I'm pretty sure SF has the same medallion scam... if you mean that the taxi cartel kept the number of medallions artificially low to boost their value until they were worth >250K each
The GP referred to incoming calls from India, not outgoing. I have no reason for anyone to call me from overseas, or really even domestically. I'd bet that a very large percentage of the U.S. population has no need to receive calls from overseas. E-mail works just fine. When a company does call you, it's usually a dirty sales tactic to create a false "sense of urgency" in the hopes they can get you to make a quick decision that's profitable for them.
No, the problem is that it would be far too easy for these boiler room call centers to mask their location. Allowing phone users to opt out of receiving calls from certain countries (or to allow them to whitelist countries) might very well be a solution, but only if the country the call is originating from can be positively identified.
Yes, some people would still want to be able to receive international calls, but the set of potential targets for the scammers would be massively reduced. And, of course, scammers can be homegrown, too. But there's a reason they're overseas right now, a much lower chance of criminal prosecution.
If you're using a credit card for everything, you're likey going deeper and deeper into debt. If you haven't bothered to get a checking at savings account at your local credit union, your money management probably hasn't improved all that much since you were getting an allowance.
My "local credit union" had fees for just about everything you could imagine, pop-up ads in their online banking, etc. I haven't overdrawn my account in more than 10 years, but as an example, their overdraw fee is $25 per transaction. Of course, on the debit card you have to opt-in for this "service", but they push for it, hard. They're only slightly better than a bank like Chase or Bank of America. That is to say, they're way worse than your average online bank.
I use Fidelity (Fidelity Investments, there's apparently also a bank called Fidelity), which is in fact not a bank or a credit union. They don't charge for checks, ATM withdrawals, international wires, and they don't have the concept of a overdraft. They also don't charge me anything (not because I meet some minimum deposit requirement, there's just no fees on their accounts). I used to use Ally, but I decided the interest wasn't worth the hassle anymore, it's easier to only need to log in to one site. I keep any cash beyond my "rainy day fund" in investments. My net worth is leaps and bounds higher than it was when I used a debit card and a traditional checking account. I've done business with two credit unions and they both had terrible service and high fees. I've considered others, but usually their service was so awful that I got disgusted with them before I even finished the sign-up process.
I also make every purchase I can on credit cards. I've optimized for cash back, with a minimum of 2%. Any card I have is set up for automatic full balance payments each month, the only time I look at my checking account balance is when I copy it to a spreadsheet along with my credit card statement balances to calculate how much to transfer to investments that month. Aside from the revolving credit cards, which are paid in full each month, I have zero debt. I haven't had any since I paid off my car around five years ago.
I'll bet I have a better handle on my money than you do, and I do all of it without using a debit card or a credit union. I remember when I used to use a debit card and look at my checking account to figure out if I could afford something, I stopped when I had a $3,000 overdraft.
The crazy people are the ones who hand their debit card to a waiter, who takes a picture of the front and back and empties the account. Sure, you can try to dispute the charges, but meanwhile your rent check bounces.
I was disappointed when this was pointed out in the comments on Ars. I've been using Weather Underground for years and found it very useful, but I'd rather not have my every move sold to hedge funds. I disabled all location services and background app refresh for Weather Underground, and I've started training myself into using Dark Sky instead.
Only if your credit card is offered by a bank with physical branches. Off the top of my head, Ally Bank has no physical branches, does not accept cash deposits, and offers a credit card. There's plenty of other branded cards that work the same way, like Fidelity's credit card. (Fidelity has offices but doesn't accept cash)
The regulations for check cashing and accepting cash are completely and totally different. For all of these people who think that cash has to be accepted for "all debts", try paying for Netflix with cash. In fact, plenty of credit card companies won't accept cash to repay your credit card debt.
Actually, I didn't bother trying to find the studies, because I figured the more important point was that the governments of both countries seem to take the problem seriously enough to have carried out major public policy initiatives to fight corruption. The science matters less than what people do with it.
Studies have shown that corruption is a major impediment to economic growth. Both of these countries have experienced huge economic growth in the past 50 years, but they've realized that corruption is holding them back.
China is fighting corruption in their civil service. India tried demonetizing their two largest currency notes to fight "dark money".
What I'm saying is, it's not just Amazon trying to "inject" these western values. If your Indian counterpart wants to improve his living conditions he's going to have to do it honestly, or watch as one rich multinational after another pulls out of his country or implements police-state level controls to keep their employees in line.
Corruption hurts these countries in other ways too, it diverts money from legitimate businesses and discourages entrepreneurship.
