New York City just recently downgraded their city-wide speed limit from 30 MPH to 25 MPH to decrease pedestrian fatalities and accidents. This is enforced on various major roads where drivers could easily go faster than 25 MPH by newly installed speed cameras.
Thanks for providing the links. I'm not sure what fraud you think they describe, however. In a close election, officials noticed that there were some missing ballots for which records indicate they should exist but they were not counted. During the manual recount, these ballots were checked for validity and added to the totals. That's how recounts work. Of course politicians and campaign workers on both sides claimed that these ballots either should or should not be counted, depending on whether it was likely to benefit their side. Lawsuits were filed and it went to the Supreme Court, which decided that the ballot should be counted.
That's an example of the system working, of a close election going into a manual recount and extra precautions being taken to ensure that every valid vote was counted.
FWIW the wikipedia article for Pickup Truck cites that "by the 1990s, less than 15% of owners reported use in work as the pickup truck's primary purpose" (Mueller, Mike. The American Pickup Truck. p. 9)
I use the words "were certainly" because I'm familiar with Rossmann Group's work, having been a customer in the past. If you're taking the pack casings and gas gauge from an old battery to assemble a new battery with brand new cells, then that's at minimum a refurbished battery. I'd personally still treat it like a new part as you've replaced all the consumable cells and the gas gauge circuitry doesn't wear down or suffer from use. That's certainly not an old battery anymore. It's equivalent to the result you'd get if you were a battery factory making brand new batteries out of charging circuitry and the exact same brand new cells.
In Apple repair world, there's absolutely no such thing as legitimate new-old-stock replacement parts. Any parts manufactured by Apple that anyone is trying to sell you are either used, refurbished, or outright stolen.
What the heck are you talking about? You can buy a refurbished Mac from Apple, that's about it. You cannot buy parts for any product from Apple. This is Apple's refurbished page. Note that they only sell refurbished computers, not refurbished parts. On a completely different tack, a product does not need to be refurbished by the OEM to be justifiably considered refurbished. As someone actually familiar with his work, I'm going to assert that Rossmann is absolutely NOT selling "third party, Apple-branded" parts. There are some sellers who do sell these parts and serious repair shops know to avoid these channels like the plague, as you'll be getting the absolute lowest quality parts which probably means your repair won't hold. Considering Rossmann and other reputable shops have to offer warranties, they definitely don't want to do be doing work that doesn't hold.
Where are you getting this mistaken information? Do you have any experience with MacBook parts? Check out this video of an Apple battery teardown and note the packs of generic cells inside. You can even compare it to an aftermarket, non-recycled battery and see the exact same internal configuration.
Years ago I was a certified technician at an AASP (Apple Authorized Service Provider). I don't work as a tech anymore, but I still do everything from battery replacements to logic board repairs for friends and family. Since just about every one of my friends has had a unibody MacBook Pro that needed a battery at some point, I did a fair amount of research on ideal replacement parts. Everything I've commented in this thread has come from my personal experience.
There's absolutely a mechanically simple way to refurbish a laptop battery. The technique is not unlike the procedure documented in this how-to. Battery cells are fairly generic electro-chemical parts that are standardized widely across many industries. There's anecdotes about early Tesla cars being built with battery packs made out of many laptop cells wired in series. Apple absolutely refurbishes their own batteries for use in authorized repair shop and depots. The charging and monitoring circuitry (known as a "gas gauge") is a valuable component that can be repurposed in a replacement battery.
As an aside, there's no law that says only OEMs are authorized to produce "refurbished" components. Aftermarket part vendors also will never claim that their parts, refurbished or otherwise, are OEM. Anyone who's come within 10 miles of the Apple supply chain is fully aware that there's no such thing as 3rd-party available OEM parts, and claiming such is a great way to get your shipments confiscated. In my experience ordering components like this (admittedly not in bulk), the customs declarations almost always specify something like "replacement battery for laptop" or "smartphone spare parts."
