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Meanwhile, the U.S. is at the lowest unemployment claims since 1969, which is even better considering there are a lot more people in the workforce now.

At 3.8%, a 50-year low, we're currently beyond what most economists would consider "full employment", with more job openings than people looking for work. All this reported news, combined with the 196K new jobs in March, means is that companies are restructuring and jobs are moving from less efficient uses of people's time to more efficient and valuable uses, which is exactly what we want in order to continue to build wealth in the country.

I'm sure the /. editors will be posting a story about all that anytime now....

The most recent shoot-down of a satellite by the US was in 2008, for the reported purpose of preventing a tank of hydrazine from reaching the surface:

U.S. Officials pointed out that the U.S. had no reason to prove that it could shoot down a satellite, as the U.S. had already publicly done so in the 1980s. Another key difference pointed out by General Cartwright was that this intercept happened at a much lower altitude, whereas China’s ASAT weapon destroyed a target at a much higher altitude, which resulted in the creation of debris which continues to pose a potential hazard to other spacecraft. Finally, U.S. officials again affirmed that the mission’s intent was to preserve human life.

May illegal immigrants are coming from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. Not sure of their vaccination rates, but I'm sure it's not good.

https://www.reuters.com/articl...

  and these are just the ones they catch. Others are disappearing into society, going to schools and using emergency facilities when they get really sick.

Uh huh...

From Holder we heard plenty of tough talk also. And from Sessions? Little man would never attack anything his own size...

There are precedents that specifically protect online services from responsibility from such ads, where the publisher has been deemed to be the advertiser. See this article from 2008.

https://www.reuters.com/articl...

This will be very interesting to see play out in court.

One flaw with your analysis: there are almost no US companies that make similar equipment. At most, you have a Cisco or something that produces a small subsegment of the Huawei portfolio. Even the Pentagon, when talking about 5G, essentially says that the only alternatives are European suppliers like Ericsson or Nokia.

IRS targeting people
Recess appointments

Are a couple that come to mind and can't be argued against.

If it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander. https://www.reuters.com/articl...

"Getting bailed out by shady Mexican billionaires!"

About the WHO report about glyphosate as a carcinogen:

There were last minute significant changes to the draft document and elimination of studies that didn't support their 'cancer' conclusion.

"...investigators at Reuters uncovered the shocking fact that an American scientist, Dr. Aaron Blair, the Chairman of the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC) Monograph 112 on glyphosate, suppressed critically important science."
Source

The the mainstream media won't report on this, or just parts of it. Our right-wing media has turned Venezuela into a giant socialist red flag, that they wave in front of their viewers to blind them from the truth and keep them from demanding better health care or discredit young politicians who are trying to actually represent their constituents. The bigger picture is we have industrialists who have purchased a humanitarian crises to enhance their own bottom line. I was in Iraq twice, looking for WMDs and to "save babies from being ripped out of incubators" by Saddam Hussein, and although I am no longer in the military, I do know the U.S government actively worked to destabilize governments in the Middle East for economic reasons, and I have no reason to believe Venezuela is any different. Do some research and you will come to the same conclusion.

"Google ... can't be bothered to check apps for malware..."

To me, that seems evidence that Google is very poorly managed. Android became the foundation of a HUGE amount of abuse. Why? Doesn't anyone at Google realize the company is self-destructive?

Today: Google faces third EU antitrust fine next week. (Mar. 15, 2019)

Last year: EU fines Google $5 billion over Android antitrust abuse. (July 18, 2018)

Many serious economists believe that Amazon is the only reason inflation hasn't impacted consumers as much.

When internet randoms have a better record of truth-telling than legitimate journalists, what are you going to do?

