nickff

There are plenty of examples of democracies which began after the American Revolution, and subsequently devolved to single-party states.

I didn’t say that either of those two were the result of multi-party democracy; I was trying to give the GP a variety of examples of single-party government, with different origins.

Please note that the comment I replied to has been substantially modified since I posted.

North Korea, China, Russia, Uganda, etc. are examples of one party taking over; the USA is just a country that has one party (you don't seem to like) with most (but not all) of the political power at the moment.

I am not an American either, but there is a great deal of work on this subject, and the two-party system is actually one of the most resistant to single-individual or single-party takeover. The reason is that multi-party systems are vulnerable to having a party in power 'promoting diversity' (or something similar), in order to disempower all their opponents, while making it look like they're allowing for more views. Examples of this include quotas for minority representation, and (strategically designed) multi-member voting districts.

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

>"One zener diode might be all you need."

It would... if you're willing to just let the thing draw up to 0.1W all the time, and fail catastrophically if anything goes wrong with the zener or the supply is more capable than you anticipated (i.e. you plugged into a PoE jack by accident). This is a very bad idea.

Phone call scams seem to ebb and flow depending on which 'sucker lists' you're on. Online scams appear to be persistently on the rise, both against consumers and organizations (businesses, non-profits, and governments). I suspect that LLM-AI will be a boon for scammers of all sorts, but particularly for phone and video-call scammers.

It doesn’t matter that they can’t get past 3D-S, because the whole point of what they’re doing is checking what security features are enabled for a card, and whether their address and other validation data will pass. The fact that the scammers are testing so many cards that fail gets you banned from those payments providers, whether or not any payments go through. And this is ignoring all the attackers using bots for other purposes such as taking control of the website to obtain user or client data.

My employer is a small business that has an e-commerce website that is attacked by fraudsters trying to validate stolen credit cards or obtain customer information hundreds of times per day. Operations like CloudFlare are the only way to foil these actors. Just trusting you is not a viable strategy.

It is very challenging to distinguish individuals interested in privacy from bots acting maliciously or with reckless indifference. If you devise a way to do this more effectively than Cloudflare, you should start a business to sell this as a service.

The FDA has been failing to complete inspections on multiple types of facilities (drug and food) for a long time, since at least 2018, and it seems to have deep issues with its staff, culture, and/or management:

https://investigatemidwest.org/2025/01/14/as-foodborne-illne...

https://medshadow.org/investigating-generics/fda-fails-in-la...

Yes, I enjoyed Kranz’s book as well, though I thought it was quite different. If you liked that, I might suggest “Moon Lander” by Thomas J Kelly, which was the basis for the “From the Earth to the Moon” episode “Spider” (also excellent). You may also enjoy “More than My Share of it All” by Clarence ‘Kelly’ Johnson, about the early history of Lockheed’s Skunk Works.

Yes, I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to make the webcam work, but I'm sure you would have figured out the limitation more quickly.

>”Amazon don't accept an existing photo of primary ID for their preferred ID verification check, it must be a photo taken by a camera on-device, and I don't have a webcam on my desktop PC”

In my experience, it was not possible to complete the verification via computer, even with a webcam. The verification site assumes and seems to require that you use a cellphone.

>qIf you have the right underlings (or inherit them) you might actually not need to do anything at all and succeed. Then again if you have the wrong underlings (or inherit them) then your job is hella-difficult.”

I think this paragraph is right on the money, but the ‘leader’ has more influence on their ‘underlings’ than you give them credit for. In this vein, I highly recommend “Turn the Ship Around!” by Marquet, which is the only good book on leadership I’ve managed to find.

I am not sure that there is one example which can meet all your criteria, though there are many examples of stupid things that (almost) everyone agrees he should not have done:

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNC-Lavalin_affair

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

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-43151115

I still believe his most egregious betrayal of voters was his abandoning proportional representation, without providing any justification.

>"the worst thing that could happen is this, a vain and incompetent buffoon installed in the top leadership position."

Well, Canada repeatedly elected Justin Trudeau (now departed)... so both countries have made some... interesting decisions...

