About 25 years ago, I was at a bbq where I spent the evening chatting with this guy named Lars Knoll. Even though I was busting my butt with my team to develop the Opera for Linux web browser, this guy had been hired by TrollTech after he had developed something called Konquerer which was becoming the default HTML rendering engine in the KDE project. He wrote the whole thing on top of the KDE libraries which were painfully slow. He rendered text and for controls using the KDE objects which were rarely more than Qt objects with a little KDE specific stuff on top. I remember thinking "there's no point thinking much about this because there's no chance it could compete with a real browser like Opera".

Shortly after, I was in Cupertino sitting across from a strange product manager type. His name was Tim Cooke. We were discussing developing the default web engine for this new Mac OS X project which was coming along. We would have to develop for Carbon because Apple hadn't implemented Objective C++ yet and we were a C++ shop and we couldn't use half the developers in the company to make a C abstraction layer for Cocoa. We came to an agreement and Apple sent us a palette full of the latest G4 macs and screens. I remember fighting over the 21" screens like children. We had an idiot project manager who insisted that we implement the browser the way Adobe was demanding. It didn't matter that we were pretty much the "experts" on making cross platform embedded browser engines. He was like "Adobe said it... it must be done this way... they are gods".

Well long story short, while we were implementing a crap Carbon based browser engine using crap tools from Metrowerks instead of the good Apple tools (which weren't that good yet). Apple put together a team which abstracted the KDE libraries and built bindings to C and then Objective-C/Cocoa. And they abstracted out everything that was platform specific otherwise from KHTML (Konquerer's underlying html widget) and wrapped it in a Cocoa wrapper and a Carbon wrapper and shipped it as Webkit and Safari. And man did it suck.

Who would have ever imagined that Lars Knoll's half assed KDE web browser would have eventually become the defacto Web standard and the default web browsing engine in every operating system... including Windows... except the strange 5 user corner case operating systems.

Don't bash a project like this. It has value. I immediately considered that I have had many cases in recent times where it could have been of value to me. That said, I wouldn't run a C based web browser engine ever. It's not that you can't write a good web browser in C. It's just that it's the wrong tool for the job. At 160,000 lines, it's a small job to port to something else. When JavaScript evolves into a JIT and the JS runtime is thunking the heck out of the DOM, then it's pretty much no longer an option. Oh, and someone will think it's a good idea to implement proper form controls. That's an insanely massive project, especially when adding WebGL as well. If this browser core catches on, which unfortunately due to the license, I don't expect it will, it will likely be 5 million lines of code almost overnight.

Yeh, no.

Three major events started "trade wars" and the government propaganda anti-China rhetoric.

1) 5G happened and Huawai was the only company with a full 5G implementation including millimeter wave and SA mode on release. Ericsson was 2-3 years behind. Nokia was 6. Huawei could deliver on day 1 and they cost much less because neither Sweden or Finland are ... well, they are terrible at competing. They simply expected China wouldn't be in the competition because... Why would they be. So, they were confused because they never had to actually compete against a company who actually did a good job.

Keep in mind, by now, nearly $2 trillion has been spent building 5G networks. Money to Sweden and Nokia recirculates. To China, it's horded and weakens the US.

2) Apple evaluated CXMT as RAM suppliers and YMTC and certified them as good enough for Apple to trust in their products and with their reputation. The US slammed the door shut on that. They are still making up excuses for why as there were no legitimate ones except that if those two companies get a foothold, the entire world semiconductor commodity trading market would collapse. As a result, non-Chinese companies can't legally license their tech to CXMT or YMTC so those companies operate patent free. But other companies have to pay license for their tech. This allows CXMT and YMTC to sell RAM and Flash for half the price. If the US lifts sanctions, in 3 years or less, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron could be considering bankruptcy of their RAM divisions and CXMT could aggressively dump RAM to collapse the value of the patents.

