KorematsuFred

I will be able to tell you in a moment as I am installing it at the moment.

Brilliant summary. I would need a VPN mostly to visit some sites while spoofing my location, testing my competitions ux in other countries etc.

I can also see because of Mozilla's reputation employers offering these VPN free of cost to their employees.

These are precisely the areas where government has a role to play but more often than not, this is precisely where FTC, FCC and rest of the alphabet soup seems to fail.

If you government pays for it someone in Washington would. Ideally (and how it happens today to some extent) this much be determined by market.

PS: Note how many folks on HN are making fun of Gender Studies course. This is a great signal for any young kid not to enter that course.

The demand for subsidization of college education is coming from very woke academics who want more taxpayer money for their "woke programs".

College education in USA is ridiculously cheap if you are not looking at top colleges. Plenty of universities in silicon valley which can give you a wide array of useful degrees for very affordable price. Affordable = You can pay your student loans within 2 years of gainful employment post degree.

There are some very good arguments as to why government should not be paying for college education:

- Loosely speaking K-12 can be seen as a public good because of which it may make sense for the society to pay for other people's education. College education is not a public good in the same way because at any rate only few folks will go to college and it is immoral for the other people being forced to pay for college education of those kids. If college educated kids earn even more then it is even more immoral for poor people to pay for rich.

- Unlike K-12, college education involves specialization. A gender studies degree is worthless compared to say a nurse. But because education is free a lot of students might enroll in more and more worthless degrees. This will have great negative impact on productivity of US society. A lot of folks who do not have any productive skills, a lot of folks staying out of labour market in their crucial years. I will work at a local farm for a year rather than pursue some of the college degrees any days.

- When government pays for education it distorts the market. You can see it as a subsidy. But then it also means more and more worthless colleges which have more and more worthless degree programs that focus on "good life" for kids.

I always watch this video from time to time : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3-_r_t7AZU

Data residency gives a government willing to bully companies a lot of power. It's simply a lot harder to access information stored abroad and you have a lot less leverage.

You have no clue how much uncontrolled power Indian government has today. This law is brought in to benefit telecom companies and real estate companies. https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/hiranand...

I have been a party to some discussion around the laws with mid level government officials and this was a bit like an episode of Yes Minister.

One of the government consultants spoke about "Data sovereignty". When someone asked what it meant he spoke for like 10 minutes without actually answering the question. "Data of Indians must belong to Indians", "Data is the gold of modern world" he then referred to various international reports without actually telling what those reports say.

"We must protect our citizens data" one official said as others nodded in agreement. What they imagined here (I think) was data sitting on a hard drive and protected by people with guns creating a parameter around it.

The files of these regulations moved across many tables and many offices. I am told the real estate companies in India had a big role and influence on these regulations.

Yes, ultimately it is a ridiculous law that does not help anyone. It does not protect anything.

American telecom industry has done much better after US government ended government granted monopoly to bell labs. Plenty of literature on that topic actually. Same for aviation.

Whatever bad things you see with ATT and Comcast are actually a direct result of city granted monopolies which will likely be ended by Musk's Starlink sooner or later.

I think the should literally be nationalized and have their tax software platforms absorbed into the IRS.

This is an extremist view and basically advocating theft. I do not think IRS has competence to build and run a complex software system.

Their company activities over the last few decades are so flagrantly, indisputably bad for the country

That is debatable.

There's literally no upside, none at all. They have intentionally sabotaged tax filing and leeched off the people by corruptly inserting themselves as middlemen

They have not inserted themselves anywhere. You are free to use CPA or do all the paperwork yourself and save yourself $70 bucks.

I find this criticism somewhat weird. It is very common for companies or even individuals to promote and support policies that benefit themselves. Intuit is seeking self interest here. But why would IRS and our elected representatives cave in ? Are these people so clueless or unethical that they do not care about their constituents anymore ? And if that is the case I don't see how anyone can bell the intuit's cat.

I remember that John McAfee was a strong supporter of prostitution. In one of the Libertarian party debates he said he is the most qualified person to support this issue because he married a prostitute.

McAfee represented the old west styled "good outlaw" stereotype. Sadly, their times has passed away.

I have not worked as a janitor but I have done menial work far worse than mopping a floor for assured hourly rate.

Being poor sucks everywhere but it sucks less in USA.

My claim is not that being janitor is some kind of gold standard or aspiration in USA. My point is that even such a very low skilled job is good enough to help you survive. You will probably suffer a lot but yet it is way way better than being completely jobless on streets.

Janitor is also not a job for life, it is mostly a stepping stone for something bigger and a lot A LOT of americans do this every single year. Something you will rarely see outside of USA.

I made no such assumption. When I moved to USA from India I would have happily moved in as Janiter. Life in USA as a janiter is way way better than a middle class person in India.

That wouldn't even make sense if freedom of speech weren't a general concept.

Free speech as a general concept is irrelevant in the eyes of law unless you have some specific law governing the specific scenarios. (Employees being punished for how they voted in general election.)

Free speech could be a virtue but it is a virtue like "not lying". It is perfectly legal to lie in many circumstances.