Here's something from an internet random that I bet you would never hear from the mainstream media: Your Complete Guide to the N.Y. Times' Support of U.S.-Backed Coups in Latin America

"What should be a conversation about American military and its covert apparatus unduly meddling in other countries quickly becomes a referendum on the moral properties of those countries. Theoretically a good conversation to have (and one certainly ongoing among people and institutions in these countries), but absent a discussion of the merits of the initial axiom-that U.S. talking heads and the Washington national security apparatus have a birthright to determine which regimes are good and bad-it serves little practical purpose stateside beyond posturing. And often, as a practical matter, it works to cement the broader narrative justifying the meddling itself. Do the U.S. and its allies have a moral or ethical right to determine the political future of Venezuela? This question is breezed past, and we move on to the question of how this self-evident authority is best exercised. This is the scope of debate in The New York Times-and among virtually all U.S. media outlets. To ante up in the poker game of Serious People Discussing Foreign Policy Seriously, one is obligated to register an Official Condemnation of the Official Bad Regime. This is so everyone knows you accept the core premises of U.S. regime change but oppose it on pragmatic or legalistic grounds. It's a tedious, extortive exercise designed to shift the conversation away from the United States' history of arbitrary and violent overthrows and into an exchange about how best to oppose the Official Bad Regime in question. U.S. liberals are to keep a real-time report card on these Official Bad Regimes, and if these regimes-due to an ill-defined rubric of un-democraticness and human rights-fall below a score of say, âoe60,â they become illegitimate and unworthy of defense as such.

For those earnestly concerned about Maduro's efforts to undermine the democratic institutions of Venezuela (he's been accused of jailing opponents, stacking the courts and holding Potemkin elections), it's worth pointing out that even when the liberal democratic properties of Venezuela were at their height in 2002 (they were internationally sanctioned and overseen by the Carter Center for years, and no serious observer considers Hugo Chavez's rule illegitimate), the CIA still greenlit a military coup against Chavez, and the New York Times still profusely praised the act. As it wrote at the time:

With yesterdays resignation of President Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator. Mr. Chavez, a ruinous demagogue, stepped down after the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader, Pedro Carmona.

They flat-out lied about Chavez stepping down. LIED.

Ironically

The Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed killing 157 people was making a strange rattling noise and trailed smoke and debris as it swerved above a field of panicked cows before hitting earth, according to witnesses.

Doesn't sound like a software problem to me. At least not any I've ever run across.

The real question is, how did they know the cows were panicked?

Latest news from Reuters suggests that plane suffered some kind of a problem that caused it to emit smoke while in the air:

https://www.reuters.com/articl...

Could be anything from engine trouble to a bad case of Mohammedianism.

ICD-10 Diagnose Code: F60.0

Cause: a result of an underlying belief that other people are hostile [and long time spying on others] in combination with a lack in self-awareness

Treatment: hard to treat, i.e. a terminal illness.

Elon Musk paid a $20 million fine for financial impact on the market with his ludicrous tweet. Yes, he did. And tax evasion always ends bad; tax avoidance is legal, and pisses the IRS and Government off, but it's legal. Tax evasion? That is what is used to get most rich people, including Al Capone.

But there is a huge difference between China and the USA govts.
In China, when you disagree with the govt, you and your family disappear, cannot travel, don't get a lawyer and often aren't seen for a yr. If you appeal, you get re-sentenced to death.
In the USA, you get a lawyer, can usually fight back, appeal any decision.

A few quick reminders:
Xi is
* a dictator for life
* sends millions of Chinese to "re-education camps"
* no freedom of speech
* no freedom of travel
* China uses tanks against their own people.
* Religious re-education cities with 1M+ people.
* smartphones **must** have govt tracking software
* Your social network posts are tracked by the govt and rated. A poor rating can block rights and travel.
* don't recognize international waters as ruled by world-wide govts
* Currency manipulation
* intellectual property stealer / Hacker of companies and govts world-wide
* Highly selective enforcement for any laws; usually against foreign companies and Chinese companies that cause large number of deaths
* Tibet takeover
* Tienanmen Square; they admit to killing over 1,022 civilians. Other estimates are over 10,000 deaths.
* Check your server logs, most attacks are probably from Chinese IP ranges.
* Their elections are fixed - only approved party members can be on the ballot. So, would you like Bernie or Clinton or Gore or Dukakis?
Like any of those are even a different choice from the others. Well, freakin' terrible vs really, really, bad is a choice, I suppose.
* Police in China behave like thugs. Ok, sometimes that happens in the USA too.
* Taiwan, cough.

