Re: I'll stick with diesel if it's all the same to you
@43300: Don't feed the trolls ;)
480 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Jan 2022
Chinese companies like BYD are making some pretty good EVs when compared to Western efforts, especially Tesla.
Of course, the problem with all EVs is they're all pretty much disposable once the traction battery starts giving trouble out of warranty.
"This is an application used to play short videos to those with a short attention span.."
That description could just as easily apply to Facebook, YouTube or any number of things.
America's politicians love "Reds under the bed" hysteria for some reason. I suppose it helps to distract peoples' minds from the real problems in their society.
Isnt that the one where Ireland made an agreement with Apple and Ireland wants to honour the agreement?
An agreement that the state would turn a blind eye to creative accounting?
Also that money could possibly pay for some stuff but not the maintenance, the killing of the goose that lays the golden eggs.
There's not much point having a goose that lays golden eggs if the farmer only gets a few of the golden eggs and the goose keeps the rest.
However Ireland is finding it is not a sovereign country and belongs to the EU.
The point of joining the EU is that sovereignty is ceded in return for other benefits such as freedom of movement, freedom to trade etc. This isn't some kind of newsflash lol. Anyway, how's sovereignty working out for the UK at the moment, given that it enjoys a lower standard of living than its former colony to the west?
The Isle of Man's on an interconnector (according to the URL you posted, did you read it?), which implies that it's not part of the National Grid.
The Manx Utilities Authority operates the transmission network in the IoM.
it's amazing how much incorrect information you post, with such confidence.
If you drill down into Eirgrid's interconnection stats for today the flow between Ireland and Wales is pretty much balanced (power goes one way in the morning and the other way around lunchtime), while NI takes power from Scotland without ever returning the favour.
It's not true to say that Ireland (ROI/Eire in the context of this article) is dependent on the UK for its electricity needs (i.e. importing power most of the time as claimed). If you drill down into "Fuel mix" on that page you can see that 67.3% of Ireland's (not NI's) electricity is coming from renewables, and 0.7% from imports.
"The Irish people gain because their government has higher tax revenues.."
lol you might think so, but no...
Apple owes the Irish state €13billion in taxes, but for some reason the government doesn't want to take it. That money, from just one multinational company, could pay for more than a few hospitals, schools, roads etc etc
The killer with data centres is that they're a huge drain on the power grid, with little or no benefit to the average taxpayer.
It takes a handful of people to run a data centre. You need just a couple of maintenance people locally in case the roof leaks or something needs to be turned off and back on again, the rest can be offshored to some low-cost location.
...how the Irish energy regulator allowed the country's defacto monopoly electricity supplier to increase consumers' bills so they could subsidise the electricity costs of big businesses - data centers included?
Apparently it was supposed to be a short term measure, but due to an "administrative error" the overcharging went on for 12 years, until 2022.
"Pharmaceutical firms, food producers, IT companies and data centres all benefited at a cost to householders.
The subsidy, called the Large Energy User Rebalancing Subvention, was a little-known measure introduced by the government in 2010 to reduce the electricity bills of big businesses in a time of economic crisis.
Network charges, which made up around 25pc of a domestic customer’s bill, were reduced for large businesses and increased for households to make up the shortfall.
It was designed to take €50m off the bills of around 1,500 high electricity-using companies every year.
The Irish Independent revealed last October that the subvention, framed as an emergency measure, had continued to be applied every year for 12 years, resulting in €600 million worth of supports to big businesses."
So now you know who calls the shots, as if there was ever any doubt.
That's not a strategy, that's a gamble.
If your plan - thought out in advance before you blow the whistle - is to sue for discrimination (age-related in this case), it would be argued that you're acting in bad faith from the start, and the act of whistleblowing is just the golden ticket.
""It was specifically created in response to Plaintiff's legal claims, and designed to be so demeaning that Plaintiff would quit. "
Demeaning in what way exactly?
lol some people attach too much of their identity to the job they do. "Retire in place"...so what? Sit around, do nothing, get paid.
By the way, has whistleblowing ever worked out well for anybody? If you want to go down that road you better have an exit strategy planned well in advance
There are vast troves of Case Law and Legal Precedent. No human is capable of trawling through it to find every pertinent thing.
True. In common law, so much is open to interpretation...as we see when a higher court overrules the existing precedent due to a more persuasive argument (or where a lower court was deemed to have erred in law). I'm not sure how an AI could consider all the variables of two competing viewpoints and produce a "fair" outcome.
European-style codified law would be easier for AI to handle, for example did someone break penal code article 102.3.4? If yes, consider aggravating/mitigating factors and calculate punishment.
Can't wait for Futurama-style courtrooms... :D
―Computer Judge
"Given that he is CEO of a company that is ultimately owned by the Chinese govt..."
Do you have any solid proof that your claim is true?
TikTok's parent company is ByteDance, which as far as I can see is not owned or controlled by the Chinese government.
Human Rights Watch raised the question, but ultimately failed to find any connection and admitted that:
"While there’s no definitive evidence that TikTok is following Beijing’s direct or even indirect orders — TikTok has repeatedly issued assurances that it hasn’t and won’t spy for the CCP..."
Myth: The Chinese government has a "golden share" interest in ByteDance Ltd.
Fact: As is required under Chinese law, in order to operate certain news and information products that are offered exclusively in China, media licenses are required for those services. As such, an entity affiliated with the Chinese government owns 1% of a ByteDance subsidiary, Douyin Information Service Co., Ltd.
"Its all "reds under the bed" again from the McCarthy era."
Sen. Tom Cotton: "Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party?"
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew: "Senator, I'm Singaporean. No."
Cotton: "Have you ever been associated or affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party?"
Chew: "No, senator. Again, I'm Singaporean."
/s implied, I would guess.