Do some research. Refurbished products are more expensive than newly manufactured products and they are of substantially higher quality. The factory new components are rarely if ever up to original spec. There's been numerous documented cases of new aftermarket iPhone screens no longer working after the phone software was updated because the circuitry or firmware wasn't properly implemented.
These batteries were most likely recycled and had the cells replaced. There aren't any good quality "factory new" replacement parts for some of the more recent Apple laptops, as everything since the ancient 13" Unibody MacBook Pro design all has exotic battery designs that get glued in. It's been my experience in hobby repair (I used to be an AASP technician but that was a long time ago) that refurb components are always better than new components. A refurb screen is simply a cracked screen that had the glass replaced. A totally new screen is always made to be cheaper than the refurb, and there are often problems with color accuracy or touch sensitivity because they're never made completely up to spec.
I've personally been a customer of Rossmann Group and that's not what they claim at all. If you ask, they're honest that consumable items like batteries are going to be refurbished and other components like ICs and cables come from recycled boards.
Apple requested enforcement because they want 100% control over the repair market. Apple is a control freak. I own a software company that makes software to configure iPhones for business use. Apple does not make software that offers even 15% of the features that ours does, yet they are constantly threatening legal action against us and our customers because of the "not invented here" mentality that their leadership takes.
I guarantee you that the seller of the batteries in China did not market or claim that these batteries were original equipment. The only way to get original equipment from Apple as a third party seller is to have stolen them. These aftermarket parts companies also have tons of experience with customs giving them shit. They didn't used to have an issue selling refurbished parts, the enforcement has clearly become more aggressive. I don't think it's a coincidence that our crappy government in service of it's crappy trade war has been making noise about how China is violating our intellectual property rights. Unfortunately, this is an instance of legitimate business being crimped by bad actors
Reputable repair shops will be upfront about what kind of parts are going into a repair. I've personally been a customer of Rossmann Group and they were honest that replacement batteries are going to be refurbished and many components like ICs and cables will come from recycled machines. The phone kiosk in the mall, however, may be inappropriately claiming that the refurb screen going into your phone is "new." Or worse, they may be actually using a completely new screen. These are actual knockoff parts and they are much much lower quality than an original display that simply had its cracked glass replaced.
When it comes to batteries, the most likely case is that these were refurbished units. The consumed cells were replaced with new cells and the power management circuitry was reset so the cycle count reads zero. Many repair shops will use the term "new" to describe these refurb batteries because it's as close to new as you can get while still matching Apple's specs and not having been stolen from Apple.
Believe it or not, a refurb part like this is actually always much higher quality than a true newly manufactured aftermarket part. That's because anyone trying to build new parts is always cutting corners and they won't match the original specs exactly. There was a notable incident earlier this year where people who had their iPhone displays replaced by cheaper parts lost the ability to use their phone after a software update. The microprocessor firmware in the screen wasn't fully compatible with the updated iOS version.
Rossmann is an extremely sarcastic person. These batteries were certainly refurbished using components that were at one point removed from recycled laptops. The best type of aftermarket parts you can get are actually the refurb components assembled in this fashion. The battery shell and power management circuitry were built by Apple. When the parts are recycled, the battery cells are replaced and the cycle count is reset to zero. This is ideal because the electronics and the casing dimensions are still Apple spec and you don't have to worry about incompatibility or a poor mechanical fit.
This is also true for phone displays. When a display breaks, generally the LCD is perfectly fine even when the glass is shattered. With the proper tools and techniques, it's not difficult to remove shattered glass and adhere on a new pane of glass. Then the display can be sold as refurbished and you know that the software and electronics in the part will work exactly as intended. This is as opposed to displays that are built from completely new parts. In my experience, it is these displays which have issues with color accuracy and touch detection because they really are cheap knockoffs. Interestingly, in some countries there's a high demand for cheaper replacement parts than there is for the more expensive refurb parts, even if the cheaper parts don't work as well.