Don't forget what China is and how they behave.
---
Cisco and Motorola caught Huawei stealing their intellectual property.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/S...

        Huawei Admits Copying Code From Cisco in Router Software
https://www.reuters.com/articl...
---
        Motorola sues Huawei for trade secret theft
Huawei physically stole parts in 2014 from a testing robot during a
visit to T-Mobile. The robot was used to ensure buttons on phones would last.
---
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/1...
China hacked more than 245 companies and agencies, including US Navy and NASA.
Ref: https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...

This happened while The US/China economic espionage pact was in-force beginning in 2016.

The USA isn't perfect, but it isn't China. Not by a long shot. If you refuse to decrypt data at the US border, they keep the data and you can sue to have it returned. Canada, UK, Australia, France, Thailand, and 50 other countries would demand you unlock it at the border without any reasonable cause. It is illegal to refuse, a crime.

When they start restricting the maximum amount of currency coming IN,

Except that China is, and has been so most of last 4 decades, putting more effort restricting the outflow of foreign currencies. Your assertion has no base.

Actually, talcum powder can cause cancer too. Just ask Johnson & Johnson.

Are you under the delusion that European pharmaceutical companies don't make a profit?

No, and he didn't even imply that. The point is however, that the way medicines are bought here means that the prices of drugs are lower. The companies still make a profit off of them, but we spend overall less money on drugs, because of things like collective bargaining.

Take something like insulin. The price of insulin in the US doubled from 2012 to 2016, and it's not because the product itself has change or consumption has skyrocketed. Quoting the article:

“It’s not that individuals are using more insulin or that new products are particularly innovative or provide immense benefits,” Jeannie Fuglesten Biniek, a senior researcher at HCCI and the report’s co-author said in a phone interview.

“Use is pretty flat, and the price changes are occurring in both older and newer products. That surprised me. The exact same products are costing double,” she said.

And one of the 3 main manufacturers of insulin is Novo Nordisk, a Danish pharmacompany. So yes, European pharma companies are raking in a lot of money thanks to in no small part the american medical system. Now keep in mind, this is not some new wonder drug, insulin has been around for decades at this point, the manufacturing process has been honed down and is extremely efficient. A study from 2017 estimated the cost of production to be as follows:

After analyzing expenses for ingredients, production, and delivery, among other things, the researchers contend that the price for a year's supply of human insulin could be $48 to $71 a person and between $78 and $133 for analog insulins, which are genetically altered forms that are known as rapid or long-acting treatments. Examples of analog insulins include Humalog, Lantus, and Novolog.

Put another way, the study estimated the cost of production for a vial of human insulin is between $2.28 and $3.42, while the production cost for a vial of most analog insulins is between $3.69 and $6.16, according to the study in BMJ Global Health. Meanwhile, the median prices paid by more than two dozen countries for human insulin were 1.2 to 1.8 times greater than estimated prices. Median prices for other types of insulin were also higher: Lantus, which is sold by Sanofi (SNY), was 5.6 to 7.8 times higher; Humalog, which is sold by Eli Lilly (LLY), were at 2.7 to 3.7 times higher; and Novolog, a Novo Nordisk (NVO) treatment, was 2.6 to 3.5 times greater.

Note: the siggested figures there are not the costs of manufacturing, they're suggested price-points at which the companies would still make a profit on the product. And the actual numbers are global medians. In the US, the average price for a year's supply is now around $5700 dollars a year (from the previous link). Depending on the type of insulin, that's a markup of anywhere from 100 % to around 640 %. On a life-saving chemical that people depend on daily. That's insane. This is only possible because even though there's competition in theory, the highly more privatized nature of the US pharma/medical sector has allowed for all the three major players to raise their costs in tandem, while simultaneously making no significant changes/improvements on the drug itself.

