thereddaikon

Consumers don't always make decisions in their own best interest. They are also often under informed. Their buying habits can often follow less than rational psychology. Businesses know these things and devote a great deal of resources to exploit it. People shouldn't be punished for being imperfect and businesses shouldn't be able to weaponize human psychology to take advantage of people. If we made seatbelts and airbags optional they probably wouldn't have caught on either.

A great example of why people don't trust journalists anymore. They don't even perform a basic amount of fact checking before publishing.

You know how you get an 800+ credit rating? Put all of your normal expenses on your credit card and pay it off monthly. You only accrue interest on a card if you have a balance on it that carries over. If you pay it off every month you don't.

I almost never use my debit card. Its inherently more risky because it's directly connected to your checking account. A credit card isn't. If its compromised, it's much less damaging financially and easier to reverse.

Bit of a stretch to claim that was within his official duties.

Maybe I'm misremembering but did they not already get the defense attorney out of jail?

Yes and its a big story in the news and everyone knows about it. The Judge is clearly corrupt and the state supreme court have already weighed in. It's pretty clearly an extraordinary situation.

How would you even pronounce it?

I'm sorry but this is a ridiculous and unrealistic stance. People die in wars. That's just a fact of life. I have sympathy for uninvolved civilians who don't want to be there. But war reporters know the risks and willingly enter warzones to report on them. Its just like reporting anything else dangerous. There is a risk you will die. There is a risk you will die in a tragic and preventable way too. Things could have been done differently but the footage is public now. Watch it yourself, they were walking with armed combatants and didn't look any different. There is no way the crew could have known they were reporters. The US military's ROE in GWOT was very restrictive for reasons just like this. But that doesn't mean its perfect. Arguing that nobody innocent should die is some kind of realistic standard reeks of an easy life and first world privilege.

This isn't binary. They are both evil. Neither group is your friend nor do they have your best interests at heart.

Definitely whataboutism, but the crew were investigated before the leak and it was found that the reporters were with armed fighters and were not distinguishable as civilian reporters. While its unfortunate, walking around in an active warzone with armed combatants and not taking steps to clearly identify yourself as a non combatant isn't wise. These things happen in war. They were not intentionally targeted and they weren't murdered. War reporters know the risk they are taking on and this is why they usually clearly mark themselves as press.

It's complicated. Dual use infrastructure can become valid military targets. It's also easier to make claim military justification for a limited strike meant to aide a specific operation. But repeated strikes broadly on civilian infrastructure is terror bombing and pretty indefensible.

It both was and wasn't back then. The large pop culture establishment was definitely more shared, TV, film and music for sure. But at the same time you also had more thriving regional culture. There were many musicians who became popular on a regional level and toured medium sized venues in the time before the internet. You don't see that anymore. Indie artists today have more diffused fan bases which makes profitable touring more difficult, among other things like the ticketmaster monopoly. Niche interests were also more localized and personal with small clubs instead of internet based forums like today. That's both a good and bad thing. I think the nature of things has changed but not in a way where you can say definitively everything is more homogenous or heterogeneous.

Any business with an IT department should be drowning in them. Monitors still ship with VGA cables even though they are rarely used. So if you know anyone in a smaller IT dept that doesn't have really draconian rules over assets they would be more than happy to give you a pile of them.

I'm not sure which higher education subsidies you are talking about. I know the military's GI Bill benefits are worse than they used to be.

Excellent point. I work in IT and for years there weren't IT specific degrees from state universities. My degree is completely unrelated and it never was really a factor in hiring because a BS in IT wasn't a thing. Until the last few years it is now. And every young aspiring IT professional with one of those degrees I've spoken to or worked with had a similar experience. Its a useless degree that doesn't prepare you for the industry. I was expecting they would walk out with a good, broad foundation and some good industry certs to match but that's not the case. Its all theory, little to no application and huge knowledge gaps. They were scammed. I feel like my history degree is more applicable. At least it taught me how to write decently. Why do these IT BS's exist? It must be just to sell kids another piece of paper. Tech got big enough that the education cartel decided they needed to gatekeep it.

Do you know what capitalism is? Do you understand how market economies work? Or is it just a boogeyman phrase you use because articulating complex economic inequalities is hard?

The reason college costs have gone up is because the government decided to make it so anyone could get college loans and they couldn't discharge them through bankruptcy. Then the public education system told everyone that if you don't go to college you'll be a poor loser. So while you don't have to go to college in the strictest sense, you have the same effect. Everyone does because they are told they must. And the schools know they are guaranteed those sweet federal loans which have strings on the naïve 17 year olds but none on the colleges. Why not raise prices? Why not build unnecessary ego projects? The incentive is to lower standards, enroll as many students as possible and raise tuition. Even state universities do this.

The only way you fix this is hold executives criminally liable. Fines don't work and never have. If people started going to jail over it then they would change their behavior. Everything in life is about incentive structures.

Most of those examples aren't the cars being outdated really. They were intentional decisions to either cut costs or two stubbornly do it their own way. A tech refresh wont give you radar because Elon didn't want radar. They could have had it years ago but didn't. Same with carplay and android auto. They wanted their software stack.

The reason latinum was so valuable is because it couldn't be made in a replicator for hand wavey reasons. Gold could be and therefore its value became the energy cost to produce it in a replicator, the same as anything else really. Latinum was a scarce material in an otherwise post scarcity society.