Louis calls his batteries new because they were as close to new as you can get while still getting a part that matches Apple's specs. The only Apple-original, un-remanufactured parts that you could buy from anywhere would have to be stolen. I know for a fact (I've been a customer of Rossmann Group) that if a customer asks what kind of parts are going into their device, Louis is honest that they are either refurbished (batteries, screens) or taken from recycled machines of the same type (microprocessors, cables, etc). There's a big push in the US culturally and legally to ensure that our electronics are properly recycled, both because disposing of them completely is an environmental nightmare and also because of the intense resource consumption that goes into making them. The best way to "recycle" a battery is to replace the consumed electrolytic material and use it again. It's disgusting that companies would selfishly cause more waste like this by trying to ban refurbishment and repair.
Batteries like this are removed from recycled machines. The cells inside are replaced with new cells and the power management chip is zeroed so they start counting cycles again. In my experience, the aftermarket manufacturers don't intentionally put Apple logos on parts precisely because of the trademark infringement causing goods to be seized. On the other hand, they haven't really had to remove existing logos until now. It's only recently that CBP has started aggressively confiscating shipments of refurbed parts like this.
I know of another anecdote of an American based in China who operates an aftermarket parts business. He buys recycled phones and laptops in bulk from the US and has them shipped to China. There, his company strips the components and refurbs consumable parts. Then they ship the components back to his business the US. He's had multiple shipments seized, despite the fact that he's quite literally shipping parts that he owns to himself.
One thing that Rossmann's colleague Jess talks about is how when a shipment is seized, CBP keeps everything in it. Not just the items they claim to be contraband but everything in the shipment.
Warren Buffett's simple advice is to invest in index funds. Keeps the fees low and it's great for long-term. The best thing for the average person to do is go to a local financial management office and open an IRA.
Nearly 10 years ago, I suffered from a hard drive crash and I lost a ton of data. Ever since that issue, I’ve been religious about backups. I used Mac OS’s built-in backup software and I copied all my documents and work files to a flash drive daily. I instructed my family to grab the NAS drive on the way out of the house in the event of fire.
I subscribed to Crashplan cloud backup at some point. They went belly-up but I had already switched to Backlaze. It sounded like it would be a hassle to restore, my laptop had 250GB of files backed up and they would have to mail me a HDD to restore from it I ever needed to rebuild my system.
A couple weeks ago, I upgraded my laptop OS to a beta version. I needed to test some software for work and the beta seemed fairly stable. Big mistake, my machine became practically unusable. In a fit of frustration, I blew the OS away. I knew my backups were solid so I was confident in erasing the entire drive. After I reinstalled the OS, I signed into my iCloud and Dropbox accounts. Then I went into Backblaze to retrieve my backup. It was at this point I realized, I wasn’t missing anything that I needed my backups for.
All of my work files and personal documents were either in my iCloud synced Documents and Desktop folders, or they were in my Dropbox folder. My Photos were stored in iCloud. My music was stored in iTunes Match. The only “files”
I found to be missing were ephemeral things that had been in my Downloads folder. It was a nutty experience, realizing that I had all the data I cared about after a disk wipe, without touching my backups.
I’m still happy to pay for Backblaze cloud backups. Maybe I’ll accidentally delete something that I need to get back. It’s happened before. Or maybe my cloud account will get trashed. One of my close friends suffered a destructive hack of her iCloud account by an ex-boyfriend and lost all of her personal data. Nonetheless, it’s been a shock to realize that my personal data has been robustly (and theoretically safely) stored in such a way that I don’t need to care about backing up anymore. That’s the sales pitch, anyway. I feel pretty good about it, the sync process is extremely convenient. But I still maintain my backups:)
But the asylum seekers are not the ones being arrested.
Read the reporting, yes they are.
In violation of US immigration law, Customs & Border Patrol is refusing to accept asylum requests from people at ports of entry. Therefore, many people are trying to cross the border first and then request asylum when they are picked up (asylum seekers often seek out immigration officers so they can request asylum), which is also their right under US law. To close off this avenue of seeking asylum, the DoJ has decided to prosecute all illegal crossings as criminal cases as opposed to civil cases. The result of losing your case is the same, removal from the US. However charging all border crossers as criminals automatically makes them ineligible for asylum.
