kolanos

HW4 is really a game changer. I was absolutely floored by HW4 FSD during a recent test drive. Tesla is accomplishing some truly groundbreaking technical achievements here. But you wouldn't know it through all the Elon Musk noise (pro and con). I'd encourage anyone to take a test drive and put FSD through its paces. I went in with a super critical mindset and walked away stunned.

I swiped but your wife didn't match. What gives?

A bit baffled by all the "Why not just use CSS?" comments here.

Did we forget how much of a pain CSS still is?

For example, I recently made a UI with a series of numbered steps. To the left of each step is a number with a circle around it as a highlight.

The CSS I came up with looked like this:

.step-number { align-items: center; background-color: #0074cc; border-radius: 50%; color: white; display: flex; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; height: 24px; justify-content: center; line-height: 24px; margin-right: 10px; width: 24px; }

Did it produce a circle? Of course not. It produced a squished egg shape.

What did I have to do? I had to add "min-width: 24px;" to the class. Why? Hell if I know. "width: 24px;" should've done the job.

Bootstrap (and now Tailwind) exist for a reason: CSS still sucks.

> I would think the dumber thing is having to create an empty file called __init__.py for a package to register as a package.

This hasn't been true since Python 3.3. You no longer need a __init__.py for Python to recognize a module, but it can still be useful in many cases.

> The top 10 softwood lumber producers in the US have a combined capacity of 24.1 billion board feet, representing 50% of the US industry, according to Forisk.

> The U.S. imports a significant portion of its softwood lumber from Canada, with roughly 30% of its softwood lumber needs being met by Canadian exports.Specifically, in 2023, Canada exported 28.1 million cubic meters of softwood lumber to the U.S. This accounts for a large percentage of the total softwood lumber imported by the U.S., with Canada being the primary supplier.

> The United States can potentially supply up to 95% of its own softwood lumber consumption through domestic production.While the U.S. is a net importer of lumber, its domestic industry has the capacity to meet most of its needs.

I see commentary like this frequently in the west, then I read financial analysis like this:

> Goldman Sachs in its latest China forecast, reports China's GDP is about to fall off a cliff: the bank now expects China's Q2 GDP growth to crater to just 0.8% QoQ from 4.9% in Q1.

[0]: https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/view-chinas-q2-gdp-grow...

While this is true, this changed around 2009. What happened? The Chinese government started heavily subsidizing domestic automakers [0]while continuing the joint venture requirements for foreign automakers, which started in 1979 [1]. These joint venture requirements have been a source of significant intellectual property theft [2]. All foreign automakers operating in China, not just U.S. ones, have either faced bankruptcy or a significant downturn in market share in China over the past 15 years.

[0]: https://www.carscoops.com/2024/07/china-gives-its-automakers... [1]: https://www.imd.org/ibyimd/innovation/chinas-automotive-odys... [2]: https://harris-sliwoski.com/chinalawblog/china-joint-venture...

It's a good thing the United States doesn't depend on China for toilet paper, then.

> The United States primarily sources its toilet paper domestically, with about 90% being manufactured within the country.However, a significant portion of imports come from Canada and Mexico.

In fact, the United States does not depend on China for any essential consumer goods from what I can find.

> At least, I imagine the CEOs of GM, Ford, Boeing, etc. might have a thing or two to say about seeing China disappear as a market where they can do business to sell stuff....

They largely weren't doing this anyway due to Chinese economic policy. For example:

> Ford's market share in China has declined significantly.In 2024, Ford's market share was 1.6%, down from a peak of 4.7% in 2015. Over the past three years, Ford's average market share in China has been a modest 1.8%.

I read it would smell like cabbage.

> Their population is declining, ...

This can not be overstated. China is on the verge of the largest population collapse in human history.

By 2080 China's population will drop by 600 million. If that trend continues, by 2150 China's population will drop to 280 million.

Other asian countries such as South Korea and Japan are on a similar trajectory.

In other news....

Vietnam Offers to Remove Tariffs on US After Trump’s Action [0] Taiwan eyes zero tariffs with US, pledges more investment [1]

[0]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-06/vietnam-o... [1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/taiwan-wont-take-reciprocal-ta...

Imagine calling trade "not both-sidesable". You can't make this stuff up.

The u.S. didn't negotiate protectionist policies against their own exports. Can you cite a single example of this?

A more charitable explanation is that the U.S. has been all in on globalization and free trade since the 1970s and the rest of the world took a protectionist stance in response. I'm sure the rest of the world had their reasons. But the U.S. does now, too. Globalization and free trade that only substantially flows in one direction simply is not sustainable.

> Hence sourcing fertiliser from Russia was taken to be a strategic positive since it tired Russia to Europe.

And you still defend this as a strategic positive?

What is Tunisia buying from the United States?

> Good faith negotiations with our allies and trading partners that creates a balance of trade and reduces wealth inequality in the west.

We can look at a 50+ year history of every major U.S. trade partner increasing their protectionist policies, largely targeting the U.S., while the U.S. allowed trade deficits to balloon out of control. I don't see evidence that this "good faith" approach you speak of has any viability at all. The global economy can't say with a straight face that it has been a fair trade partner with the United States. For the past 50+ years the U.S. market has been open for business for all global producers, but the same has been far from true for pretty much every major U.S. trade partner. You can't even operate a company in China without 50% Chinese ownership, for example. The global stance on trade has all but made this an inevitable outcome.

Doing this is one of my earliest memories. I think I was 5 or 6. I hadn't even mastered reading yet and I was typing a game into an IBM XT clone (think it was QBasic) one character at a time. Don't think I would have bothered with a tax prep program, though. Now that's dedication.