Funny, I have great credit but I still opted for T-Mobile instead of a contract. Mostly because Verizon tried to tell me with a straight face that they could raise my bill by unlimited amounts and I had no right to cancel with paying the ETF. So, they lost my business permanently over $75.
Most of the rest of the world never had phone service contracts anyway, why would you want one? I haven't the faintest clue why you would want landline phone service either. I'm 30 years old and I've never had it.
As for the policy itself, there's only two questions: 1) Does the government have a legitimate interest in trying to reduce the number of immigrants who receive government benefits? 2) Can a credit report be used as a valid predictor of whether an immigrant will claim benefits?
I'm pretty sure the answer to #1 is yes, though whether we actually do it probably depends on who is in the White House. As for #2, the credit history of someone here on a visa would probably be pretty short. I suppose if they've started taking out "pay day" loans or vehicle title loans that's probably a bad sign. There's probably enough data by now to see if there's a strong correlation.
The summary is pretty clearly pushing a viewpoint based on false logic. Immigration in the U.S. isn't just a character judgement and I don't see any evidence that DHS is looking to use credit data to judge character.
P.S. Before anyone decides to call me a neocon windbag, I don't like my U.S. Congresswoman (Nancy Pelosi) because I think she's too conservative. As far as I'm concerned we should have border checks between California and the rest of the country so that CA can set its own immigration policies separate from the rest of the U.S. And if you could keep that orange thing that's somehow in charge of the Federal Government out of our state we'd appreciate it.
It's on the ballot in California, and given that the election's tomorrow, the time change should still be fresh in everyone's mind.
Caveat 1: The ballot measure (Prop 7) doesn't actually abolish DST, it allows the legislature to do it. The legislature can't do it now because DST was introduced in California by a ballot measure in 1949. Since it's up to the legislature, we might end up permanent DST, no DST, or no change at all. The proposition is worded to give the impression that we'll end up with permanent DST.
Caveat 2: California allows vote-by-mail, ballot were sent out about a month ago. Most votes are still done in person on election day I believe.
Even a takeout place still has a storefront, typically in an area with foot traffic. In a big city a space like that is a lot more expensive than a room on the third floor of a nondescript office building. All it needs is water, power, and ventilation.
I think the PIN/password is used to access the master key, which is kept in the Secure Element in the CPU silicon. The master key has far more possible values than the PIN - probably 256-bit. The Secure Element is presumably designed to make it impossible to directly extract the master key.
So, when iOS wants to decrypt the hard drive it first has to retrieve the master key using the PIN.
I read the whole code of conduct page (how else do you think I quoted it?). But I was unaware of SQLite's unique structure. If they don't accept contributions then I'm not sure why they would need a code of conduct.
As for why a for-profit corporation shouldn't start promoting religious dogma, the reason is that anyone who doesn't agree with their particular religious branch won't buy their product. I'm atheist, so I try to avoid giving any of my money to any organization that promotes any religion.
Don't be so sure I wouldn't have been one of their customers, I'm the lead architect at a company that uses open source software extensively (in fact I don't allow closed source software unless it's part of the AWS stack). We don't use SQLite.
This isn't just a matter of the religious views of the maintainers. SQLite is controlled by a corporation, and that corporation requires adherence to a religious code in order to contribute patches to what is (in theory) an open source project. It's also used by numerous other projects which probably contribute patches when they need an issue fixed or a new feature. Similar to adopting a non-OSI license, the religious requirements create a barrier that makes it unlikely that outside contributions to the project will be accepted. One or more of those downstream projects will probably be forced to fork SQLite, hopefully they all coalesce around one fork instead of each maintaining their own.
So no, I don't care what the maintainers believe in their own little heads, but if they require contributors to hold those same beliefs, it's going to cause problems.
I'd also predict this will put a damper on their revenue. It's all around a bad idea for a for-profit corporation to start proselytizing, if I was their customer (or my company was) I'd certainly drop the contract at the next opportunity.
It's got several references to "God" and "Christ", so if you're not a Christian you'll probably find that you can't in good conscience follow the Code of Conduct (or falsely claim to be following) and thus find yourself unable to contribute to the project.
Examples: 1. First of all, love the Lord God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole strength. 10. Deny oneself in order to follow Christ. 21. Prefer nothing more than the love of Christ. 41. Put your hope in God. 42. Attribute to God, and not to self, whatever good you see in yourself. 44. Fear the Day of Judgment. 45. Be in dread of hell. 62. Fulfill God's commandments daily in your deeds.