Finally, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has announced that immigration courts will no longer accept a lot of criteria that were previously considered valid for seeking asylum. For example, credible threats of domestic violence or abuse. It really seems like there is a culture of "we hate immigrants" that has been brewing in the government agencies that are charged with enforcing (and respecting) immigration law. It's not hard to look at ICE officers as inhumane when images or videos leak out of the child detention centers revealing some of them being insensitive or joking about crying children. It's also easy for me to view Jeff Sessions, Steven Miller and other architects of this policy as racist xenophobes because they seem to be willing to do almost anything to stop immigrants from coming into the country, legally or otherwise. In my view, there are much larger domestic problems to tackle than immigration, but these xenophobes really see even legal migration of non-white people as a scary thing that must be stopped.
Nil handling in ObjC was generally effortless, in my experience. A great rule of thumb: call method on nil means return nil & send nil argument to something causes crash. The ‘as!’ or ‘try!’ pattern is so ubiquitous now, the advantages of the strong typing system are often lost in real production projects. I just saw an Apple example project using a ‘try!’ statement to simply loading an image resource, with a comment justifying that the image resource will always exist. Sorry, but no. You can’t guarantee that any resource in the filesystem always exist. You traded away some error handling from your strong typing for a crash. That’s not better, but it was the damn example project.
Funny you mention this. I just was at WWDC (Apple’s annual developer conference) for the 6th year in a row and I suddenly noticed that a LOT of the devs I was meeting are from Ukraine.
The mentally ill shooters are a small blip in total gun crime compared to the criminals, both petty and organized, who are responsible for the majority of gun homicides. Considering the stipend is contingent on involvement of social workers and things like addition treatment, it should be pretty clear that this isn't a bribe but rather an effort to provide a pathway off the street for people who live dangerous and desperate lives. In some communities on the margins, it's not uncommon for male teenagers to grow up in an environment where it's practically inevitable that their first and only job will involve selling drugs. Fighting this dynamic solely with force of law obviously doesn't work, because the problem isn't really getting any better. If I remember correctly, homicides are about the same year over year and the only thing we're seeing more of now are reports of police abusing and overzealously persecuting minorities. Some politicians with big hearts are starting to propose social programs aimed at giving people who were raised in environments of crime and desperation a pathway out into a healthier place in society.
Slashdot Mirror
New York City just recently downgraded their city-wide speed limit from 30 MPH to 25 MPH to decrease pedestrian fatalities and accidents. This is enforced on various major roads where drivers could easily go faster than 25 MPH by newly installed speed cameras.
Thanks for providing the links. I'm not sure what fraud you think they describe, however. In a close election, officials noticed that there were some missing ballots for which records indicate they should exist but they were not counted. During the manual recount, these ballots were checked for validity and added to the totals. That's how recounts work. Of course politicians and campaign workers on both sides claimed that these ballots either should or should not be counted, depending on whether it was likely to benefit their side. Lawsuits were filed and it went to the Supreme Court, which decided that the ballot should be counted.
That's an example of the system working, of a close election going into a manual recount and extra precautions being taken to ensure that every valid vote was counted.
FWIW the wikipedia article for Pickup Truck cites that "by the 1990s, less than 15% of owners reported use in work as the pickup truck's primary purpose" (Mueller, Mike. The American Pickup Truck. p. 9)
That's an opinion that you linked to. A wrong one, in my opinion.
I use the words "were certainly" because I'm familiar with Rossmann Group's work, having been a customer in the past. If you're taking the pack casings and gas gauge from an old battery to assemble a new battery with brand new cells, then that's at minimum a refurbished battery. I'd personally still treat it like a new part as you've replaced all the consumable cells and the gas gauge circuitry doesn't wear down or suffer from use. That's certainly not an old battery anymore. It's equivalent to the result you'd get if you were a battery factory making brand new batteries out of charging circuitry and the exact same brand new cells.
