astebbin

>My impression is that Trump is pushing tariffs in order to increase nationalism through conflict

That’s not my impression. I perceive the tariffs as a response to the yawning trade deficit between China and the U.S., as well as China’s state-sponsored IP theft from U.s. companies, currency manipulation, technology transfer requirements for foreign companies, Party cell embedding requirements [0], and various other protectionist policies.

As for evidence of necessity: the U.S.-China trade gap is hundreds of billions of dollars, on top of all that other stuff.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/command-an...

COBRA is a good option to retain your insurance for many months after leaving an employer, during which time you can (for now) pick a new lower-priced provider from your state’s Obamacare exchange.

Wouldn't the "Berlin Wall episode" pertain more to the former East Germany, whose GDP per capita today is several times that of Russia's?

All in all, reunification and the fall of Communism has been very good for East Germans:

http://www.dw.com/en/germanys-second-economic-miracle/a-1797...

Not loading for me. Cached on the Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180318140130/https://www.fhi.o...

EDIT: Hrm, guess it only cached the abstract.

>an improvement in human welfare

Was this generally the outcome of the Roman Empire's collapse? Intuitively, I would expect breakdowns in law and order and the collapse of complex supply chain systems (particularly food delivery) to result in mass human suffering, at least in the short term.

Not OP, but I live without adblock. In Chrome, I disable Javascript on all sites by default. Rarely do I need to unblock a new site. I have a paid subscription to the Washington Post (which grants access to articles, but doesn't actually hide the ads...), and the ads on other sites I visit aren't too oppressive.

More than anything else, over nearly twenty years on the Internet I've developed the mental reflex to "tune out" and automatically ignore any Internet ad, anywhere, unless it's literally shoved in my face to the exclusion of all other content.

I've previously used adblock extensions, but my reasons for going without mirror the link author's. I simply can't trust Google/Chrome not to autoinstall a new, broken, malware-infested version of my favorite extension. I don't feel I should have to mess with directory permissions or application sandboxing in order to achieve some half-measure of extension security, so instead I eschew them completely.

To 99.99% of people, a rocket to Mars is as about useful a 10,000-year clock. That's not to say both aren't commendable efforts, technological steps forward for humankind, and inspirations to many.

> Failure to detect smoke

Incorrect. If you examine the announcement you linked, the issue was a failure to alarm when smoke was detected (below UL's must-alarm threshold, above which the Protect ALWAYS alarmed) due to false detection of a hand-wave as part of the "Wave to Hush" feature. This feature was remotely disabled on all Protects via a software update.

> False alarms.

Not for a long time. The second-gen Protect, which has been out for years, includes much-improved smoke sensors and algorithms. This is reflected in its unusually-high 4.6 star Amazon rating [0].

> Those are Nest's worst product.

How did you reach this conclusion? In addition to its outstanding score on Amazon, the second-gen Protect is frequently recommended by professional reviewers [1][2][3].

Anecdotally, I have 3 first-gen Protects in my home (in addition to 2 second-gens) and have never had any false alarms (except when I forget to run the fan while cooking bacon, and fill the entire house with smoke...).

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Nest-Protect-Carbon-Monoxide-Generati... [1] https://www.popsci.com/nest-protect-smoke-co-detector-review [2] https://www.cnet.com/products/nest-protect-second-generation... [3] https://www.engadget.com/2015/09/16/nest-protect-review-2015... [4] https://www.digitaltrends.com/home/nest-protect-smoke-alarm-...

To play devil’s advocate for a moment: children are often coached by parents in cases like this. Remember “balloon boy,” who hid in the garage per his dad’s instruction so the family could get their 15 minutes of fame?

That said, kids like to make things up too, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what happened here.

I honestly can't tell if this comment is satire.

If it's not, please point to the racism. The study makes no moral judgement as to whether it's better to have a bigger parietal lobe vs. visual cortex. Do you think the study's results are somehow inaccurate, or improperly obtained?

IANA biologist. That said, if by "inherent" you mean primarily genetically determined, I'd say that explanation seems most likely given the evidence.

It's uncomfortable to consider, but there is strong evidence to suggest that the brains of Australian aboriginal people differ in significant ways from their Caucasian bretheren. One study found the aboriginal visual cortex to be significantly larger than the Caucasian equivalent [0], possibly as an adaption to Australia's (visually) vast open spaces. The same study found the Caucasians had significantly larger parietal lobes and cerebellums - the same structures mentioned in this article. Another study found that Caucasians have significantly larger brains on average compared to those of aboriginals [1].

There's also evidence to suggest that modern humans from India [2] have contributed to the Australian gene pool for millennia (long before the arrival of the British), so more dramatic cranial differences may have already been averaged out.

EDIT: deleted figure mis-remembered from an unrelated study.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1261675/ [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6926391 [2] http://www.pnas.org/content/110/5/1803

To me, this suggests the value of professional food critics as well-known sources of... well maybe not truth, but at least honest opinion.

It's easy to fake a crowd. It's a lot harder to impersonate a well-known individual's trusted name.

Unlike the 18th-century USA, China is party to numerous international treaties and conventions [0] which obligate it to honor certain IP protections. Their enforcement record to date has been spotty at best, with many [1] allegations [2] of state-assisted [3] or -condoned [4] IP [5] theft [6].

Also, between slavery and the Native American genocide(s), I'd say the 18th-century USA may not be a great moral reference point. For that matter, China's government at that time still practiced slavery, foot binding, judicial torture, and all kinds of fun stuff. Neither would be great models for a modern state.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_in_China... [1] http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/14/news/economy/trump-china-tra... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/opinion/china-us-intellec... [3] https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-fighter-hacking/theft-of... [4] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-great-brain-robbery-... [5] https://www.networkworld.com/article/2223272/cisco-subnet/60... [6] http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/may/17/...

