flexie

A few things:

1: Indian wages are going up. The difference gets smaller every year.* Note that many of the best Indian developers are paid in USD, and even for the developers that get paid in Rupees, the company they are hired by locally often does get paid in USD by the American company that buys their services, so the fact that the Rupee goes down doesn't necessarily offset their wage increase for the American company that hires them.

2: American workers can still meet in every Tuesday. It's hard from Hyderabad.

3: Time difference can be a real issue (but of course it can also be an advantage).

4: It's often easier for Americans to understand American English than Indian English.

5: American developers might understand the American market and competing products better.

* https://www.statista.com/chart/25729/india-annual-average-sa...

From the point of view of spending less resources, a smaller world population is good. However, most resources are consumed by the relatively smaller, wealthy populations who's populations have been stagnating for decades, not by the larger and poorer populations of India, South East Asia and Africa, that have seen most population growth.

The main worry I have is how we are going to manage financially. For hundreds of years, we've only had growing world population and it has been a driver for much economic growth. Industrialism and the increasing world population has gone hand in hand. Will we see more inflation now, when there will continuously be smaller working populations? What about investments: Will it be more difficult to attract investment when many markets are naturally shrinking due to shrinking populations?

All these wars were before NATO existed.

Ukraine’s defense is a formidable army which has stopped the advance of what most experts thought was the second most powerful army in the world, and the fact that Ukraine is supplied weapons, training and ammunition from NATO countries doesn’t change that. It only adds to the point that NATO itself recognizes that Ukraine belongs in the alliance.

If Ukraine loses the war it will cease to be a buffer and become part of Russia.

Ukrainian NATO membership does benefit NATO in several ways:

- Ukraine is the only country in Europe to have fought off NATO's main adversary

- Ukraine has a large, powerful and experienced army, much larger than those of most NATO countries

- Ukraine in NATO will be seen by the older NATO members as a adding another buffer state

- Ukraine in NATO will be seen by the newer NATO members such as the Baltic countries or Poland, as having another ally bordering Russia

- Ukraine is a new democracy and is (was) a rising economy. It benefits NATO to include these in NATO

- The populations of most European NATO countries are in favor of Ukrainian membership.

English too, is a mix of foreign languages. Only dead languages don't evolve.

Italian is a descendant of the Latin language, which itself borrowed extensively from Greek. What is so special about today's Italian language that it should by all means be preserved in it's current form without continuing to borrow from foreign languages?

European languages borrow from English because the US offers so much that we voluntarily adopt in Europe. If most good movies, music, streaming services, computer hardware, computer software, Internet, electric cars, smartphones, AI, business ideas etc. were Italian, the English language would adopt more Italian words.

It's counterintuitive, but broad and straight roads are often more dangerous, as they invite faster driving.

I think we've had online tax-filing for perhaps 15-20 years here in Denmark. We log in with our digital signatures, report what income has not already been reported by employer and bank, and claim the deductions that have not already been granted automatically.

I won't say it's that easy, and often the system can't be accessed on the day they open up for filing last year's taxes, but at least it's not pen and paper anymore.

I hope you would, and unless you happen to live near a major political center or a military installation, I think your chances would be very good. A nuclear war would be terrible, but it's not a doomsday scenario.

In the last months, we've seen how the Red army performs in conventional war. They were supposed to have 10,000 - 14,000 tanks, including modern ones, but we now see that they barely had any modern tanks and that after losing 2,500 tanks from the 60s, 70s and 80s, they started begging Belarus for their old tanks. They also claimed to have a modern air force, but until now, they have been unable to establish air dominance against a country that barely had any air force. And they were supposed to have a navy, but also that was an exaggeration. They claimed to have precision-guided missiles, and even supersonic missiles. They ran out of those long time ago, and they weren't that precise or fast. What they had was a lot of empty posture.

Why do we believe that they are any better at nuclear war than they are at waging conventional war? Whatever is true for a simple conventional war, is even more true for a nuclear war: Their missiles and warheads are old and unmaintained, and far fewer in numbers than they pretend.

The effects of corruption runs so deep in their society. Just like you can't buy any complex Russian products in your local stores, and just like you never wanted a Russian car, Russian military is completely incapable of successfully waging war against the West.

Can Russia launch a nuclear attack against NATO? Probably, yes. But it would be much smaller than the official numbers suggest, and layered Western missile shields would intercept a percentage of those missiles. Some missiles would miss their target and some would not detonate.

Different studies give different estimates ranging from tens of millions to hundreds of millions dead in the immediate aftermath of a strike, but studies assume that Russia is actually capable of carrying out a strike and penetrate our defenses with a large number weapons that work. Estimates of dead afterwards, are usually from starvation, not from radiation.