There's more. I'm not a Christian, so to me this all reads like something written by religious extremists, and really doesn't seem appropriate for a 21st century company (there is a company behind SQLite) or open source project. Someone should probably fork SQLite to get it away from the religious crazy, as it won't be long before people start objecting to its use in other projects on those grounds.
Make sure "Call with Side Button" is on (that's the default) and turn off Auto-Call.
On any iPhone with Face ID, pressing the side button 5 times will now activate Emergency SOS mode, which immediately disables Face ID. There's a similar mode on Touch ID devices.
So, any time you're going through TSA, a border crossing, or see a cop heading towards you, press the side button 5 times. The phone will vibrate twice to indicate it's working. You don't even need to take it out of your pocket.
I'm sure Android has something similar, but the process would be device/skin-specific.
Block requests to port 53 outgoing and run your own DNS recursive resolver that will only resolve domains on your whitelist. If your users can get around that then they can probably get around your MITM box, too. My way around a similar MITM was to tunnel SSH over the HTTP proxy.
Bonus: It takes a lot less hardware to run a DNS resolver than a MITM proxy.
I live in San Francisco, I make a decent salary. $15/hr isn't enough to survive in the Bay Area. Every time you walk into a store you're reminded that the people making your coffee, serving your food, stocking the shelves, running the cash register, etc. are paid a pittance. They can probably barely afford wherever they live, and they have a very long commute. There's no social mobility, they'll likely have that kind of job for the rest of their lives. If they don't feel like going in to work one day, they'll probably be fired. If BART goes on strike and they can't get to work, they won't be paid for that day.
It feels like having slaves, and it feels wrong. Are the people who would have been otherwise employed as cashiers better off unemployed? Probably not, but I'll be going to that store tomorrow. If a high minimum wage will cause more automation, then I say we double it.
I've been continuously employed as a Software Engineer since two weeks before my 19th birthday (I'm 30 now). That entire time I've lived alone and taken care of myself. I've paid my bills, moved several times, etc. I certainly didn't need any protection. At the age of 23 I managed my own move across the country to the Bay Area.
Your rule would have prevented me from driving to work. At the time I lived in the Rochester, NY area. I got a cheap-ish apartment in Brighton. Today, that would be 63 minutes by bus (including a transfer) or 15 minutes by car for the commute. To get to the grocery store would be 8 minutes by car or 30 minutes by bus (including a transfer).
Nobody has an hour-long commute in Rochester, it's 20 minutes to anywhere in the area. It's 90 minutes to get to another country. Banning under-25s from driving is banning them from living.
This doesn't even sound like the guy was having "fun", it sounds like he was trying to kill himself. I should have put my life on hold FOR SIX YEARS because of a 1 out of a million case?
In my opinion, that's actually one of the best features of the Parliamentary system. The PM is in fact powerful, and the Government is in a much better position to carry out its manifesto. On the other hand, if the Government loses support in the lower house, it can be removed (and the PM along with it).
In the U.S. it's way too easy for even a single senator to block legislation. Add to that, usually at least one house is controlled by the other party, and you can see why the U.S. government ends up being slow to the point of simply being unresponsive.
Most of those "adaptations" failed quickly (often violently, "President" turns into dictator fast - see Turkey, and Russia). In fact the presidential system has been called "America's most dangerous export". It's a terrible system, and it's sheer crazy luck that it survived in the United States.
The U.S. system is actually just a really dumb adaptation of the Westminster System. The biggest problem in 1776 was poor allocation of seats in Parliament. Various areas had little or no representation, while other areas were overrepresented (rotten boroughs). Fixing that is of course very difficult, as reform threatens the entrenched powers. The UK passed the Great Reform Act in 1832.
Ironically, the UK ended up with a better system. There's too many reasons to list here, but it's enough to say this was recognized even by the U.S. When we went to write the Japanese constitution, we modeled it on the British system. Parliamentary systems have proven far more resilient and democratic than presidential systems. Even if someone as nutty as Trump had somehow managed to get enough votes in Parliament to become PM in the first place, his government would have lost a confidence vote and been replaced long ago.
(Oh, and separation of powers isn't really the greatest invention either, the British system is based on fusion of powers and it works fine)
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I'm pretty sure SF has the same medallion scam... if you mean that the taxi cartel kept the number of medallions artificially low to boost their value until they were worth >250K each
The GP referred to incoming calls from India, not outgoing. I have no reason for anyone to call me from overseas, or really even domestically. I'd bet that a very large percentage of the U.S. population has no need to receive calls from overseas. E-mail works just fine. When a company does call you, it's usually a dirty sales tactic to create a false "sense of urgency" in the hopes they can get you to make a quick decision that's profitable for them.
