toolcombinator

This is part of Apple’s problem right now.

They’ve lost focus.

TV shows, cars, VR headsets, six different iPad models.

So the small stuff suffers: iOS. OS X. AirPods. Airdrop.

Airdrop just stopped working for me recently. The clock app in iOS still only lets you have ONE reminder.

Yeah, the US has a problem with spending more on healthcare than any other country, but it isn’t a “profit” or “administrative overhead” problem.

(Insurance companies have legally limited profit margins on health insurance.)

Does multiple private insurances add a little administrative overhead? Sure, but nowhere near as much as you see in the OECD figures.

There are many reasons why US healthcare is so expensive.

Some of them have to do with litigation: Skyhigh insurance premiums and a medical “Cover your ass”-culture with unneeded tests and MRIs done on a regular basis.

(In Canada, there is a legal ceiling on how much in damages you can sue a doctor/hospital for. This would be a good idea to implement in the US.)

Another added expense is free riders: All the people that show up in the ER, whether because of the flu or a gunshot, get treated/operated on, and never pay their bill.

Another issue is that the US has some of the best doctors in the world, and new, prohibitively expensive treatments are often introduced here first.

Many, very expensive treatments simply aren’t done (or done very rarely) in countries where the public (fully or in part) pay for treatments.

Waiting lists are another way of limiting costs in European countries. (Waiting lists that can be over a year long, but their healthcare systems are arguably cheaper to run.)

I could bring up some new medicines that in the US cost thousands of dollars per week (Crohns medication for example.) In European countries those medications simply aren’t available, or are only available on an exemption: Meaning that your doctor need to apply to have the cost covered, and is usually turned down.

Another example would be something like SRS surgeries.

These can be extremely expensive, and are covered by insurance, which of course increases the costs of coverage for everyone.

In European countries you’d either face a very long waiting list to get the operation covered, or you wouldn’t be eligible for it. Or only eligible after jumping through extensive hoops.

Nah, I see it too.

YouTube is especially bad.

Imagine sitting and complaining about “techno optimism”, when the very thing you write your screed on, is a product of it.

Instant access to a world wide fountain of knowledge, a super computer in your pocket, never having seen hunger and the ability to travel anywhere around the world cheaply and quickly.

No, we don’t have flying cars or bases on Mars, but if you look at the techno optimism of the 1960’ies and where we are today, we’ve done a pretty good job at turning it into a reality.

Kirk’s communicator or his tablet thingie? Those are actually a real and tangible reality today.

Nope.

First of all, healthcare in many European countries is often insurance based.

Yes, in some cases it’s socialized. And in those places the healthcare system is rapidly falling apart/getting worse, and everyone who can afford it goes private.

Just look at the boom in private doctors/insurance in countries like the UK and Denmark.

And of course you also ignore the price paid in the form of taxes, VAT, etc. (Nope, not corporate taxes, which in Europe tend to be lower than in the US.)

If you wanted to nationalize healthcare in the US, you’re basically talking about adding trillions to an already bloated Federal budget.

For some reason, I’ve yet to see a solution to that problem that wasn’t some kind of immature, unproductive slogan throwing like “tax the rich!”

Funny how the people always banging on about the evils of capitalism have never actually lived under a communist system.

And also seem to believe there’s some sort of socialist Utopia in Europe/Scandinavia, despite the fact that social democracy has been dead there for decades.

Then again, in general anti capitalists are a fairly ignorant bunch, who’ve never let reality get in the way of their dogmatic politics.

Don’t forget: “Entrepreneurs are evil!”

Because you know, entrepreneurs aren’t an integral part of who helps shape the future. They’re evil capitalists. And in the future they’ll be evil space capitalists.

Techno optimism wasn’t just a sci-fi thing, it was the spirit of the times to a large extent in the Western World and Eastern Block alike.

All the “Better living through chemistry” and dreams of tiny nuclear power reactors in every car and house, providing virtually free energy to all.

And to a certain extent THEY WERE RIGHT!

The green revolution in the 60ies revolutionized agriculture, and made a world with more than a few billion people possible.

Folks growing up in the 60ies were the first generation in Europe, the USSR and US (Heck, in many countries around the world) who grew up never having seen famine or real hunger.

Things that were once unobtainable luxuries, like cars or airplane travel, became something within reach of regular people.

The techno optimism might appear quaint today, but likewise we have forgotten just how much life has been transformed for the better.

If you look back at sci-fi from the 60ies, despite it appearing utopian today, it often dealt with the anxieties and issues of the day.

Trek is a good example. It’s often hailed as “utopian” and “visionary” today, totally ignoring the Cold War themes, fear of technology (Just look at how many times Kirk faced an intelligent computer antagonist!), overpopulation and of course the counter culture.

In the space hippie episode (Which Way to Eden?) Spock even talks about the discomfort many people feel with technology and the universal longing for a pre-technological eden.

I always liked SGA better, but you’re definitely right about SG 1.

Which of course begs another question: SG1 was made in a time that we can call the Golden Age of TV Sci fi, along with the Trek shows, Farscape and many more.

(Though granted: SG1 is probably more of an action adventure show at heart, if you want to get anal about classifications.)

Despite productions that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, why don’t we see show of the same quality today?

Yeah, there’s The Expanse and The Orville, but those two are the only exceptions in a media landscape almost barren of good sci-fi like SG-1.

I just can’t take it seriously when the author presents such falsehoods as Western “vaccine greed”.

(Both Moderna and Pfizer’s have made vaccines available at cost and promised not to go after parent infringement for the duration of the pandemic. It of course also ignores vaccines from other countries such as the Russian Sputnik vaccine.)

As for western countries buying five dosages for every citizen?

THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL: To look after your citizens.

Likewise the emotional but intellectually vapid mentioning of food surplus in the US.

What exactly is the alternative? Ship food we’re about to throw out to the third world? How is it supposed to survive a 3 week trip on a container ship? What would the effect be on agriculture in the receiving countries? (Spoiler: Not good!)

Or are Americans perhaps supposed to hand out food for free in other countries? (Oh wait! That’s already being done! Even to hostile countries like North Korea)

Likewise the emotional argument about empty apartments in NYC, that completely ignores that homelessness is a complex problem, that often involves addiction, mental illness, antisocial behavior and is only rarely solved by just handing out free apartments.

Thanks for the tip!

Don’t know the guy/blog but looks interesting!

Also, I kinda miss the early 10’s where everyone was slightly less insane. This guy’s writing reminds me of those days!

The thing is that there are a lot of people out there who don’t particularly like fruits and vegetables (gourds or not), who can’t be bothered to spend hours every day on cooking “Real food” and/or who can’t afford “real food”.

I lost 75 Lbs thanks to cutting sugar and a ketonic diet.

I’m down to my ideal weight, but going back on the diet after a break, because I find that it works for me.

Considering that it was physicians who started the whole fat panic of the 70ies, and have been ignoring sugar for all these years, AND considering their ties to Big Pharma, I’m going to trust my own experience.

Good for you! Glad to hear you found something that works!

There’s no doubt that Apple has the building blocks for a console, between the A X/M X SOCs, Metal, Apple Arcade and Apple TV.

The only question is if they really want to further overextend themselves.

They’re already slipping on software like iOS and OS X (as in: Their software is becoming WORSE, not better.) while trying to break into TV and cars. Their hardware lineup is becoming more confusing and fragmented, not less.

Not really sure if Apple NEEDS another distraction right now.

Nonsense.

Modern reactors are safe.

Even the old (inherently unsafe) reactors like the Soviet Chernobyl style design aren’t some sort of apocalyptical danger.

Less than 40 people died in one of the most serious accidents ever (Chernobyl).

That’s a fraction of the number of people killed every year because of windmills and fossil fuels.

Far from “rendering cities uninhabitable for decades” there is no reason why Chernobyl couldn’t be repopulated today.

Heck, they have tourists visit the site every day these days.

And that’s why the US has been falling behind in the Nuclear industry around the world.

A growing number of countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa are looking to nuclear power as a clean and cheap source of energy.

But they’re going for Russian, Japanese or Korean designs where they once might have used an American designed reactor.

The increased prison population because the war on drugs, was far from a “Nixon and Reagan project” as the post and linked Netflix documentary tries to portray it.

In fact it was a bipartisan effort, where the Congressional Black Caucus played a leading part, since they (rightly) concluded that drugs were a huge problem to their constituents in the inner cities.

At this point it’s probably cheaper and easier for Apple just to pull in app painment from the Dutch market, and encourage local devs to use paid apps.

The Netherlands is a tiny market after all, and there’s a political price to be paid here (There are a lot of iPhone owners and most of them won’t like the government screwing around with their platform) so time is on their side.

They can always just withdraw the dating apps in question.

It’s Apples store and they get to choose who get to be there.

The Abraham Accords that helped promote and support this realignment was one of the major achievements of Trump’s foreign policies.

Unfortunately, the current administration has shown little interest or support for the initiative.

Sorry, I don’t see this succeeding for some of the same reasons why you don’t see open source jetliners.

Software is one thing. Anyone can sit down and write software.

Chip production though? Unless you look at the most simple of designs, you need tool chains worth millions and/or billions of dollars.

The software and design rules alone is proprietary, costs obscene amounts of money, and their manufacturers have decades of experience.

Yes, I know about the ONE FOSS CPU design there is.

But realistically, there’s no way to compete against the players already in the industry. Especially if you come with a FOSS perspective.

Sounds like you might want to give Dragonfly a try!

The central problem here, is that RYF, just like the FSF itself, is outdated and hasn’t been relevant for a decade or more.

It’s a dinosaur from another era with its hypocritical RAM vs ROM policies, or “secondary processor” loopholes.

It assumes that there’s one Central processor in charge, something that hasn’t been true for a very long time.

Which parts of an SOC is central? The CPU? Great. Modern CPUs are multicore chips, so which one are central and which one are secondary?

The problem of course is that Purism markets the phone for security conscious people.

Not hackers who have the skills and impulse to mess around with binary blobs and microcode.

That’s dishonest.

Go take a look at the Purism’s website about the Libre yourself: “Security”, “peace of mind”, “digital privacy”.

You’re openly marketing the phone to regular people and businesses who care about privacy.

Nowhere on the site does it say: “BTW: We’re selling you a crippled phone because we wanted to get a fanatics approval. But if you study computer science you can fix that yourself!”

I don’t mean to be rude, but your theoretical “1 monopolistic player” goes against practical experience.

Let’s look at how privatization works in for example Europe.

One (private) company owns the infrastructure (the actual railways) and private companies pay them for usage.

The same private companies make bids on operating a particular bus or rail system, in some cases competition is open, and anyone can start a new long distance bus service.

So you have (for example) Dutch companies running bus systems in the UK or Sweden, or German railway companies running trains in Denmark or the U.K.

And btw: This whole debate is outdated, and like something out of a socialist pamphlet ca 1995.

Public vs. private transport has mostly been settled, and the private sector won.

All over Europe and in much of the rest of the world, public transit is operated by private companies. (Usually with great results.)

There’s no way governments would start nationalizing tens of billions of dollars worth of infrastructure in a time where finances are already stretched.

Sounds like this issue has more to do with poor planning than public vs. private.