In Apple repair world, there's absolutely no such thing as legitimate new-old-stock replacement parts. Any parts manufactured by Apple that anyone is trying to sell you are either used, refurbished, or outright stolen.
Apple's refurbished Mac website
What the heck are you talking about? You can buy a refurbished Mac from Apple, that's about it. You cannot buy parts for any product from Apple. This is Apple's refurbished page. Note that they only sell refurbished computers, not refurbished parts. On a completely different tack, a product does not need to be refurbished by the OEM to be justifiably considered refurbished. As someone actually familiar with his work, I'm going to assert that Rossmann is absolutely NOT selling "third party, Apple-branded" parts. There are some sellers who do sell these parts and serious repair shops know to avoid these channels like the plague, as you'll be getting the absolute lowest quality parts which probably means your repair won't hold. Considering Rossmann and other reputable shops have to offer warranties, they definitely don't want to do be doing work that doesn't hold.
Where are you getting this mistaken information? Do you have any experience with MacBook parts? Check out this video of an Apple battery teardown and note the packs of generic cells inside. You can even compare it to an aftermarket, non-recycled battery and see the exact same internal configuration.
Years ago I was a certified technician at an AASP (Apple Authorized Service Provider). I don't work as a tech anymore, but I still do everything from battery replacements to logic board repairs for friends and family. Since just about every one of my friends has had a unibody MacBook Pro that needed a battery at some point, I did a fair amount of research on ideal replacement parts. Everything I've commented in this thread has come from my personal experience.
There's absolutely a mechanically simple way to refurbish a laptop battery. The technique is not unlike the procedure documented in this how-to. Battery cells are fairly generic electro-chemical parts that are standardized widely across many industries. There's anecdotes about early Tesla cars being built with battery packs made out of many laptop cells wired in series. Apple absolutely refurbishes their own batteries for use in authorized repair shop and depots. The charging and monitoring circuitry (known as a "gas gauge") is a valuable component that can be repurposed in a replacement battery.
As an aside, there's no law that says only OEMs are authorized to produce "refurbished" components. Aftermarket part vendors also will never claim that their parts, refurbished or otherwise, are OEM. Anyone who's come within 10 miles of the Apple supply chain is fully aware that there's no such thing as 3rd-party available OEM parts, and claiming such is a great way to get your shipments confiscated. In my experience ordering components like this (admittedly not in bulk), the customs declarations almost always specify something like "replacement battery for laptop" or "smartphone spare parts."
Do some research. Refurbished products are more expensive than newly manufactured products and they are of substantially higher quality. The factory new components are rarely if ever up to original spec. There's been numerous documented cases of new aftermarket iPhone screens no longer working after the phone software was updated because the circuitry or firmware wasn't properly implemented.
These batteries were most likely recycled and had the cells replaced. There aren't any good quality "factory new" replacement parts for some of the more recent Apple laptops, as everything since the ancient 13" Unibody MacBook Pro design all has exotic battery designs that get glued in. It's been my experience in hobby repair (I used to be an AASP technician but that was a long time ago) that refurb components are always better than new components. A refurb screen is simply a cracked screen that had the glass replaced. A totally new screen is always made to be cheaper than the refurb, and there are often problems with color accuracy or touch sensitivity because they're never made completely up to spec.
I've personally been a customer of Rossmann Group and that's not what they claim at all. If you ask, they're honest that consumable items like batteries are going to be refurbished and other components like ICs and cables come from recycled boards.
When it comes to batteries, the most likely case is that these were refurbished units. The consumed cells were replaced with new cells and the power management circuitry was reset so the cycle count reads zero. Many repair shops will use the term "new" to describe these refurb batteries because it's as close to new as you can get while still matching Apple's specs and not having been stolen from Apple.
Believe it or not, a refurb part like this is actually always much higher quality than a true newly manufactured aftermarket part. That's because anyone trying to build new parts is always cutting corners and they won't match the original specs exactly. There was a notable incident earlier this year where people who had their iPhone displays replaced by cheaper parts lost the ability to use their phone after a software update. The microprocessor firmware in the screen wasn't fully compatible with the updated iOS version.