No, the problem is that it would be far too easy for these boiler room call centers to mask their location. Allowing phone users to opt out of receiving calls from certain countries (or to allow them to whitelist countries) might very well be a solution, but only if the country the call is originating from can be positively identified.
Yes, some people would still want to be able to receive international calls, but the set of potential targets for the scammers would be massively reduced. And, of course, scammers can be homegrown, too. But there's a reason they're overseas right now, a much lower chance of criminal prosecution.
If you're using a credit card for everything, you're likey going deeper and deeper into debt. If you haven't bothered to get a checking at savings account at your local credit union, your money management probably hasn't improved all that much since you were getting an allowance.
My "local credit union" had fees for just about everything you could imagine, pop-up ads in their online banking, etc. I haven't overdrawn my account in more than 10 years, but as an example, their overdraw fee is $25 per transaction. Of course, on the debit card you have to opt-in for this "service", but they push for it, hard. They're only slightly better than a bank like Chase or Bank of America. That is to say, they're way worse than your average online bank.
I use Fidelity (Fidelity Investments, there's apparently also a bank called Fidelity), which is in fact not a bank or a credit union. They don't charge for checks, ATM withdrawals, international wires, and they don't have the concept of a overdraft. They also don't charge me anything (not because I meet some minimum deposit requirement, there's just no fees on their accounts). I used to use Ally, but I decided the interest wasn't worth the hassle anymore, it's easier to only need to log in to one site. I keep any cash beyond my "rainy day fund" in investments. My net worth is leaps and bounds higher than it was when I used a debit card and a traditional checking account. I've done business with two credit unions and they both had terrible service and high fees. I've considered others, but usually their service was so awful that I got disgusted with them before I even finished the sign-up process.
I also make every purchase I can on credit cards. I've optimized for cash back, with a minimum of 2%. Any card I have is set up for automatic full balance payments each month, the only time I look at my checking account balance is when I copy it to a spreadsheet along with my credit card statement balances to calculate how much to transfer to investments that month. Aside from the revolving credit cards, which are paid in full each month, I have zero debt. I haven't had any since I paid off my car around five years ago.
I'll bet I have a better handle on my money than you do, and I do all of it without using a debit card or a credit union. I remember when I used to use a debit card and look at my checking account to figure out if I could afford something, I stopped when I had a $3,000 overdraft.
The crazy people are the ones who hand their debit card to a waiter, who takes a picture of the front and back and empties the account. Sure, you can try to dispute the charges, but meanwhile your rent check bounces.
Oh, and I never got an allowance.
TSA isn't law enforcement?
I was disappointed when this was pointed out in the comments on Ars. I've been using Weather Underground for years and found it very useful, but I'd rather not have my every move sold to hedge funds. I disabled all location services and background app refresh for Weather Underground, and I've started training myself into using Dark Sky instead.
Only if your credit card is offered by a bank with physical branches. Off the top of my head, Ally Bank has no physical branches, does not accept cash deposits, and offers a credit card. There's plenty of other branded cards that work the same way, like Fidelity's credit card. (Fidelity has offices but doesn't accept cash)
The regulations for check cashing and accepting cash are completely and totally different. For all of these people who think that cash has to be accepted for "all debts", try paying for Netflix with cash. In fact, plenty of credit card companies won't accept cash to repay your credit card debt.
Actually, I didn't bother trying to find the studies, because I figured the more important point was that the governments of both countries seem to take the problem seriously enough to have carried out major public policy initiatives to fight corruption. The science matters less than what people do with it.
Studies have shown that corruption is a major impediment to economic growth. Both of these countries have experienced huge economic growth in the past 50 years, but they've realized that corruption is holding them back.
China is fighting corruption in their civil service. India tried demonetizing their two largest currency notes to fight "dark money".
What I'm saying is, it's not just Amazon trying to "inject" these western values. If your Indian counterpart wants to improve his living conditions he's going to have to do it honestly, or watch as one rich multinational after another pulls out of his country or implements police-state level controls to keep their employees in line.
Corruption hurts these countries in other ways too, it diverts money from legitimate businesses and discourages entrepreneurship.