I disagree, calling out Russian influence does not do them a favor. It clears the air. I called out the Greens specifically because they have the gall to call themselves the Green party when they support the opposite. And to probably misquote Linus, "Just because I say I like hotdogs doesn't mean I hate hamburgers." I didn't comment on the rest of German politics, nor should I have to in order to avoid accusations of "doing Russia's work". But yes, a great deal of German politics has been compromised for awhile now. The AFD is self explanatory but the SPD and CDU has their fair share of problems too. Schroder and Merkel both had pro Russian policies.

>Is this just Russian opinion making? uhh my comment is objectively anti russian and accuses the greens of playing into their hands.

And I don't see how your comment refutes what I said. If anything it makes the case that not just the greens are anti nuclear but Germans in general have lost the plot and gone anti nuclear. Probably not the point you wanted to make, but there it is.

>Where does this silly idea that "let's use more public transport in cities" requires rural areas to not use cars come from?

From the politicians pushing it. There's only one size fits all solutions. There's never an acceptance that people can have different circumstances.

The same Germany where the "Green party" pushed to close nuclear power plants and buy more gas from the Russians. Truly clown world.

Definitely true. People are shaped different so there's room for more than one type on the market. I just wish there was more options for me other than the galaxy live and the original airpods.

I can't wear earbuds that stick inside your ear canal. They just don't fit me and are extremely uncomfortable. I have two pair of galaxy buds live for this reason. I've even swapped the batteries on both pair to keep them going as well. I'm not switching until someone comes out with a better alternative.

>and are actively hostile to simply existing in the outside natural world.

Are you really going to claim that living in a city is part of the natural world? Why is it that whenever a city has a blackout, people call the police terrified of seeing stars in the sky?

>Urbanists hate them because they are designed for cars instead of people

That may be a valid point for old cities that predate the industrial revolution. But there's nothing about NYC, LA or any of the other major US cities that are people centric. Besides, I can flip that argument on its head, cities are limiting and put people in cocoons never having to leave their own neighborhood and see the world. Have car, can travel.

>There are numerous videos from urbanism channels

Because videos from random youtubers with stated agendas are objective sources?

>The automobile is America’s largest wealth destroyer that takes car payments averaging something like $500-700 a month

That's cherry picked if I've ever seen it. There's a massive used car market and cars can last for decades when cared for. Mine is old enough to drink at this point and cost $4k outright. Now there definitely is a problem with new cars, especially EVs being a right to repair nightmare. But there's a large overlap between those who push BEVs and urbanization. I agree that there is a massive issue with the TCO of these vehicles, a battery lasts 10 years and will cost more than the value of the car to replace at that point and they aren't even making them easy to replace. And nobody seems to care. If you ask me, it almost seems as if a backdoor way to make sure the poor cant afford a car and are forced to live in cities in 20 years.

Look, you have your preference, that's cool. That's the nice thing about choice, you can live where you want and you don't have to show the commissar work papers that let you live there. Cities aren't going anywhere so there's no need to feel threatened by suburbs. People who want to live in suburbs and have a patch of grass to call their own will. And they aren't hurting you by doing so.

Ah, so if you are using encryption on a digital mode like DMR or P25 for example, they have very distinct sound and appearance over the air. Its pretty unmistakable as common digital modes can be identified by ear by experienced Hams. So if I am listening on my SDR and pickup a digital transmission on a ham band I can try to identify and decode it. If I am confident I've correctly identified the mode being used and I can't decode it then its probably encrypted. Some modes like DMR even carry some information unencrypted when the transmission is. So its still possible for someone without the key to correctly identify the transmission even if they can't hear what's been said.

Trying to hide a transmission as background noise would be very difficult. I wouldn't say impossible but it wouldn't be easy. The modern technique is low probability of intercept, LPI. Which uses a combination of techniques including very rapid and complex frequency hopping as well as well as beam forming and making the transmission as efficient as possible to limit the required power. The lower power, and more more directional your transmission, the less likely someone unwanted will be able to pick it up unless they are between you and the intended recipient.

Its trivial in that anyone with minimal reading online and inexpensive equipment can do it. There's also no new science or industry development coming from doing it. HAM analog HF is mature and established.

>which hasn’t changed since the 1930s (and will not).

And that's the crux of my point. It got about as good as it was going to get nearly 100 years ago. I have a ham training/reference book from the 30's. And long range HF was a much more impressive feat back then. But if you go to youtube today basically every Ham channel has at least one video on how to do it "cheap and easy" now. One of the stated purposes for Ham from the FCC's pov was to foster innovation and development of radio technology. If that's true then it needs to evolve with the times because that is a moving target.

That's a fair point but I've seen for a few years now Baofeng Ham radios resold as walkie talkies for recreational use. Often advertised as for powersports like ATVs and boating. This is completely illegal but these resellers have been doing it for awhile now without any consequences. Still, the real world impact is limited and mostly contained to annoying Hams. And its a meme in the community that the FCC doesn't care about Hams.

I think the flipper zero/hack rf side of things is the bigger problem. Its very useful to whitehats but they also lower the bar for a lot of disruptive attacks. Get a flipper zero and war drive any neighborhood built in the 80's and its prime hunting ground for forcing garage doors. I'm surprised we haven't heard more of that actually.