3) China focused on brands. Before Chinese brands happened, buying expensive Chinese products was a high risk, Huawei, Xiaomi and others started legitimizing Chinese premium brands. This made it so buying an $80k Chinese car was ok because it wasn't cheap Chinese no name crap.

The money floods to China and they invest in One China by spending obsessively on education and R&D. They raised 800 million people out of poverty so far. They know every yuan spent in China is worth it. They invest massively in Silk Road because they don't think 4 years at a time. Building infrastructure across Asia, South America and Africa will pay them back massively.

The one thing which will cause China's greatest growth will be when they start opening Chinese universities to the masses. It will be way bigger than any other Silk Road initiative. And it will devastate the US economy. The US cannot afford to lose access to the world's top talent and can't afford to lose control of who gets an education and who doesn't.

Did you know that China's defense against American anti-Chinese propaganda is simple pro-China marketing? Which do you think is working better long term globally?

There are people who see what's happening and prepares for the changes. There are fools who make idiotic comments like yours.

Interesting anecdote. We still don't have decent V2H enablement in the UK. By the way, Australian sentiment on EVs has shifted pretty rapidly. While there's obviously lots of loud-mouthed whiners, EVs are now 26% of sales of new cars, which is pretty decent, all told, and is actually a doubling of market share in a single year. Petrol and diesel saw really chunky declines. It helps that solar and battery are spreading so rapidly, so there's significant benefits in fuel savings to be had. The Electric Viking on YouTube covers EV developments generally, but has a lot of Oz-specific stuff because he's Australian.

Oh, we’re just going to ignore trademarks, trade dress, and trade secrets are we? Very good, carry on

As for there *not* being an infinite number of ways of designing a slab phone, you’re a muppet. You think you’ve come up with counter-examples by showing that some designs are impractical, but that’s not a counter-argument. There’s an infinite number of ways to write a post on Slashdot, but most of them will be rubbish. Doesn’t mean that there aren’t also a huge number of good ways to do it (actually an infinite number). I imagined you weren’t being so dumb as to think about cubical phones as slab phones, and would understand that this meant rectangular phones without a folding component, and that might cause you to introspect, but apparently not. Oh well

The thing is with quote marks, you need to use them around something that the other person said. I didn’t say “proof”. That was your word. And I have specifically pointed to particular factors, you dimwit. I will mention a couple of them for a *third time*: governance and training. Do you really fucking need me to go show you the governance rules for ANPR in the UK? I can do, but how fucking tiresome, when the answer is exactly as I said it, the governance rules (a) exist and (b) are extensive, and neither of those things are true of the US. It’s just so fucking pointless with you people. You argue black is white for ever and ever, and die in a ditch on such stupid fucking things. Go look it up for yourself, the ANPR governance framework for UK policing is literally avaiable on the internet for you, and there’s no such equivalent for the US. All you have to do is look up NASPLE.

and goi look at this, you dipshit https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.college.police.uk%2F...

You’re the one that’s made an assertion based on anecdotes, nobber, not me. I’m the one that was talking about systemic factors such as training and governance, on which you are conspicuously silent.

And finally, I just watched your supposed counter-example, and boy was that a wild self-own on your part. Throughout the entire chase, the officers were continually assessing risk, giving clear information about the direction of the absconding vehicle, talking in calm voices despite the incredibly stressful situation, etc. And when they caught up, they didn’t PIT, they boxed him in, got him out of the car, got tasers out but didn’t use him, didn’t beat him up it was the model of a professional chase. You’re a buffoon who can’t understand the point I was making.

Oh yes, because it's well known that the way you work out which police force is more professional is, you look for a single example of the one you don't like doing something terrible, and then you've proved your point. You definitely don't think about training standards, governance standards, restrictions on uses of ALPRs/ANPRs, militarisation, or, if we're going to be twatty about egregious examples of failings, fucking Uvalde. No sirree, we just do our motivated reasoning in public like a twat and consider it job done.