It's been 40-50 years since Russia actually had strength comparable to NATO. Even back then, humanity would have survived a nuclear war. Nowadays, both Russia and the free world has fewer weapons, and we now know that Russian military capabilities are routinely exaggerated. A nuclear war with Russia would be terrible, but it would be over quickly, it would end in Russian defeat, and most of us would live on afterwards.

Isn't that more a question of adding to the mix frequent scraping of

- a few thousand news-sites (like nyt.com, bbc.co.uk),

- a few thousand very popular blogs (based on what influencers people search for),

- a handful of social media sites (e.g. Twitter),

- a few hundred databases in areas like weather, airlines, sports (like ATP for people who look for Wimbledon results today)?

But healthcare is just as long as you work for that FAANG.

Once you are out, you are on your own. Not so in Germany.

We've used Hetzner for years. We never called or faxed them. Great service, by the way.

Just eat less. Much less. And don't drink alcohol, juice, milk, ice tea, or soft drinks. Drink water.

My suggestion:

Skip breakfast. Take a cup of black coffee.

A lunch consisting of a salat made of half a cucumber and a medium sizes tomato and either 1) a can of tuna (in brine, not oil) or 2) smoked salmon (100 gram), will make you quite full without adding more than 200 calories.

Afternoon snack: Lots of chewing gum is a great way to feel full.

Eat a normal dinner. One portion. Why dinner? Because that's usually the social meal and usually the hardest meal to skip. Look at what skinny people are eating if you wonder what a normal potion is. Don't eat two portions. Don't eat dessert.

If you want a drink after dinner, drink carbonated water (club soda) in a nice glass with ice cubes.

Do this, and you will lose around 1 kg per week, give or take. It may sound slow, but it's actually about as fast as it gets and after 2-3 weeks you will notice the results.

It will speed up the process a bit if you walk 1-2 hours a day and exercise 2-3 times a week, but it's really not required. Reducing calorie intake is key.

The US and the UK asked Ukraine to surrender its nuclear arsenal to Russia, pledging they would protect Ukraine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

Now, when it's time to honor that pledge, the US and the UK should do so. And I think they are and that they will, to some extent.

I strongly doubt the US really wants Germany, France and other NATO members to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense (in which case they would have combined military spending close to rivalling the US' 3.3 percent of GDP because their combined GDP is higher and because Canadian/Turkish/European public spending traditionally goes further). The US has a clear interest in having a military far superior to the next many powers combined. The US might like Europeans to spend a little more, but not anywhere close to 2 percent.

Young Europeans died in the US war in Afghanistan. So far, the only country to ever invoke article 5 of the NATO treaty is the US - on September 12, 2001.

Adjusted for size of population, as many Danes as Americans died in Afghanistan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_casualties_in_Afghan...

So, Europeans should come when the US calls, but not the other way around?

If it matters how rich the investors she defrauded actually are, perhaps she should get just a few months in jail:

"Notably, Theranos’ investors weren’t the usual-suspect venture capital firms. Rather, her funding came from individuals like former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the Walton family, among other wealthy elites. Some evidence showed that these investors were willing to give Theranos money even when Holmes evaded their more probing questions."

https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/03/elizabeth-holmes-verdict-g...

I realize that it might be the whole point that it shouldn't matter whether modern Greeks are descendant of ancient Greeks. But I still find it odd that an article about the topic nowadays doesn't mention DNA analysis such as this one: https://www.science.org/content/article/greeks-really-do-hav...

Let's not get carried away bashing Italy. Perhaps the best indicator of the standard of a nation is its median life expectancy, which in Italy is 83.2 years, almost 4.5 years more than that of the US. Italy is a first world nation, and a wonderful one in many aspects. The average Italian has a very good life and does not envy the average American.

Yes, California, Washington State, and New York easily beat most other places on the planet when it comes to IT, including Italy. 30 years ago, when high-tech meant electronics, Japan was a leader. When high-tech meant mechanics, Germany was one of the leaders. Now, high-tech increasingly means digital, and the language of the digital age is English. Places where close to 100 percent speak English at a high level at a young age have an advantage.

I visit Italy almost every year, and it's one of the places in the rich world with most immigrants. They literally drown trying to reach Italian shores. Yes, it's not of the highly skilled type, but they are foreign and they want work.

Whereas Italian democracy and public administration leaves something to be desired, Italy didn't have a near coup in 2021, and Italian parties are not busy trying to win elections by preventing voters from other parties from voting. It's whole legal system is not so fragile that half its population cares whether one octogenarian justice dies during what they consider the wrong president.

From a startup perspective, Italy is not where it happens right now, but neither is the US Midwest. Italy's population is very old, and it's not a leader in the English speaking digital economy. Let's see what happens.

Pariah country? Ask any large diaspora, and they will readily tell you bad things about their country of origin. That's often why they migrated.