Rossmann is an extremely sarcastic person. These batteries were certainly refurbished using components that were at one point removed from recycled laptops. The best type of aftermarket parts you can get are actually the refurb components assembled in this fashion. The battery shell and power management circuitry were built by Apple. When the parts are recycled, the battery cells are replaced and the cycle count is reset to zero. This is ideal because the electronics and the casing dimensions are still Apple spec and you don't have to worry about incompatibility or a poor mechanical fit.
This is also true for phone displays. When a display breaks, generally the LCD is perfectly fine even when the glass is shattered. With the proper tools and techniques, it's not difficult to remove shattered glass and adhere on a new pane of glass. Then the display can be sold as refurbished and you know that the software and electronics in the part will work exactly as intended. This is as opposed to displays that are built from completely new parts. In my experience, it is these displays which have issues with color accuracy and touch detection because they really are cheap knockoffs. Interestingly, in some countries there's a high demand for cheaper replacement parts than there is for the more expensive refurb parts, even if the cheaper parts don't work as well.
Louis calls his batteries new because they were as close to new as you can get while still getting a part that matches Apple's specs. The only Apple-original, un-remanufactured parts that you could buy from anywhere would have to be stolen. I know for a fact (I've been a customer of Rossmann Group) that if a customer asks what kind of parts are going into their device, Louis is honest that they are either refurbished (batteries, screens) or taken from recycled machines of the same type (microprocessors, cables, etc). There's a big push in the US culturally and legally to ensure that our electronics are properly recycled, both because disposing of them completely is an environmental nightmare and also because of the intense resource consumption that goes into making them. The best way to "recycle" a battery is to replace the consumed electrolytic material and use it again. It's disgusting that companies would selfishly cause more waste like this by trying to ban refurbishment and repair.
Batteries like this are removed from recycled machines. The cells inside are replaced with new cells and the power management chip is zeroed so they start counting cycles again. In my experience, the aftermarket manufacturers don't intentionally put Apple logos on parts precisely because of the trademark infringement causing goods to be seized. On the other hand, they haven't really had to remove existing logos until now. It's only recently that CBP has started aggressively confiscating shipments of refurbed parts like this.
I know of another anecdote of an American based in China who operates an aftermarket parts business. He buys recycled phones and laptops in bulk from the US and has them shipped to China. There, his company strips the components and refurbs consumable parts. Then they ship the components back to his business the US. He's had multiple shipments seized, despite the fact that he's quite literally shipping parts that he owns to himself.
One thing that Rossmann's colleague Jess talks about is how when a shipment is seized, CBP keeps everything in it. Not just the items they claim to be contraband but everything in the shipment.
Warren Buffett's simple advice is to invest in index funds. Keeps the fees low and it's great for long-term. The best thing for the average person to do is go to a local financial management office and open an IRA.
Have you forgotten that nearly all of Tesla's energy is being poured into $30,000 EVs?
The guy you're replying to actually provided sources. Where are your citations, AC? How did this get upmodded?
Amen.
:)
Nearly 10 years ago, I suffered from a hard drive crash and I lost a ton of data. Ever since that issue, I’ve been religious about backups. I used Mac OS’s built-in backup software and I copied all my documents and work files to a flash drive daily. I instructed my family to grab the NAS drive on the way out of the house in the event of fire.
I subscribed to Crashplan cloud backup at some point. They went belly-up but I had already switched to Backlaze. It sounded like it would be a hassle to restore, my laptop had 250GB of files backed up and they would have to mail me a HDD to restore from it I ever needed to rebuild my system.
A couple weeks ago, I upgraded my laptop OS to a beta version. I needed to test some software for work and the beta seemed fairly stable. Big mistake, my machine became practically unusable. In a fit of frustration, I blew the OS away. I knew my backups were solid so I was confident in erasing the entire drive. After I reinstalled the OS, I signed into my iCloud and Dropbox accounts. Then I went into Backblaze to retrieve my backup. It was at this point I realized, I wasn’t missing anything that I needed my backups for.
