Because a shit ton of fraudulent science hasn’t come out of the US or Europe. Nope. No sir.

Sure, it’s not a bad thing and it should be standard practice, but to act like encrypted traffic guarantees privacy is silly.

If you are implying that a government wants your data, they can just buy it or request it from the company directly. They don’t have to snoop to get it. Also SSL isn’t going to stop them.

The fact that anyone thinks they have any semblance of privacy when typing into an online AI chatbot is saddening.

Of course anything you type into a externally hosted AI is going to be harvested and sold.

But sure, in this case you are also potentially exposing your queries to your ISP or someone listening on your local network too.

Enterprise adopted 100GbE networking around 2019. You can now buy used network cards for around $100 each.

This is dumb.

Even if you encrypt network traffic, the receiving server still knows what you’re doing. All it does is prevent third parties from snooping.

Usually.

Or instead, form a union and demand better pay and retention incentives.

Yeah, a more accurate title would be:

Big Business Profits & Pricing Soar; Price Fixing, Abusive Practices Unchecked Under Biden

Why are there foreign judges serving in Hong Kong?

It is a holdover from Hong Kong’s past as a British colony. After the UK handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, the agreement between the countries stipulated that the special territory would continue to operate with its freedoms and systems for 50 years- including its common law legal system which operates in several other jurisdictions worldwide. Currently there seven foreign judges remaining on the court– three British and four from Australia.

So, foreign judges who are meddling in HK affairs are upset that China (the inheritor of HK) is meddling in HK affairs?

If the West actually cared about HK independence, why do they wish to maintain colonial judges in HK courts? If they cared, shouldn’t HK judges be in HK courts?

While China has been heavy handed in its effort to speed up the timeline of the power transfer, in the end, the West has concluded that HK is to be Chinese territory. By the West’s own policy, these are foreign judges getting kicked out by the “rightful” new rulers, just a bit early.

That’s fair.

Is it not tax evasion/fraud? In the US, either can bring criminal charges. For a smaller municipality, is there no assistance available from higher government?

It’s both.

An example of bad urban planning is low density urban sprawl, which requires lots of resources for few housing units.

Less housing, price go up. High build cost, price go up.

Blaming AirBnB for high housing prices is like setting up a chain of dominos, and criticizing a guy who comes by and knocks it over.

Yeah, and that’s exactly what they chose to do. They contributed to the reasons John Public can’t afford housing, and were rewarded massively for it.

If it wasn’t him, it would have been someone else, or the wind.

Yeah, anyone can rob a bank with poor security, but we should still punish the guy who actually robs the bank.

Cops would rather beat up college students and the unhoused than go after landlords.

that’s an expense that’s hard to justify to taxpayers

Ah, yes. We don’t have money because collecting taxes would be too expensive. Classic.

EDIT:

https://www.businessinsider.com/irs-tax-audits-recover-12-dollars-for-every-dollar-spent-2023-6?op=1

Of course this could all be addressed by designing robust systems that implement strong redundancy, safety checks, and sufficient regulation, but that increases complexity and costs money.

I think we still need more time/data to get the whole picture. EVs are still in their early stages.

It would be interesting to look at fire rates for vehicles at rest. These types of fires have the potential to become quite serious, as they are often not immediately noticed, especially if the vehicle is parked in a garage or remote area. This additional time allows the fire to spread and intensify.

Since EV fires are typically more intense than ICE vehicles, we should expect EV fires to cause more damage to the surroundings and to spread faster. Though, this danger could be offset if EVs have a lower probability of self ignition.

We should also look at fires while refueling/charging. Lithium cells are most dangerous when charging and discharging. While an overfilled gas tank is easy to spot and may catch fire, a continually overcharged battery is invisible and will catch fire. Also, because of the long charge time of batteries, many EV owners leave the vehicle unattended while charging and would not immediately notice a fire if one were to occur. In addition, EVs are often charged at home, in close proximity to residences and other vehicles, and often within garages. These residential locations do not have the same fire safety requirements and suppression systems as gas stations, so a vehicle fire at home is already much more dangerous and has the potential to severely damage your home.

We have had a century to figure out ICE, but it’s still very early days for EVs, so only time will tell.

LiPo batteries of the same capacity actually have the potential to be much more dangerous than the sodium cell shown here.

LiPo packs typically use flat, soft walled cells which are far more susceptible to being punctured. In the event of a puncture or overcharge event, high temperature enduring flames are produced, with the severity and duration largely depending on the amount of energy within the cell. LiPo batteries also degrade at a much faster rate (both over time and with charge cycles) and have been known to spontaneously combust in storage while at rest.

With the sodium battery, the thrust produced by the puncture could have been easily been overcome by properly securing the cell.

Yep, less/no fire is very important when creating battery banks with many cells. The probability of single cell failure spreading to adjacent cells is reduced, making a catastrophic failure of the entire bank less likely.

Yep, cylindrical Li-ion cells like the 18650 already do this.