I agree that when it comes to IT, Italy doesn't perform like California, New York state, the UK, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries and a few other US or European states or countries. Notice how all those states and countries have English as the official language or a very strong second language.

But Italy has lots of other great achievements in industries areas like culture, food, tourism, and in more traditional heavy industries like car manufacturing, trains, etc.

Every day. Chicken, pork, beef etc. We buy it at the butcher though. Don't know if prices at butchers rise less.

I don't experience much inflation. In fact, I don't see any in my budget. I know everyone says prices are getting higher, but we've actually tracked our expenses the last 2-3 years, noting down every little expense in a spreadsheet, and I don't see any signs that prices are rising.

Our supermarket expenses are the same as before, even slightly smaller. Our rent is the same although our landlord legally could have raised it if he wanted to.

All in all, we spend less money than before because:

- we don't commute, - we barely eat out, - we buy less clothes when staying home, - we travel a little less.

The last big purchase we made was a flat screen TV. It costed less than the 10 year old TV it replaced but is so much better.

Electricity and heat have gone up. That's all I see in our budget that has gotten more expensive.

There are purchases we haven't made because they are stupid expensive at the moment: We don't buy shares, we are postponing buying a house, and we have been postponing changing our car. I would have liked to buy a new laptop, but the specs of the new ones look like the 4 year old I have, so it feels wrong.

Could it be that we just have higher prices on some items and assets and that the CPI and mainstream economists are generally correct?

European healthcare and education is great, far cheaper than American, and it is indeed free for many of the patients and students.

When you pay workers less than what they need to survive, you externalize the wage to society.

When you use temps in stead of real employees, you externalize their healthcare etc. as well.

When you sell books in Europe, but you don't pay taxes like European bookstores, you externalize that as well.

When you use predatory pricing for more than a decade, and it kills off real bookstores, that's an externality as well.

When you ship items one by one with trucks and planes, you have a large CO2 footprint. Again an externality.

Amazon is not some genius new high-tech business model, winning because they are smarter than everyone else. It's just low wages, predatory pricing, tax avoidance and disregard for the environment.

No, Jeff Bezos loses. Everyone else wins. Yes, the consumer pays more for a book but he also lives in an economy with better paid jobs, free healthcare, free education, and more competing bookstores.

Amazon's low costs is only possible because they externalize their costs to society.

I am very happy with the Tesla company, CEO, marketing, and cars, but I can't believe that it should be worth 1 trillion dollars. A trillion is one with 12 zeros.

I know you can't compare valuation and production of a company, but still. If Tesla were making 10,000 dollar profit per car - and they don't - they would have to produce 100 million cars just to make a trillion. They produce less than 1 million per year. I know they also sell batteries etc. but it's still mainly a car company.

Their yearly profits might be a few billion. So their value is more than 100 times their yearly profits. This is insane for a manufacturing company. Currently their P/E ratio stands at more than 330. VW, a very well run auto manufacturer has a P/E ratio of less than 6, Ford 17, Mercedes-Benz 7, BMW 5, Hyundai 15.

These are all companies with electric cars on the road and a future that is totally committed to electric vehicles. These are all companies that already have production facilities, etc.

I like Tesla and their business model. I just think the stock is hyped way beyond what is sustainable.

Every American uses around 400 gallons of gasoline and 12,000 kwh electricity per year. So if you put a tax of $2 on each gallon of gasoline and 7 cent on every kwh electricity, you would finance that.

And once it scales, it will be cheaper and cheaper, jut like most other products. With a 10 percent price reduction per year, it would be $620 per person in 10 years, roughly the same as an internet bill.

In the rest of the world it's even cheaper. The average person in the world could be offset for $400 now.

That's just part of the money supply. M2 increased as well, but perceptually much less.

There is no evidence of hyperinflation as of now, but we certainly have an inflation hype.

The items I buy in the supermarket are same price as before. My rent is the same as before. Gasoline is up, but I barely use any of it now when I work from home.

And there is a seemingly endless supply of oil and gas. If you pay enough.

The truck driver shortage reminds me on the fossil fuel situation.

Generally, we hear that truck drivers won't be needed in the future: Trucks will drive themselves. But now we have less truck drivers than we need, and the future with self driving trucks hasn't quite arrived yet

Similarly, we hear that fossil fuels should be out phased. And now we have an energy crisis with not enough oil and gas. The future of renewable energy isn't quite there yet.

Shouldn't one look at genetics as well? When a completely different ethnicity invaded and called themselves Roman, and copied the parts they wanted from Roman civilization, but without having almost any Roman ancestry, are we to consider them a continuation of the Roman civilization?

Asians in NYC are only the poorest demographics if you include the large, and poor and growing groups of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, Arab, Iraqi, Syrian etc. immigrants in your definition of Asian. Those are not the Asians overrepresented in the G&T program.

And yes, I know those countries are in Asia.