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Where in US and where in Europe?

I think that that Berlin is 100x better than Atlanta. But on the other hand, San Francisco is a million times better than Milan.

The EU has only one company among the world's top 50 companies: ASML, ranked 21st.

In the top 100, there are only 8: ASML, Siemens, SAP, L'Oréal, LVMH, TotalEnergies, Santander, and Seagate Technology.

In 2005, the EU (excluding the UK) had 19 companies in the top 100.

So something is going on.

I do not live in Europe, but I have a lot of friends living there, mostly in Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. We recently met in Croatia, and after a few beers this topic came up. We came to the conclusion that the following crises caused Europe to start lagging behind the rest of the world:

- 2008 financial crisis. Somehow, the U.S. was able to spend its way out of the crisis, while Europe's strict austerity measures made things quite bad. That was followed by the 2010-2012 debt crisis, the 2013 Cyprus banking crisis, and another Greek debt and banking crisis in 2015.

- COVID: Most European countries, at least those with strong economies, had very strict restrictions and closures. The restrictions were as strict as they were in California. They did not really have any Texas or Florida style "rebellion" states. Sweden was the main exception. But borders and travel restrictions still existed.

- Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Europe was much more economically integrated with and dependent on Russia (especially for energy), than the U.S. or many other parts of the world.

So basically, the world has gone through three major crises in the last 15-20 years, and in each case the U.S. was either less directly affected or somehow managed the economic consequences better than Europe.

What is a common use case for these kind of phones?

May I ask why this is “most depressing thing I have read today”.

Concerns about misinformation? Compute/energy use? Creative work Replaced by AI?

The biggest problem with Europe is the lack of innovation. But that was not an issue before.

Before the 2000s, Europe was very very strong in telecom (Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens, Alcatel), industrial technology, the auto industry, mobile phones, semiconductors, and enterprise software (SAP, Baan, Business Objects, Dassault Systèmes, sage). Europe was definitely much less dependent on U.S. technology back then. In some area I would say it was the other way around.

But Europe's dependence on U.S. technology has accelerated dramatically over the last 10-15 years.

I'm really not sure why. Regulation and bureaucracy did not get worse. And Europe even created the EU, which provided a better "single market" (better than before the 2000s).

I would love to hear some opinions on what changed.

I am trying to say that they cannot claim that this deal will “threaten our journalistic independence”. It is just kinda funny (and sad) that they claim that while only 32% of U.S. adults said they trust The New York Times as a source of news.

https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/feature/news-media-tr...

And that's the problem with current journalism. They use terms like "facts" and "proven" way too loosely. Everything is way too biased.

The only thing I know is that journalism stopped being independent and unbiased a long, long time ago.

I do not know if xcancel is going to survive this :(

As far as I understand, people use XCancel because they do not like X (and Elon) so do not want to give money or traffic to X. But they still want to read and share content posted there.

The added value of XCancel is they are not owned by Elon Musk.

Am I correct here?

So it might be that life started inside rocks (with tiny amounts of water) deep underground and not in the water on the surface.

Let’s do other way. If it is true that energy efficient tiers will save money then there will no need to have a law. We could do just some marketing campaign and people will be: aha I love money so let’s save money.

But it is not about saving but it is about environment. And this where I get a little weary about: if they are willing to stretch truths here where else are they doing that. Requiring ID to browse internet? Flock cameras?

Of course they will use left vs right argument but I doubt this is all about saving environment.

The energy efficient tires have much longer wet braking distance. And they last less (for similar priced tires).

Anyway, saying how it will save money is not right way how to promote this (it is really hard to predict all 2nd order effects this might cause - including increase of accidents, noise pollution, market forces (less choice), and similar).

The main problem and challenge with all these regulations is enforcement. How are they actually going to enforce them?

The U.S. already has very strict rules against unsolicited calls, yet I still get around 20 spam calls a day saying things like "press 2 to be connected" or offering some "$64K loan."

At the same time, I have not received a single unsolicited call from a reputable company.

The same is true for text messages. In 2023, the U.S. introduced stricter regulations, and companies like Twilio responded with very strict anti-spam rules. The rules are now so restrictive that we are forced to stopped using Twilio for text important notification to our my own team.

Yet I still receive dozens of spam text messages every week.

So the question is whether the regulations can actually be enforced against the people who are already ignoring them.

I have one broader point.

Unfortunately, some people have started calling everyone they disagree with a fascist. Elon Musk is a fascist. Peter Thiel is a fascist. Marc Andreessen is a fascist. And list goes on..

But these people (and many other Silicon Valley entrepreneurs), are better described as libertarians (perhaps techno-libertarians?). I am not saying that ideology is good or bad, but it is not the same as fascism.