The commercialized nature of the system means it doesn't optimize itself for cost-efficiency or availability, it optimizes for maximal profit. Insulin is cheap to make, so obviously the companies sell it for very cheap in countries with lower incomes or just a better regulated health care system. This

Google or Amazon could end you.

Not just them, but also enhanced bank transfer techs.

Hungary is rarely a good example for progress, but this one is good:
Hungary's banks start testing instant-payments system

All banks with domestic branch must participate. Guarantied 5 sec processing time, average 1-2 secs (according to the design). Secondary IDs baked in: people can send me money only knowing my email address or phone number. Also provides an API to companies outside of the bank sector, so they can start/receive payments going around banks if they meet the criteria of participating in the system. (Think of utility company sending you a payment advice directly only knowing your secondary ID, and you can fulfill automatically or by manual approval)

Given a condo in NYC just sold for $238 million, you can probably buy have the freaking city for the price of a condo in Manhattan...

Absurd. Accusations against Huawei are not mostly speculation. Then you pull a whataboutism with speculation on the US government, and claim the latter is a stronger case.

Either that post is nationalism or a troll, because it isn't internally consistent, let alone truthful.

Really? https://www.reuters.com/articl...

Apple is part of the UAE's "secret hacking team of American mercenaries" which seek to "help the United Arab Emirates engage in surveillance of other governments, militants and human rights activists critical of the monarchy".

What Apple tells people via its ads: "What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone"

Some of what Apple won't comment on: "The operatives utilized an arsenal of cyber tools, including a cutting-edge espionage platform known as Karma, in which Raven operatives say they hacked into the iPhones of hundreds of activists, political leaders and suspected terrorists." (source: the aforementioned Reuters article)

Additional commentary from the only comedy news program worth watching, Redacted Tonight.

Corrected Title: Yet more commie cyberbúllshít from slashdot ..

“Hackers working on behalf of Chinese intelligence breached the network of Norwegian software firm Visma to steal secrets from its clients” ref

Any company that keeps secrets on a computer connected to the Internet deserves to be hacked and it would be a lot simpler and productive to infiltrate a spy into the organization.

Looks like that stuff is on the way.

Nope. Frances latest one even after overruns caused by Fukushima and even stricter regulation of 2 Billion, now is estimated to cost 11 Billion for a 1.6GW reactor, or 22 Billion for 3.4GW... so about 1/3 less (13 Billion) than the UK debacle. Even that one is well over budget. The UK one is like the worst example in the world.

https://www.reuters.com/articl...

An even better example is Finland with the exact same size as Hinkley, estimated cost to be 8.5 and now 10.5 Billion...

https://www.reuters.com/articl...

Not quite 35 Billion...

and then there is China.... with much the same for under 5 Billion...

https://www.scmp.com/business/...

Nope. Frances latest one even after overruns caused by Fukushima and even stricter regulation of 2 Billion, now is estimated to cost 11 Billion for a 1.6GW reactor, or 22 Billion for 3.4GW... so about 1/3 less (13 Billion) than the UK debacle. Even that one is well over budget. The UK one is like the worst example in the world.

https://www.reuters.com/articl...

An even better example is Finland with the exact same size as Hinkley, estimated cost to be 8.5 and now 10.5 Billion...

https://www.reuters.com/articl...

Not quite 35 Billion...

and then there is China.... with much the same for under 5 Billion...

https://www.scmp.com/business/...

