supertrope

Microsoft got rid of QA years ago. If it was targeted sabotage they could break dual boot setups every single Patch Tuesday. It's just disrespect for users. Like how Copilot and other shovelware such as Candy Crush keep getting reinstalled every few updates, and privacy settings reset every once in a while. Dual booting is likely not even on their radar.

Korea started with low value manufacturing through protectionism and state policy. They moved up to the top level of the value chain in just 25 years!

Low value add manufacturing is not coming back to America unless people are willing to work for $2/hour and the government lets factories dump waste into rivers.

When the choice is between $3000/mo for a proper apartment and $2000 for a flophouse room some people will take the flophouse. Right now the only choice we offer those priced out is a painfully long commute (with has its own time and car expenses that reduce the savings).

Colleges call these dorms.

A used Sophos XG 115. Has Intel Ethernet interfaces which is preferable for BSD compatibility. 8W idle. I power it off a 802.3af to 12V splitter.

If you want maximum speed a Lenovo Thinkcentre m720q has a desktop Intel CPU and a PCIe slot. You can add a 2x SFP+ NIC and PCIe riser to get 10G.

The FCC Chairman is sucking up to the President.

If this were really about computer security they would follow California’s example of requiring unique passwords. Maybe make manufacturers liable for not patching known remote exploitable security vulnerabilities. It doesn’t matter if the source of a DDoS is a Huawei box or a Netgear box.

Amtrak was created to preserve the last vestiges of passenger rail when private businesses pulled out. It has conflicting missions so it's never going to be competitive in service.

Amtrak does not own its own rail network. It has priority over cargo trains de jure but in practice cargo takes priority. Many areas only have one set of tracks and trains can only pull over onto sidings when they exist. Class 1 railroads are capital intensive so to be more profitable they don't spend any money they don't have to. Such as more sidings, more train yards, not maximizing the length of trains so they fit onto those sidings, or more than one operator per train. Class 1 railroads are focused on cargo and making money, not helping Amtrak trains go first. The government doesn't care to enforce the law either. https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-13/tracking-productivity...

Amtrak operates routes that suffer from low demand instead of focusing on the New York Washington DC route. It's about counting US Senate votes as much as customer satisfaction or breaking even.

The Federal government heavily subsidized cars starting in the 1950s through the Interstate Highway System. Cars and airliners are considered critical passenger transportation infrastructure, trains are not.

In terms of legality Megaupload messed up by directly participating in copyright infringement. They paid people to upload copyrighted movies. Cox doesn't reward people for copyright infringement. The lawsuit against them argued they failed to take enough precautions (for example cutting off subscribers upon receiving an accusation from a third party) and that should make them liable.

In practice Megaupload is not an established company. Other consumer file storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Apple iCloud are trillion dollar companies with deep legal benches and lobbying muscle. YouTube seeded the service with pirated content and Google helped fight off a copyright lawsuit by finding evidence that one rights holder uploaded their own video and then claimed infringement.

300 ppi matches printed books which looks nice. On notebook computers having a 3840x2160 panel might not be worth the reduced battery life.

It could just be the ESPN/gym membership/AAA business model. $ from every single passenger is more revenue than $$ from just those who click buy.

In the end cars are just a means to an end. People want to minimize their transportation spending.

People bought bigger houses or renovated. They upgraded their PCs and were more likely to subscribe to broadband and less likely to cancel. Empty office buildings are ever so slowly being converted to housing. Professional clothing purchases dipped and then rebounded.

In 2008 McCain openly talked about greenhouse gas cap and trade. I think the driving force behind it was fear of peak oil. Secure your energy supply. With fracking supply concerns went away.

This can be viewed as a feature not a bug. The defining feature of a republic is stability. Orderly and lawful transfers of power. Not rocking the boat. Deliberative processes. If the people are enjoying prosperity and peace why make drastic changes? So yes when the situation is extreme that's when big shifts in policy happen.

Switching mode power supplies use milliwatts when there's no load. Appliances are usually 3W or less when off as they need to keep the IR sensor turned off. The best appliances are <1W.

