nroets

I have no first hand knowledge, but there are some news articles and forum posts on https://www.mybroadband.co.za/ that will give you an indication of how StarLink is handling it.

Surely international law can't force StarLink to detect where their terminals are. Or force StarLink to block their signals from leaking into neighbouring countries.

They won't market or distribute their terminals in countries where it is illegal.

So it's up to customs to seize terminals when they cross the borders or communications regulators to seize terminals after they came in.

At this stage, I think StarLink is clamping down on roaming because they don't want to jeopardize their negotiations with the SA government.

They are still subject to US law I presume (like Ftx).

(As someone who spent most of his life in a country with capital controls (South Africa which calls it exchange control), I like this product)

If you're resident in a country where StarLink is legal (like Mozambique), you can procure the service and then roam in a country where it's illegal like South Africa. I don't think that will ever change.

StarLink's definition of "resident" and "roaming" might change a little bit over time.

StarLink has been quite good in surrounding the countries where they stand to make a lot of money (like South Africa) with "friendly" countries. So, due to roaming, South Africa is losing out on a lot of tax revenue (VAT) and other economic benefits. Speculation is that they will give in.

The central message of this article is that huge companies are bad because they make large profits.

But there are many countries were companies cannot grow huge because the underlying economy is small and not part of a large trading block. (Georgia, where I'm currently living, is a good example).

People are worse off in these countries: Wages are lower in dollar terms. Locally produced products are of poorer quality and cost more.

So, although huge companies make big profits, their economies of scale do benefit their customers and staff.

I guess similarly you can carefully craft a poster with a QR code and put it on a wall in a room with two LED bulbs. The bulbs will have different color temperature and the decoding will be dependent on which bulb is lit.

Another idea would be a poster that's not quite flat: Each pixel that is different is slightly raised (pyramid shaped) and the sides of the pyramid is colored differently. So the QR code scans differently from different sides.

One of the dominant banks here in Tbilisi allows sharing of IBAN number as QR codes. In theory, the trick could be used to steal money, but in practice, there are many safeguards such as the banking app displaying the name of the beneficiary before completing the process.

The Gulf coast is thousands of miles and hurricanes only destroy a few dozen miles of it each year. So the risk management isn't illogical.

You forgot to mention all the CO2: Building new city will take a lot of concrete. More people traveling by plane etc.

Also note that around the same time other European expeditions were making similar discoveries: 2 years before Columbus, Dias discovered the Cape of Good Hope and a decade later Da Gama braved 10,000 km of open ocean and discovered a sea route to India.

Discover of the West Indies was imminent. Columbus only won because he took an irrational gamble.

The buyers of these claims often have inside information.

By selling during bankruptcy they gambled that the "experts" were wrong and it turn out not to be the case.

That's why exchanges often suspend shares during bankruptcy: To make it clear that price manipulation and outright corruption is likely.

I have both a claim in FTX and shares in a suspended ("bankrupt") company listed outside the US. I just ride these things out because I don't need the money right now.

Em, do you know that plants are actually a net source of oxygen ? And a sink of CO2 ?

And it has data for some smaller airlines like AJet in Turkey.

Maybe it's cheaper just to keep him in jail on contempt of court than actually proceed to trail.

If that's case, I'm sure proper economic modeling will show that the $20k+administrative burden is better spent on reducing taxes for everyone in Cumberland.

Keeping A bombs out of the hands of supervillains is much much more trickier, yet we managed to do that for the last 70 years.

Technology is progressing so fast that something like space based solar or fusion power will replace terrestrial solar within 100 years.

But it's a simplification: One iteration is enough to detect lying.

In a real ZK proof the probability of the prover lying reduces after each iteration but never reached 0.

Note that the BRICS are known for loosing their richest (and most talented) citizens. ("Brain drain").

I, on the other hand, have a lot more sympathy for Apple: Many highly successful people and many businesses have never owned any of there products. They are not a monopoly. Why can't market forces just regulate them ??

Social media was already rife with fake news and half truths before ChatGPT.

And there are already open source LLMs that can be trained to scam a significant number of people. OpenAI can't do anything about it.

The only remedy is social media warning people.

I think a lot of runners have the ability, but are excluded simply because they have a weak passport or can't afford the visas.

The visa requirements of many West African countries are too strict. Even draconian.

Bear in mind that WhatsApp adoption is often driven by the costs involved with SMS especially when sending to an international number.

WhatsApp also enable free international voip calls.

Isn't it inevitable that one person will decide the fate of many ? If we get rid of billionaires through wealth tax, then politicians will have more power to decide the fate of many.

The US seem to choose their presidents not based on policies or track record but rhetoric. That doesn't seems better than capitalism.

This is a company with over 40,000 employees and a market cap of over $100b. Surely they would have opened offices in different countries if Dutch culture was holding them back.

They are just a domestic flight away from Eastern Europe. And just a train ride away from London.

Perhaps it isn't legally a license deal, but rather unlimited scraping i.e. database access.

The AI company just trains their models on that and aren't creating derivative work in the legal sense.

The article says nothing about the cost of shipping gas across the globe. It only says 44% of exports are by pipeline.

If shipping makes it an order of magnitude more expensive, then there is no global price.

He may be convinced that wherever the this Bitcoin will be tracked wherever it goes. And confiscated if it ever reaches a centralized exchange. (Due to pressure from law enforcement, the whale and even Binance)

My theory is that a hacker gained access to a whale's account and didn't have a way to monetize his crime. So he did this for "bragging rights."

Approximately 10 years ago, I played with an Android app that takes the camera video input, looks for a Sudoku puzzle and then solves it. (AR Sudoku solver)

Detecting a QR code in real time should be possible on all devices by now...

So there was a chance in the system: China moved to a market economy.

Some changes happening in the system right now:

Solar power.

Coal being used less for energy.

Electric cars.

Has the correlation between fossil fuels and energy consumption ended (decoupled) ?

Airbnb also puts pressure on guests not to leave bad reviews: If you try to leave a 3 star review they ask you to explain using their criteria. And noise and lack of space aren't on that list. And they say they'll tell the host what to work on, as if paying full price for discomfort is acceptable.

Most of the time, I just leave 4 star reviews for places I didn't like and then mention all my hassles in my public comment.

Booking is much better: They ask you what you didn't like.

(I've used both Airbnb and Booking over 50 times over the last 6 years)