HN user
Not an expert on the financial market, but this article may be worthwhile to consider, 'Actually, Most Americans Can Come Up With $400 in an Emergency' [1]
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-08-03/actual...
Re-reading my comments, I apologize if I came across as 'whataboutism', that is not what is intended. I just read your first link (CNN) and again, I am still left with the same question.
It first states, "...using bilateral security arrangements struck with countries in Europe and Africa to gain a widespread presence internationally..." which seems to suggest the hosts countries are fully (or at minimum somewhat) aware.
Then, they go on to say "Safeguard Defenders stumbled on the police networks while trying to assess the scale of China’s efforts to persuade some of its people to return to China..."
Fair enough, but what exactly are those people accused of? If they're being accused of fraud or other illegal activities, are those really people we want in our countries.
First, you asked about the US when this article is about China, a very well known tactic, thank you very much.
I'm American. I'm much more well versed in American issues and this is the first story that popped into my mind which I can bring up as a parallel.
Second, you really want us to believe China's attempts at getting at its critics is the same as the US trying to get at a terror suspect?
As I clarified, as I couldn't read the full article, I am admitting I don't know - it would be great if the article had clarified down the way on what exactly their position is and someone had quoted it.
If you want to criticize the US go ahead in the appropriate thread, there's plenty to criticize.
I love American thank you very much.
Thanks for the info; couldn't read the full article so I was just curious, I had read earlier issues like the following [1] which I'll admit is only tangentially related, so I wouldn't be surprised if there is much more extremism than I am aware of it's not a subject I'm well versed in.
Last December, Ms Wu spotted a fundraising appeal to benefit the Proud Boys - a far-right group designated by the Canadian government as a terrorist "neo-fascist organisation"
I'm just trying to understand the context of the 'arrests' as the article is paywalled. I'm not making any justifications in either of the cases, not sure why you feel the need to downvote a simple question for clarification.
I really wish Chinese switched completely to pinyin
Perhaps Americans would take the first step and switch from imperial to metric, then we can discuss and tell everyone what to do.
Because he doesn't want the negative connotation that comes with it.
Just like the debate about, "is it engineering"; by calling oneself as opposed to 'programmer', it conveys more prestige.
As a SWE, he sees himself in the driver seat of the company and doesn't want to be associated with being 'back-end', 'a cost-center', etc.
You know Singapore unabashedly beats the shit out of thieves, right?
They don't...first offense you basically get off with a warning. Recent headlines was a case of Australian school girls shoplifting [1]. Although they're foreigners, same goes for locals.
[1] https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/6-austra...
I would have thought Singapore had more policing in all respects versus US cities.
You only see police occasionally doing their patrols, so it can be argued there is less of a police presence than say NY. There is no need, there are cameras everywhere and its a small Island, you can't run anywhere.
With respect to the parent's comment on subway deaths: > Singapore has entirely solved the root problem in a non-carceral way by investing in infrastructure.
There are barriers that only open when the train has arrived, so there quite literally cannot be deaths from people pushing others onto the tracks. I presume that is what he means by infrastructure.
OTPP has quite a solid reputation and this particular investment was a miniscule speculative bet. You can see the performance over time here [1].
[1] https://www.otpp.com/en-ca/investments/our-advantage/our-per...
If I say that I'm not sure how students who live in a climate of fear and need to practice active shooter drills after every school shooting can lead to a creative and innovative culture, do you think that holds?
Perhaps slightly off-topic, but wondering if this has the functionality or what others on HN would recommend.
I have a friend who enjoys online multi-player games, but she often faces quite a bit of unfriendly remarks when she speaks (CS:GO, I believe it's been an ongoing problem in the community). I'm thinking perhaps an audio program that can alter her voice from female to male would let her game in peace - would anyone on HN have any suggestions/recommendations?
I think what he means is that, given the choice, people there would opt for a good class bungalow (essentially your 'detached home', but most will never be able to afford it).
That is an obvious statement, but the analogy breaks down a bit as in Singapore, whether you live in a GCB or in HDB (social housing), everything is relatively close by regardless. Hence, there isn't really much of a trade-off at all - living in a GCB just affords more space and privacy (at an exponentially inflated cost).
Except those are just market forces and it is more convenient to use electronic payment. I'm not sure what you mean by China, it's China's government that is forcing all merchants to accept cash [1].
