It is the reason why Microsoft was able to gimp the Internet for so long with Internet Explorer. Companies couldn’t make money off of the browser, so Microsoft made a browser that helped defend the Windows monopoly.

Except during seismic events.

Depends on the sand.

That’s also generally more the geotechnical engineer’s call.

I’m a structural engineer. It is part of the job.

I’ve been mostly right.

I wished I worked out more right now. My problem is that I’m spending more and more spoons on my job and I don’t have enough remaining to exercise.

No country wants to build a tech infrastructure that they don’t control.

I don’t know if it is purposeful. It just seems to be a side effect of the market going all in on AI.

The kind of person that Trump is isn’t an abberation, but the oligarchs were expecting more of a Reagan instead of Trump.

Even during the halcyon days of CD sales in the late 90’s, there was a decent amount of filler on a lot of albums. It didn’t help that albums were the product while singles were what were advertised.

Yeah. My previously covered medication now has a $10 copay.

If you ask Greenlanders if they want to be independent, they generally prefer independence.

If you ask Greenlanders if they want to be independent if it means a lower quality of life, they generally prefer to stay part of Denmark.

Denmark subsidizes Greenland to the cost of over €500 million a year. To replace that subsidy, Greenland would need to self generate over €8,700 per person per year. It would also need to do so in a manner that doesn’t invite American intervention.

Public performance in general can be stressful; people get stage fright all the time.

It feels less like “one big problem” and more like death by a thousand cuts.

A lot of sci-fi was generally written to play with a few ideas. I think it would be difficult to create a narrative around several problems with different causes and solutions.

Trump has admitted that there are a lot of CIA agents in Venezuela. It was also suspiciously easy for the USA to get Maduro out of the country.

My guess is that the USA likely expects a coup to happen which will install a friendly regime.

I don’t care enough to have one.

You also have the benefit of a language like English able to steal words from all languages in that English has a flexible ruleset to communicate. Your don’t have to communicate perfectly in English to communicate in English.

There is currently only one recognized African country, Ethiopia, that recognizes Somaliland. Why only one African country? Because the others are afraid that a reevaluation of borders at best gets you something like the Partition of India at best and at worst gets you war between two countries.

This isn’t white man’s burden shit.

While there has been a taboo against the changing of borders in Africa due to legitimate reasons, it became accepted that South Sudan should be created due to the destabilizing force that the Sudanese government played in the local populace. While the southern part of Somalia isn’t a direct threat to Somaliland, it is obvious that there isn’t a central Somali government able to enact control over Somaliland and the Somaliland government doesn’t wish territorial expansion to become the legitimate government of all Somalia.

In these terms, I feel like the recognition of Somaliland isn’t destabilizing to the region and seems to be a better option than continued anarchy over a wider area.

I also feel like Djibouti is trying to fight against this recognition as this gives Ethiopia another path to sea access.

None at all.

They fry the burgers with mustard; add grilled onions, pickles and extra burger sauce.