The below was originally written in response to an article blaming the Venezuelan economic issues on oil price declines, so you'll see references to that. I'm posting this as-is, rather than rewriting it. In the year or so since I wrote it, things have only gotten worse, in terms of lack of food and in terms of oil production (despite recently rising oil prices, up $10/barrel in that time), to the point where we're seeing news stories about treason charges for oil workers in a futile attempt to get production back up at government-run PDVSA. How bad is it according to Reuters?
About 25,000 PDVSA workers resigned between the start of January 2017 and the end of January 2018, out of a workforce last officially reported at 146,000, Reuters reported last week. The resignations including high-level professionals that are now almost impossible to replace have only accelerated since Quevedo arrived, two dozen industry sources told Reuters.
Disclaimers:
This isn't original research, it's collating from publicly available sources. I did run the results past three people who live in Venezuela and they agreed it describes what they've seen/experienced.
---
The Studebaker article contains some facts, but it also includes opinions and as Gilberto pointed out, it leaves many facts out, mostly about the government as related to the economy.
Here are some additional facts and opinions to consider:
From 1998 to 2018, oil production in Venezuela is down from 3.5 million barrels per day in December of 1997 vs 2 million in October of 2017.
So what happened in the last 20 years? From Wikipedia :

"After Hugo Chávez officially took office in February 1999, several policy changes involving the country's oil industry were made to explicitly tie it to the state under his Bolivarian Revolution. Since then, PDVSA has not demonstrated any capability to bring new oil fields on stream since nationalizing heavy oil projects in the Orinoco Petroleum Belt formerly operated by international oil companies ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Total. Chávez’s policies damaged Venezuela's oil industry due to lack of investment, corruption and cash shortages."
Probably just a fluke, though, right? I mean, steel production in Venezuela increased from 3400 tons in 1998 to about 4600 tons in 2008. The steel industry was nationalized by the Venezuelan government in 2008 and production declined to under 1600 tons. Huh, definitely a pattern forming. Similar stories of lower production and losses in the other industries after they were taken over: aluminum, cement, gold, iron, farming, transportation, electricity, food production, banking, paper and the media.
How well does the government run the nationalized oil company, PDVSA? Reuters:

"The output fall could not come at a worse time, with the economy in crisis and the socialist government struggling to pay its foreign debt." and "Compounding the situation, another eight managers and employees of state oil company PDVSA in eastern Venezuela were arrested in recent days for fiddling production figures, chief prosecutor Tarek Saab told reporters.
In a major corruption sweep engulfing the oil sector, about two dozen high-level executives have already been arrested in recent weeks, ridding PDVSA of much of its top brass."
Without the government takeover, even if oil companies were only competent enough to continue production levels and not grow them (as they've done previously over tim

The below was originally written in response to an article blaming the Venezuelan economic issues on oil price declines, so you'll see references to that. I'm posting this as-is, rather than rewriting it. In the year or so since I wrote it, things have only gotten worse, in terms of lack of food and in terms of oil production (despite recently rising oil prices, up $10/barrel in that time), to the point where we're seeing news stories about treason charges for oil workers in a futile attempt to get production back up at government-run PDVSA. How bad is it according to Reuters?
About 25,000 PDVSA workers resigned between the start of January 2017 and the end of January 2018, out of a workforce last officially reported at 146,000, Reuters reported last week. The resignations including high-level professionals that are now almost impossible to replace have only accelerated since Quevedo arrived, two dozen industry sources told Reuters.
Disclaimers:
This isn't original research, it's collating from publicly available sources. I did run the results past three people who live in Venezuela and they agreed it describes what they've seen/experienced.
---
The Studebaker article contains some facts, but it also includes opinions and as Gilberto pointed out, it leaves many facts out, mostly about the government as related to the economy.
Here are some additional facts and opinions to consider:
From 1998 to 2018, oil production in Venezuela is down from 3.5 million barrels per day in December of 1997 vs 2 million in October of 2017.
So what happened in the last 20 years? From Wikipedia :

