Beijing these days. My wife is from there.

All I use Siri for is a translation service. My wife is Chinese, and she learned English from a book and a British English teacher. Even after 30-odd years, she sometimes runs into words that are not in her vocabulary. When we were first married this was a problem. Her Chinese-English dictionary was censored and didn't include words that newlywed couples might want to use. Now we have Siri... "What is the Mandarin Chinese word for " and it tells her. This really speeds up conversations on new topics.

Ummm, no. Honda correctly saw that EV's were not generally loved except in Liberal havens. For most of the USA they are stupid. The distances are too large. It would take me 2 days to go visit my parents while in a gas car it takes 4 hours. Now, what they need to make more of IMHO is Hybirds. The efficiency of an EV without the range anxiety or figuring out how to put a charger in a house built in 1920.

You know what they USED to do in Oklahoma (and maybe still do) is in the fall they send crews around with a truck full of hot, liquid tar, a hose and a nozzle, and they drive slowly down the streets and fill in every crack with hot tar. It seems to work. I don't live there now so I don't know if it is still done. I know up here in Northern KY they would much rather wait for the pothole to get 3 feet deep before trying to fill it.

Elon Musk, with the backing of his Trumpness, is in a position to give Europe and their fact-checking and censorship laws the big middle finger. The richest man on earth can say "don't like what I'm doing? Fine, I'll close your country and put it out of business". Take away FB and X and your country (and ours) devolves to pen-and-paper of the 1930's.

My son (a Millionaire Ivy-League MBA) has done this. At the time he had 2 kids. Flew from California to visit grandma in Kentucky. Bought 2 car seats and had them shipped to Grandma. Used them for a week, then took them back for a refund. When grandma complained that wasn't moral, he said "Oh Grandma, EVERYBODY is doing this. Those who are "honest" as you say are STUPID!". THIS is why the returns are drying up. BTW: he did the same with emotional support animals to get his dog to fly for free. These kids have absolutely no sense of right or wrong, just profit and loss (and I raised him right; the young man that left home at 18 would have never done this). Now that boy wouldn't piss on me if I were on fire.

Flight Data Recorder, not Franklin Delano Roosevelt. OK OK I got the joke but some readers might not.

After Jan 21st, the EPA will be gone or toothless, so they aren't a factor. And as for California emissions, an Executive Order could fix this. OR pull all government business out of California and into more business friendly states. I'd advocate for a fortified corridor (fortified with a wall guarded by the army with guns) from another business-friendly state to the big ports where all those Electric Truck rules don't apply, and California would have to pay a tariff to get goods from the United States. Something like the road to Berlin during the cold war.

Get in, get a degree, get out, and get a job. "College Degree" is the automatic entry barrier to a good paying job. You even had to have a college degree to be a manager at Radio Shack, for minimum wage.

As part of my business degree in the 80's, I was required to endure a class in "business ethics". What an oxymoron! This was when Chainsaw Al Dunlap was worshiped and they were building Enron. This class was taught by a flower child who wore sandals and sat cross-legged on her desk. Most of the students were like me; in it because it was a requirement. But there was one young man, with pink hair and nothing else to do who just asked ENDLESS questions on finer points. When the teacher tried to limit him, he went to the administration. Finally somebody got in his face and told him to shut up, and I agreed. Then he turns to me and says "If you aren't interested in these questions, why are you here?" To which I said "I have to pay for this class out of my own pocket. I'm here to learn what the professor wants me to know, regurgitate it on a test, get a good grade and OUT of here so I can go get a paying job!". To which he said "What a common ruffian you are".

I wasn't a vote for Trump, it was a vote against liberalism. I doubt that most Trump voters would let him date their daughter.

To cut it way down, Harris said, "We want to make the country just like California", the country said, "We don't want to be like California". Things like people with male parts and beards declaring themselves to be female and playing on women's teams. People in flyover country are appalled by this sort of thing, and they just pushed the big-red stop button.

Short answer: Yes. As I learned from my Ivy-League MBA son, all businesses can be reduced to spreadsheets. The ideal business makes only one thing; money. It is merely an accounting shell to handle the profits. All other things are contracted out to cheapest vendor. Quality and liability? That's the vendor's problem. People die? No problem, we didn't make the systems, the vendor did. The vendor goes bankrupt and we keep making money.

I have no desire to go to dangerous places to see stuff. For instance, go see the Titanic. Even in a sub that was properly constructed, I can't touch the Titanic. I can't see it very well through the viewport. And their idea of a toilet on that sub doesn't interest me. Instead build a submersible with 3D UHD video, surround sound, and maybe hepatic feedback hands so maybe I could "touch" something. I'd be happy with VR glasses and headphones at that point, but a room with a wraparound screen and sound would be even more awesome. Hang that package off a balloon and I'd also be interested. Give me limited control (maybe with a game controller feeding a computer that makes sure I don't do something stupid) and I'm just as good as being there.

The advantages are safety. If the sub implodes or the balloon pops, my experience is ended, and I go home early. Further, you can build a robust sub/pod for a LOT less money and with a lot more features. And testing that would be necessary to protect the lives of the passengers and crew would be eliminated. All you would need is functionality testing to ensure that the investment won't be lost in a failure.

I think it was all about hubris. Those rich people went down on that sub because they could afford to, and the peasants couldn't. What often escapes the rich and driven is that there are things money cannot buy. Being wealthy doesn't make you immune to death.

My trouble is that my employer REQUIRES me to have either an Android or iPhone at the latest OS level (so no old phones) so they can put the 3 various 2-factor authentication apps they require on it. Flip phones are not allowed. Mind you, the refuse to help pay for it, but it is a job requirement INCLUDING power to wipe your phone whenever they want to. Want to work? Get a new smart phone and give us control of it. Otherwise, take a walk. Their reasoning is "At Will Employment"

When I wrote my congressman on this subject, I pointed out that in case of a catastrophic event, AM Radio is going to be the ONLY thing still running. In event of a nuclear war or a Carrington event, all the satellites we think are the future of communications are going to be fried. FM radio might still be working, but is short range (to the horizon), and their programming all comes from satellites these days. All TV's (which are digital) are fried.

The only way the government will be able to communicate with their citizens are a few superpower clear-channel AM stations. As for receivers, any radio made since radio was invented can receive these broadcasts. Further, if there is no power you can build a radio out of a toilet roll, some wire, a razor blade and a pencil (Google Foxhole Radio). I think AM radio is worth supporting for this reason alone.

So, is there another economic theory you can recommend? Socialism is beautiful in theory but in practice everybody ends up doing the bare minimum because doing extra doesn't get you any more goodies. Same for Communism. Every economic system that doesn't take into account human laziness and greed is doomed to fail.