xethos

I mean, flipping back and forth between Mollweide and Equal-Earth (what they went with), I see only minor differences, with distortion seemingly favouring Equal-Earth. What's the rationale for having such a strong preference, especially as either is such an improvement over the current map (which has it's principle advantage being for sailing between continents, which isn't exactly the most common use-case)?

Most tech companies didn't end up in a public relations fight with the FBI to defend the rights of a domestic terrorist.

To do so was the right thing, as it meant standing up for everyone; giving up on the rights of the unpopular means in the end, none of us have that protection. It's a hell of a stance for a public company to take though, and a time Apple can say they were on the right side of history. Will anyone say the same about Cook being so subservient this time?

Outside America, profit does not push every other motivation to the bottom of the pool to drown

Though for the more terminally American founders here: reception filling in intake forms and charging one-time admission and diagnostic fees for new patients may have better margin than doctors charging billable hours

Yes, you've made the right call trusting Apple with this, the company with famously-good backwards-compatibility and long-lived support for third-party software /s

I'd expect it to be cross-pollination from Instagram being tied to Threads

The courts, eventually-probably. What this does to the business environment and future endeavours regarding clean energy, however, is an exercise left to the reader

In this context? Being able to put your foot down and say fuck Google, I will no longer put up with the anti-user direction of their platform, and switch to something outside the duopoly

This actually depends on who has better SEO. Some scam numbers place higher than the help pages for actual businesses. Receiving physical bills and calling the number on the back of your credit or debit card are good suggestions.

Or, as another poster suggested, competent governments and corporations will use their actual domain name for official communication.

I agree, but I'd also challenge you to find a cellphone that a normal person carries that doesn't just concatonate multiple messages and turn them into MMS. My Pinephone and Librem 5 did that, but that reinforces my point: this is not something a normal person will see

> API has absolutely no switching costs.

Were that true, many embedded maps would have switched to OSM instead of Google Maps after Google massively increased costs. Adding your business to OSM is free, and API costs would fall pretty dramatically

Minor note, you forgot battery life. Pinging your location every other minute for traffic and crowd denisty for Google Maps, even using AGPS, isn't cheap.

When you find battery life randomly tanks for a few days, despite not changing anything in your life, it's always Google Play Services that end up being the culprit

The phone app misses lots of data the car can collent and send. When, how frequently, and how long turn indicators are used. How aggressively the throttle and brake are applied, how frequently pre-tensioners and other safety features activate, how closely the radar or lidar-equipped cruise control sees you following others, and I'm sure lots I haven't thought of

But then you're right back where you started: When you need a clean number for a hospital or similarly important service to call (Wife's work, daycare, school office), it goes to the distrusted, silent-by-default line, or, just as bad, it doesn't ring the clean, only-whitelsisted-numbers-ring line

> My only solution that I could think of is to have a dedicated phone line just for friends/family/work, and a second line for banking/shopping/utilities/everything else.

This fails the moment one of your "clean line" contacts downloads a sketchy app that sells all their contacts, and sells an updated list as your appear in their recent calls list - meaning it's not a one-time thing, it's for a few weeks after every time you call them.

I think the most surprising thing about this is trusting Google.

> security and legal restrictions

The security of American hedgemony, and legal restrictions that are due to laws enacted by the American government

You're using different words to describe the same thing, but trying to imply America's reasons are moral

In 2008 Sergey Brin and Larry Page saw the limo waiting, and instead chose to rollerblade to the Android unveiling. Sergey Brin, during the presentation, threw his G1 in the air to show off how his homemade application leveraged the accelerometer to see how high he'd thrown it

That use-case was never designed for when the sensor was added, and is every bit as hacky and fun as adding call recording with a loopbakc address

And that's the first problem: Android is no longer fun, and it's no longer for trying this hilariously stupid hacky method of doing what we, the users, want.

The second problem is an attitude of "Google's dialer has it built-in, why would one want a third-party dialer instead of Google's?"