Edit: Could not have been QBasic as it wasn't released until 1991 and I was doing this in 1987-1988. So maybe GW Basic? Whatever came standard on an IBM XT clone from Taiwan.

For all of Python's faults, being called ugly is the one I'd least expect. Am curious, what language do you consider syntactically "pretty"?

Here is an excellent video on the history of work. In short, the Dutch screwed it up for all of us. [0]

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvk_XylEmLo

> In the end Canada is a net importer of US agricultural products. By far.

This hasn't been remotely true since the early 70's.

The video you posted is itself misleading. For example, the video claims that if the United States were to implement reciprocal tariffs in the same form that Canada places upon the United States that Canada would not pay any tariffs either. Sure, technically if you don't export you won't pay any tariffs. But a reciprocal quota would be devastating for Canadian exports. To avoid equivalent quota tariffs Canada would need to reduce their exports to the U.S. by some 90%. That video completely sidesteps this reality and largely ignores the real effects these supply management quotas have on trade.

Canada has its own agricultural subsidies, in fact they're almost double that of the U.S. [0]

> The OECD estimated the subsidy equivalent in 2012 (producer support estimate) in all Canadian agriculture represented 18% of the value of the industry with most of this amount going to supply managed sectors which represent only a percentage of Canadian agriculture. Critics say that this results in a "much higher effective subsidy" for supply-managed industries.

> According to Hall Findlay's 2012 study, in the European Union, the effective subsidies were 27%, with the United States at 10%, Australia (6%), New Zealand (1%), Brazil (6%), and China at 9%.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_and_poultry_supply_manag...

The United States has a trade deficit of 131.38% for dairy products with Canada. [0]

The United States dairy imports from Canada are far from zero, measured in the hundreds of millions.

> United States Imports from Canada of Dairy products, eggs, honey, edible products was US$324.96 Million during 2024, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade.

> Cheese and curd $87.54M 2024 > Buttermilk, yogurt, kephir, flavored or not $86.00M 2024 > Whey and milk products not specified elsewhere, flavored or not $55.76M 2024 > Birds' eggs, in the shell, fresh, preserved or cooked $43.37M 2024 > Honey, natural $27.48M 2024 > Milk and cream, not concentrated or sweetened $11.11M 2024 > Birds' eggs, not in shell and yolks, fresh, dry $8.29M 2024 > Butter and other fats and oils derived from milk $3.84M 2024 > Milk and cream, concentrated or sweetened $1.43M 2024 > Edible products of animal origin, not specified elsewhere $144.51K 2024

[0]: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/imports/canada/da...

The United States is an agricultural giant. Seems reasonable to start there?

But I think you're the one being intellectually dishonest by hiding behind these aggregates. The only reason why Canada's tariffs rates are so low is because no trading partner is actually paying their 160-300% tariffs. Canada has been the subject of numerous WTO disputes by numerous nations for their tariff policies, the United States is far from unique in this regard.

It seems like a completely misleading "fact check" to me when you actually read the Wikipedia article I linked.

> Those high tariffs kick in only after the US has hit a certain Trump-negotiated quantity of tariff-free dairy sales to Canada each year – and as the US dairy industry acknowledges, the US is not hitting its allowed zero-tariff maximum in any category of dairy product.

1. The USMCA was agreed upon in 2020, but it has largely not taken effect yet as ratification is scheduled for 2026. So the "Trump negotiated" claim is false right out of the gate. Any terms Trump negotiated have not even taken effect yet. We're still under the NAFTA terms.

2. These quotas are very low. The new increased quota scheduled for 2026 is 3.6%. What does this mean? It means for dairy products, the U.S. can only export as much dairy product into Canada until it reaches 3.6% of Canada's total dairy market share. After that, you see 160-300% tariffs applied to those dairy products.

3. The claim that the U.S. is not hitting its dairy tariff maximum is true, but again, this is misleading. The reason for this is that Canada is granting such a small portion of their dairy market to the U.S. (3.6%) that it isn't worthwhile for many U.S. dairy producers to even bother. This is by design. If you can't compete with the other 96.4% of the market without seeing your goods being slapped with up to 300% tariffs, why would you?

> In 2015, the three top dairy imports into Canada were specialty cheeses, milk protein concentrates (MPCs) and whey products. The largest suppliers into Canada were the United States, New Zealand, France and Italy.

That should tell you something? Dairy producers are only exporting specialized dairy products into Canada, including non U.S. ones.

4. The U.S. isn't the only country with a problem with Canada's tariffs. [0]

> Ten dairy industry organisations, including the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand (DCANZ) and other dairy industry leaders from the US, EU, Argentina, Australia, and Mexico, co-signed a letter to request that their governments intervene in ending Canada's "new and harmful" 'Special Milk Class 7' mechanism by potentially entering a complaint through the WTO's Dispute Settlement System (DSS), a process which could take several years to conclude.

This is just one of many disputes Canada's trading partners have had regarding Canada's protectionist tariff policies.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_and_poultry_supply_manag...

Max Planck famously said, "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

Was curious about this, so checked:

> In American checkers, men can jump only forwards; in international draughts and Russian draughts, men can jump both forwards and backwards. [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkers

> Now, post Covid I see a hard pivot towards Christianity, but importantly, "traditional" forms of it. Protestant sects are being ignored and Catholicism, or if you are really intense, Orthodoxy seems to be in vogue.

I have seen these trends as well, especially Orthodoxy of late. My assumption is this is a response to rampant moral relativism that has become the dominant culture in the west.

The serenity Prayer always have a stoic quality to me.

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."