All of my work files and personal documents were either in my iCloud synced Documents and Desktop folders, or they were in my Dropbox folder. My Photos were stored in iCloud. My music was stored in iTunes Match. The only “files” I found to be missing were ephemeral things that had been in my Downloads folder. It was a nutty experience, realizing that I had all the data I cared about after a disk wipe, without touching my backups.
I’m still happy to pay for Backblaze cloud backups. Maybe I’ll accidentally delete something that I need to get back. It’s happened before. Or maybe my cloud account will get trashed. One of my close friends suffered a destructive hack of her iCloud account by an ex-boyfriend and lost all of her personal data. Nonetheless, it’s been a shock to realize that my personal data has been robustly (and theoretically safely) stored in such a way that I don’t need to care about backing up anymore. That’s the sales pitch, anyway. I feel pretty good about it, the sync process is extremely convenient. But I still maintain my backups
I should've included a citation in my original reply. Here's one now: Watch the U.S. Turn Away Asylum Seekers at the Border
But the asylum seekers are not the ones being arrested.
Read the reporting, yes they are.
In violation of US immigration law, Customs & Border Patrol is refusing to accept asylum requests from people at ports of entry. Therefore, many people are trying to cross the border first and then request asylum when they are picked up (asylum seekers often seek out immigration officers so they can request asylum), which is also their right under US law. To close off this avenue of seeking asylum, the DoJ has decided to prosecute all illegal crossings as criminal cases as opposed to civil cases. The result of losing your case is the same, removal from the US. However charging all border crossers as criminals automatically makes them ineligible for asylum.
Finally, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has announced that immigration courts will no longer accept a lot of criteria that were previously considered valid for seeking asylum. For example, credible threats of domestic violence or abuse. It really seems like there is a culture of "we hate immigrants" that has been brewing in the government agencies that are charged with enforcing (and respecting) immigration law. It's not hard to look at ICE officers as inhumane when images or videos leak out of the child detention centers revealing some of them being insensitive or joking about crying children. It's also easy for me to view Jeff Sessions, Steven Miller and other architects of this policy as racist xenophobes because they seem to be willing to do almost anything to stop immigrants from coming into the country, legally or otherwise. In my view, there are much larger domestic problems to tackle than immigration, but these xenophobes really see even legal migration of non-white people as a scary thing that must be stopped.
Nil handling in ObjC was generally effortless, in my experience. A great rule of thumb: call method on nil means return nil & send nil argument to something causes crash. The ‘as!’ or ‘try!’ pattern is so ubiquitous now, the advantages of the strong typing system are often lost in real production projects. I just saw an Apple example project using a ‘try!’ statement to simply loading an image resource, with a comment justifying that the image resource will always exist. Sorry, but no. You can’t guarantee that any resource in the filesystem always exist. You traded away some error handling from your strong typing for a crash. That’s not better, but it was the damn example project.
Funny you mention this. I just was at WWDC (Apple’s annual developer conference) for the 6th year in a row and I suddenly noticed that a LOT of the devs I was meeting are from Ukraine.
The mentally ill shooters are a small blip in total gun crime compared to the criminals, both petty and organized, who are responsible for the majority of gun homicides. Considering the stipend is contingent on involvement of social workers and things like addition treatment, it should be pretty clear that this isn't a bribe but rather an effort to provide a pathway off the street for people who live dangerous and desperate lives. In some communities on the margins, it's not uncommon for male teenagers to grow up in an environment where it's practically inevitable that their first and only job will involve selling drugs. Fighting this dynamic solely with force of law obviously doesn't work, because the problem isn't really getting any better. If I remember correctly, homicides are about the same year over year and the only thing we're seeing more of now are reports of police abusing and overzealously persecuting minorities. Some politicians with big hearts are starting to propose social programs aimed at giving people who were raised in environments of crime and desperation a pathway out into a healthier place in society.