Each company is required to register and report to each country. If you’re a 2MM EURO revenue company (not that big), and you want to sell one $5 item to Germany, you must be registered, hire a local representative, and file the most comprehensive type of reports.

Using standardized packaging might make the reporting a little easier (because the information is nicely organized), but doesn’t help with all the friction and added costs.

This also negatively affects smaller trading partners, and makes (bi-lateral) trade with the EU much less appealing to them. This means that countries like Canada are less likely to maintain trade agreements which open their market to all sorts of EU goods.

You'd probably be in a better place to understand the scripts now, having seen more performances, for whatever that might be worth. That said, I personally don't read scripts, and have not done so since I was last required to in high school.

Nurses are also highly-paid in the USA (relative to other developed countries), and they make up a large part of the wage expenditure in the system. This may not make a difference to your point, but it is important to note that doctors are not the whole problem.

>"Per capita stats are computed based on population, not per treatment or per person eligible for treatment. "

Your point is correct, but since the majority of healthcare spending occurs in the last 18 months of life, and the vast majority are on either Medicare or Medicaid during that time of their life (either due to age or ailment-related incapacity), it doesn't make a huge difference.

How would this change solve: "Hospitals eating the cost of the uninsured..."?

Wouldn't it just transfer the cost from the hospitals to the universal coverage agency? This would make the financial picture even worse for the proposed system.

Hydro power (dams) causes massive declines in native fish populations in the affected rivers, which is especially significant for salmonids. There have been attempts to mitigate these issues with 'fish ladders' (as well as more complicated schemes), but they haven't been very effective.

>"Actually, they were caused by lack of food."

This is a tautology; a lack of food can't be caused by a lack of food, as it is a lack of food.

>"Yes, which of the 757 million food insecure people is Putin responsible for their food insecurity?"

In Putin's case, he has caused the price of food to increase through his war on Ukraine, as the cost of fertilizer makes many agricultural products uneconomical to grow for customers in less-developed nations.

>"But it doesn't change the fact that we could spend money and feed most of the people who are going hungry"

There was food literally rotting away (elsewhere in India) during the 2013 drought in Maharashtra, but it wasn't possible/worth transporting it to the affected region (due to government interference).[1] In places like Bangladesh, recent governments have used famine as a tool for obtaining foreign aid while also exterminating or weakening opposition.[2] During the 1990s North Korean famine, plenty of food was offered to the regime, but it was mostly rejected, and that which was accepted was not widely distributed. [3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_drought_in_Maharashtra

[2] https://asianews.network/over-a-quarter-of-bangladeshis-suff...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s_North_Korean_famine#Fail...

> "If we spend that extra $93b, we'd be well within the range to actually stop world hunger."

Almost all recent famines have been caused (either deliberately or incidentally) by government policies, not lack of money. The UN spending 93 BB may (somewhat) improve the situation, but is unlikely to end food insecurity.

Eliminating corrupt leaders (i.e. Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, etc.), and poor regulation (e.g. Bombay Fodder and Grain Control Act, 1939) would be much more effective.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine#20th_century

I agree that none of these is universally accepted, as there are people who disagree right here!

Open-face sandwiches often have multiple pieces of bread, go by many names, and are similar to toasts and tostadas, which are neither sandwiches nor tacos.

If you cut the rest of the way through the bread in a sub, it’s still completely acceptable to serve, but if cut all the way through a hotdog bun, it is regarded as broken or defective.

Nachos are not crumbled tacos for four reasons:

- nachos use (deep) fried tortillas, tacos do not (though some are pan-fried after ingredients are added)

- nachos require cheese, which few tacos have

- nachos are baked, tacos are not

- tacos use wheat or corn tortillas, but nachos always use corn

No, it’s a taco, because the bun is one piece rather than two, as required for a sandwich.

>"RISC-V is already dominant in the MCU space[...]"

Where are you getting the idea that RISC-V is dominant? As someone who works in this space, that doesn't jive with my experience or the sources I've seen.[1] 32-bit microcontrollers only recently achieved a majority market share for gosh sakes!

RISC-V is claiming that they have achieved 25% market share across selected segments, but they're still behind ARM (and x86).[2]

[1] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/microcon...

[2] https://www.aestechno.com/en/risc-v-2026-arm-x86-market/