"After Hugo Chávez officially took office in February 1999, several policy changes involving the country's oil industry were made to explicitly tie it to the state under his Bolivarian Revolution. Since then, PDVSA has not demonstrated any capability to bring new oil fields on stream since nationalizing heavy oil projects in the Orinoco Petroleum Belt formerly operated by international oil companies ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Total. Chávez’s policies damaged Venezuela's oil industry due to lack of investment, corruption and cash shortages."
Probably just a fluke, though, right? I mean, steel production in Venezuela increased from 3400 tons in 1998 to about 4600 tons in 2008. The steel industry was nationalized by the Venezuelan government in 2008 and production declined to under 1600 tons. Huh, definitely a pattern forming. Similar stories of lower production and losses in the other industries after they were taken over: aluminum, cement, gold, iron, farming, transportation, electricity, food production, banking, paper and the media.
How well does the government run the nationalized oil company, PDVSA? Reuters:

"The output fall could not come at a worse time, with the economy in crisis and the socialist government struggling to pay its foreign debt." and "Compounding the situation, another eight managers and employees of state oil company PDVSA in eastern Venezuela were arrested in recent days for fiddling production figures, chief prosecutor Tarek Saab told reporters.
In a major corruption sweep engulfing the oil sector, about two dozen high-level executives have already been arrested in recent weeks, ridding PDVSA of much of its top brass."
Without the government takeover, even if oil companies were only competent enough to continue production levels and not grow them (as they've done previously over tim

That's the main difference, but their are many others.

The US Govt can't shut up the press or their people. Freedoms guaranteed in the USA.
In China, the press is owned by the govt and "causing trouble" is illegal. Thugs (aka police) come to your home, beat you up, threaten you and your family, and prevent you from travel.

And China puts people in "education camps" over their religion. Over 1M last estimate.

Smartphones in China must have govt tracking app installed. Police randomly verify this.

Tienanmen Square; they admit to killing over 1,022 civilians. Other estimates are over 10,000 deaths.

Their elections are fixed - only approved party members can be on the ballot.

Don't forget what China is and how they behave.

Stealing https://www.wsj.com/articles/S...
https://www.reuters.com/articl...
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/1...
China hacked over 125 orgs.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...
The Chinese govt commonly lies. This happened while The US/China economic espionage pact was in-force beginning in 2016.

Yeah, China is nothing like the USA.

In our days you don't build a nuclear power plant, especially not with "new technology" for a mere 2 billion dollars.

This one costed 8.5 billion : https://www.reuters.com/articl...
And a similar one built in France about 10.5 billion. And that news is old, I'm to lazy to dig out the actual costs. And mind you, that are , not dollar.

If you want to build a plant of significant size, with a more modern technology, as e.g. molten salt reactors, I would not set the price mark below 20 billion dollars and the delivery time below 20 years. On top of that just add all the time and money you need if still need to develop the technology. Molten salt e.g. is extremely tricky.

https://www.reuters.com/articl...

Trump clearly said that he would intervene if he tought this was good for the country. That's the President of the United States, clearly and unambiguously claiming that he would interfere with the judicial process.In any Rule of Law country (which Canada is), it would be more than enough evidence to get any legal case thrown out of court, including cases like murder.

But I'm sure you'll just claim again that Reuters, one of the most well established and professional news organizations on the planet, just made that all up, actually never showed up in the white house, never conducted this interview with the president himself, and just published a completely made-up fake-news to the entire planet, that curiously, Trump himself never denied publicly.

God you rabid, blind, fanatical Trump worshipers are pathetic. Now go ahead, little Trump troll army, hurry-up and burry this post with troll or flamebait downmodding before someone else can read it, just like you did with my OP. For a bunch that keep bitching and whining about the fact that the evil liberals and "SJWs" keep suppressing your viewpoint and things they disagree with, you all seem exceedingly good at it yourselves fucking hypocrits.

So does this mean that Venezuela has proven capitalism to be bankrupt?

You would have to explain why countries like Vietnam and China that instituted capitalist reforms to move away from their even more socialistic policies have seem massive growth instead of downward collapse. Shouldn't the U.S. which is also a capitalist country have collapsed in a similar manner to Venezuela? Why aren't Hong Kong and Singapore the most deplorable little capitalist hellholes on the planet given that they some of the freest markets on the planet?

