mc32

Before LCDs won the race to price affordability, there were many competing novel approaches to display technology. Many engineering teams were based in the south bay but they all lost out to LCDs which won out by being good enough at the time at a price people could afford. Lots were vying for government contracts (this was a time when Japan "owned" compact display technologies.) Obviously they all lost out to LCDs and derivatives.

The issue I’ve seen with these lowest levels of governance is pettiness. Why did so and so get a break and not me five years ago? I don’t like plants why do we need a watering system? I’m allergic to mosquito foggers, can people just stay in at night, etc., etc.

"Even if the droughts had not been evenly distributed across Mesoamerica, the spared pockets would still have been vulnerable to their second-order effects — political instability, warfare, mass migration."

We're seeing all these second order effects now.

Cyprus is conventionally Europe.

No they don't:

If you work, you automatically get enrolled in a hybrid healthcare system (state+private)

If you are young or elderly you get automatic coverage.

If you are working age but have no job --then you get basic healthcare (not comprehensive)

Lots of people who can afford will buy private insurance on top if they have a serious illness (basic healthcare is not comprehensive)

Also copays and high deductibles. People can end up footing 20 to 50% of their medical bills (out of pocket).

What admin granted her that Visa? Was she the only one using that loophole?

I definitely think abused loopholes should be reigned in and or eliminated.

He admitted that the majority of the targeted auditing was against conservative orgs while also targeting a minority of liberal orgs. He admitted to the targeting and also that it greatly focused on conservative orgs.

I'm not against going after fraud, but you have to be even handed about it.

You can read NPR's take. They admit they targeted conservative groups but also had progressive bycatch.

https://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/555975207/as-irs-targeted-tea...

Why are we relegating locals to menial restaurant jobs? Why not have programs to get them trained and into higher earning jobs?

A local working a restaurant will often need to take advantage of welfare. If instead we funneled the locals to higher paying jobs, we would be better off. We're supposed to look after our own citizens, afterall --that's the whole point of electing a government.

Do we need to make the rich richer or allow locals affordability?

Louis Lerner later apologized for subjecting the orgs to overscrutiny.

What’s the proportion of local crime syndicates having local roots vs Eastern European roots? Is it even or is it lopsided? I really don’t know but have them impression it’s anglos but also lots from other parts of Europe.

There is a likelihood of some targeting though this isn’t the only admin to do that. Remember when the IRS was directed to audit conservative organizations (you know maybe they had a higher likely hood of fraud, maybe, but that was not proven)

That said, it seems this is targeting body farms. Firms that specialize in corrupting the process. Yes some people they bring over have unique talents, but a lot of them are run of the mill folks looking to become “manager” so they can attract a mate back home.

But also maybe they got there by paying and lobbying previous admins to the detriment of the local workforce (though likely good fiscally for the orgs taking advantage of the program).

I dunno.

That's kind of like saying places that suffer from dine-and-dashers suffer from a service problem. I disagree.

Some services can sustain subsidization. Google can "give out" GMail, people will be happy to have the service for "free". Smaller players who can't subsidize their service(s) with ad platforms may have to either charge money or offer fewer features and recoup revenue via features.

Gabe has the breadth and resources to practice his economics -many others do too; however, many smaller or more focused players don't have that liberty. Obviously we have companies who go to extremes to ruthlessly extract as much as they can from their customers. They are obviously deserving of criticism --but not everyone who wants can play by Gabe's philosophy.

Piracy is more “I don’t like the terms you’ve set.” Some terms are overbearing. Some are more reasonable. Both get pirated but at different rates. Some people just don’t like the idea of paying at all. Some people will pay onerous terms.

These days City + Person means someone living in such city. They don’t say “from + place” because that implies origin which they try to avoid these days.

Rioting is not terrorism. Terrorism usually involves conspiracy and planning they're typically not one-time, ad-hoc events. I know governments all over the world like to go overboard with that terms since Sep 11 because it's a get-them for free kind of card, but to me it means actual infliction of terror. A mock gallows is not. If it were, lots of protests with burning effigies, etc. could quite possibly be considered terroristic events.

The brought a mock up of a gallows -the same kind other protesters bring to anti-Trump rallies. Should we punish people who went into the Congressional buildings? Yes! (Keep in mind we have hosted protests in Congress too) Do they need to subpoena ~400 lawmakers and $10 donors to the campaign? I think it’s obvious that that is overreach and intimidation.

Right like the ~400 subpoenas on Republican lawmakers by Jack S with the tenuous linkage to the Jan riot. You might have reason to subpoena 10 or even 30 lawmakers who may have had some linkage but going after ~400 seems dubious.

Also in Europe more cops have K-9s and aren’t afraid to sick them on suspects.

Sure but that means November will have no impact on what CPB does. It’s always happened and will continue to happen just like stock trading with insider information by congress members will continue to happen regardless of November results. The vote came up and it was voted down and I don’t see that changing. I don’t see the spying on citizens changing. The NSA spied on Congress and they did nothing about it.

It’s disingenuous to imply that November will have an effect on either of those topics.

The above is only true if you reinterpret what the poster said.

All the text and so on had unrealized potential. Without Anthropic et al it would remain unrealized.

It’s like FTL. Until someone realizes it, it’s just talk.

Yes, but that explains the resultant state, not how things got that way.

At the height of the cold war, we had Russians in the US and it's not as though people went after them with pitchforks. We also had people like Bernie (not just him) visit the USSR and most weren't thrown in jail -some were, obviously, but the great majority were not. So I don't think that's exceptional because there is usually a defined context for hostile action to take place. Even when you have sworn enemies who have plotted against a nation (or similar entity), it's not like they immediately go on to execute their plan. They set a target and go after that --often times you get accounts of that person being at most detached but often "they seemed friendly, I never imagined..." Basically if you don't get in the way of their plans, there is no reason to have you as collateral as you are not significant to their goal.

That dry corridor has suffered from lots of deforestation. Their pop grew by leaps and bounds since the green revolution and that led to lots of clearing of forest for farmlands which when managed poorly lead to soil erosion combined with fewer trees means more land cleared leading to "dry corridors." So, pop growth was/is a major input.

True it should never have gotten so bad, but when there is no incentive to invest, this is the result you can expect. This happened in Venezuela and South Africa too - though SA also suffers from massive corruption (officials pocketing moneys and diverting from investment in infra).

That’s quite the achievement. Though a side note of comparison I can’t believe France and Belgium suffer power losses in the 5 to 6% range. Unless I’m misunderstanding what that means, it seems excessive for a modern economy.

That seems odd since the EU lowered tariffs on US ag products. They also took back some previous retaliatory tariffs that were in place.

Before it was legalized people went down to the 7-11 to buy beer/wine all legal, maybe a bum to steer around.

They didn't want to get to know scuzzy dudes selling pot or driving to areas of town where at night they have street takeovers to score some pot.

Now those scaredy cats have legal dispensaries from which to obtain their MJ legally. So they might opt for pot these days.