The People's Bank of China (PBOC) is looking to close the widening digital divide and has warned merchants that they must accept cash or face disciplinary action,...
[1] https://www.pymnts.com/cash/2020/china-issues-edict-warning-...
And 70m of the population is 18 and under. So apparently the percentage of people with medical debt who are over 18 is quite substantial. Didn't realize it was so significant myself.
Hacker News is somewhat good for Tech, especially if the commentor actually is a domain expert, but outside of it can be quite woeful.
Ironically, every once in a while an article or post about something like the Dunning-Kruger effect comes up, everyone is suddenly fully aware of how this applies to them.
Reddit is also (partially) owned by a chinese company - people complain but ultimately not going to stop people from using. That's just global capital at work. Opera's team is still in Norway.
Anyone have a good suggestion of a mathematics textbook that would help me learn 'from the ground up so to speak' like how the article mentions, "He spoke of his mathematical work as the building of houses, contrasting it with that of mathematicians who make improvements on an inherited house or construct a piece of furniture."?
It's highlighting just the opposite - that their short calls are prescient. You're seeing it's all negative because they are betting that those stocks will drop.
The Hermes bags are made in France, by leather artisans.
And yet ironically in the article,
She echoed a number of women I spoke with who think authentic customers are the ones getting played. “These days, the reps just tend to be better made,” a Hamptons-based chief strategy officer tells me. “They last longer. There’s more attention to detail. You can tell that things have been done by hand.”
alar44 is not talking about Birkins when he says 'Most luxury bags are a few grand tops, not 100s...' but the LV's, Gucci, Burberry bags most people with branded handbags have. Birkins are another class of their own.
Quite a lot actually.
The BBC misrepresented my views this morning, and I admit I'm stunned. [...] I spent three years doing field research on that myth and wrote an Oxford University Press book debunking it. [1]
[1] http://www.chinaafricarealstory.com/2021/12/bbc-misrepresent...
You just don't get to support a murderous communist regime for 100 years and then say "but we had nothing to do with it".
If that argument holds (which I'm not saying it doesn't), then how much more responsible are we who have democracy and tell everyone else how great it is we have a say in how our government operates. Surely, we then hold even more of the blame on issues such as the WMD fiasco. Ironically, ask any one of us about these issues and suddenly its, we have no control over the government, and other endless excuses.
In China you were fined when you had more than one child. In Singapore, you were not. It was just a publicity campaign, basically.
Well it would appear in Singapore, you were effectively fined anyways, just in a roundabout way, so I'm not sure how then that translates into less coercive.
To help convince parents that fewer were better, the government legalized abortion and encouraged voluntary sterilization. Hospital fees went up as a woman had more babies, working mothers were allowed only two paid maternity leaves and a family’s third, fourth and subsequent children were given a lower priority in the choice of and admission to schools. [1]
[1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-06-21-mn-8983-s...
What makes it not as coercive?
If I'm not allowed to have 2, was it less coercive because there was a way around it or something?
It certainly did work though, it's very unusual to meet Singaporeans with more than 2 kids today.
I'd guess the lack of space and longer working hours would be more of a contributor.
Random thought: Give every child one as a pet so they get emotionally attached and over time, society will grow to associate these creatures as man's friend.
Actually on topic though, Asia is laughing at us.
Are you really that self centered that you think that people around the globe care.
American consumers? How does that square with 94% of the marketshare not being from those brands at all[1]?
Or do you mean Samsumg normalizing surveillance.
[1] https://www.counterpointresearch.com/us-market-smartphone-sh...
The problem is that non-tech people have the exact opposite problem of what you experienced.
copying some of the data into a new Excel file without making any mistakes (and that includes Excel not reformating your data to something else, like a dd-mm-yyyy to mm-dd-yyyy or making a date out of your Gene names
In your typical office environment, your regular analyst will run into issues where the date formatting is different between files, and there are one-off errors or issues here and there. In Excel, they are able to scan through and adjust as necessary. If you're asking them to figure out how to write the code to re-map and fix random issues in the data, that will be much more complicated to learn.
Expat in Singapore. 2 hour lunch break here in Singapore as well for me. And keep for most office work, people are just wasting time, taking care of other tasks at work, etc. I end up working much less than when I was in America, but my availability 'presence' is higher.