They instead have a capitalist system

I suppose it's all privately owned right up until the government decides to nationalize it.

Remember when Mervins (the moderately successful retailer) was split into two companies? One was set up to hold all the real-estates and assets --- the other of which held all the debt and liabilities and retail operations? The former then raised rents on the latter, sending the latter to bankruptcy (wiping out the debt); while the owners of the former laughed all the way to the bank. Well - not quite -- some sued; and they had to pay $166 million settlement on their huge (IIRC ~$400 million) profit from the scam. https://www.reuters.com/articl... Sears seems to be going through the same now ---- where Sears' CEO is also the biggest debtholder; and he's systematically stripping all assets (land, brands) away from Sears and to his other companies (ESL, etc) through debt structuring.

I can't believe this has idea has reared it's head again. You're substituting one problem for a whole other set of problems. Here are some pertinent facts: There is only enough accessible Uranium ore to supply reactors for at most 80 years . It can take 40 years to completely decommission a reactor, longer than it's useful life. Nuclear waste can be unsafe for 10,000 years. This is not to mention the extraordinary build costs, which are only viable with government backing, nor the seemingly inevitable construction delays. That's not even touching on the accidents. In Japan old people are volunteering to clean up Fukashima because they know they're going to die anyway. For the price of one reactor, you could probably build a wind farm of much higher capacity. Hook it to a huge battery, and you're sorted. There are 441 reactors in the world, we don't need any more.

That's funny . . . looks like they're expanding 19 existing sites, and French nuclear power output rose by 3.7% last year. Sorry dude, despite the little snit thrown by anti-nuke pols in the French gov't, France is the leader in European nuclear power, and they're going to stay that way for a very long time.

The entire premise of the article you linked to is that the costs of renewables "could" drop by certain levels. These hopeful projections -- backed by no real data, I might add -- also reference dates 40-50 years in the future, which is just silly theater. No one has any specifics about future efficiency gains even close to that far out. In that amount of time we will certainly have entirely new ways of working with nuclear energy too, but this apparently wasn't taken into consideration. But the most damning statement is that the plants won't be economically viable due to excess capacity. That is, they are saying we'll literally have too much power for them to pay for themselves, which is literally laughable. There is no time in recorded history that human energy consumption has ever dropped -- ever -- and the new technologies we are developing consume electricity at an ever increasing rate.

You have somewhat of a point about waste, which is not nil -- but it would be vastly improved over today's situation, and I trust people like the French to come up with real-world solutions, as they have for many decades now.

#2: Cable TV is broadcast on it's schedule and that's it. Miss a show/forget to DVR it? Too bad, so sad - better hope they decide to re-air it at a later date and time. Streaming let's you pick anything from the library to watch whenever and wherever you want it.

Streaming has been integrated with cable for a long time. First it was called "on-demand" and today that is available on virtually every cable service at almost all price tiers. However it's even been expanded such that a huge number of television networks (both broadcast and cable-only) have their own streaming services that are available at no extra cost to cable subscribers (and are often ONLY available to cable subscribers, not sold direct, which is why they don't get any press like these standalone services). That includes not just the existing on-demand stuff, but also location-agnostic streaming through their apps on mobile devices, and via boxes like Roku and FireTV and all that. NBCUniversal just announced they are also launching a streaming service, and said it will also be no extra charge to cable subscribers (or you can pay $12/mo for it alone, which I think is an absurd price).

So no, by and large you are not beholden to a broadcast schedule.

To be honest, I think it's this sort of integration that may even save cable. Why pay 18 different streaming services a separate monthly fee, when you can pay one cable bill and still get access to most (admittedly not all) of those? And with the prices of the streaming services going the way they are, together they're going to end up costing as much as, if not more than, that "f'ing expensive" cable bill anyway.

So... Has any other phone maker complained about the payment to Qualcomm to the point of withholding payment?