Corporate "persons" are of course the biggest lobbyists in most countries, and OpenSecrets is a great asset in finding out who's bribing lobbying US politicians.
Interesting that you think TikTok is only used by 13 year old girls, AC. It's popular across all age ranges, except boomers (which I suppose explains their fear of the platform).
https://backlinko.com/tiktok-users
2.5% of TikTok’s monthly active users in the U.S. are 11 or under.
17.7% of TikTok’s monthly active users in the U.S. are 12-17.
23.9% of TikTok’s monthly active users in the U.S. are 18-24.
25.2% of TikTok’s monthly active users in the U.S. are 25-34.
17.1% of TikTok’s monthly active users in the U.S. are 35-44.
6.7% of TikTok’s monthly active users in the U.S. are 45-54.
5.2% of TikTok’s monthly active users in the U.S. are 55-64.
1.8% of TikTok’s monthly active users in the U.S. are 65 or over.
...
Recent gender demographics in October 2023 show that around 49.2% of TikTok users worldwide were women, while another 50.8% were men.
"...It also illustrated how TikTok could mobilize an army of people and gather data to push user behavior, which some lawmakers say is the exact reason they don’t want the company to have ties back to China."
The (Republican?) lawmakers forget that the January 6th insurrectionists were mobilised on Truth Social. If we blocked every platform that had the potential for misuse, there wouldn't be any left.
As an aside: "Some say..." is such lazy journalism. pretending to add a hint of legitimacy to a dreamed-up claim.
It's a damning indictment of a country, its electoral system, its politicians, and voters (!) that the best candidates out of a population of 332 million people are Biden and Trump.
I'd say "Stop voting for old white men!" but Joseph de Maistre was right - every country gets the government it deserves.
“They made the point for us,” Rep. Kat Cammack (R., Fla.), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in an interview Friday. “They hurt themselves pretty tremendously by doing what they did in targeting members of Congress and using content creators and users of the app as foot soldiers” of the Chinese government, she said.
Sorry, Florida Republican - contacting your political representative to express your displeasure is a legitimate activity, even if you happen to find it annoying. It's part of the democratic process.
-5 points for the use of "Chinese government foot soldiers" red herring argument.
https://mattfrisbie.substack.com/p/introducing-exboost-revolutionizing
Introducing ExBoost: Revolutionizing Chrome Extension Discoverability
Empowering extension developers with community-driven promotion
Matt Frisbie
12 Feb 2024
As a Web Extensions Google Developer Expert, I constantly see this question asked by extension developers:
How can I get more users?
Makes me think "Matt" isn't being honest about his intentions re. the "Under New Management" extension.
His GitHub is interesting:
https://github.com/classvsoftware
Spy Extension
This Chrome extension will steal literally everything it can. User discretion advised.
Read about it here: https://mattfrisbie.substack.com/p/spy-chrome-extension
Media:
Hacker news discussion
Featured on NBTV
Featured in tl;dr sec
"It's also curious why Starlink is being singled out. Nobody is using Apples or Androids inside Russia, or Russian held Ukraine? Sanctions apply to those devices as well."
Back in 2022, Putin legalised the grey import of sanctioned items. So enterprising mafia are making a killing importing phones, computers, cars, car parts etc from the Middle East, China, Kazakhstan and Russia's other surrounding countries. Same thing's happening with Starlink terminals
"As for the All-in-One service, the entry-level plan starts with the HP ENVY at $6.99 per month for 20 pages"
A fool and their money are soon parted.
I guess a large proportion of the alleged 13 million subscribers are on this plan, but never use it and can't be arsed cancelling due to the cancellation fee.
There's a character in the show - Colin Robinson - who I imagine is based on you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_brpPpjZ5I
"When they call you a dumbass, you know you've got them"...your tactics are identical. :)
Yes, referring to German military as Nazis is a slur, and it's obvious propaganda from a Russian point of view - unite the locals through a perceived outside attack.
The word is a dog-whistle, nothing more.
Russia's supporters use it to describe anybody who opposes a return to the Soviet "glory" days.
Remember that they weren't ideologically opposed to becoming friends with actual Nazis back before "The Great Patriotic War" (1941-1945 *cough* *cough*) when they signed to Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
https://jordanrussiacenter.org/news/what-russians-think-when-they-hear-the-word-nazi/
"Claiming that a country whose head of state is a Jew with relatives who died in the Holocaust is “neo-Nazi” is absurd. Yet for many Russians, this claim could sound credible, because “Nazism” and the more commonly used “fascism” carry a different set of associations than for most people in Western Europe and North America. In addition, Soviet and Russian understandings of fascism and Nazism’s essence have made it easy to use the terms to describe contemporary enemies in Russia."
Conferences send out plain text emails with links to participants. The Russians got ahold of one.
I'm inclined to agree. That, or the mark's hotel room was bugged.
If the last few years have taught us anything, it's that the Russians aren't the geniuses we previously thought they were. They are good at disinformation though
On Tuesday, Google elaborated on its efforts to comply with the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA) – a set of competition obligations that take effect on Thursday.
...
Those using Google services in Europe – Search, YouTube, Ad services, Google Play, Chrome, Google Shopping, and Google Maps – will also be able to choose whether or not to keep those services linked so that they share data.
I wondered why Google was spamming my Android phone yesterday about the Google services I'd previously gone to the trouble of unlinking.
Looks like they're making a last-ditch effort to get users to reconsider...
Incredibly niche lifestyle phone, depending on which Bob-The-Builder brand you identify with.
And there lies the problem. As a tough-phone maker, is it better in the long term to develop your own brand or piggyback on the brand recognition of Land Rover or Caterpillar?
As others have pointed out, you can go on AliExpress and buy a no-name Chinese tough-phone for a hundred quid.