You have to see this with two lenses. Free speech is always about freedom from government control. Your employer can put whatever restriction on your speech that they so desire even outside of your workplace. In that sense famous people do have less freedom. For example basketball players promoting Nike can't wear any other shoes publicly.

Second case is of government putting those restrictions on you. Can public school put such restrictions on students ? I do not know and I am not familiar with this case.

I am from India and I have lived in UK and USA. Personally I think it is pretty stupid to compare USA and UK. I would rather be a janitor in USA than an engineer in UK. This is not a criticism of UK or its people in any way but USA is far far better country than UK.

It is not just that salaries are higher but overall quality of life is significantly better. In USA I can drive in any random direction for 400 miles and crash at a Motel 6 without having to worry about reservations. I can eat at Denny's at any time of the day and fill up gas in towns like Austin, NV with population 29. There are giant theme parks within 100 miles of driving distance in any city. USA is dotted with national parks and various state parks, fishing spots, hiking trails, hunting grounds. Every American school is basically a mini Olympic stadium with some space for classrooms. Most people including people below poverty line own cars, which means their quality of life is way better. You can explore different and remote places, spend more time with family and friends over the weekends and show your kids lot more stuff each weekend that what a London resident can not do for similar amount of money.

Also, I can totally see why people in UK may not want to make those extra bucks putting in more hours because often, it is not allowed because of tighter regulations. Tough labor laws discourage businesses from hiring new people so if you quit your job it is harder for you to find a new job. So people would rather stick to a dead end job working uninspired. that quit for better opportunities.

It is also incredibly common for Americans to simply quit their jobs and take a long break to explore whatever hell they want to explore. I arely saw that in UK.

I think article conflate a lot of complex variables to come to conclusion that it wishes to draw.

It is not just dumb hard work that was regarded as American virtue. In fact Americans are quick to embrace technology to reduce workload, Americans rarely suffer from the luddite attitudes which are pretty common elsewhere in the world. As an immigrant, I think American virtues is about working hard for what you want rather than expecting someone else to do it for you. That notion of hard work is what American society values a lot even today. It is not just dumb work.

I come from India where people think Farmers are hard workers because they work in hot sun where as Tech workers are lazy because they spend all their time in AC offices. I do not see such attitudes in USA at all.

a recent study found that Americans work 25 percent more hours than Europeans

That also leads to significantly more per capita income for Americans and far better quality of life and not that this is voluntary. Unlike Europe where jobs are mostly "protected" by tighter labour laws, exiting a job is much harder and getting a new job is even harder. USA does not suffer from such problems. I know plenty of people who simply quit their jobs and spend their time doing nothing for few months before getting a new job. No study would put this as "vacation" but in reality has same effect as vacation.

that U.S. workers tend to take fewer vacation days and retire later in life

This is voluntary too.

simply working hard doesn’t actually lead to a better life.

This is purely arbitrary conclusion that does not follow automatically from studies that are at best anecdotally.

I’d argue quite strongly that working more hours, taking less vacation, and retiring later is the definition of a worse life.

May be but this is very very subjective decision and we can not make such conclusions on behalf of other people.

The 3900 number is mostly spread by a single researcher at Harvard who is quoted and self-quoted and cited by his own students somehow making his shoddy research some kind of "fact". Anyone trying to question this basically gets shunned from any conference this gentleman will be involved in and labelled as "revisionist".

It is incredible that Wikipedia too just quotes this single individual on hundreds of pages somehow giving him and his claims credibility. His claims have been refuted by many using plethora of evidence but his citation cartel will simply dismiss it by attacking the authors instead of their research.

Genetic claims play a role in that you can see in which direction certain genes flowed, and how old they are, and how they’re distributed.

I am not very familiar with Genetic theories to be honest and only work I have read on this topic is from Manu Joseph's not very scientific summary of research on this topic but it is barely conclusive in any direction.

There’s plenty of non-white scientists

That is besides the point, they will let in those who tow their lines and keep out those who disagree claiming them to be either "they haven't published anything in journals reviewed by us". Afterall british controlled India not through white soldiers but brown soliders handpicked from Indians.

It basically is a citation cartel to begin with very little concern for actual research or truth. Also this is not specific to Indology either. In this day and age it matters very little though as better quality research by such as likes of Talegari or Elst or Danino et al. stands on its own even after decades.

There are subtle differences in Rakshasa and Asura indeed but they are nearly interchangeable.

Out of India theory is not fringe at all in fact a pretty dominant theory in India which actually matters. It gained even more importance after the marxist scholars like Romila Thapar basically changed their stance from Aryan Invasion Theory to Aryan Migration Theory.

As I have said earlier the racial contours of USA/West in general have vested interest in polluting research in this field.

HN is not the forum for the flame war but not providing any evidence and attacking some researcher has "he is not approved by white people" is not a valid defense.

I am not entirely sure how genetic claims could even play role in dating rigveda.

Yes. I think not having a 'homeland' that pumps in money to spread the God's word like Joshua Project also helps a great deal. Many years ago I attended "Meeting of Elders" an amazing conference between Hindu monks and Native American Shamans. It was pretty cool to see who quickly they were comfortable with each other's traditions.