I implore you to spend just an hour of your time watching the very finest and best example of a police car chase you can find featuring US cops, one where they do everything by the book. And then watch a video of a good police car chase in the UK. The difference is vast. The UK police are so much more professional than the US police. But that's hardly a surprise, because the standards of recruitment and training are much higher. There's videos of European police officers asking questions and being stunned at how terrible US policing is.

Just watch this and listen:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3F...
1m15s: "At this time, I deem it proportionate to continue. The driver is in full and proper control of their vehicle."
1m30s: "It is left left left Desborough Road... it is back down to low risk as we go left left left down Mayfield Road"
2m10s: "Heavy braking, Byron Close, prepare for decamp on Byron Close"
Then look at the arrest itself at 3m. It's almost friendly -- the officer says "mate" in the middle of it, FFS.

Your police forces are systemically inadequate, and what "defund the police" ought to mean, despite the nonsense you're spouting, is the kind of transformation that led to the abolition of the irredeemable Royal Ulster Constabulary at the end of the Troubles, and its replacement with the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which has made a huge difference to the quality, culture and reception of policing there.

People like you, who think themselves so centrist and sensible, are a fucking disaster zone. You're not being centrist. Centrist is pushing for European-equivalent standards. You're simping for authoritarian inadequacy, and claiming that communities in the US must live with a patently failing status quo.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3F...

By the way, the difference in governance between the US and UK on the use of ANPR / ALPR is a striking example of just how bad the US is. The UK's ANPR operates within a nationally defined governance and audit framework, is governed primarily as a public policing capability with clear lines of institutional responsibility, has a formal national compliance and auditing architecture, and has up-front enforced rules on purpose limitation, proportionality, retention, access controls and data governance. The story that is described here just would not be possible in the UK, alarm bells would have gone off pretty much immediately. The US is a fucking backwater.

Erm, that wasn’t me, the OP. It was someone else.

As to your earlier points to me:
1. Philosophy routinely uses ordinary words in very specific ways to convey precise ideas. Think of Plato’s use of “form”, Aristotle’s use of “substance”, or Kant’s use of “transcendental”. That isn’t the same thing as arbitrarily “redefining” them. And anyway, Dummheit in German at the time connoted folly as much as stupidity. And beyond that, your own and his descriptions of the problematic conditions are nigh-on identical, so you seem to be getting hung up on his use of the word rather than recognising you seemingly share a diagnosis of a moral failing.

2. I’m specifically saying you can argue with authorities, but you’d better be sure of your grounds when you do it. And you self-evidently weren’t, because you attributed words to Bonhoeffer that weren’t his, but Cipolla’s.

In all seriousness, rather than argue more with me and get in a defensive funk, why not go read a little more about this incredible man?

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbonhoeffersociety.org%2F...

A perfect encapsulaion of what Bonhoeffer was warning against. Dummheit in its purest form.

Bold of you to argue with Bonhoeffer given who he was, what he was trained in, what he did, whom he stood against, and his terrible fate. I’m not saying any of this makes him infallible, of course, but I am suggesting that you may be reading his words rather superficially. Your objection appears to me more about terms than about substance: Bonhoeffer is quite clear he’s not using “stupidity” in the simple meaning of the word, but instead to signify the surrender of independent judgement. And of course, Bonhoeffer used a German term with its own connotations, not the same as English: Dummheit.

The quote about what a stupid creature will do is not actually Bonhoeffer — it’s Cipolla in the 70s, as the source makes clear. Search for the name and you’ll see. It’s a bit confusing in how the page is laid out.

All those years ago:
“ ‘Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed — in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical — and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this thestupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily
irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.”

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.onthewing.org%2Fuser...

Yes, especially when you consider it’s not 90% of today’s electricity demand we should be focused on, but 90% of future demand including electrified vehicle fleet, low temp heating (buildings), etc, which is a big expansion of demand and supply cf today.