Because we fucking can - or could, at least. The OS was designed to be as modular as possible, to the point where, while iOS still can't change their launcher, Android has had that option since day one. Setting aside Google casting themselves as the (not so) benevolent dictator of "Just use our apps exclusively. Life will be easier that way", closing off the modularity is antithecal to the Android experience that so many geeks fell in love with, and arguably made the platform what it is

Sounds like you're unironically describing a Tangara [0]. They most certainly hit their goal, though I can't verify if they get restocked or how often.

Mine's lasted, and it works pretty well, though the touchwheel isn't quite on-par with an iPod. I like the modern connector and openness (both hardware and software) though

[0] https://www.crowdsupply.com/cool-tech-zone/tangara

I mostly agree, but it's the lack of enforcement that's the Get out of Jail Free card, not the T&C

> the right to own firearms is very explicitly stated in our constitution

The right to bear arms does not necessarily mean firearms. Arms doesn't necessarily even have to include firearms, and America is already pretty damn strict about certain armaments, such as sub-machine guns.

Americans are allowed to have certain firearms, sometimes, in some places. I'm not sure how one squares that with the blanket statement from the American constitution that Americans have the right to bear arms, unless it's simply an impossibly poorly-informed citizenry

You're gonna love finding out who was behind the founding of Comma.AI, which adds self-driving to cars that shipped without it

> and I’ve done all the searching in the world for the lyrics I remember and have never found the band

Shoulda posted what you remember (and ideally male / female vocalist) as a post-script. The throwaway comment could be your way back

Regardless of whether we classify it as humanities or political science (as neither seems to be looked at as terribly useful in the states), a population without some grasp of civics does not lend itself to a healthy democracy

Not everyone must be a plumber or electrician, but we're well-served by having some basic knowledge, and an ability to find answers to the questions that arise as we do basic handywork, such as changing a lightswitch or replacing a faucet. Similarly, we are well-served as a society when we can answer basic questions about our democracy past the age of 18; IE, shortly after testing ends, and typically before it actually matters - when voting.

Not everyone needs to become a licensed electrician, or have a deeper-than-average understanding of civics. But knowing someone you can trust with an answer that isn't purely to line their own pocket is still important.

Sure, that's why Smokey the Bear is such a bad idea. Ignore the fact that pushing propaganda starts young, (the population in general, but especially) children are impressionable, and (echoing sibling) that we should probably consider the impacts of media on children.

Lots of cartoons are wholesome, and it can be a powerful tool for setting social norms. More to the point, it's going to happen anyways - so let's do what we can to make sure it's a message we agree with

I'm struggling not to be sarcastic here, as I'm not quite stoked about Canadian Tire owning most of what's left of Hudson's Bay Company. It's pretty undeniable proof that age and revenue will not make a company immortal or invulnerable though.

> Its [sic] bad when a hostile foreign government has [...] information about [...] your citizens

How many domestic automotive manufacturers does America have, and how many times has the current administration threatened annexation of their Northern "ally"?

This is, at best, hypocrisy; and being on the recieving end of the annexation threats, I'm disinclined to use the most generous interpretation of America's "Rules for me but not for thee" attitude

Ironic coming from the country with three domestic OEMs, and routinely threatens economic annexation of my country

> Commissioning reactors that won't come online for 10-15 years makes no sense at all, economically and practically.

Because we won't need base load in 15 years? Or because you're arguing that we'll have so many batteries, and they'll be so cheap, and they'll be so over-provisioned regarding summer/winter variance, that we won't be able to sell excess nuclear power to the states?

Personally, I wouldn't make either bet, no matter what odds you give me

The fact that every 737 MAX was the samew design also means that, upon rcognizing the flaw, every one could be grounded and fixed properly. We did not have to verify 15 different designs were all vulnerable due to Boeing trying to nickel and dime their customers (by making the third sensor esssentially a paid upgrade/addon)

This is entirely unrelated to your point, but as you brought up the sanctity some Americans hold their founding fathers to:

How do some assume the American founding fathers thought ahead, and had it all planned out, with good solutions (instead of merely solutions),

...while also being aware of the Flynn effect?