I do not want to start a flamewar but Indians should most certainly come out of the shoddy colonial scholarship and their control over Indology.

Horse,

Early British researchers claimed Harrapans (aroun 3500 BC) did not know horses and since Vedas rely so much on horses, clearly Vedas were much later inventions. This theory was repeated so many times that a lot of people assume this to be true. It gets quoted again and again. In reality this is as false as Trump's claim of re-election victory. The oldest domesticated horse bones in India were found in Rajasthan around 4500 BCE. However the white researchers have not bothered at all to revise any of their theories despite new evidence. There are over 15 different instances of domesticated horse bones ranging from 2500 BCE to 3000 BCE have been found. Please read Srikant Talegari's paper on the topic.

Linguistic evidence:

This is actually pretty lame evidence to begin with and can very easily be repudiated. Early white christian researchers believed that Aryans invaded India killing native people (to justify why British rule of India) and they claimed these Aryans came from Russia 3000 BCE. How did they arrive at this conclusion ? Linguistics shows that all 12 branches of Indo-European languages were together sometime around 3000 BCE. It was not clear when, but the "south russia" claim is completely random and unsubstantiated. During these times Avesta, the holy book of Zorostrasians was the only non Hindu text that would talk about Vedic culture but it was orally transmitted and hence had not physical artifacts. Much much later, Mittani treaty was discovered in Syria which was around 1500 BCE old which clearly indentified itself as Indo-Iranian. So many western scholars took this as contemporary of Rigveda without analyzing both books in details.

Rigveda which has 10 books is generally classified as core and non-core. It is unanimous opinion that core is much older than non-core. It turns out Mittani shares a lot of words and linguistic traits with the non-core where as nearly none with the old core. Mittani's own languages is a "residue" of old vedic languages which they picked up centuries earlier. Hence some of the researchers think that Rigveda predates Mittani by significant amount of time.

Note: I am not emotionally involved in any of the dates, other that pure academic curiosity I think it is irrelevant if it s 3900 years old or 5000 years old. The only point I am trying to make is that Rigveda dating is not a "settled" matter as some claim and we will see more interesting research in future.

Reas Srikant's paper here: https://www.amazon.com/Rigveda-Historical-Analysis-Shrikant-...

The most ancient book of India is Rigveda. The first of Vedas. Exact timing is up for debate but could be easily 5000+ years old. I think in one of the early chapters the book describes a war, a war of 10 kings it is called. Leaving the mystical elements aside this war would shape future of India and Persia going forward. The historians I know believe that this war is not pure fiction but rooted in truth. In this war 9 Persian tribes unite to finally destroy the one king on India's western border (modern day Pakistan). All those tribes are named and it turns out all except 2 still exist in modern day Iran. The defeat of Indian king is certain except that Persians make a terrible mistake, they try to cross a shallow river to pursue Indian king and a sudden cloudburst in mountains wipes off majority of the army. Persians see this as Gods favouring Sudas, the Indian King, Indian King Sudas believes this to be the doing of his God Indra.

Defeated Persians walk back. It is a long journey and by the time they reach home their numbers are low and moral is broken, one of those tribes would split further to become the modern day Zoroastrianism. World's first monotheistic religion.

Technically, Zoroastrianism is at direct conflict with Hinduism and yet both religions have thrived side by side in India and average Hindu has very positive opinion of Parasi people (Zoroastrianism). Examine the language of both religions. In Sanskrit Asura means evil people (demon), in Persian Asura becomes Ahura which means Lord.

I have always felt that Parasi and Hindu communities are exceptional example of how religious groups with opposite viewpoints can live next to each other and peacefully.

You might like this as well:

https://www.humanprogress.org/how-the-cost-of-light-has-fall...

I think electric aircraft need another doubling or two in specific energy to become feasible, so another few decades

We have plenty of fossil fuel so if most of the world stops burning gas we can run aircrafts on fossil fuels for centuries. Even emissions wont be a problem as cheaper energy on ground can be used to capture green house gases and store them someplace.

I think electric aircraft need another doubling or two in specific energy to become feasible

My trucker friends loved the electric semi trucks but what they were upset about was the charging time. Every hour the truck is idle you are basically losing money, losing rhythm of driving and so on. I think with aircrafts it is going to be an even bigger issue.

Does anyone know what stops us from building tech where batteries are rapidly switched ?

Is there a huge compliance cost for something like providing schematics for your devices?

Yes. How much cost do you think a large company incurs to make few documents publicly available.

Note that it is not just a document you share, you are putting your entire company's reputation into that doc, every cut corner and opening yourself to potential lawsuites as well.

It's not that complicated or costly to enforce.

Two points.

- What is your evidence that it is not complicated or costly ? Remember that lost profits because of repairs is a perfectly valid cost to be considered here. - Someone builds a device, it is their device and they are selling it to you with full advertisement that certain parts can not be repaired. How moral is it to impose additional restriction on such an entity through government coercion ? Seems immoral thing to me. Today it is about repair, tomorrow it will be something else.