Using the word “fascist” so loosely weakens the argument and makes the entire discussion intellectually dishonest. It also trivialize the historical horrors of the Holocaust.

My biggest problem with “tax the rich” is: then what? Build another “high-speed train”? Spend the money on some fake nonprofit run by the same rich people?

It might actually be a better idea to require a short, in-person civic knowledge test every two years as a condition for voting. If you fail, you can take it again, but you cannot vote until you pass.

I’m only half joking.

I guess he just failed the test. Maybe the bar should be 55.

I would strongly discourage anyone from making things up. I have participated in these exercises, and many people simply said, “I really have nothing to share that would interest you.” Those were the people others respected the most.

They might share personal things with close friends, but they had a clear definition of what friendship meant.

In other words, be a person of character.

It is perfectly fine not to be friends with everyone. Just be respectful and honest. Do not lie. Say, “I cannot tell you that because of this or that,” or simply remain silent.

I am not sure how old he was, but I would guess he was under 40 and relatively inexperienced.

Part of the purpose of these exercises is to train management, especially executives, to remain fully focused and make decisions solely on performance and the business, even when someone asks them to show emotion. Anyone who is in executive management position should understand that.

He failed the test.

It is a long blog post, but the controversy seems to center on DHH’s language and reasoning about Roma people.

My reading is that he used those examples deliberately to raise a broader issue: some people are tired of being told to ignore problems they can see and experience, whether that means feeling unsafe while walking through a city or attending a Pride parade (assume that are the “wolfs”), or being frustrated that nearly every item at Target is locked up (“gypsies”).

To be clear, I am not expressing an opinion on whether his argument is right or wrong.

I do the same.

Only very (awesome) good and very bad experiences are widely shared.

The problem is that creating a truly great (awesome) memorable support experience happens less than 5% of the time (as you said it is rare). And that experience is shared to 10 people in average: not really a lot.

I disagree. But that is that what I learned.

Sadly, it is hard to convince people of this unfortunate and depressing fact: customer support is nice, but in the grand scheme of things, it usually does not matter that much.

Everybody has to learn that lesson on their own.

The key point of the article is this:

> In other words, the best approach for us is what most companies do.

Every inexperienced entrepreneur starts with a promise that their support will not be terrible like Google, Comcast, or other big companies. And that will be their path to success.

But in the end, you learn that you need to offer the same level of support that other companies in your market offer. And if your support is really better, nobody will really notice. It does not matter.

And inexperienced entrepreneurs are stubborn (a good trait). So they usually have to learn that lesson on their own.

Over 90% of new vehicles sold in the U.S. already support Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

So it is kinda expected to be there: if it is not there then a car needs to be something special. So I think buyers don’t even ask for it because they assume it will be there (and absence becomes much more noticeable than its presence).

I think that can work if you narrow the issue only to medical advice.

But trust is also eroded by completely unrelated things, like “Iraq has WMDs” and other stories pushed by our governments. Or even the recent argument that we need ID to access the internet in order to “protect children.” Sure.

The key point is that for things like vaccines, people need to trust the goverment and the process. Most people are not going to read medical papers. They should rely on government health agencies to tell them what to do.

So when trust is damaged (even by unrelated government decisions), it affects how people respond to medical guidance too.

If these mRNA vaccines had not been pushed or mandated, more people would probably think they are safe: there will be no need for any of these reviews.

But because they were pushed by the government, many people do not trust them. Sure, they were pushed and mandated for good reasons, but the problem is that a lot of people have already lost trust in the government.

That trust was not lost because of one big decision. It was lost through many small, unrelated government decisions that may not seem noticeable or measurable on their own, but over time, they build up.

I do not know how this trust can be rebuilt but definitely not by publishing more reviews.

Meaning, it creates one more hurdle for businesses. I think that is an objective statement.

Is it bad? That depends on your point of view. If you are pro-business, then yes, the bill is bad. If you are not pro-business and you are pro-worker rights, then you will not see it as bad.

Michigan has relatively business-unfriendly laws and regulations.

Apparently their tax system is quite favorable to businesses, but taxes are only one (small) part of the equation. The taxes matter more once a company is making a lot of money.

In short, tax incentives and random per company “investments” (bribes?) are not enough to offset certain laws and regulations Michigan has.

I am not saying those laws and regulations are bad. I am just saying that targeted tax incentives and investment for specific companies are the wrong way to solve the problem.

So she is trying to make money by selling a book about how Facebook is bad, meaning how the company only cares about profit and nothing else.

I can already tell it has to be one of the most boring books ever written, because there is nothing new there.

It is basically like writing a book that says: the sky is blue and water is wet.