Many Americans (myself included) believe most DACA recipients deserve citizenship, as they were brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents while still very young through no fault of their own. DACA recipients often consider themselves American, having grown up in U.S. public schools speaking American English and immersed in American culture. As young adults, the DACA program allowed them to pay taxes, hold down a job, pursue an education, and generally keep on being Americans.

In the view of DACA recipients as unfairly disadvantaged Americans, Jeff Bezos is indeed helping his own countrymen.

From your strong reaction, Trump’s political career to date has been effective indeed!

Ebola (for example) is extremely effective. That doesn’t mean you have to like it, or want it anywhere near the White House.

Maybe the Romans were on to something ;)

Check out this BBC article about countries without an elected government (the functional ones rely on the civil service):

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-42570823

I think you’ve taken more from my original comment than was given. I don’t think electing a competent President is at odds with a desire for Congress to better assert its Constitutional authority.

Not be too pedantic, but if you can’t get elected, you can’t be effective. By that measure, Trump was more effective than every other Presidential candidate, Hillary in particular. He is now President, and she is an unemployed politician.

I think whichever party puts forth the most electable candidate will, by definition, win the next election. Of what I perceive as that pool of individuals, I see Jeff Bezos as one of the better options.

I don’t think you’re entirely wrong, but you could have said all that about Donald Trump in 2016. We live in strange times.

EDIT: misread “customers” as “employees.” As a satisfied longtime Amazon customer, I really couldn’t disagree with you more.

In contrast to the current President, Jeff is a stable and effective leader with broad popular appeal, a good head on his shoulders, and respect for the institutions of American democracy. In 2020, I think that’s the best we can hope for.

I would love to see Jeff Bezos run for President in 2020. The trust he has built in the Amazon brand, the value he has placed upon investigative journalism and the survival of the free press, his deep knowledge of and interest in technology, his (presumed) familiarity with U.S. tax law, and the enormous success he’s achieved as a businessman would all work in his favor. I think Donald Trump senses this, and that’s why he singles Jeff out for criticism.

In the U.S., participation with these agencies is entirely optional. My understanding is that they offer access to government locales, equipment, and consultants in exchange for a positive portrayal. This would seem to me a fair trade, and one which the audience is able to perceive and assess.

In China and similar countries, good luck portraying the army in a negative light, whether you ask for their cooperation or not.

> I wonder which country don't censor movies?

The USA, for one.

The MPAA does rate movies, and most theater chains choose not to run movies rated to contain extreme violence or sexuality, but anyone can privately film and distribute a political (for example) film that might embarrass the US government.

Many such movies also run in theaters- see Fahrenheit 9/11, Citizenfour, All the President’s Men, etc.

This is much, much more than a credit score, and it is disingenuous to claim otherwise.

FTA:

“Friends matter, too. The fifth category is interpersonal relationships. What does their choice of online friends and their interactions say about the person being assessed? Sharing what Sesame Credit refers to as "positive energy" online, nice messages about the government or how well the country's economy is doing, will make your score go up.”

Despite the truth of your historical timeline, 'WannaCry' does neatly fit the profile of Room 39, a department of the North Korean government which raises foreign currency through cybercrime and other criminal activities [0][1]. They have been implicated in past hacks by non-U.S. groups as well, including Kaspersky Labs [2].

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/he-ran-nor... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_39#Purpose_and_activities [2]http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/05/news/economy/north-korea-eco...

I think you've taken more from the original comment than was given. Only you have compared Communist China to Nazi Germany on the basis of foreign policy, so that line of argument is irrelevant.

Historians criticize IBM for helping the Nazis to identify and exterminate political and ethnic minorities, not for improving their ability to wage war. In that respect, Western companies like Yahoo and Cisco have already been caught in similar arrangements with the Chinese Communist Party [1][2]. Hopefully Google's AI center will not continue this disturbing trend.

As to the scale of the CCP's "cleansing" to date, it's hard to know - they don't release any numbers, and foreign journalists are aggressively bullied, arrested, and deported if they try to find out [3][4].

We do know that China regularly humiliates and cracks down on members of its Muslim minorities [5], and that the Communist Party regularly intervenes in the appointment of Buddhist and Catholic religious leaders [6][7].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/business/worldbusiness/07i... [2] http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2015/03/china%E2%80%99s-go... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/03/bbc-crew-attac... [4] https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/05/28/foreign-journ... [5] https://www.economist.com/news/china/21721680-bans-abnormal-... [6] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-14533879 [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_China#Diplo...

If that is what you believe, I would encourage you to check out these two books on the subject [0][1]. Both are engrossing reads, and paint a damning picture of the regime from different perspectives.

I have taken a strong amateur interest in North Korea for years, and the full body of press, reporting, and firsthand accounts I have read would support the comparison to Nazi Germany.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Without-You-There-No-Undercover/dp/03... [1] https://www.amazon.com/Dear-Leader-Escape-North-Korea/dp/147...

Your logic is not sound. North Korea was recently described as a worse human rights abuser than Nazi Germany, by a Holocaust survivor no less [0]. In spite of this commonly-held perception, no country has declared war on them, for many of the same economic and military reasons that no country has or would declare war on China.

[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/north-korea/north-korean-gulags...

The U.S. has strong legal protections against unreasonable search and seizure, as shown in the Apple vs. FBI case after the San Bernardino attack. My understanding is that China has no such privacy protections, either in principle or in practice.