enaaem

Some of my observations:

I think suit trousers are more comfortable than jeans. It’s like wearing pyjamas.

Buttoned up shirts are superior to t-shirts. You can open up extra buttons for ventilation. You can roll your sleeves up and down. There is often an extra front pocket. The collar last longer and it can even be repaired.

Those cultures sound like savages to me

I think Trump is smart, but like conman smart. In fact I think he is brilliant in that regard. He is not a food statesman. He wouldn’t even be a good autocrat, because of his untrustworthiness. So yeah Trump is not profoundly stupid, like down syndrome stupid.

That’s strategically extremely dumb, unless your goal is to genocide a population.

When it comes to innovation Sweden punches far above its weight.

There is a nice youtube channel called The Aesthetic City. There are some really nice new projects done with traditional architecture in Europe.

Fine robusta is legit. Very full bodied, fruity and chocolatey.

Happened last week in the Netherlands. The home team (FC Utrecht) played terrible. They were down 3-1. Hooligans threw fireworks on the pitch and the match got suspended. The match was resumed three days later. Utrecht played much better en got a 3-3 draw.

Every time I had issues with fraud it was with a cc. The fraud protection is just bandage for an inherently unsafe system that you are paying for yourself.

That being said, I do get that for US individuals it is completely rational to use cc's. I would do that too. If you are paying 3% Visa/MC tax anyway, then you might as well use their perks.

Places that used to be 32C in summer are consistently hitting 36C+. It absolutely sucks to be outside in those temps. You are running from aircon to aircon. Doom scenarios of unbearable heat is definitely true.

Sounds like typical geek stuff you see on any enthousiast forum. You should check the coffee forums.

This is just third world level of open corruption. If nothing is done against it, things will just get worse and not better.

First it will signal to all the lower level officials that corruption is ok. The next step isn't just corruption is ok, but it is expected. No corruption means you won't get far in your career.

Considering the prosecution of Fauci, which does not happen anywhere else, I don't think America is ready for the next pandemic.

Also a very Christian nation that follows the teachings of Jesus.

Only with rational actors. But do not underestimate the stupidity of leaders who thought it would be easy.

The situation of [2] is crazy. Because both the author of [2] and the people using Ferguson’s model are wrong. And the author's advice in one of the last paragraphs of we just need better programmers is also wrong.

The issue is that pandemics are extremely fat-tailed in terms of fatalities [3]. You need to collect a shit tons of data to estimate any reliable parameters and no one has time for that. The only thing you need to know is: Is this a super contagious deadly disease? If yes, lock everything down! This is pretty much what they did in Asia, and countries like Vietnam had zero cases for months and was open while the rest of the world was closed.

How to decide a disease is deadly and super contagious? You need disease experts (who most likely also academics) who understand the nature of the disease, and not better modellers and programmers as suggested in [2]. The issue is that western countries will never let any expert to make that call, so a lot of convincing needs to be done through complicated modelling and real life suffering.

[3] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.08658

Again, third word levels of blatant corruption lol.

Cruelty is the objective, because the America is unwilling to enact the laws that will most effectively stem immigration. These are:

1. Make it illegal to hire undocumented immigrants. 2. Foreign specialists need to earn at least an x% above industry standard (to prove they are specialists).

These laws will obviously not fly among corporate donors. Trump will also never deport all illegals because of how much hospitality and agriculture rely on them. In the end it is all show and spectacle. That's what all the tactical gear is for.

The way it works in some countries in Europe is that you have to pay the foreign worker a minimum wage that is x% above industry standard for that role. No need to check if they have special skills. This will obviously not fly among corporate donors.

It became an issue when Canada did not bow down to Trump's 51st state demand. With Trump's vindictive nature and narcissistic disorder, you get this situation. It is actually completely unsurprising if you think about it.

Slippery slope into gulags.

I cannot speak for the US, but having been in Europe and Asian countries like Japan and Korea, the simplest explanation is the difference in tolerance for petty crime, vandalism and litter. Is related to the broken window theory.

The thing is that European cities have always been kinda dirty and crime infested, and it has little to do with American culture war. I do not have an explanation for this, because you will need dig deep into history for that, but the good news is that things are overall improving. Overall crime is overall trending down. For example, the inner city of Amsterdam used to be full of junkies and now that has been almost completely cleaned up. And football Hooligans used to be a much bigger problem than they are now.

At this moment there are right wing conspiracies from people like Owens and Tucker that Charlie Kirk was killed by Israel because he was getting critical of them and would be against the war.

I am not saying that these conspiracies are true, but this is how fascism looks like. Putin doesn't arrest all of his political challengers, but he gets rid of the ones that are viable opponents. In case of Kirk, he is popular enough to make it big in politics and in the short term he could break the party narrative.

Despite the efforts, I have seen an increase in anti-zionist sentiment on the internet. Most notable on the right from people like Tucker Carlson en Candace Owens. People are tired of fighting another Middle-Eastern war for Israel.

I liked this one:

- European countries to be invited to join the United Kingdom, creating a new ‘union of Europe’, if you will. (2024)

Fauci case is weird. Fauci did pretty much what every other country was doing. If he did anything wrong it was doing too little too late.

The question isn't whether AI is worth it, but whether it becomes a commodity.

Singapore is a multi-culturial society and it is also known to be very safe and clean like Japan. You can definitely make people behave with top down rules, and eventually it just becomes 'culture'.

I used to believe Israel was a US colony meant to control the middle east. Now I believe the US is Israel's colony meant to control the middle east.