No, for that they are are too afraid. But Samsung, Google, & others formally back Apple in legal dispute with Qualcomm

Cough.

BEIJING — Electric car producer Tesla will build its first factory outside the United States in Shanghai, becoming the first wholly foreign-owned automaker in China.

Seriously, google it.

As for your PDF:

Chapter III Fuel Vehicle Vehicle Investment Project
Article 11
It is forbidden to construct the following fuel vehicle investment projects (not sold in China) Except for investment projects for sale of products):
(1) Newly built independent fuel vehicle enterprises;
(2) Existing automobile enterprises build fuel vehicle production in the category of passenger cars and commercial vehicles ability;
(3) The existing fuel automobile enterprises are relocated to other provinces as a whole (included in the national level) Development planning or projects that do not change the ownership structure of the company);
(4) Investing in fuel automobile enterprises that are specifically publicized by the industry management departments (enterprise) Except for investment projects in which the original shareholder invests or converts the enterprise into a non-independent legal entity)

Existing ICE automakers are pushing back against the rules, calling them impossible to meet.

China has made it clear what it expects its future to be, and it's electric. Not "several decades from now", but "very soon".

Stop downplaying the dangers of laser technology. Any coherent radiation hitting they eye should be considered very dangerous. Even the cheap laser pointers have a yellow caution sticker on them!

Here is a story about lasers blinding concert goers in Russia.

corrected link: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-rave/ravers-lose-sight-at-laser-show-idUSL1452972520080716

Stop downplaying the dangers of laser technology. Any coherent radiation hitting they eye should be considered very dangerous. Even the cheap laser pointers have a yellow caution sticker on them!

Here is a story about lasers blinding concert goers in Russia.

corrected link: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-rave/ravers-lose-sight-at-laser-show-idUSL1452972520080716

Stop downplaying the dangers of laser technology. Any coherent radiation hitting they eye should be considered very dangerous. Even the cheap laser pointers have a yellow caution sticker on them!

Here is a story about lasers blinding concert goers in Russia.

I think this is the most useless product I have ever heard of

This is a product that could potentially impact or even disrupt a $532B international cosmetics market with an estimated five year CAGR of 7.14% a year by creating a product that could dramatically reduce the amount of makeup needed and dramatically improve the effectiveness of its application. Clearly useless. :P

> AI and big data have the potential to break that. There's still markers left over from the places you worked, how long, the types of apps you've worked on ,etc.
Couldn't anyone competent enough to do an interview figure that out, too? I'd think actual people going through resumes would be more prejudiced than an AI, and programming in a filter for age would be blatantly against the law.

Amazon actually had a similar problem. In their case, the "women's" keyword counted against candidates. I don't see this as an insurmountable issue; as AI improves, it should actually be able to filter for the better candidates, regardless of gender, age, race, etc., and it won't need to take shortcuts, like assuming everyone in a zip code isn't a good fit.

https://www.reuters.com/articl...

https://www.arabianbusiness.co...

https://www.albawaba.com/busin...

Qatar also has food subsidies, but they're decreasing them to spend the money getting ready for the World Cup in 2022. But they import 40% of their food from Saudi Arabia, so see above.

The US and EU have sucked in our dealing with Africa, mostly realizing that the area is too hospitable to colonize, they just left it alone. Not realizing there is a population of workers being under under utilized, and can be supported to be stronger economies, which in turn create more customers.

No, the US and EU has learned from experience that Africa is a hard place to do business for a lot of reasons (corruption, lack of infrastructure, political instability, etc.), which has made them cautious. The Chinese don't have experience with this, but they're quickly re-learning the colonial / imperial lessons that Western nations have learned. As the Chinese dump money into the continent, they're starting to learn that these projects aren't as simple or profitable. Raises the question of what happens when African nations start defaulting on Chinese loans? Will China be sucked into the same cycle of violence that Western nations are engaged in to try to protect or recoup their investments?