Funny, I have great credit but I still opted for T-Mobile instead of a contract. Mostly because Verizon tried to tell me with a straight face that they could raise my bill by unlimited amounts and I had no right to cancel with paying the ETF. So, they lost my business permanently over $75.
Most of the rest of the world never had phone service contracts anyway, why would you want one? I haven't the faintest clue why you would want landline phone service either. I'm 30 years old and I've never had it.
As for the policy itself, there's only two questions:
1) Does the government have a legitimate interest in trying to reduce the number of immigrants who receive government benefits?
2) Can a credit report be used as a valid predictor of whether an immigrant will claim benefits?
I'm pretty sure the answer to #1 is yes, though whether we actually do it probably depends on who is in the White House. As for #2, the credit history of someone here on a visa would probably be pretty short. I suppose if they've started taking out "pay day" loans or vehicle title loans that's probably a bad sign. There's probably enough data by now to see if there's a strong correlation.
The summary is pretty clearly pushing a viewpoint based on false logic. Immigration in the U.S. isn't just a character judgement and I don't see any evidence that DHS is looking to use credit data to judge character.
P.S. Before anyone decides to call me a neocon windbag, I don't like my U.S. Congresswoman (Nancy Pelosi) because I think she's too conservative. As far as I'm concerned we should have border checks between California and the rest of the country so that CA can set its own immigration policies separate from the rest of the U.S. And if you could keep that orange thing that's somehow in charge of the Federal Government out of our state we'd appreciate it.
It's on the ballot in California, and given that the election's tomorrow, the time change should still be fresh in everyone's mind.
Caveat 1: The ballot measure (Prop 7) doesn't actually abolish DST, it allows the legislature to do it. The legislature can't do it now because DST was introduced in California by a ballot measure in 1949. Since it's up to the legislature, we might end up permanent DST, no DST, or no change at all. The proposition is worded to give the impression that we'll end up with permanent DST.
Caveat 2: California allows vote-by-mail, ballot were sent out about a month ago. Most votes are still done in person on election day I believe.
Even a takeout place still has a storefront, typically in an area with foot traffic. In a big city a space like that is a lot more expensive than a room on the third floor of a nondescript office building. All it needs is water, power, and ventilation.
I think the PIN/password is used to access the master key, which is kept in the Secure Element in the CPU silicon. The master key has far more possible values than the PIN - probably 256-bit. The Secure Element is presumably designed to make it impossible to directly extract the master key.
So, when iOS wants to decrypt the hard drive it first has to retrieve the master key using the PIN.
Let me revise my previous:
You can be as devoutly Christian as you want, but if you're going to use my money to try to spread your religion, I'd rather keep it in my pocket.
You can be as devoutly Christian as you want so long as you don't force it on others.
I read the whole code of conduct page (how else do you think I quoted it?). But I was unaware of SQLite's unique structure. If they don't accept contributions then I'm not sure why they would need a code of conduct.
As for why a for-profit corporation shouldn't start promoting religious dogma, the reason is that anyone who doesn't agree with their particular religious branch won't buy their product. I'm atheist, so I try to avoid giving any of my money to any organization that promotes any religion.
Don't be so sure I wouldn't have been one of their customers, I'm the lead architect at a company that uses open source software extensively (in fact I don't allow closed source software unless it's part of the AWS stack). We don't use SQLite.
This isn't just a matter of the religious views of the maintainers. SQLite is controlled by a corporation, and that corporation requires adherence to a religious code in order to contribute patches to what is (in theory) an open source project. It's also used by numerous other projects which probably contribute patches when they need an issue fixed or a new feature. Similar to adopting a non-OSI license, the religious requirements create a barrier that makes it unlikely that outside contributions to the project will be accepted. One or more of those downstream projects will probably be forced to fork SQLite, hopefully they all coalesce around one fork instead of each maintaining their own.
So no, I don't care what the maintainers believe in their own little heads, but if they require contributors to hold those same beliefs, it's going to cause problems.
I'd also predict this will put a damper on their revenue. It's all around a bad idea for a for-profit corporation to start proselytizing, if I was their customer (or my company was) I'd certainly drop the contract at the next opportunity.
It's got several references to "God" and "Christ", so if you're not a Christian you'll probably find that you can't in good conscience follow the Code of Conduct (or falsely claim to be following) and thus find yourself unable to contribute to the project.