Pumped hydro energy storage relies on the cheapness of water and existing geology. If you have to build the chambers instead of damming a river it's too expensive. Most of the good spots to have a reservoir are already used. If you have to manufacture the bulk media instead of just using water it's too expensive.

This is the coverage vs. capacity trade-off.

Buses running between full on stations are faster than buses that comprise the network edges. Because the core of the network is focused on capacity. Buses that meander around to provide coverage, minimize walking, and stop every other block are really slow. Like 6 MPH end to end, no faster than riding a bicycle! Do we want a bus network to compete with walking/biking or with driving downtown?

Mass transit systems generally reduce anti-social behavior with either fare gates or heavy policing. For whatever reason, when you crack down on fare evasion you filter out a lot of troublemakers.

This. Political allies who bundle donations get nominated to cushy ambassador positions. https://publicintegrity.org/politics/barack-obamas-ambassado...

The CEO reads the WSJ and their McKinsey report and says “We must leverage AI to keep up and accelerate innovation!” Each division’s executive vice president sets a current year goal to use AI to increase productivity and simultaneously decrease cost. The VPs below them are given a goal to increase their department productivity by 30% by the end of Q3. The middle managers require line managers to train all individual contributors on AI (specifically LLMs) by the end of Q2 to get their bonus. Line managers email their direct reports links to LinkedIn courses and set a deadline by the end of Q1. When the end of the year comes AI has not raised productivity by 30% and AI spending has increased costs. To make Wall Street happy 10% of employees are laid off.

I came to a different conclusion. That you should expect a 25% haircut through a combination of benefit cuts, tax increases, and not keeping up with inflation. That's bad, but Social Security is not going to entirely implode.

Instead of fixing the leaks in the plumbing we're just increasing flow rate at the top of the system. Right now the medical-industrial complex is a business that happens to provide medical services as a byproduct.

Fee for service encourages more medical intervention. It makes break-fix work more profitable than trying to address root causes. Each layer and sub-sector is for-profit. The supply of physicians is capped. Vertical integration can reduce the double margin problem. Specialists are paid more than general practitioners. Surgeries make more money than non-surgical treatment.

People expect someone else (their employer, the government, the rich) to eat the cost of healthcare. Third party payment makes patients price-insensitive. People unironically expect a cure for death. Drugs and medical devices are expected to be perfectly safe. Americans lead unhealthy lifestyles. Soda is the default drink in cafeterias and at parties. Car culture and car only infrastructure promotes physical inactivity. Kids are not allowed to roam. When there was a push to promote healthier school meals there was immense pushback.

With the MRT not having a car is not bad. Paying 100K SGD for a Certificate of Entitlement (10 year car registration) is definitely a rich person move. Good point on the underclass and labor conditions.

That plan works until it suddenly doesn't. When it doesn't it's catastrophic for your finances and your health.

If you have an extra couple million dollars above and beyond your regular retirement fund you could self-insure your medical costs. But then you could just buy the health insurance.

Even licensed wireless stops functioning. All circuits are busy.

The Hollywood movie Minority Report has a scene where an advertising display personalizes the ad by your name. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bXJ_obaiYQ

FYI this is like telling poor people that they just should move to a better neighborhood. This advice is about as practical as telling people to move to Manhattan to reduce car accident injury risk for your teen driver.

You jest but to play devil's advocate every system has its supporters. One of the reasons we didn't get a public health plan option is because the Senator for Connecticut was representing his constituents such as Cigna and Aetna. If you provide an easier exit for the former death panel workers in the form of working at the public option administrator, re-training, etc. you might be able to assuage unemployment based opposition to reform.

People don't gloat at privatization but aforementioned wealthier retirees rely on corporations squeezing ever more money out of customers, employees, and vendors.

In theory merchants can notice some fraud signs so shifting fraud losses onto them gives an incentive to take action on those signs. In practice banks have a better overall view of fraud and this is just externalizing bank fraud losses onto stores.