowed.

I really hope so. This is a beautiful country that deserves better. Oil has made us rich and now screwed us up in a massive way.

In this case I can assure you the US had little to do with the economic collapse. The reason why the economy went down the drain was because of an extreme currency control. Just months after Maduro got ahold of power, he got rid of the only mechanism that existed to buy foreign currency legally. So what happened is that people had to resort to buy US dollars at black market rates. That caused shortages, inflation, etc.

Then they had the brilliant idea to enforce price controls on a lot of goods, which only served to ensure that nobody wanted to produce or trade said good.

US/EU sanctions only came recently and are targeted at individuals, so no, this mess is caused by the Venezuelan government itself.

Agreed and nice overview btw of the food situation. The main woes started because of the draconian laws I mentioned and plain ugly politics. Since the majority of the private sector was against Chavez policies, they were deemed "the enemy" and that is when the whole import lots of food movement started. That food was sold with subsidies in newly created govt stores as a way to bypass the "big bad" expensive private sector. It must be noted that the private sector also ended up trying to boycott the food supply by hoarding products to make prices go up, which is part of what lead to the whole movement.

But long story short, it is the typical situation of two sides fighting instead of reaching an agreement and compromise. The major blow to the industry came in the nationalization of an agricultural products supplier called Agroisleña, which ended up affecting farmers because the new structure that replaced it, was as effective as the Virginia DMV :).

In summary, trying to impose socialism in the economy will always be a big fail.

The Orinoco Belt is composed of extra heavy crude or heavy crude, not oil sands, which is where shale comes from. While not having the same profitability as light crude, it is still better than shale.

One of the big impact of the cost of Venezuelan crude is its high content of sulfur, which makes refining more expensive, but to this day, Venezuela is one of the few countries where even with a low barrel price, the activity is profitable, or at least it should be.

But when you have a state company that has quadrupled its payroll, paying for all kinds of social services in the country, corruption, all while also diverting funds from investment, you make the operation run at a loss.