Wouldn't doubt it at all.

"It's not like SpaceX did not have any missteps on their path to creating reusable boosters."

They weren't really missteps. It was part of their design philosophy. Build it enough to get past a "goal" (say, get past the launch tower) and test. If it doesn't meet the goal, ID the failure, redesign and test again. Once it reaches that "goal", create a new "goal" (sat, reach 20,000 ft). Repeat until it's reliable.

While this involves a lot of explosions, the actual time it takes to get a workable and reliable rocket was dramatically reduced.

Looks less like a failure on China's program and more like China learning from Musk.

Telescreen monitoring would have required a crazy amount of manpower.

Probably the closest real-world analog was the East German Stasi, which may have accounted for nearly 1 in 6:

The ratio for the Stasi was one secret policeman per 166 East Germans. When the regular informers are added, these ratios become much higher: In the Stasi's case, there would have been at least one spy watching every 66 citizens! When one adds in the estimated numbers of part-time snoops, the result is nothing short of monstrous: one informer per 6.5 citizens. It would not have been unreasonable to assume that at least one Stasi informer was present in any party of ten or twelve dinner guests. Like a giant octopus, the Stasi's tentacles probed every aspect of life.

— John O. Koehler, German-born American journalist, quoted from Wikipedia

In the USA is it common to have self service tills at supermarkets that accept coins?

If it accepts cash, it should accept both coins and bills. Any change I manage to accumulate usually gets fed into the coin slot at a self-checkout before I swipe a card to provide the rest of the payment. It's better than handing it off to a Coinstar machine, as those skim off a percentage of what you feed them.

"I like things simple. I really don't deal with milage, or all the other things I consider minutiae. I deal with simple numbers. What this means is not filling out milage reports and the other stuff that clutters up to work. Perhaps I'm eccentric. But I like simple because my actual work is quite complex."

As is my work -- however, my mileage report isn't "minutiae". It' averages $300-$500 every two weeks (I do a lot of driving --- particularly for projects). And the process isn't complicated. Basically a date, destination and total miles per line. In a text file. No clutter -- just a review of my travel calendar for 5 mins every two weeks and another 2-5 mins to transfer that to my expense report. Automagically appears in my pay check 8 days later.

"That's exactly my point"

Not a very good one.

"Commuting and using a tool for a work-related activity are not analogue one with another."

The *CAR* is the "tool" in the analogy, not the action.. I stand by my original post.

"I take it you don't get a salary? That you get paid by the second?"

I'm an "exempt" employee in California. Salary for over 2 decades.

I also turned down a company car to use my own. I get paid for "miles". $0.70 per. I do not get paid miles going to my office-- but from my office to any given site. At least during M-F. Sometimes I need to hit a site on the weekend, and miles start the moment I leave the driveway of my home.

There is zero expectation that my 8 hours start when I start my drive in to the office. It starts when I arrive. And yes, it's not uncommon (particularly during projects) that I work well over 8 hours. When that happens, we get comp-time at some point in the future.

"People expect to be paid for commute time too, at least in the sense that they will want more money if the commute is longer. Work from home made just coming to the office at all something which people want more money for."

People (employees) make that choice. They might take a longer commute for a job that pays more. It's not up to the employer to PAY for that commute ON TOP of their pay rate for a given job -- at least in my opinion.

"By that reasoning commuting with a vehicle provided by the employer should count as work time..."

Sigh....

You quoted me. There was more to what you were replying to than what you quoted. Read the rest:

"I would suggest that analogies are never "perfect" or "exact" -- they basically highlight similar bits of two different things to HOPEFULLY illustrate some concept or idea. If you are expecting it to be a 100% match, I think you might be misunderstanding what an analogy is."

I stand by my comparison. If the tool I'm provided is an employer-provided workstation, I should get paid the moment I start using it. If the tool I'm provided is a citrix session across a secure connection, I should get paid the moment I connect to it from my home PC.

Don't like the commute analogy? I would suggest that analogies are never "perfect" or "exact" -- they basically highlight similar bits of two different things to HOPEFULLY illustrate some concept or idea. If you are expecting it to be a 100% match, I think you might be misunderstanding what an analogy is.

I think that might matter. Running software through something like a citrix session via a secure connection on their home PC might negate any "when did they actually start working" argument. Much like I don't start getting paid the moment I hop in my car to go to work.

Kind of like a "digital" comminute.

The Las Vegas Fry's is still vacant, too. Best Buy has this market to itself.