Examples:
1. First of all, love the Lord God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole strength.
10. Deny oneself in order to follow Christ.
21. Prefer nothing more than the love of Christ.
41. Put your hope in God.
42. Attribute to God, and not to self, whatever good you see in yourself.
44. Fear the Day of Judgment.
45. Be in dread of hell.
62. Fulfill God's commandments daily in your deeds.
There's more. I'm not a Christian, so to me this all reads like something written by religious extremists, and really doesn't seem appropriate for a 21st century company (there is a company behind SQLite) or open source project. Someone should probably fork SQLite to get it away from the religious crazy, as it won't be long before people start objecting to its use in other projects on those grounds.
I'm amazed nobody has mentioned this yet.
- Go to Settings->Emergency SOS
Make sure "Call with Side Button" is on (that's the default) and turn off Auto-Call.
On any iPhone with Face ID, pressing the side button 5 times will now activate Emergency SOS mode, which immediately disables Face ID. There's a similar mode on Touch ID devices.
So, any time you're going through TSA, a border crossing, or see a cop heading towards you, press the side button 5 times. The phone will vibrate twice to indicate it's working. You don't even need to take it out of your pocket.
I'm sure Android has something similar, but the process would be device/skin-specific.
Block requests to port 53 outgoing and run your own DNS recursive resolver that will only resolve domains on your whitelist. If your users can get around that then they can probably get around your MITM box, too. My way around a similar MITM was to tunnel SSH over the HTTP proxy.
Bonus: It takes a lot less hardware to run a DNS resolver than a MITM proxy.
That is exactly what I'm saying. That, and avoiding long checkout lines is exactly why this business model will be successful in San Francisco.
I live in San Francisco, I make a decent salary. $15/hr isn't enough to survive in the Bay Area. Every time you walk into a store you're reminded that the people making your coffee, serving your food, stocking the shelves, running the cash register, etc. are paid a pittance. They can probably barely afford wherever they live, and they have a very long commute. There's no social mobility, they'll likely have that kind of job for the rest of their lives. If they don't feel like going in to work one day, they'll probably be fired. If BART goes on strike and they can't get to work, they won't be paid for that day.
It feels like having slaves, and it feels wrong. Are the people who would have been otherwise employed as cashiers better off unemployed? Probably not, but I'll be going to that store tomorrow. If a high minimum wage will cause more automation, then I say we double it.
I've been continuously employed as a Software Engineer since two weeks before my 19th birthday (I'm 30 now). That entire time I've lived alone and taken care of myself. I've paid my bills, moved several times, etc. I certainly didn't need any protection. At the age of 23 I managed my own move across the country to the Bay Area.
Your rule would have prevented me from driving to work. At the time I lived in the Rochester, NY area. I got a cheap-ish apartment in Brighton. Today, that would be 63 minutes by bus (including a transfer) or 15 minutes by car for the commute. To get to the grocery store would be 8 minutes by car or 30 minutes by bus (including a transfer).
Nobody has an hour-long commute in Rochester, it's 20 minutes to anywhere in the area. It's 90 minutes to get to another country. Banning under-25s from driving is banning them from living.
This doesn't even sound like the guy was having "fun", it sounds like he was trying to kill himself. I should have put my life on hold FOR SIX YEARS because of a 1 out of a million case?
In my opinion, that's actually one of the best features of the Parliamentary system. The PM is in fact powerful, and the Government is in a much better position to carry out its manifesto. On the other hand, if the Government loses support in the lower house, it can be removed (and the PM along with it).
In the U.S. it's way too easy for even a single senator to block legislation. Add to that, usually at least one house is controlled by the other party, and you can see why the U.S. government ends up being slow to the point of simply being unresponsive.
Most of those "adaptations" failed quickly (often violently, "President" turns into dictator fast - see Turkey, and Russia). In fact the presidential system has been called "America's most dangerous export". It's a terrible system, and it's sheer crazy luck that it survived in the United States.
The U.S. system is actually just a really dumb adaptation of the Westminster System. The biggest problem in 1776 was poor allocation of seats in Parliament. Various areas had little or no representation, while other areas were overrepresented (rotten boroughs). Fixing that is of course very difficult, as reform threatens the entrenched powers. The UK passed the Great Reform Act in 1832.
Ironically, the UK ended up with a better system. There's too many reasons to list here, but it's enough to say this was recognized even by the U.S. When we went to write the Japanese constitution, we modeled it on the British system. Parliamentary systems have proven far more resilient and democratic than presidential systems. Even if someone as nutty as Trump had somehow managed to get enough votes in Parliament to become PM in the first place, his government would have lost a confidence vote and been replaced long ago.
(Oh, and separation of powers isn't really the greatest invention either, the British system is based on fusion of powers and it works fine)