I will simply reinstall and forsake my files if it shits the bed catastrophically

So generally, in the PRC, the central government will put out a request or state a problem, and then provinces will attempt to implement a solution independently. If the central government likes the out come of one of the trialed system they might make it national policy.

That’s basically what social credit was. The central government gave a vague cryptic request for potential solutions about low trust in modern society, and a bunch of different provinces implemented various ideas, some via contract to private companies. Some provinces didn’t trial anything, some trialed systems that were basically just credit scores, some trialed a system of ranking “how good of a citizen you are” and gave gift cards and stuff to people who scored high.

Ultimately, the central government choose not to adopt any of them and the various trials were spun down. So, social credit was a lot of things, and thus multiple different ideas of what it was are correct, although a lot of reports on it mixed and matched different parts form different trials to make it sound as bad as possible, and some will just talk about one particularly benign system to make it seem like others are being hysterical. Ether way it wasn’t ever a nation wide thing and is largely defunct now.

There are way more people who can attempt a hack than can attempt to break in.

To an extent, institutional inertia. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Adopting new systems brings in a layer of uncertainty, sure maybe there is some upside to the new system, but does it outweigh the risk and cost of overhauling all the dependencies of the old system? Can you be sure that all the relevant stakeholders and partners will be onboard with the new system, or will some reject it and insist on the old system, thus requiring everyone to maintain two standards.

It’s much easier to adopt a new system when the old system is clearly non-functional and untrustworthy, or when there just wasn’t an earlier system that did that function in a given economic environment. The more important the institution, the more issue it causes if it fails, the more this applies.

I’ve tried a few of those, I always get a buzzing or it gets weirdly hot, one just blew out my headphones. So I don’t really trust them at this point.

The big problem for me is that there is only one port, so you can ether listen to something, or, charge the phone, not both. Just having two ports would solve this.

Also, not something I really care about but a lot of people do, the headphone jack is an analog output, where as the USB-C is a digital output, and you need an analog signal to run a speaker. So they need to have their own DACs (Digital-Analog converter), and many of the USB-C headphones have poor quality DACs that loose detail. Used to be the DAC was just in the phone, and was generally of good quality.

Then he would fail to accomplish anything meaningful, continue unpopular policies and while quibbling about the “feasibility” of popular policies. Then the republicans take back the house and senate in the next mid term, and he looses the next presidential election to another wacko facist.

Any candidate democrats put up in the next election will probably win, the question is what happens after that. Real reform and energetic leadership is needed and that’s just not what newsome brings to the table.

The US was the first place smartphones took off and in the first couple years iPhone was the smartphone, so the initial set of adopters got iPhones because android wasn’t really a consideration. Then the network effect, people got what their friends or family had. Also, since a lot of people get their phones payed for through their cellular carrier contract, they not super price sensitive since the cost was buried in a monthly bill.

So lots of people are used to IOS, and don’t see a reason to switch. Especially now with the one major differentiator, walled garden vs open platform, is disappearing with Google locking down their platform.

They rebranded “Economic rent” to make it trendy. Adam smith is creating a vortex in his grave.

most people are generally not ok with being tracked and surveilled. It’s only the fact that they aren’t aware of how wide spread a given system is that lets these things grow.

With computers, phones and the internet, the surveillance is not super visible, or the implications of it are not so visceral. People always have this idea that they can just choose not interact with it. So it’s much less prominent of a worry for most people.

But with a networked camera in a public space recording everything, able to easily map every trip someone makes by car (which is basically all trips in much of America). That sets off alarm bells. That’s an immediate “what the fuck? Who said you could do that?” From most people.

Flock was betting no one would notice, or that no one would care. They’re so chronically online, tech business brained, that they failed to understand that most people see a meaningful distinction between the internet and the real world. This was inevitable, and now it’s a huge boondoggle and their company is probably cooked long term.

Year day month is the only acceptable format.

I mean, I see it all the time in like, military history books. But like, not in casual conversation or company statements.

Yes, but an over confident person will take a while to do so.

The real trick is taking a cube, swapping the placement of some of the bits, then mixing it up and handing it to someone who’s confident in their ability to solve a cube.

And if the blue portal is at a different angle than the orange portal, then… well, how fast is the milky way traveling through the galaxy relative to the universe?

The cube does have a non zero speed, it just depends what frame of reference you are measuring it by.

The question is: Is it the velocity of the object relative to the portal that matters or the velocity of the object in some other frame of reference?

In the later case, we must ask how the portals at different angles don’t send objects flying off at the speed of the milkyway’s travel through the universe.

The answer that requires the least assumptions and justifications is B.

It really depends on the part of the US. Amtrak is very reliable in the north east. Lot of the commuter train services are quite good as well. Subways and metros are pretty good in most of the north east as well.

Amtrak is much more limited in its coverage on the west coast, but still ok from what I’ve heard. BART in the SF area has good ridership although it needs some more investment, LA is doing some big expansions right now as well.

Chicago has a good but a bit old transit system as well. The Amtrak from NYC/DC to Chicago is a long but pleasant ride, about 18 hours; but this is to be expected given that the distance is 1146 Km (714 miles) which is about the same as Brussels to Warsaw, and most of the routes for that appear to be about 18 hours as well.

I’ve heard some rumblings about projects in the Pacific Northwest, but it’s not really something to write home about as it stands. Needs more investment and not to have the projects price gouged by contractors.

Some mid sized cities and towns all over the country will have decent bus services, some even a light rail or two, but it’s a coin toss.

The South West, Mountain west, South East and Midwest (outside of Chicago and the twin citiest) absolutely atrocious, like, you are basically screwed if you don’t own a car. Like there are a few example of decent local transit systems in particularly big cities but their ridership and coverage are pathetic given the size of the cities and there aren’t any plans for serious expansions on the scale that needs to be happening. Regional rail is just… hope you like a 2 week train ride where you’re spending half the time waiting for 40 mile long trains full of gravel to pass.

Using solar energy directly is also always an option, a fresnel lens or convex mirror are great for heating things. You can even make things cold using an absorption cycle cooler (the kind of things used in “propane powered” camper fridges)

They’re offering a 5 seat SUV body as well. Not a minivan, but, closer.