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Comment Re:Sad (Score 1) 28

In rural Virginia where my parents live, their only non-wireless internet service is from Brightspeed. It's 1.2Mbps/256Kbps DSL that is offline more than it is online. And they have to pay $90/month for it...

While I am no fan of the largest shareholder, if they are in a rural area and already paying $90/month for terrible internet, Starlink would be worth a look, especially if they are on a large plot with unobstructed views of the sky. If 'Residential Lite' is available in their area it would actually be lass than what they are paying now and still delivers 50MBs most of the time.

Comment Re:America's Innovation Goes from Boom to Bust (Score 1) 238

China has vast industries to apply research which simply can not be applied in the US any more ... what's the point in researching stuff to be applied in China?

America has vast industries that can apply research too, and they're very good at it. The idea that US manufacturing production is in decline is a total myth. US manufacturing output has been trending consistently upwards (with the exception of 2020) for decades. It has declined as a fraction of GDP, but it has still grown in real terms. The reason that so many people think that it has declined (aside from propaganda from populist politicians telling them so) is that manufacturing productivity has been growing even faster, so US manufacturers are building more high value products with fewer people.

Now, if you want to stop the US from continuing to increase the value of the products it produces then a good way to do that would be to stop investing in long term primary research. Less new technology in your products will mean that they won't offer new value propositions. Is that really what you want?

Comment America's Innovation Goes from Boom to Bust (Score 2, Insightful) 238

Scientific innovation in the USA since 1950 has been primarily driven by the long term investments made by successive governments (on both sides of the aisle) in primary research. The short term investment strategies that drive Wall Street don't allow for companies to make long term plays that will benefit the whole of America, rather than this quarter's investors. As such it seems highly unlikely that "the market" is going to take up the slack in primary research investment. American innovation is going to suffer, and America will suffer in the long run. Meanwhile China is investing in primary research like America did in the 1960s. What a way to Make America Irrelevant Again.

Comment Re:Oh good (Score 3, Insightful) 105

By 2080 we can have banana farms in Seatle and vineyards in British Columbia.

There are lots of vineyards in British Columbia, especially in the Okanagan Valley, and some of them are really quite good. The difference will be that by then they will be growing cabernet, zinfandel and tempranillo instead of pinot noir and riesling.

Comment How do they compare to ride-share drivers? (Score 2) 112

While I don't dispute the numbers, it would be interesting to see the comparison not to all drivers but to a cohort of humans that drive the same sort of routes with the same sort of regularity, which would be drivers for Uber, Lyft and other ride-share services. I don't know if those drivers have higher rates of pedestrian and cyclists collisions (because they spend their lives driving urban streets) or lower rates (because they know the streets and intersections better). Either way a more focused comparison would be informative.

Comment Re:So what! (Score 1) 273

While I agree with the principle of this, the rate is clearly excessive. The current Federal gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon, so the rate that they are proposing is the equivalent of 1,087 gallons per year. The average new cars efficiency in the USA is about 28.5 mpg, so this is a flat tax that taxes people as if they drive nearly 29,000 miles per year. In fact the average American driver goes just short of 13,500 miles per year. Furthermore EVs generally are driven fewer miles per year (since many families with two cars will use their ICE car for longer trips due to range anxiety), and internet numbers (your milage may vary) suggest that EVs average around 11,000 miles per year. So this is a flat tax, without regard for individual road usage (and resulting wear), that hits EVs users at more than 2.5 times the rate that the Federal gas tax hits the average gasoline car user.

Notwithstanding the contrary evidence from the tariffs, I believe that some people in the current administration are capable of doing math. As a result I think that it's fair to conclude that this is not just an attempt to make EV owners pay their share but is in fact a punitive attack on cleaner vehicles that don't buy their energy from Trumps donors.

Comment Re:I am shocked! (Score 3, Insightful) 290

because the bbc is a gear source of facts.

I appreciate that disparaging news sources that don't align with the MAGA narrative is part of the MAGA playbook, but has it ever occurred to you to look into articles that go against what you expect, rather than just writing them off? Irrespective of if you disagree with their editorial leaning, the BBC is generally an excellent source of facts because they name their sources. With only 60 seconds and a search engine you can track down the US DHS web page that is shown and do a reverse search of the image to see that it was indeed originally posted by the account of a Nottingham, UK, based tattoo artist. Maybe that's all too much work for you, and just slagging off news sources that don't repeat that sounds of your echo chamber is much easier, but if you try it you might learn something in the process.

Comment Coming to an invoice near you... (Score 4, Insightful) 97

Along side the sales tax that's not in the list price, the royalty recovery fee added to your streaming subscription, the airport concession fee on your car rental, the mysterious destination fee on your hotel booking, the mandatory 25% tip at the restaurant and all the other hidden fees that corporations love and consumers hate, I think it's pretty clear that we will soon be seeing these tariffs being passed on to the customer. Anyone who thought that this administration was going to reduce inflation was sorely delusional.

Comment Re: anonymous lawsuit (Score 4, Informative) 44

They only need to show harm if they want damages. If they are just seeking an injunction to demand that the OPM follow the law (which clearly states that a privacy impact assessment is required) then they just have to show that the law was not followed.

The solution is pretty easy: the OPM could do a PIA. The problem is that this is likely being put in place to spot âoesubversiveâ civil servants who donâ(TM)t sufficiently by in to the new regimeâ(TM)s agenda, so a PIA (which would need to be published) would be damning.

Submission + - Melania Trump launches her own cryptocurrency

nickovs writes: As if the world needed another cryptocurrency, Melania Trump has launched a "meme" crypto token of her own, $MELANIA, a crypto "asset" created and tracked on the Solana blockchain. Whether this will be interpreted as wanton grift, a cashing in on celebrity or an opportunity to invest in supporting the new First Lady will likely depend on where you sit on the political spectrum.
It should be noted that, according to the BBC:

Disclaimers on the websites of both the $Trump and $Melania coins said they were "not intended to be, or the subject of" an investment opportunity or a security.

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